Ask John: What is the Significance of the Moon in Anime?

Question:
What is the significance of the moon in anime?

Answer:
As far as I’m aware, in most anime the moon has no more significance in anime than it does in Western literature and cinema. There are cases, though, in which the moon does have a thematic significance to the anime in which it is used. Of course, the most obvious example is Sailormoon. Beside it’s references to Greek mythology and the Greek moon goddess Selene, Sailormoon makes reference to the Chinese myth of Chang-o. In a nutshell, according to this myth, when the divine archer Yi was cursed with mortality, he sought to undo this punishment by procuring a bottle of immortality elixir. His wife drank the potion and ascended to the moon. There she met a white rabbit mixing medicinal herbs and turned into a toad. Thus while Western lore believes in a “man on the moon,” Eastern lore tells of a rabbit on the moon. This applies to Sailormoon in the regard that Sailormoon’s name, Tsukino Usagi, is a pun of “tsuki no usagi,” meaning “rabbit of the moon.” This rabbit on the moon myth also appears early in Dragonball when little Son Goku knocks “Boss Rabbit” all the way to the moon.

Japan also has the myth of “Kaguya-hime,” or “Taketori Monogatari” in which a moon princess baby descends to earth and is discovered inside a piece of bamboo. Although Kaguya-hime has many suitors and parents that love her dearly, after four years her retainers fetch her and tragically she leaves behind everything she loves and returns to the moon. References to this story also appear in Sailormoon, notably as the subtitle and theme of the Sailormoon S movie, “Kaguya-hime no Koibito” (Boyfriend of the Moon Princess). The first Denshin Mamotte Shugogetten OAV also focused on a class play presentation of Kaguya-hime that parallels the “Ah! My Goddess-like” story of Moon Guardian Shaolin and Japanese high-school boy Tasuke.