Considering the recent discussion, I just have to say one thing I always loved about the manga and anime was how the younger senshi explicitly LOOKED UP to Haruka and Michiru and wanting to be like them. Not only have I never seen ostensibly straight women consider lesbians their role models or ideals in media (it’s rare enough to see women looking up to other women in media period), but the thing the younger girls specifically admired about Haruka and Michiru was how comfortable they were with themselves, how unashamed, confident and emancipated they were and how they subverted society’s restraints and expectations.

The manga has this really neat bit in SuperS where we see most of the Inners have  taken on one of the Outer Senshi as their mentor and sort of feel a bit lost without them- Rei’s is Michiru, because Michiru is so confident in her connection the spirituality and mentored Rei about it, and Mako’s is Haruka of course. Mako even thinks to herself “My dream is to be strong like Haruka…and beautiful like Michiru, but that’s a secret.” And when Rei and Mako are knocked down by the villians, they specifically remember Michiru and Haruka’s words of advice and encouragement and charge forward in their goals of being like Haruka and Michiru.

And fortunately, this was one thing that carried over to the anime- Mako got an episode all about how she sees Haruka as her ideal woman, because she admires how comfortable Haruka is with herself and her  “masculine” traits, something Mako was still struggling with. Basically she admires Haruka for being confident in subverting gender role expectations, and confident in her alternative sexuality. She makes it clear she adores both Haruka and Michiru and looks up to Haruka as a role model. There’s even a super cute bit where she ties her neckerchief in a way that imitates Haruka and smiles at herself. Rei also gets an episode with Michiru where she clearly is intimidated by and admires Michiru’s confidence and spiritual strength, and the experience ends with the two of them bonding a bit. Usagi tries to play violin like Michiru, and practically fangirls both Haruka and Michiru all over the place, saying “I want to be cool like them omg”. And the fact that these girls are looking up to lesbians for their strength and beauty, and specifically admiring how comfortable these women are with themselves and their sexuality, is shown to be natural and a total non issue.

I don’t know, I just always really like that bit of it. Michiru and Haruka were role models and awesome people girls look up to and want to be like both in-universe and out- they really were sort of cool big sister figures to the Senshi. They just happened to be lesbians.