Clip

Since there is not just one clip of Sailormoon that can be cut down to be in the time allowance I choose to analyze an amv; which stands for Anime Music Video called “Day of destiny“ featuring the song ‘black hole sun‘. These small videos are clips of a certain show set to music that the maker or fan thinks fit’s the show and represents certain themes in the show or ones they find themselves. I thought this would be a good way to tap into some of the key elements or themes in the show instead of trying to find one clip or one episode that represents the show as a whole.

Just like in the essay “What kind of friendship? A case study of Joey and Chandler in Friends”, Iglebaek looks at the relationship between the two main characters Joey and Chandler in the daytime sitcom Friends. In the article Iglebaek uses different scenarios in the show to point out and convey the different aspects of male friendship she found between these two characters.

I plan to do the same thing by pointing out different scenes shown in this amv that are connected to the bigger ideas of friendship, good and evil, and more within the show itself.





First to set up some back information it must be pointed out that this blog and amv is mainly focused on the end of the last season of Sailormoon, which is called Stars. At the end of the show Sailormoon is pitted against her strongest enemy, Chaos who has transferred its evil energy into one of the strongest sailor senshi’s in the galaxy Galaxia. Here Sailormoon finds out that Galaxia is taking all of the sailor senshi’s star seeds; which basically are their life force or you could look at it as being their soul, to make herself the most power being in the entire star system. A key point to know that in these end scenes all of the Sailor Scouts have sacrificed themselves for Sailormoon and have given up their lives because they believe in her and their friendship. While amidst in this pain she is not only alone but she is forced to fight against Galaxia who she does not want to fight because Sailormoon believes in the power of love and friendship being the ultimate power in this world. Yet, Sailormoon actually saves Galaxia and frees her from the pain of Chaos making her good and all her friends are reborn by the love that Sailormoon experiences for her friends and her enemy in this intense moment.


If we look at the opening of the amv we see one of the characters, Rei, is looking into fire. Rei is actually a priestess and one ritual of shintoism is to fire read or to read the future through the flames. This scene sets up the tone of the season itself because Rei reads that something bad is going to happen when a sacred tree actually comes to life and goes to attack her, another thing we see is the outline of each scout being pierced through the heart which sadly comes to be true later on in this season.

Friendship:

There are many examples of friendship in this clip, one of the main one is the scene at 1:05 where we see the bruised trio of the sailor starlights banned together to help each other as they watch Sailor moon who watches her comrades die before her as they give up their star seeds, we can see the level of pain that is caused by the small yellow lights representing the thousands of star seeds that Galaxia has taken in her reign of terror as Sailormoon can do nothing but watch as her friends die to protect her. In the next scene Rei is seen crying as she tells Usagi not to worry about them as she fades away into oblivion, leaving usagi to realize that she is alone in her battle and that she is really not as strong as she thought.

Looking at the next scene it is important to note what happens next, which is the releasing of what is known as “The light of hope” which is given out from Chibi Chibi to Sailormoon, reviving her to life. Because chibi chibi gives out this important power Sailormoon is brought back from the love of her friends and her family that brings out this power to make her strong once more.

A key element being represented is that without friendship and friends no one can be strong or accomplish things by themselves. That it is through friendship that we gain our true strength to battle inner demons and protect the people that we do love in our lives. If it wasn’t for this “light of hope” than Sailormoon would not be able to gain the strength she had to get back up and save the world. This is why at the end because of her strength and bravery all of the scout are reborn and come back to protect and support Usagi after her battle with Chaos. Even the love of her life is brought back to her because of the light Usagi gives off with her belief in her bonds that she had created with others.

Good and Evil:

In this last battle between Chaos and Sailormoon we see two distinct characters that represents both good and evil. Of course Sailormoon is a symbol of good and Galaxia is the symbol of evil. There very distinct differences in their appearances to make these connections.

For sailormoon she is the embodiment of good presented with her gaining angel wings after she is revived back to life from the “light of hope” which give her the ability to fly. Also when she is dressed as her former princess self we are given a sense of someone who is in the right or is justified in their actions.

Yet, the main thing that makes sailormoon the embodiment of good is when she is completely unclothed with her star seed exposed. As sailormoon fights exposed she is completely venerable to Galaxia, she is exposed with nothing but the pure feelings in her heart that she is trying to express to Galaxia so she can save her from the evil Chaos. In this moment Sailormoon is a symbol of complete understanding and openness that we should have towards other people.

Galaxia also takes on the embodiment of evil when controlled by Chaos when in the last moments of her and Sailormoons fight she is completely black in her dress and her skin tone is pale. This dark coloring gives off an aura of evil. Also, like Sailormoon, Galaxia has her own pair of black raven wings to express the darkness that is her soul and the pain she has experience to make her turn to Chaos for power.

So the main idea of good vs. evil is that there will always be things in the world that will be apart of the struggle between good and evil. That we can’t escape from dealing with things nor can we run from the problems in our lives or the good memories we have.

Fate:

But the main aspect of this clip and amv is that we can not escape our fate and fate in general. Sailormoon does not want to fight Galaxia nor face the problems that she has been blinded too through the whole entire season until this very moment where she must fight Galaxia. It is unavoidable for them to come together and clash in an epic battle because Sailormoon must fight for her values and her way of living which is for her friends and the earth that she loves. Yet, Sailormoon does not kill Galaxia what she does is shows Galaxia that she loves this earth and loves Galaxia which allows Galaxia to be released from the pain and become her good self again as she disappears into the stars.

The main point is that if we believe in ourselves and our bonds in this world than fate will work out in our favor since we have so much to believe in. That we should just let fate have its way then we will be ok. Sailormoon could not stop herself and her fate in where her friends die, or her true love leaves her alone for months, or the fact that she must fight with all of her power against someone she doesn’t find to be evil. But it’s the faith we need in fate to show us the right way by believing in our way of life.

While there are even more symbols used through out Sailormoon to create a hegemony viewpoint of friendship and the importance it has to every person. These are just a few key points that are found interwoven in to the seems of the storyline of Sailormoon but are very important points as seen in this video amv.