Note: This is not a topic about the state of our forum, but rather about the entire community itself.

It seems like there's an extreme amount of silence surrounding Sailor Moon. On the Sailor Moon subreddit itself, the only things that get upvoted are fan art and merchandise. Some of the only insightful conversations I see are in the comments of the crazy YouTube channel I posted about Sailor Moon Crystal that's nearing 50K views. But honestly, I think it's because I only jerked people emotionally either positively or negatively enough to make a comment.

I think that with Crystal's failure in bringing in new fans (not a comment on the quality of the show itself), the old fans are finding it hard to have any meaningful conversations these days.

I guess what I'm asking is what does it mean to be a Sailor Moon fan anymore? Dragonball Super proved to be a colossal bummer, but at least the DBZ fans got two amazing movies and a whole slew of new lore to talk about. I wish we could have gotten something similar so we'd at least have something to talk about.

Sailor CJ wrote:

It seems like there's an extreme amount of silence surrounding Sailor Moon. On the Sailor Moon subreddit itself, the only things that get upvoted are fan art and merchandise. Some of the only insightful conversations I see are in the comments of the crazy YouTube channel I posted about Sailor Moon Crystal that's nearing 50K views. But honestly, I think it's because I only jerked people emotionally either positively or negatively enough to make a comment.

I think that with Crystal's failure in bringing in new fans (not a comment on the quality of the show itself), the old fans are finding it hard to have any meaningful conversations these days.

Series like these come and g, its just how it goes. I'll always be an SM fan even if the community dies out.

The SM western community was pretty dead for many many years (i'm sure many of you will remember that time) up until 2011 when they announced the release of the manga in the US again. Then there was the 20th anniversary stuff and all the hype around that. This 20th Anniversary has lasted like what 3 years now? Before you know it, we'll be on the 25th anniversary still celebrating the 20th... Also i think in Japan SM will just never get back to the popularity it had originally. Right now, its just more of a nostalgia trip more than anything. Not to mention that SMC was a bit of a failure (especially in japanese fans eyes, there were tons of negative comments and dropping views just from them) and the new musicals are probably only doing well enough to break even (they only do about 20 shows, while the old Myu had 2-3 seasons of 22-23 shows, where one season they were travelling, on top of all the promotional performances like the fankans and stuff). Notice how they haven't released any CD albums? I think at this point people aren't seeing the new musicals for the music or anything, its just for the shiny pretty and that its sailor moon....

Quote :

Dragonball Super proved to be a colossal bummer

Um... what??? The series has just barely started, we are only 11 episodes in, so you might want to save any final judgements on it, and personally I'm loving it so far. It is nothing like the disappointment with Crystal. The writing has been fairly on par with whats to be expected from Akira Toriyama, maybe not as great and the older series, but still good. Yeah, its had a couple of not so great animation episodes but hello this is toei, they'll have weeks of not good episodes then some really great episodes. Thats exactly how it was with DBZ or maybe most of the fans have forgotten that? The last two episodes have had much better animation wise. Dragonball Super has been such a breath of fresh air after having to deal with SMC...

Dragonball will probably always hang around cause even though the western community was a bit slow for a while, it was still kind of alive and kicking with video games and the like in Japan. Shoot even in the US we got a new DBZ game almost every year up until these new movies. I also think Team Four Star with their abridged series has had a lot to do with the western community gaining steam again in the last few years.

I'm fortunate anime fanfare in North America and the world is there, Sailor Moon made it possible in the mid 1990s. The majority of SM fans are in their 20's and 30's now and not as many children or teenage SM fans in the present. Older SM fans of generations X and Y remember what the animation and storytelling was like, long before SMC they may (or may not) like compared to the originals. More of today's youth use social media sites to discuss their favorite cartoons, TV shows, movies or music instead of posting about them in message boards...they may discuss SM in other places of the interwebs. 

Like Small Lady said, Dragon Ball Z and their anthology continues to pick up new fans of all ages a quarter to a third century later (the series premiered in Japan circa 1986 and some North Americans discovered them when the 1990s began), because of a larger following continued to hold on and they found new fodder in DBZ's saga. I expect the same with Sailor Moon, yet you won't find a "huge following" on the internet except social media (FB, Twitter, Instagram, etc.) nowadays, but they're out there.

When I first saw this topic title, it made me think of Radio Talk(the third SM episode in English) and I thought that this topic would be on that episode until I read the post.

