Gender Stereotypes In Sailormoon

Sailormoon, the world renowned animated series, comes from the Japanese Shōjo manga, written and illustrated by female author Naoko Takeuchi. The main distinguishing feature of Shōjo manga is that it is specifically aimed at young female viewers and involves some form of (usually magical) female protagonist (Saito 143). Kumiko Saito, in her essay on Magical Girl Anime and the Challenges of Changing Gender Identities in Japanese Society, acknowledges that the Shōjo genre exhibits “various possibilities of power for both men and women”; however, she argues that these potentials are marginalized by “contradictory messages conveyed by metaphors of magic and transformation” (162). In this essay, I will explain the ways in which the internationally
In Bunny’s dream sequence she imagines being part of a traditional nuclear family, where she “live[s] happily ever after, in a pretty house with lots of flowers, with the love of [her] life and [their] child” (Takeuchi 14:1.3A). However, on the next few pages, Takeuchi “combat[s] the [embedded] myth of heterosexual primacy” by including in the heroic narrative “the possibility of sustainable long-term love between female characters” (Bailey 211). When Bunny wonders about Haruka’s dream life and if that life would include a man or a woman, Haruka responds by telling Bunny that her dream includes a woman (Takeuchi 14:1.3). Moreover, upon further reading, we see Haruka’s dream illustrated analogous to Bunny’s— with a happy family, inclusive of spouse and child (Takeuchi 14:1.3,4,5). However, since Haruka’s dream depicts family life with Michiru as her spouse, this allows, as Baily points out, “the portrayal of sustained homosexual relationships as tenable and possible rather than fleeting and impossible”, which in turn challenges “the ways in which the narrative of compulsory heterosexuality relentlessly devourers any flicker of alternative love”