New Naoko Interview in FRAU

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Jul 29, 2012
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#21
MementoNepenthe said:
I'd never heard of "Devilman" before, but reading about it on Wikipedia, it's interesting how its development mirrors Sailor Moon's. Toei approached Go Nagai about turning his "Demon Lord Dante" manga into an anime which lead to the creation of "Devilman" (similar to how "Codename Sailor V" led to "Sailor Moon"), and the "Devilman" manga began a month before the anime adaptation premiered (again, similar to how the "Sailor Moon" manga began a month before its anime adaptation premiered). It's funny how some things work out.
"Devilman," the manga, is a masterpiece. Truly frightening. I can see how it relates a bit to Stars.

So... serious question here... she seriously made no mentions to Porsches during the interview?

Spoiler: show
Car jokes have never gone out of style.
 

SILVER

Aurorae Lunares
Jan 7, 2014
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#22
My feminist queen :love:

I feel for her frustrations with writing a story and trying to incorporate deeper elements. Writing can be really tough and Naoko tends to sound very self-critical of her own work. But as I re-read the manga I think that she accomplished so much with the Stars arc alone regarding these "deeper" themes and showed Sailor Moon's character growth in a splendid way.

Clow said:
Will she ever talk about "Bishoujo Kamen Poitrine" (well, she did, but only once), the "Silver Crystal" Swarovski candle holders. the CHANEL clothes, and everything else that actually influenced the making of "Sailor Moon"?
For what end? She'd potentially set herself up for a lawsuit lol
 

Rika-Chicchi

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#23
Mitsukara said:
To be fair, I never heard of Bishoujo Kamen Poitrine before Clow mentioned it. Then again, my familiarity with the non-Sailor-Moon sentai genre is largely limited to Spiderman:
That's a pretty interesting Japanese show & take on the classic Marvel superhero back then, featuring some novel, very Japanese accessories for the character, including a transformable giant robot ( lol ) & a funny-looking "spider car," as seen in those pics you linked in the above quote. I wish they'd have produced the Japanese versions of the other Marvel/DC superheroes too after that - too bad that's never been realized. lol
 

Rika-Chicchi

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#25
MementoNepenthe said:
An anime version of the Batman manga that came out in the 60s would have been great. A live action show would have been interesting as well.
Yeah, :D but I've also always suspected that the designs of Devilman & some vintage giant robots at the time are inspired/influenced by Batman - someone should ask Nagai about that. lol
 
Jan 16, 2017
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#26
MementoNepenthe said:
- She felt that "it shouldn't be easy to defeat evil." Her editor told her that her work was dark or too serious at times, but she (Naoko) said there had to be dark parts since the girls were facing serious troubles. Without darkness, stories would have no depth.
I love how dark and serious the manga can be, but considering Nakayoshi's demographic I would have avoided scenes like Black Lady kissing her father(even if they were brainwashed).
 

Rika-Chicchi

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#27
SignorinaTsukino said:
MementoNepenthe said:
- She felt that "it shouldn't be easy to defeat evil." Her editor told her that her work was dark or too serious at times, but she (Naoko) said there had to be dark parts since the girls were facing serious troubles. Without darkness, stories would have no depth.
I love how dark and serious the manga can be, but considering Nakayoshi's demographic I would have avoided scenes like Black Lady kissing her father(even if they were brainwashed).
BTW, the scriptwriter of PGSM has also been criticized for her plots being too mature for kids. lol
 
Nov 16, 2016
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#28
MementoNepenthe said:
- She says the manga was tough to do but nothing compared to the tremendous effort involved in making the anime at the same time.
And people still think she hates the anime.
 

Neon Genesis

Solaris Luna
Oct 31, 2015
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#29
Star Angel Haruki said:
They let kids watch Devilman in Japan or did she sneak and watch it? Lol and iM surprised I didn't see any Cutey Honey reference in there somewhere.

Is Naoko's mind really blown Sailor Moon is still popular or is that the wind from her speeding in her Porsche?
Japan is a bit stricter about graphic content on TV nowadays than they were back then, but Japan is typically less strict than America is about kids watching more mature anime. Fist of the North Star ran in Shonen Jump and was marketed at kids too in spite of all it's extreme violence. In a way though, America isn't that different. I knew plenty of American kids growing up who used to play the Mortal Kombat games all the time, either by sneaking past their parents or their parents didn't care. I'm sure there are kids today who do the same thing with violent video games. But I find the Devilman inspiration to be interesting since as far as I'm aware, this is the first time I've heard Naoko cite Devilman as an inspiration for Sailor Moon.

- She felt that "it shouldn't be easy to defeat evil." Her editor told her that her work was dark or too serious at times, but she (Naoko) said there had to be dark parts since the girls were facing serious troubles. Without darkness, stories would have no depth.
- She admits though that since "Nakayoshi" is a magazine targeting a young demographic, she may have gone too far, but she likes stories where heroes suffer and grow from that.
So is Naoko the George R.R. Martin of shoujo manga?