For myself, I'm horrible at discussions, debates, and theories, so I tend to stay out of those topics.  I also can't tell if the animation is good or bad, or what mistakes there are because I'm no artist!  

It's just like the Hamtaro community-people are out there, but silent because it came and went.

I thought I was the only one that noticed. I spend a lot more time on Tumblr than on here. The SM discussions were quite active on there, but it's slowed down considerably since SMC wrapped.

I get what your saying. Since Crystal has wrapped up, there's not really much to talk about. While i didn't like SMC, it did keep things interesting for a little while. But now that it's done and there's been no announcements of a second/third season.

I'm glad that i'm in multiple fandom's that are active and alive (Gravity Falls/SVTFOE/MLP:FIM) but with SMC wrapped up it does raise the question: what am i gonna do when all of my shows end? As much as i hate to admit, Gravity Falls can't last forever, and i've heard rumour's that Hasbro's begun working on Gen 5 of MLP. SVTFOE is still in it's first season so i don't have to worry about that for awhile. The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya has also had the same problem as Sailor Moon: while it's still popular, it will never be as popular as it was when it first started airing, even though they got a new spin-off anime.The Winx fandom is mostly full of 5-10 year olds, and the W.I.T.C.H fandom has been dead for years.

Bahh....i've gone off topic again....

As a young fan of Sailor Moon, and a very new one at that, stuff like this kinda bums me out. I have noticed that Sailor Moon hardly ever gets talked about, and while there are many Sailor Moon fans on other parts of the Internet (mainly Tumblr and, yes, Pinterest) they just kinda... keep to themselves. They don't really invovle themselves with anything (I had to search far and wide for a post that we hijacked for the Pinterest Fandom Awards), and it's hardly in the mainstream anymore. 
I can tell you though that I have successfully converted at least one of my friends and possibly another by lending them the manga 
Almost all the other fandoms I'm in are probably certfiably insane though, so the calmness of Sailor Moon is quite nice.

Well I'll put it this way, we can keep it alive at least on this forum. I know there isn't much to talk about for some of us older fans, but you newer fans...we have boards and boards for discussion on these forums. You can totally start up conversations or ask questions.

Also there are sides of Sailor Moon that are mostly ignored by the general fandom and theres a lot to be talked about like the musicals and live action. Not many people talk about them or discuss them. There's a lot to talk about, the musicals have oriignal storylines that add to the lore of Sailor Moon and the live action does a lot of things that seem to subvert typical shoujo tropes. There's a lot more to SM than just the 90s anime, SMC and the manga.

I really need to watch the musicals. The only ones i've seen are Petite Etrangere and Ankokuno Princess Black Lady

Hm, it's possible that I'm just used to this sort of thing. Before joining this forum I was always kind of on the fringes of the Sailor Moon community, just lurking and things were never very busy. I remember being so excited to see merch announcements because there just had never really been one (we got lots of posts about handmade or rare items floating around ebay though). It was very fun to see the community go from sometimes struggling to create its own content to basking in the excitement of official news. With the end of SMC, the hype is inevitably going to die down. I'm thankful for the little renaissance that birthed new discussion and new merch, official and otherwise.

That said, I have always felt that the community is as alive as you are. The more I participate and invest myself, the more I feel the life of the community. The old and invested fans will hang around, they'll keep making their own content, discussing source material and posting it for people to see and I look forward to being part of that.

Yeah Small Lady, that's why I joined this forum. No matter what happens in the future, they'll always be you guys on here.

I will always be a Sailor Moon fan. I have loved the series since I was a kid. But sadly Crystal has burned me out. I didn't go in with high expectations after they announced it would be following the manga. However I was shocked how they handled the material. I know some people loved it, but it was so boring watching a retelling of Sailor Moon. I can rewatch some stuff like Cardcaptor Sakura. That show never gets old to me. Sailor Moon on the other hand is a different story. I'm not sure why. Maybe down the road I'll be more active in the community. But who knows? Sometimes communities just die off and there's nothing wrong with that. However there will always be people around to talk about Sailor Moon.

It's a shame smc hasn't done well. I really wanted to see how they'd handle the 5th story arc. Maybe if it had been a release on tv or something it might have done better. Idk. It makes me sad, I love sailor moon and I wish it could continue to grow.

