Hey, Sailor Moon Fandom! Let’s talk about Anime!Mamoru and his powers for a second?
Because while making that my intense love posts before, it actually got me thinking.
Mamoru is pretty damn powerful. Yes, even in the anime.
Wait, wait. Put your pitchforks down, I’m going to explain myself. First off, let’s disregard the Senshi for few moments. Honestly, it isn’t far to compare Mamoru’s powers to any of them because you have to remember, the continuity for the Golden Crystal is different between the manga and anime. You also have to remember that Mamoru isn’t a Senshi.
Now that’s out of the way, let’s talk powers (WITH BULLETS because I’m fancy)
Manga Mamoru had shown the ability to (correct me if I’m wrong, by the way. Doing this by memory):
- Heal himself
- Transfer power (between Usagi and Chibi Usa)
- Use a blast attack called “Tuxedo La Smoking Bomber”
- Combine attacks with Usagi and Chibi Moon
- Receive visions (in both dreams and when touching someone)
- Mentally hold conversions (at least with himself)
- Wield the Golden Crystal in a similar manner to Usagi
- Transform (shut up, being able to change you clothes in the flash of a light totally counts)
- Fights with a sword (as Endymion. Which isn’t an easy task; trust me)
But, I assume most people well into the fandom know this. It’s particular taken as fact that Mamoru has powers and can hold his own quite fine the manga. It’s the anime people assume is the weaker form…and I kind of disagree. I mean, look at this
Anime Mamoru can:
- Have visions
- At least as a King, send visions to himself from the FUTURE
- Use Roses as a weapon—people are going to side eye this but look at it like this: Mamoru’s flowers are always ALWAYS enough to harm or at least throw back his enemies. He distracted a full on attack from Beryl when she attacked Serenity; BERYL AIMS TO KILL. Clearly, there is more to that then just ‘being really sharp’.
- Teleport? (either that or he’s got some running and jumping skills otherwise someone explain 1:19)
- Transfer power (between Usagi and Chibi Usa)
- Transform
- His cape has been shown to deflect certain things
- His cane can exceeds (though I don’t know if this his powers at work or some how get got a cane that exceeds a distance and can hold at least a teenage girl)
- The big one: Subconsciously make a second him (a.k.a Moonlight Knight) who acts independently on his own and does not weaken him what-so-ever.
- Fights with a sword (as Endymion. Cane as Tuxedo Mask)
Guys, I’m sorry. For the life of me, I can not describe any of that as powerless. Especially the last one; the man mentally cloned himself with realizing it. THAT’S PRETTY DAMN POWERFUL. Is Mamoru watered down in the anime; yes. The removal of the Golden Crystal lessened his powers sufficiently, at least in terms of Usagi’s powers, but Mamoru is not weak. In the slightest.
So…thoughts on this, guys?
Agreed.
I feel like, compared to his girlfriend, his daughter, and their badass guardians, he isn’t as strong. Obviously.
But because of that people think he’s weak (maybe because maybe they are used to the trope (even subconsciously) that a man must be stronger than a woman?)
Instead of thinking, “Hey, Usagi might be the most powerful being in the universe or at least one of, the others being her own senshi, so in comparison no one is going to be powerful when compared with their power-ups and their attacks and what they can do.”?
Taken on his own, and what he does on his own without guide animals or guardians or senshi? I also think the man is badass in the anime and the manga.
And when he does create Moonlight Knight it is actually in direct opposition of the Silver Crystal (which granted Usagi’s wish for everyone to be normal) so there ya go. (It’s like fuck you Silver Crystal I do what I want. Well, when what I want is to bifurcate into a separate entity to protect my true love. REPRESENT.)
ALSO
Even in the manga, I feel like Mamoru’s powers tend more toward internal, psychological powers (except for swordfighting)- powers that tend to be associated more with feminine aspects. Healing, visions, receptive powers, power transference, etc. while the girls got the BLAST YOU IN YOUR FACE power. Which I think Naoko was doing on purpose to at least partially subvert gender roles.