Will she ever talk about "Bishoujo Kamen Poitrine" (well, she did, but only once), the "Silver Crystal" Swarovski candle holders. the CHANEL clothes, and everything else that actually influenced the making of "Sailor Moon"?
Will JK Rowling ever admit she stole Harry Potter from The Worst Witch?
 
Jul 29, 2012
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#30
SignorinaTsukino said:
MementoNepenthe said:
- She felt that "it shouldn't be easy to defeat evil." Her editor told her that her work was dark or too serious at times, but she (Naoko) said there had to be dark parts since the girls were facing serious troubles. Without darkness, stories would have no depth.
I love how dark and serious the manga can be, but considering Nakayoshi's demographic I would have avoided scenes like Black Lady kissing her father(even if they were brainwashed).
I wonder if "Sailor Moon" was the first and only series ran by Nakayoshi that featured such extreme things (e.g. Black Lady kissing her father).

CLAMP did Magic Knight Rayearth, but there was only blood that I saw. Nothing as extreme as what Naoko did, especially in the Stars arc.
 

Neon Genesis

Solaris Luna
Oct 31, 2015
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#31
Clow said:
I wonder if "Sailor Moon" was the first and only series ran by Nakayoshi that featured such extreme things (e.g. Black Lady kissing her father).

CLAMP did Magic Knight Rayearth, but there was only blood that I saw. Nothing as extreme as what Naoko did, especially in the Stars arc.
Looking through this list of other titles Nakayoshi published, pretty much all their other manga does seem to be of much lighter fare compared to Sailor Moon. Of course there's a lot I'm not familiar with that hasn't been released in the U.S. but I think Magic Knight Rayearth might be the closest in tone to Sailor Moon. The ending to the first story arc of Magic Knight Rayearth did have
Spoiler: show
Princess Emeraude dying from suicide
which I think is pretty dark for a shoujo manga.
 
Apr 1, 2017
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#32
Neon Genesis said:
I knew plenty of American kids growing up who used to play the Mortal Kombat games all the time, either by sneaking past their parents or their parents didn't care. I'm sure there are kids today who do the same thing with violent video games.
Speaking from firsthand experience as someone who was 12 in the year 2001, kids these days can see almost anything they want to if they're crafty and have any privacy within the vicinity of some form of internet access. Especially if they can put a little bit of thought into covering their tracks. I like to think I turned out better off for it, even though my parents would've flipped out about some of what I was looking at.

One thing that always mystifies me about Naoko Takeuchi's role in Sailor Moon is the degree to which she was involved in the production of the anime. In particular, those drawings in the Materials Collection that have notes about their anime personalities, were those her ideas? Are Kunzite and Zoisite being a couple something she came up with, rather than the anime production team?

For that matter, how much does the creation of the anime and manga overlap? That one pre-Usagi draft sketch, where the team was Minako, Rei, smoking-Makoto, and someone who I'm not sure if she's Ami or Hikaru (from Codename Sailor V), obviously seems like it was made before the Sailor Moon manga was written, yet it was part of the pitch for the anime, right?

So my question is basically, how much of the Anime version stemmed from her own input? (Not all of it, obviously, but if any of the significant changes did, that's still interesting. Plus if any of it was mutually-brainstormed or compromises.)
 
Nov 16, 2016
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#33
Neon Genesis said:
Looking through this list of other titles Nakayoshi published, pretty much all their other manga does seem to be of much lighter fare compared to Sailor Moon. Of course there's a lot I'm not familiar with that hasn't been released in the U.S. but I think Magic Knight Rayearth might be the closest in tone to Sailor Moon. The ending to the first story arc of Magic Knight Rayearth did have
Spoiler: show
Princess Emeraude dying from suicide
which I think is pretty dark for a shoujo manga.
Spoiler: show
Suicide is pretty normal in shoujo manga, the first two examples I can think of both come from Riyoko Ikeda. The Rose of Versailles (which is from 1972) and Oniisama E. Emeraude's forced assisted suicide was pretty unique though.
 

CR85747

Luna Crescens
Aug 12, 2014
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#34
Rika-Chicchi said:
Mitsukara said:
To be fair, I never heard of Bishoujo Kamen Poitrine before Clow mentioned it. Then again, my familiarity with the non-Sailor-Moon sentai genre is largely limited to Spiderman:
That's a pretty interesting Japanese show & take on the classic Marvel superhero back then, featuring some novel, very Japanese accessories for the character, including a transformable giant robot ( lol ) & a funny-looking "spider car," as seen in those pics you linked in the above quote. I wish they'd have produced the Japanese versions of the other Marvel/DC superheroes too after that - too bad that's never been realized. lol
The only other thing that came out of Toei's deal with Marvel that spawned Toku Spider-Man was an anime version of Marvel's Dracula comics.
 