I would love to see SM go on as well. But I think it would have helped if we gotten a new story. Either one that takes place in in the Silver Mill or in Crystal Tokyo. Both timelines have endless opportunities.

I don't think it's dead. I think it depends on where you go, where you're at, how you liked the new things. SMC and the new musicals (despite being hated by a lot of older fans) actually brought a lot of new people in the fandom and maybe will it bring even more in the future. I doubt crystal is going to continue, though I wouldn't even mind that, so there is a chance, if nothing else comes out, that it will end up dying down for good this time. We had the manga, the anime, the musicals kept it alive for a while, then PGSM helped, it died down a little and the 20th anniversary happened. Who knows.

Sure, if every fan ever turns their back to both community and material, it will die down, but it happens to many animes over the years all the time. And there will always be merchandise to buy so I guess it will become more of a personal thing than something shared.

And I agree with Small Lady. There are still many things that can be discussed and maybe with new fans asking questions around who knows if it won't spark the flame in the older fans who will be able to answer because of their knowledge and experience?

Cause seriously, i do love trying to answer people's sailor moon questions. Even if it's small things, like how Vbabe asked in the skype chat the other day how the senshi were moved into the palace after the Black Moon attacked. It sparked a whole conversation. xD

I suppose it depends on where you're at.  Most of the Sailor Moon channels on Twitter I've been following are still pretty active in posting about it.  I don't post here myself but this other Sailor Moon forum still seems pretty active.   http://www.prettyguardiansailormoon.com/ I imagine with new episodes of Crystal in the works we'll see an uptake in the fandom discussion then and I saw a lot of tweets lately about the new Seramyu musical.  It's also fall now and some people might just be busy with school and stuff to post online much.  At least that's the main reason I haven't been by the forums lately myself.   I've just been too busy with school and studying and doing homework to drop by but I'm still following Sailor Moon stuff.  It's just easier for me to keep up on Twitter when I can check my phone in five minutes but I have some free time now to drop by the forums.

Maybe I've just had really good luck... but recently I've met a LOT of people who share my love for sailor moon. In the past, I feel that none of my peers knew about it. 

People at school, waiters at diners, and store cashiers have complemented my sailor moon clothes. Last month I went to hot topic to buy a sailor moon shirt and ended up talking to 4 workers about it! One guy had a sailor moon tattoo. They were all such hardcore fans, it made my day. 

Also, I recently was an assistant teacher for a drawing class and the kids were about 8-13. It turned out that almost half of them were anime fans and they wanted me to teach them how to draw sailor moon! These kids actually watch the Japanese version with subtitles, not the kiddie dub version. 

So I have hope that the Sailor Moon fandom will stay alive 

YES PEOPLE MY AGE WHO LIKE SAILOR MOON!!!

I kind of miss when the fan fiction part of the fandom used to be really active. There were all sorts of fan fiction archives, that are either dead or not very busy anymore.

dreamsinpink wrote:

I kind of miss when the fan fiction part of the fandom used to be really active. There were all sorts of fan fiction archives, that are either dead or not very busy anymore.

Yeah, that part really bums me out. I remember a lot of good fanfiction were on the now defunct Moon Romance site, and a lot of really good Sailor Moon fan writers stopped writing or moved on to other topics. The really sad part is that some of the smaller sites have been taken down after being inactive for a long time, and the stories posted there have essentially become lost to history. ;_;

mangaka-chan wrote:

dreamsinpink wrote:

I kind of miss when the fan fiction part of the fandom used to be really active. There were all sorts of fan fiction archives, that are either dead or not very busy anymore.

Yeah, that part really bums me out. I remember a lot of good fanfiction were on the now defunct Moon Romance site, and a lot of really good Sailor Moon fan writers stopped writing or moved on to other topics. The really sad part is that some of the smaller sites have been taken down after being inactive for a long time, and the stories posted there have essentially become lost to history. ;_;

Yes! It's such a shame. There were some really great stories out there. I would actually love to start up a new archive for fan fiction, but I fear that it wouldn't get enough stories to make it worthwhile.

So I realize this topic is very old but...i'm curious to see how others feel about this issue now that we've got new SMC. Does it feel like the fandom has picked up in general?

I feel like it has. I'm pretty active on Instagram, and since delving back in SM, I've discovered SO MANY SM instagrams. I love it. And having all the new merch is helping too, I feel. There is so much that is good quality and easy to obtain.