And then in the anime they had him throw flowers. So. Again.
But the thing is, people tend to think of those powers as weaker because they are associated with the feminine. But they aren’t, necessarily.
SO YES. BASICALLY I TOOK A BUNCH OF WORDS TO SAY:
“THIS”
Yes! Mamoru holding the traditional feminine powers was awesome!
I like that Mamoru’s powers are more internal and I feel like it make sense from mythical points as well. Like I’ve theorized before, Mamoru is under the direct protection of the Sun. Who is the God of the sun after Helios? Apollo.
What are Apollo’s powers?
- Healing
- Light and Sun
- Prophecy
- Plague
- Music and Poetry
Some of those relate back to a certain someone, don’t they? Yet, even if that were the case, I feel like having Mamoru have powers that are lean more mental than physical is better for his Rule as King. You have to have a calm and a storm, right? Usagi’s powers, while pure their own right, brings and distracts from war; therefore storm. Mamoru? I feel like he is the calm; the half of the monarchy that brings the deals to the table and tries to make alliances…if that makes sense? One half is the power and the other is the control in a sense?
Alla this. Especially the stuff about Mamoru having traditionally feminine powers and that’s awesome and the reason people call him weak is they expect the man to always be stronger etc.
(And I definitely think he’s supposed to be protected by the sun! His priest is Helios, he has a little sun charm on his costume in the manga and he’s a Leo which is a the sun sign)
I never really got why people don’t think he has superpowers in the anime? As said, those roses… do things roses should not be able to do. Aside from shattering giant columns of stone (and embedding itself into a demon lady’s chest so the chest starts CRACKING), didn’t he like, raise a barrier of energy from them once? Yeah, you can’t exactly purchase roses that can do that. Also he can stand on the wing of an airplane while it’s flying yeah.
Normally, I would just ride on the coattails of whatever end-of-the-week episode sketch Joaquim posts, because he does those better than I do/can, but it looks like he didn’t get a chance to do one this week. So I did a quick Asami painting to accompany the airing of episode 107 today. Hope you guys enjoy that one! It’s a doozy.
I know Bryan Konietzko won’t read this but I just want to say thank you to him and the team for the show for this episode and how they have handled Asami so far.
Thank you for not playing into misogynist stereotypes, the type of stereotypes fandom tried to force on her (and probably still will). Thank you for not making her a one note evil character because she likes the same guy the lead likes and because she’s good-looking and elegant. Thank you for showing her to be strong and brave and impressive in her own right, thank you for not shaming her for being feminine, thank you for subverting the “Evil/Bad Woman Who STEALS MEN from our Right Kind of Woman” stereotype and smacking fandom in the face with this episode by making her father the equalist and her the one who bravely opposes them and is loyal to her ideals and friends, turning their misogynist assumptions on their head.
Thanks for showing her as someone Korra can connect with, for showing her as a complex person and another girl who does things her own way. Thanks for using Asami to show there’s no wrong way to be a girl, and that it doesn’t matter who she likes or how she dresses.
Thank you for introducing another awesome lady into Korra’s group, when most shows would just call it a day because “hey we have one prominent female character she’s even the lead what more do you guys want? More than one woman? what you are asking too much if a girl is the main character we’ve done enough let’s call it a day why should there be other cool women why should we have women relating to each other”. Thanks for Lin too.
Thank you so much for being consistently excellent and subverting society’s stupid expectations. Thank you for Korra, thank you for Asami. Keep it up, and you will always have my heart.
look look at my forever girl
so beautiful
so great.
So a few days ago, I talked about part one of the Bradley vs. Scar fight…
And after a slight misfire with the photoset (goddamn queue), let’s get to part two— the revelation of Scar’s creation arm and the enormous leap in his character that this represents. I am just disgustingly in love with that top picture in the set as well because of the direct parallel Arakawa is drawing between Scar and Alphonse.
