Sailor Jupiter is different in the Manga

The first Sailor Jupiter centric post on this blog is a bit outdated now that I've become a much more informed Sailor Moon fan.  

With Sailor Mars and Sailor Venus the way they are pretty much completely different characters in the 90s Anime to how they were originally written in the Manga is very well known.  Sailor Mercury is on paper the same but criticism does exist of how the 90s Anime sometimes Flanderizes her.

However Sailor Jupiter real name Makoto Kino was also drastically changed by the 90s Anime.  In the Manga chapter that introduces her the moral of the story is about not judging a book by it's cover.  Rumors that Mako liked to get into fights existed but they were actually not true, there is to my knowledge no evidence in the Manga or Crystal that Mako even knows a single move of Karate.  [Correction: there is some reference to her knowing Karate, but it's a lot less the emphasis, and they come later possibly as a reference to the Anime.]

Mako in the Manga is not even remotely a candidate for being "the Tomboy of the group", she is actually arguably the most traditionally hyper feminine and her femininity was only ever called into question because she was taller then average for a Japanese Female Middle Schooler.

In Japan Manga is actually more popular then Anime, over there most Sailor Moon fans were also reading the Manga.  In the west however the Anime was always normally the default understanding of Sailor Moon.  But in time certain Manga facts became well known even to those of us who never read it.

But another difference about Sailor Moon fandom between Japan and the West is that in Japan Ami was the most popular character, always getting the most votes in Anime magazine popularity polls as the show aired and even beyond her influence lives on in how most of the Blue Pretty Cures are just Ami with a new name.  But in North America it is more common for fans to say Sailor Jupiter was their favorite.  

But that popularly was specifically for Mako as she was in the Anime, that she was the one who could win fights even untransformed and yet still be very feminine at the same time.  Because on American TV at the time that was rare, we didn't even have La Femme Nikita or Buffy yet, and on Xena at least early on there was a distinction between the Girly characters and the ass kicking characters. While in Japan female characters like that were already starting to become the norm.

So when American Sailor Moon fans are told that Mars or Venus or even Mercury is better written in the Manga because they're less of a caricature even ones who still never intend to read the Manga are prepared to say "I could believe that".  However those same fans were a lot less prepared to accept that half of what they liked about their favorite character was actually a product of the Anime kinda missing the point.

But what surprises me is how even the segment of American Sailor Moon fans who hate the 90s Anime and keep talking about how the Manga was better still give little attention to specifically how different Mako is.  If they're doing a Podcast on comparing specifically all the different versions of Mako's origin story the difference will be acknowledged, but compared to how they just can't stop complaining about other changes it's basically a foot note.

I have become a fan of both versions of Mako, but that's all the more reason I want the difference to be acknowledged more.

A couple years back Toho made an interesting Trans Affirming commercial using Godzilla, but it also included a clip of Sailor Jupiter playing a role in Minilla's trans awakening.  That Sailor Moon would be referenced isn't that surprising there is a long history of Queer Sailor Moon fandom, but why Sailor Jupiter specifically?  The clip used may have technically been from or based on the 90s Anime but as this was made in Japan it's important to remember the 90s Anime characterization is a lot less the default understanding.

As someone who was myself assigned male at birth and lived presuming myself to be a Cishet Male for most of my life but have been increasingly questioning my gender identity in recent years.  I can say that while Mako isn't Trans in either version her Manga struggle is easy to see as relatable or even inspirational to Trans Women, a Girl who excels at Femineity even though a physical characteristic she has makes people assume she wouldn't.

Characters like how Mako is in the 90s Anime are role models many Girls in general need, Cis or Trans.  With a greater variety of Anime now available to us we have plenty of other characters who have the same appeal consistently across all incarnations of their franchise, like Ran Mouri from Detective Conan aka Case Closed. But Lita was the first for many 90s kids and she will always be important for that reason.