I think I should stress that I like that you look at the series differently, as many of the people who look at the negative aspect of Sailor Moon stop far short of your analysis.
Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed my theory and analysis at least ^^
Maybe we both define a good life differently.
You clearly value freedom as a priority, even greater than I do. For many people, though, to paraphrase Darius Foroux, the purpose in life is to be useful, not to be happy.
I know in your mind that sounds awful, and I agree it has its downs, but when you're looking at it from this perspective, then the whole idea of free will isn't as important as finding your place. But if you know what you were put here on this planet to do and can do it, there is a joy to be found in filling one's role that cannot be found in the chase of that goal.
Let me be clear, that's not my philosophy. Personally, I would much rather live a life, knowing I would be able to get to do it over again instead of one single crapshoot. I like living, and part of living is fighting. Being dead in a world without reincarnated sapience means you either lose everything that is to the point where you won't even remember existing (meaning the form you are in is fact you, even if your energy does carry over), or the afterlife is permanently locked away from life, be it amazing or awful. If an incarnation of life is like a change of clothes, then I'll just head into battle with a different uniform!
First of all their essence definitely resets once they die; it's essentially an anomaly that they retain fragments of their previous incarnations this time around. Even if you accept Usagi as Sailor Cosmos, it's clear these two are not the same "person."
Second, how are their lives awful? They're clearly comfortable, middle-class, and in the past life, they were royalty. They're pretty. They aren't abused. Even Mamoru, who lost his parents and some of his memories, gets to become the king of the world. Their lives are better than mine, and as a Westerner, my life is better than 99% of the people on this Earth. For all the people who have to fight, at least they have the comfort of winning some fights and losing some others. What about the multitudes who lived, got a sword or weapon put in their hand, fought then died on the battlefield? What about those slaughtered in their sleep? What about people who starved to death? Those are awful, awful fates; at least the Sailor Guardians are equipped for battle.
You know what? Those are both very good points, perhaps I was analyzing the series too much from my own point of view. While I would say that free-will is an essential value to most of humanity (Why else do you think no communist nation has yet to work out? Or why pedophilia, even absence any physical violence, is so universally condemned?) it's not important to everyone. Some very much would choose security, stability and a continued existence and consciousness in exchange for their free will. I guess I was coming at the series looking at it through the lens of free-will being apart of what makes a human, human. Even if free-will isn't important to some people, I think the very fact that we have the ability to possess and exercise it is important and one could arguably say that the Senshi don't even have *that.* In a way, being Senshi has stripped them of basically everything that makes them
human. Of course it's up to you as a viewer to decide whether or not that's really so bad, to 90's anime Usagi and the PGSM girls it most certainly is, and it seems to weigh on the hearts of the Outers in the manga as well.
The problem with this is now you have to ask, "What is love and does love require choice?" That's a high-level philosophical question I don't have a comprehensive answer for. However, if you acknowledge there are different kinds of love you also have to acknowledge love doesn't necessitate choice. If you had a mother, you probably loved her, but did you choose to love her or was your love of her based on the fact that she happened to raise you and you imprinted on her?
There's a clear difference between romantic love and platonic love, heck there's even a difference between platonic and familial love! The whole point of romantic partnerships and friendships is that you can
choose who to associate with while you can't pick your family. Sailor Moon poses an interesting scenario in which doesn't even have any say in *those* kinds of relationships. And isn't it ironic that the more and more Usagi gets enmeshed in her Senshi duty and identity the farther away she drifts away from Naru and Umino and is now spending all her time with the girls and Mamoru? Everyone in the fandom has noted and lamented how in both the 90's anime and manga Naru and Umino begin to appear less and less and I do have to wonder how much of a coincidence it is that their phasing out happens as soon as Usagi gets more and more comfortable in her role.
I
f you've read comics in the past 20 years...the mainstream titles are going in a more mythic/cosmic direction in terms of storytelling, especially the heroes who are based on deities and steeped in mythology (Thor, Wonder Woman, etc).
I've never been into the American Superhero scene so this is indeed news to me.
There are a few problems with this line of thinking.
First and foremost, unlike Madoka where most of the girls we saw had both a desire and a free choice to becoming magical girls, Sailor Moon is the only one who actually chose to fight in the manga and Classic. Everyone else was either forcibly awakened or awakened under duress. In PGSM, Ami didn't want to become a soldier (despite later being revealed to have daydreamed about it). There was some sort of inevitability about the girls becoming magical girls; either they would have awakened or they would have died. By framing their awakenings in this way, the element of choice and wishes are downplayed. You acknowledge this because you just admitted how Sailor Moon's life is a hamster wheel. However, if existence is a hamster wheel and there is no choice, one can't have a cautionary tale without choice.
While the Classic anime ended with a downbeat note, it's important to note that what makes everything in Sailor Moon's journey so unbearable to Usagi isn't the magical girl stuff; if you notice in later seasons when the present-day antics comprise nearly the entirety of their interactions there is much less superhero tension. This isn't Madoka where there's a price to be paid for just for being a magical girl.
Instead, what gives Sailor Moon its grimmer side is the reincarnation romance, which is tacked onto it as a backstory. But it's not an inherent part of being a magical girl. In fact, the key thing to keep in mind Sailor Moon was not a magical girl in her past life. This makes her go around different. That's what turns a tragedy into a comedy.
I feel like there's a few things going on here. Someone on reddit brought up the concept of perhaps Sailor Moon better fitting the definition of an
"Unbuilt Trope" rather than a deconstruction for the Magical Girl genre. It both redefined while simultaneously subverted common expectations about what being a Magical Girl is all about. It might not be a Cautionary Tale to the
characters because they never had any choice in this to begin with but I feel it's most certainly one to the audience. Signaling to us a different perspective of what being a Magical Girl might entail. What if it
wasn't by choice? What if you were simply born with these powers that were attached to a destiny and duty you can't escape? What would that look like? Is it not a bit ridiculous to assume that any Magical Powers you're suddenly granted would be because you simply
wished for them and they're only ever there to make your life better? What if they were always there but they were never ever meant to be used for
yourself? How would that change your view of the Magical Girl life?
I feel like Sailor Moon definitely poses these questions, at least in the manga and PGSM.
Also I would highly disagree that Classic ended on a downbeat note, I still consider it the happiest ending of the series (yes even happier than PGSM cause at least here all the girls and Mamoru's memories of the past year are erased and there's no definite expectation that Usagi and Mamoru will end up together) whereas the manga is the saddest and most bittersweet one, though I will concede that's mostly just in the context of viewing it according to
my values and it might not be the same for everyone.
That she bumped into Mamoru again at all is a heavy indication that things are going to play out in a similar, if non-supernatural way. As long as the two characters exist, they will be drawn to each other like a the positive end and a negative end of a magnet.
I still believe it was intended to be up for interpretation. It's certainly more ambiguous than any other ending the series has had, that's for sure!
So far you've done a great job in eloquently providing a devil's advocate to my argument that Sailor Moon is inherently a deconstruction but I must ask, what about the concept of "Reject" Senshi like Sailors Galaxia and Lethe and Mnemosyne that are introduced in Stars? Senshi who got the bad luck of the draw and ended up with weak and underdeveloped star seeds and thus, weak and underdeveloped planets.
Even if we go with your argument that perhaps being beholden to an eternal and neverending life of fighting and a destiny isn't an inherently horrible thing, doesn't the mere existence of Senshi such as these prove that there's some kind of deconstructive element that Naoko was trying to inject in her story? Perhaps you can argue that the core, Sol System Senshi don't have it so bad in the grand scheme of things, but I doubt you could do the same for these 3.