Comics by Xan
Death of a memory
Jun 30, 2023 at 1:46pmWeb
Show threadComics by XanJun 30, 2023

TRANScription

PANEL 1
Sailor Moon is very important to me. It's possibly my favorite show of all time. I got into it around 2002, after it had finished airing in Japan.
But my first memory of it was much earlier.
PANEL 2
I was twelve years old. It was late summer, 1993. I was reading a Super NES magazine called Super Pro. I was on the bus, going to visit my dad, who was in hospital.
The magazine had reviews of Super Mario All Stars and Street Fighter II Turbo, and a guide to The Lost Vikings.

Show threadComics by XanJun 30, 2023
PANEL 3
And there was a full page ad for... something related to Sailor Moon. I remember not being quite sure what it was.
PANEL 4
Years later, I remembered this ad, and wondered what it could have been for. Sailor Moon had started in Japan just a year prior. It wouldn't be out in English in any form for a few more years.
PANEL 5
Was this an ad for bootleg tapes? Very early fansubs? It wasn't for a game, I was sure of that.
It's a mystery that's quietly bugged me for years.
Show threadComics by XanJun 30, 2023
PANEL 6
Recently, I discovered that somebody had archived old issues of Super Pro. To my excitement, I found the very issue I remembered reading on the bus that day.
I combed through it, looking for the ad, and I discovered...
PANEL 7
The ad never existed.
PANEL 8
But I did find a very small ad for VHS tapes of Vampire Hunter D and Project A-ko...
Show threadComics by XanJun 30, 2023
PANEL 9
And a reference a few issues later to the Sailor Moon Super NES game in Japan.
"This month sees the toon-craze continue with yet more games based on obscure Japanese anime TV series. Already out by the time you read this will be Angel's Sailor Moon, a 12MBit side-scrolling beat-'em-up. The graphics were created by the TV series' animators and there's plenty of sampled speech too."
Show threadComics by XanJun 30, 2023
"The five girly characters on offer are all, apparently, sailors! They might not look like your average Royal Navy rating but they have some mean death moves!"
(Yeah, that description. No Internet back then, kids)
PANEL 10
I think, over time, my memory fused elements of both VHS covers together, and the name Sailor Moon became associated with them both.
As I saw snippets of Sailor Moon in later years, these filled in the gaps, creating this new memory from fragments of others.
Show threadComics by XanJun 30, 2023
PANEL 11
They say the act of recalling a memory changes it slightly. By thinking about this ad so much over the years, I'd reinforced it, turned it into something concrete, and bigger than it really was.
I suppose I'm glad to have solved the mystery, but I can't help feeling a little sad.
PANEL 12
I think I took comfort in the idea that the scared child I was back then had this brief brush with something that would ultimately give me so much joy. Now that link between us has been severed.
Show threadComics by XanJun 30, 2023
PANEL 13
I wish I could reach back in time to the person I was, and tell her that she survives. Tell her who she becomes. But I wonder... would she have even understood? Would the me from back then have been emboldened by such knowledge?
PANEL 14
I'd like to say I would have been, but the truth is...
My memory of those days isn't what it used to be.
Show threadFaith, Purple haired feminist 🧋   Jun 30, 2023
@comicsbyxan 😢 That's beautiful! 💜