Both are the younger of two brothers where the elder sacrificed his right arm to save his little brother’s life and in both scenes, they’re both moving toward their opponent (two of the most terrifying characters in the series), armed with the tool that will let them win, something they never imagined they’d use because of the moral implications that go directly against their personal beliefs (Scar and alchemy, Alphonse and the Philosopher’s Stone). In both cases, it’s symbolic of their willingness to move forward and do what must be done to survive, that there is so much more at stake than their own beliefs, that everyone’s lives are on the line and when that happens, you have to be willing to adapt to save the people that matter to you. There’s even a visual similarity between the panels, with Arakawa drawing both Al and Scar straight on, shoulders rolled forward, head down, and eyes not completely visible.
That said! The funny thing about all of this is that it’s Al fighting Kimblee (well, and Pride) for the final time, not Scar. For a while, I really wanted for Scar and Kimblee to throw down one final time, for Scar to be the one who took Kimblee out. (Part of me still wants it because it would just be cool as fuck) But that would defeat the point of what Arakawa’s been trying to say throughout the entire series. It’s not about revenge or giving what your enemy is due, it’s about overcoming your own failings to become the person you’re supposed to be.
Scar fights Wrath. That’s not a coincidence. He is literally against his greatest sin, the walking embodiment of fury and revenge. This is the final trial that he has to overcome for the sake of everyone. There is no failing here. Letting Wrath overtake him is not an option because everyone he knows will suffer for it. All the while, Bradley is trying to goad him into becoming the wrathful person he once was.
“There is no god!”
Despite all of that, despite coming face to face with his greatest failing, the sin that destroyed and consumed his life for so many years, he succeeds marvelously. He defeats Bradley, but never lays a “final blow,” instead letting the person who gave the order to murder his entire people die with a smile on his face. It’s a victory in every sense of the word and with that final trial overcome, he can finish what he was always meant to do— complete his brother’s work. He is the starting point for the nationwide counter-circle that removes Father’s influence over alchemy in Amestris, in essence giving strength to the people he once hated. His new goal is to change Amestris into something better and he literally does so with his own two hands.
It’s an enormous leap from the person he was at the beginning of the manga, probably one of the most intense character arcs in the entire series, and it is so fucking SATISFYING.
There’s that quote going around tumblr - “She’s like the moon, part of her is always hidden away” - and I guess Usagi would be the first to think of here, but QUEEN SERENITY. She was so damn interesting and seedy. If we’re trusting Nehelenia here, they both came to the moon after leaving the galaxy they were originally from. Why? How did she go from that to empress of her new world? You don’t build the strongest alliance in the stars with your bare hands and not have them dirtied at some point. And what was it about her that allowed for the most powerful item in the universe to pick her, to merge itself with her soul (the ginzoushou is sentient, no questions).
Do we buy that she cloned her daughter in her image (because I do). Magic, science, whatever. The technicalities aren’t terribly important to me. I have this idea that Queen Serenity was almost terrifying in her chase of these utopian ideals of love and justice. Because wherever she came from must have been just about the hellish worst if she had to leave, and if it inspired this in her. She wanted so badly to feel a sincere selflessness, but in the back of her head she knew it was alway about her and satisfying a vision she built of herself. This was the vibe the people who didn’t like her picked up on, and why her enemies hated her. They saw through the lie. So when the Silver Millenium caved in on itself, I think Serenity was relieved in a sense because it confirmed the suspicions about herself that were always back there clawing. On top of that there was a relief in the trust that her daughter (her project, her ideals embodied) could do it all over and do it right. Act over, curtains drawn.
In other words, Queen Serenity was in obsessed with the idea of being good. Princess Serenity actually was good. And the ginzounshou chose them both because yes, they were cut from the same cloth, but more so because the ginzoushou responds to feelings, not necessarily goodness. It recognized both Serenity’s because both felt what they felt stronger than anybody else ever could.
