Teacher Muses About Sailor Moon

This article is around 2 days old, and we thought fans here might like to learn of it. Nikkei Business Online has a special story about a professor who spent his childhood in China, and now lives in his native Japan. Dr. Endo Homare is currently teaching sociology at Teikyo University about Chinese Culture. He also has initiated special projects to bring in more international students to the University to learn about culutre. He muses about Sailor Moon along with a female Chinese student of his. In this article he talks about his move to Japan when he was only 12 years old, and how he discovered Sailor Moon. Sailor Moon is a big part of his life and what he studies. He talks about how he was fascinated with the notion of transformation in Sailor Moon when he saw it as a young boy in China. The animation was like nothing he had ever seen before and the show had a huge impact among the youth in China. Girls looked up to Sailor Moon and in some senses had become her - from pretending to transform like her or acting like her. The student remembers that she would often ask to eat her dinner earlier or later as it was broadcasted before the evening news just so she could watch it, and how she didn't like anyone disturbing her when she was watching it - it was like she was in her own world. They go into a lot more cultural aspects of it and how it affected youth, such as youth weren't likely to talk about it unless everyone else liked it, and how Sailor Moon had inspired girls to become strong women. It's a really interesting article for anyone interested in the anthropological and sociological aspects of the cartoon!