LA PROMESSA DELLA LUNA - GENEALOGIE DI SAILOR MOON

For many years, in Japan as well as in the rest of the world, generations of young teenagers have followed the adventures of the magical girls protagonists of mahō shōjo – one of the cornerstones of the comic and animation genre for girls – and like them have imagined transforming into a better version of themselves. More than any other, Sailor Moon represents the pinnacle of this fantasy: the most perfect among magical girls. 'The fighter who dresses like a sailor' soon became a symbol of her time, but gradually rose to become an icon of timeless liberation and self-determination. In this essay, Perongini and Scialpi retrace the paths that throughout the Japanese twentieth century have contributed to shaping her figure. From feminist discourses to queer representations and apocalyptic anxieties, the paladin drawn by Naoko Takeuchi shines like a beacon of hope, but also casts strange shadows.