Sailor Moon - Production

Production

Before the Sailor Moon manga, Takeuchi published Codename: Sailor V, which focused on Sailor Venus. She devised the idea when she wanted to create a cute series about girls in outer space, and her editor asked her to put them in sailor fuku. When Sailor V was proposed for adaptation into an anime, the concept was modified so that Sailor V herself became only one member of a team. The resulting manga series became a fusion of the popular magical girl genre and the Super Sentai Series, of which Takeuchi was a fan. Recurring motifs include astronomy, astrology, Greek myth, Roman myth, geology, Japanese elemental themes, teen fashions, and schoolgirl antics.

Discussions between Takeuchi and her publishers originally envisaged only one story arc, and the storyline developed in meetings a year prior to publications, but having completed it, Takeuchi was asked by her editors to continue. She issued four more story arcs, often published simultaneously with the five corresponding anime series. The anime series would only lag the manga by a month or two. Takeuchi has stated that due to the largely male production staff of the anime, she feels that the anime version has "a slight male perspective".

Takeuchi originally intended to have all the main characters die in the end, but her editor would not let her, stating, "This is a shōjo manga!" When the anime adaptation was created, all of the protagonists were in fact killed off, although they came back to life, and Takeuchi held a bit of a grudge that she had not been allowed to do that in her version.