Presentation Type
Paper
Abstract
The story of Sailor Moon, told and retold in countless forms in the thirty years since the original manga’s publication, is imbued with a cosmic sense of time. The modern-day protagonists’ personal journeys are tightly interwoven with the distant past of the Silver Millennium and the far future of thirtieth-century Crystal Tokyo. But only the manga is fully willing to grapple with what the future means for its own present moment. Written in the early 1990s during Japan's "Lost Decade," Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon dramatizes the angst that accompanies the imminent arrival of a new millennium. As the Sailor Guardians engage their enemies in battle, the ordinary citizens of Tokyo worry that these strange happenings are portents of a complete break in history coming at the new millennium’s dawn.
But even as millennial despair pervades its pages, Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon offers something else: a vision of millennial hope. The new millennium is indeed a break in history. But that break consists of a thousand-year period in which Sailor Moon reigns as Neo Queen Serenity over a worldwide utopia where war has been abolished and death is largely unknown. Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon is thus a millenarian text, one that situates itself within both eastern and western millenarian traditions. A proper understanding of this context helps to elucidate the enduring appeal of Sailor Moon’s promise of a new (and Silver) Millennium that transcends the bounds of history and pierces the depths of cosmic time.
Keywords
Sailor Moon, utopia, millenarianism, future, anime, manga
Included in
Children's and Young Adult Literature Commons, History of Religions of Eastern Origins Commons, History of Religions of Western Origin Commons, Japanese Studies Commons, Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion Commons
Dawn of a Silver Millennium: Millenarianism, Futurity, and Utopia in Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon
The story of Sailor Moon, told and retold in countless forms in the thirty years since the original manga’s publication, is imbued with a cosmic sense of time. The modern-day protagonists’ personal journeys are tightly interwoven with the distant past of the Silver Millennium and the far future of thirtieth-century Crystal Tokyo. But only the manga is fully willing to grapple with what the future means for its own present moment. Written in the early 1990s during Japan's "Lost Decade," Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon dramatizes the angst that accompanies the imminent arrival of a new millennium. As the Sailor Guardians engage their enemies in battle, the ordinary citizens of Tokyo worry that these strange happenings are portents of a complete break in history coming at the new millennium’s dawn.
But even as millennial despair pervades its pages, Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon offers something else: a vision of millennial hope. The new millennium is indeed a break in history. But that break consists of a thousand-year period in which Sailor Moon reigns as Neo Queen Serenity over a worldwide utopia where war has been abolished and death is largely unknown. Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon is thus a millenarian text, one that situates itself within both eastern and western millenarian traditions. A proper understanding of this context helps to elucidate the enduring appeal of Sailor Moon’s promise of a new (and Silver) Millennium that transcends the bounds of history and pierces the depths of cosmic time.