NJ_

Gurges Ater
Oct 31, 2009
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#35
^There was also Battle Fever J, Denziman & Sun Vulcan, 3 Super Sentai shows, which were co-produced by Marvel after Spider-Man.
 

Memento

Stella Nova
Mar 8, 2012
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#36
As for the first page of the interview, it appears to mostly be Takeuchi and Yamato talking shop about art techniques. Of note, Naoko mentions that she didn't use a computer to draw Sailor Moon and says she prefers to draw by hand. She also mentions that she got her start as an assistant working on Yamato's "The Tale of Genji" manga, drawing frames for the manuscript. (I'm not sure if that means panels or actual frames?) She recalls making a mistake and panicking until someone assured her it could be fixed. She says she's been a fan of Yamato's work since she was in elementary school and felt honored to work on her manga (which embarrasses Yamato a bit).

So that's it for the interview. Hope a complete, proper, accurate translation comes out soon. ^_^'
 
Jan 16, 2017
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#37
Rika-Chicchi said:
SignorinaTsukino said:
MementoNepenthe said:
- She felt that "it shouldn't be easy to defeat evil." Her editor told her that her work was dark or too serious at times, but she (Naoko) said there had to be dark parts since the girls were facing serious troubles. Without darkness, stories would have no depth.
I love how dark and serious the manga can be, but considering Nakayoshi's demographic I would have avoided scenes like Black Lady kissing her father(even if they were brainwashed).
BTW, the scriptwriter of PGSM has also been criticized for her plots being too mature for kids. lol
I watched only three episodes so I did not know it was for children. I always thought it was for pree-teens/teens.
 

Rika-Chicchi

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#38
SignorinaTsukino said:
Rika-Chicchi said:
SignorinaTsukino said:
I love how dark and serious the manga can be, but considering Nakayoshi's demographic I would have avoided scenes like Black Lady kissing her father(even if they were brainwashed).
BTW, the scriptwriter of PGSM has also been criticized for her plots being too mature for kids. lol
I watched only three episodes so I did not know it was for children. I always thought it was for pree-teens/teens.
Then you should see the CMs of PGSM toys shown between sections of a PGSM episode. And the Sailor Luna character, who 1st appears around the middle of the series, can also tell a lot about the targeted demographic of the show. lol
 
Apr 1, 2017
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D-Point
#39
Sailor Moon's age demographic aiming thing always seems extremely muddled to me. Factors include (but are not limited to):

- The 'animation age ghetto' concept ("cartoons are for kids!")
- Difference between American and Japanese cultural expectations regarding things like what it's okay to show kids, adult hobbyists, gender roles, adult guys collelcting things that seem little-girl-ish, etc
- Being from about 20 years ago (give or take 5)
- Possible inconsistency on the part of the actual developers
- Changing positions over time as the show went on, questions of whether they assumed the same audience was growing up with it versus expecting a new young audience (presumably more of the latter for PGSM)

For example, I'm pretty sure the DiC dub was meant for kids (but mostly got teens and adults). But the original airing of the '90s anime, who was that really meant for? There's a lot of adolescent and mature themes and jokes everywhere and i find it implausible that they wouldn't expect, and indeed partially market to, male 20-somethings in japan who thought it was pretty and wanted to collect figurines and so on. (To say nothing of the transgender audience that was probably not being professionally accounted for properly back in the day, yet was definitely relevant.)

But then who was the manga first meant for? It's got a lot of gruesome death and kinda tricky creepy kissing stuff in the Black Moon arc and other things, so it doesn't seem like a kids thing either, but there seems to have been some degree of intent for that (I think Goldfish Warning errs a lot closer to that, as far as Nakayoshi properties I know anything about, of which there are few).

My best guess is that, at least in Japan, each iteration of Sailor Moon is meant for an entire spread of demographics ranging from older kids to 20-somethings without particular regard for one gender or the other (except perhaps the manga being aimed more specifically at girls than other iterations). I think Japan's broader acceptance of what it's okay to show kids (compared to the US) was a big factor in making the apparent discrepancies gel together. But it seems hard to determine and I must admit I haven't done really good research on it.

In the US, at least, it seems to still get a primarily teenagers-and-adults audience; I don't think DiC succeeded in marketing it to kids, and I'm not sure Cloverway was really trying to.
 

Rika-Chicchi

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#40
^ Some more mature content could be targeted at the parents watching the show w/ their kids. lol And the creators of the work in question could just be "naughty" to satisfy their personal creative urges/desires (including the "ecchi" ones lol ). So when we assess the (main) targeted demographic of a work/production, we should take an overall, by-&-large perspective, instead of focusing on individual plot elements. :)