This is really good. Because I always got that vibe from Queen Serenity? I mean, she was obvs fantastic and brave and loved her daughter and made a great sacrifice, but the way she just…placed Child Pluto by that time door and laid all these heavy restrictions and pressure on her, and the way she handled the Nehelenia thing, and the fact she did seem to sort of isolate the Moon Kingdom from Earth- she seems sort of super intense and on the edge in the way her daughter could never be, and it’s sort of interesting. I think you voiced it perfectly.
So I just caught up on the manga Hiromu Arakawa is doing right now, Silver Spoon! It’s really good, of course. It’s a slice of life comedy type story about a farming high school in Hokkaido. It really delves into the culture and lifestyle of farming, and even explores stuff like economics and the ethics of the business. I really like that Arakawa especially acknowledges the ethics and difficulties of sending animals that you get to know off to be slaughtered, and makes it clear that there’s no definitive answer, that each person’s viewpoint is valid, and she’s not going to force a “right” opinion down anyone’s throats, but just show what it’s like for the farmers and these are things that should be thought about.
It’s strengths along with the amount of thought and knowledge displayed as well as the gorg art is the characters. The manga focuses on the relationships between these kids. The protagonist is pretty adorable and has a lot to learn, and it’s cool to watch him develop. He’s a complete dork and I enjoy dorks.
And as expected of her, there’s a lot of great ladies too. The teenage ones are all here, and they all have their own goals and strong personalities. My personal favorite is the girl in the middle, in the Gi, her name is Tamako. How rare is it to see fat teenage girls in manga? The boys do make a few mean comments about her in the first chapters (not that bad compared to most comments directed at fat women, actually), but that stops after they get to know her, and the most important thing is she is completely confident in herself and appears to have no insecurity about her weight at all. She’s a total self-confident bamf and never once is shown to think there’s anything wrong with her appearance or care what other people think of her. There’s even a chapter where she loses weight due to heatstroke and comes in looking all conventionally hot and acts like nothing’s changed…two chapters later she’s regained all her weight and is still just as confident. When the protagonist stares in surprise she’s like “what?” “Nothing. I’m not really fazed by anything anymore.”
Like, idk if I’ve ever seen a fat young girl who completely doesn’t care what others think and is comfortable in her own skin in any other manga. Or well, not much of that in media at all actually.
ilu Arakawa. So yeah, the manga’s recced.
finishing up the “How Long is Forever” spam
So out of all of them, Nightwing seemed to get out the most…well-adjusted. Though it probably has more to do with the fact this series tended to godmod Robin way too much, I always theorized it had more to do with the fact he has someone he can actually go back to, unlike the others. I would assume in this scenario he just like, went back to Batman, because Starfire being gone would devastate him enough that he’d get over whyever he left in the first place, and also if a friend was permanently missing like that and he seriously couldn’t locate them on his own, he’d probably go to Bruce just to get someone who had a likelihood of finding them with *mad detective skillz*. Meanwhile, Cyborg and Raven have basically no one else and I don’t think Beast Boy would be able to make himself go back to the Doom Patrol on his own no matter what.
They likely didn’t put that much thought into it and I’m overthinking it but whatever that’s what I do.
Also, there’s the fact Nightwing is probably not doing as well as he lets on. I mean, of course, Robin’s still doing the superhero thing, that’s all he knows how to do. There could be like one person left in the world and he would still be doing that. But he’s doing it completely alone, there’s no indication he ever does anything besides that, he’s lost touch with everyone and was apparently afraid to contact them unless Starfire came back and he comes off as pretty desperate to fix the timeline and what’s more, his cave is under all these random creepy turning gears which is…just like Slade’s hideouts. Yeah, Slade’s all about the random wheels and stuff. So idk, I think that detail was probably on purpose. And if comics have taught me anything, a Robin costume in a case is never a good sign. No matter what.
