Sailor Moon, known in Japan as Pretty Soldier Sailormoon or Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon (美少女戦士セーラームーン, Bishōjo Senshi Sērāmūn?), is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Naoko Takeuchi. Fred Patten credits Takeuchi with popularizing the concept of a team of magical girls, and Paul Gravett credits the series with revitalizing the magical girl genre itself. Sailor Moon redefined the magical girl genre, as previous magical girls did not use their powers to fight evil, but this has become one of the standard archetypes of the genre.
The story of the various metaseries revolves around the reborn defenders of a kingdom that once spanned the Solar System and the evil forces that they battle. The major characters – the Sailor Senshi (literally "Sailor Soldiers"; called "Sailor Scouts" or "Guardians" in Western versions) – are teenage girls who can transform into heroines named for the Moon and planets. The use of "Sailor" comes from a style of girls' school uniform popular in Japan, the sērā fuku ("Sailor outfit"), on which Takeuchi modeled the Sailor Senshi's uniforms. The fantasy elements in the series are heavily symbolic and often based on mythology.
Before writing Sailor Moon, Takeuchi had written Codename: Sailor V, which centered around just one Sailor Senshi. She devised the idea when she wanted to create a cute series about girls in outer space, and her editor suggested she should put them in sailor fuku. When Sailor V was proposed by Toei for adaptation into an anime, the concept was modified by Takeuchi so that Sailor V herself became only one member of a team. The resulting manga series merged elements of the popular magical girl genre and the Super Sentai Series which Takeuchi admired, making Sailor Moon the first series ever to combine the two.
The manga resulted in spinoffs into other types of media, including an anime adaptation, musical theatre productions, video games, and a tokusatsu (live action drama) series; it spawned a successful media franchise. Although most concepts in the many versions overlap, often notable differences occur, and thus continuity between the different formats remains limited.
