Nostalgia Explored: The History of Pokémon and Sailor Moon
The 20th Anniversary of Pokémon’s release is 2016. The first two games, Red and Green, were released in
February 1996. Satoshi Tajiri and a few of his friends pitched the idea to
Nintendo and spent six years creating the first games before they were officially
released (Bulbapedia). After Red and Green gained popularity, they decided to
release an improved version titled Blue, and later that year, the first Pokémon Trading Card Game was released
(Bulbapedia). The first anime of the series was released in July 1997, and many
manga adaptations of the series have been created, including a few that are
still continued now. “On April 25, 1998, the first Pokémon Center store was opened in Tokyo, specializing in Pokémon
merchandise. Along the way, The Pokémon Company began its operations. Many such
stores were opened in later years, and today there are six different stores
across Japan, as well as a subsection in the Nintendo World Store in New York”
(Bulbapedia). In 2014, an online Pokémon Center was opened for customers in the
USA.
The games were first released in
America in September 1998, with the Red and Blue games available initially, and
later a Yellow game being released (Bulbapedia). This is also when the famous
slogan “Gotta Catch ‘em All” began to take hold with the games and merchandise
becoming more widely available in America. The movies began to release in America in 1999
(Bulbapedia). The original Pokémon
consisted of 151 different types of Pokémon, which expanded by 100 in 1999 with
the release of Silver and Gold, both of which were released in America in 2000
(Bulbapedia). Silver, Gold, and Crystal made up Generation II, while Generation
III consisted of Ruby and Sapphire. These were released in 2002 in Japan and
2003 in America, and were located in the new region of Hoenn with 135 new Pokémon
(Bulbapedia). FireRed and LeafGreen were released in America and Japan in 2004,
as was Emerald which belonged to the previous series of Ruby and Sapphire (Bulbapedia).
Diamond and Pearl, Generation IV, had 107 new Pokémon in the Sinnoh region and
were released in Japan in 2006 and America the following year. Generation V,
including Black and White, included 156 new Pokémon and was released in 2010. Generation
VI included X and Y and was released in 2013, and included new features like Mega
Evolution and character customization, which was unique to this region and
would not be included in future games. Like the previous release of HeartGold
and SoulSilver a few years prior, which were remakes of earlier games, in 2014
the remakes AlphaSapphire and OmegaRuby came out. The most recent announcement,
for the 20th Anniversary of the series, are the Generation VII games
Sun and Moon which are not yet available.
Sailor
Moon did a lot that was unprecedented both in anime and more specifically with
the trope of “Magical Girl” anime. It begins with a concept based on the
currently-popular series Mighty Morphing
Power Rangers in the early 1990’s, however the creator of Sailor Moon, Naoko Takeuchi, wanted to
see this concept played out as a group of women fighting villains together
(McNally). “The senshi weren’t just cute girls with magic powers; they used
those powers primarily to fight monsters and protect the people of their
planet. There’s a reason why the team is called senshi in
Japan–while the term is typically translated now in current versions of the
franchise as ‘guardians,’ it can also mean ‘soldier’” (McNally). By creating a
group that is referred to as “soldiers” it provides a power to the Sailor
Scouts that was unseen previously in “Magical Girl” anime, most of which also
did not have groups of women working together but instead focused on
individuals, like the initial incarnation of the series, Sailor V. The first series, Sailor
V, was published as a manga from 1991 to 1994 and overlapped with the first
series of Sailor Moon, which came out
shortly after (McNally). The first anime of Sailor
Moon was released by the company Toei Animation and began in March, 1992
(McNally). The first episode of both the original anime and the more recent
series, Sailor Moon Crystal,
reference Sailor V as Usagi/Serena
see her video games, posters, and stories in the newspaper all around her. She
also laments her inability to be like Sailor
V, and wishes she could be more like the heroine.
There were a series of Musicals called Sera Myu based on both the anime and
manga, which also branched off into its own storylines (McNally). A live action
series of Sailor Moon, titled Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, was also
released. One of the more progressive adaptations of the story includes a
musical in which all of the characters are played by women, called a “Takarazuka
musical,” called La Reconquista
(McNally). After the many varying adaptations that spanned across genres,
formats, and changed character personalities and genders in the process,
finally Sailor Moon made its way to
America through an English dubbed version of the television series.
“It wasn’t until 1995–a year after Mighty
Morphin Power Rangers aired to massive success–that North
American companies decided to pick up on the series, seeing the potential for a
fighting superhero team that capitalized on girl power” (McNally). Changes were
made to the series to make it more palatable for an American audience, because
at this time anime was not as widespread and they were seeking to broadcast to
and market to an audience of younger, American children with little to no background
of Japanese language and culture. Some notable changes include, “Pork buns
became doughnuts; “Serena” was a meatball-head instead of a dumpling-head;
scenes that depicted people driving cars were reversed so that the steering
wheels were on the opposite sides, and Japanese writing was rotoscoped, or
airbrushed, out” (McNally). While these changes were noticeable to an audience
that was familiar with both versions, they were small and left the characters
and stories relatively intact.
Larger changes to the show included
changes of content, gender, removing episodes, and altering the imagery in her
transformation sequence from Usagi/Serena to Sailor Moon (McNally). Cultural differences and concerns of
marketing to a younger audience prompted these alterations to the series, but
on occasion were also used sometimes to make changes that were more accepting,
like removing a plot line to make the series more “body positive and accepting”
and another point where racially insensitive names of characters were altered
(McNally). The new anime, Sailor Moon
Crystal, strives to be more accurate to the original manga and is
considered to be a separate series rather than a remake of the original. It was
first released in July 2014 and season three was released in April 2016. It is
referred to in Japan as Pretty Guardian Sailor
Moon Crystal and was initially released for the series’ 20th
Anniversary.
References
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