Future Raven is probably the worst out of all of them, because if there’s anyone who can’t function alone more than Beast Boy, it’s her, though she’ll never admit it, and not having anyone to support means her mind basically completely breaks which wow. It’s probably a combination of both the fact that her powers requiring a lot of mental strength to maintain control means that losing any amount of control destroys her mind, and her general situation, which is so horrible that her friends were the only thing that really made it worth it for her.
Of course, in continuity with season 4, you have to wonder how the apocalypse was averted without the team being together, other than the writers hadn’t thought of it yet. I remember there was a theory back in the day that Raven being mentally ill might also make her unusable as the portal. It’s also possible that an almost-apocolypse happened like in season 4, but it was averted some other way, but completely broke Raven in the process.
wow this entire episode is basically really depressing fic fodder.
Future Beast Boy makes me really sad (the only thing sadder is Future Raven) because okay
I just have a lot of feels for Beast Boy he’s like my fave after Raven
taking in his backstory- this basically means he’s lost his family a total of three times- first his parents, then he had to leave his family in the Doom Patrol. And then he finds another team that’s his family and then a member goes missing and it completely falls apart. And Beast Boy is the kind of person who cannot function alone. And idk when the team broke apart in this scenario (I mean apparently they never even picked up Starfire’s necklace, though that was symbolic) but if it happened when he was still a kid- he’s the youngest on the team, and he’s this really immature,hypersensitive, easily terrified kind of kid who is really, really constantly desperate for approval and affection. He needs people to support him and look after him, he is not the type of person who can go it alone. He’s always been on a team.
And basically this just confirms all that- he says he tried to fight on his own and got so completely destroyed that he literally decided to lock himself in a cage because he became so afraid of people hurting him even though it makes him completely miserable, and therefore basically survive by people mocking him. Like, this is a kid’s show, but if you think about that, it’s pretty grim. How bad could what have happened to him have been for someone to feel the need to do that?
This is the episode where we learn the entire team would fall apart without Starfire
and apparently the world too since it seems to kind of suck without her
not surprising
I always get caught up wondering in this episode though. Like with Cyborg here. So like, Raven can’t be held responsible in this scenario, but it’s okay with Nightwing and Beast…future guy that one of your ex-friends is completely broken down (I guess NW might not have known since they lost touch and BB wouldn’t have been able to do anything about it)? since he repairs himself later I guess it was more down to depression than anything that he couldn’t leave, he wasn’t motivated to help himself but still
how did he even survive
if he couldn’t leave
i mean clearly it’s hard to ever apply logic to this show but.
Okay, for Rei’s b-day posts I gonna tackle manga and anime Rei seperately. Because they’re both great, but probably the most radically different than any of the characters in that split. Because rather than just toning down or exaggerating, the anime made direct changes to the central tenants of Rei’s character.
Namely, her attitude towards men and sexuality in general. How that is handled is one of my favorite things about manga Rei and why I have so many feels for her.
Rei doesn’t like men. She has no desire to be with them romantically, and holds a mild mistrust/distaste for the gender in general. It’s easy to see where that mistrust stems from- her father abandoned her, and his aide who was one of the only men she felt she could trust and look up to turned into a different person (who she’s convinced will be her father 2.0) and basically left her too. And on top of that, Rei doesn’t seem to harbor any sexual urges or desires regarding boys. Now think about this. Rei in the manga is a character who mistrusts men as a rule and is not interested in heterosexual romance at all and just plain doesn’t feel she needs men or sex in her life- and she is never demonized for it, she is never mocked for it and she is never “fixed”. She stays this way till the end. Her last major line in the manga is stating that she doesn’t need a man.In fact, she specifically goes through some development where she is able to realize that it’s completely fine she isn’t interested in a relationship with a man.
Her issues with men are explored in both the manga and PGSM with sympathy and respect. She’s not painted as some bitter, hateful ugly rabid caricature who froths on and on about how men are the devil and is bitter and insecure and can’t get laid. She’s the most attractive of the inners in the manga, and guys and girls alike line up to drool over her. And her distate for men in not a bitter hatred, just- a lack of sympathy and desire not to deal with them. It only comes up when her friends are assuming she wants to be with a boy- she reminds them “I don’t like boys” and when her friends react in shock, she shrugs and says “that’s how it is, deal with it”. The only other context it comes up in is she hears about men being attacked while chasing after women, and is like “wow,look at all the fucks I give, a taste of their own medicine”. She doesn’t react violently when guys order her drinks in attempts to woo her, she’s like “wow if you’re a sucker enough to do that, bring it on, i’ll lay here and enjoy myself!” And on top of that, she is perfectly happy and fulfilled without a heterosexual relationship- she states several times that the strong bond of loyalty she has with other women is enough for her.
When do you ever see that? When do you ever see a woman who distrusts men and doesn’t want a boyfriend not depicted as hateful or in need of immediate help, but as a happy, fulfilled and ultimately good person who stays single (well, there’s Mina :P but headcanon subtext aside), who DOESN’T end up just needing to “find the right guy”, who is depicted as being just fine the way she is?
What’s more, Rei is shown to struggle with the heteronormativity of those around her. She genuinely doesn’t understand why the norm is wanting to get a boyfriend and have sex. She doesn’t understand why she’s being urged to do these things when she doesn’t want to do them. So a villian preys on this insecurity and tells her she has to go and kiss guys even if she doesn’t like them, she has to find a husband so she can get taken care of, that she IS a deeply broken and unhappy person- and how does Rei respond? She says “Screw you, I’m Sailor Mars, I don’t want any of that, I even took a vow of chastity in the past”. She realizes there’s nothing wrong with who she is.
I just really related deeply to this. I’m someone who has struggled for years and years with the fact I don’t seem to have sexual urges or want boys in the way I’m supposed to, that I can’t even really understand what people are talking about when they go on about romance and fetishes and all that. And I’m only just starting to come to terms with it, I still haven’t completely figured it out? So this story just means a lot a lot to me because I KNOW THAT FEEL. And to have this woman not be “fixed” and made heteronormative, but come off proud and secure in her non-heteronormative identity, and that be the lesson to take away? This is one of those reasons Sailor Moon means a lot to me, and it’s why I adore Rei and Naoko for writing that story.
I also love Rei for her passion and how intense and hardcore she is about protecting women! It’s also both heartbreaking and wonderful how lonely she was before she met the Senshi, that she was isolated both because of the stuff she went through with her family and the fact she was “different”- but when she finds Usagi and the others, she finds her purpose in life and she starts to open up and accept them. The part where she’s so touched when she gets birthday gifts from them, how she starts crying in PGSM (PGSM is basically an expanded version of manga Rei, s’why I include it) when she finds out that there’s this huge important reason for her powers that got her excluded and that she’s actually a part of something, not set apart- then there’s how she admits her loneliness in Stars and admits she wishes she went to the same school as everyone- it’s so sad- but then Mina comforts her and it’s great because you see can that this girl is healing, that she has found true friends and a connection. As a very lonely person myself, I relate so hard.
Also I love how Rei has always had to rely on herself and she’s really tough as a result, so sometimes she shuts others out or is really tough on them (wanting them to be self reliant like her) and she’s slowly able to learn to depend on her friends a little more? I think it’s a great character beat. Ugh she’s so wonderful and complex.
And, let’s not forget- she’s a badass who’s protective of her friends and not scared of anything. Her powers are as cool as hell- she’s an archer! She can control fire! FLAME SNIPER IS THE BEST. She’s a wonderful miko and her ability to disperse evil spirits even in civilian form is the raddest.
And.
She is HOT. And fierce. and gorgeoooous.
