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MG Project: Wedding Peach analysis
Jan. 6th, 2012 01:35 pmThis week on the Magical Girl Project, I take on the unholy abomination known as... Wedding Peach.
For those not in the know, Wedding Peach is a Magic Warrior anime that premiered in 1995, based on a 1994 manga of the same name. It's also the one Magical Girl series that most frequently gets accused of being a Sailor Moon "ripoff." Go to any Wedding Peach video on Youtube, and you'll find a comments section plagued by boneheaded flame wars between the Wedding Peach fans and the Sailor Moon fans.
Out of curiosity, I decided to skim some of the series to find out once and for all if the "ripoff" label is valid, but first let's debunk a common misconception about Wedding Peach:
Sailor Moon and Wedding Peach were not written by the same person. However they do share one writer — the co-author of the WP original manga, who served as one of four writers on the WP anime, also was the scriptwriter on 35 assorted episodes of the first 3 seasons of Sailor Moon. The two shows also share the same character designer, which I think is a big reason for the "ripoff" accusations — the shows' art styles are almost identical. However, aside from those two people, the two shows have entirely different production staffs.
So after watching portions of the series, here's my verdict: Wedding Peach does not rip off Sailor Moon. Honestly I wish it had, because then it might be worth a damn.
I should probably explain that.
As far as parallels, Wedding Peach is no more similar to Sailor Moon than any other Magical Girl show in which a group of teenage girls fight evil and save the world. Most of the tropes WP and SM have in common are just standard Magic Warrior tropes — calling your attacks, stock footage, nude transformations, "in the name of the moon" speeches, trademark poses, brainwashed boyfriend, the power of looooove, monsters/victims of the week, and of course the clumsy dumbass "this loser is you" heroine.
Beyond that, WP has a lot of details that differ from SM. The outfits, for a start: SM's were based on sailor-suit school uniforms, while WP's look more like armor, specifically that particular variety of pretty-but-useless armor that female characters always wear in fantasy series. The hair colors and styles of the girls are different between the two shows, WP's heroine has a dead mom, and the girls of WP start out the series as best friends, as opposed to the SM crew who only met after getting their powers. WP has a Tuxedo-Mask-style mysterious protector, but he has more of a knightly look to him, carries a sword, is from another world, and ends up romancing one of the girl-posse members instead of the heroine. The cutesy mascot actually starts out as a villain who gets converted and switches sides a few episodes in. I could go on, but basically when you examine the nitty-gritty, Wedding Peach is too frequently different from Sailor Moon to be a straight ripoff.
So what's the problem with Wedding Peach? Well, it's bland. It just doesn't seem to have any clear identity of its own, and what little identity it does have is laughably dorky. For example, look at the theme-naming for each series. Sailor Moon's theme-naming is a rich trove of references to astronomy and Greco-Roman myth. Wedding Peach on the other hand has a theme of, well, weddings. Some of the attack names are things like, no joke, "Passionate Cake Cut!" and "Wedding Engagement Gift, Saint Crystal Love For You!" But even the wedding theme isn't terribly consistent; the show also has a flower theme, with each of the posse-members being named after a flower, and an overall theme of over-the-top girlyness — one of the girls' main magical device is a freaking lipstick whose main attack is called "Saint Lipliner Lily Rainbow!" I mean, Sailor Moon could be a pretty silly at times ("Star Gentle Uterus" anyone?) but its silliness pales in comparison to Wedding Peach.
Another problem with Wedding Peach is that the theme of each girl seems poorly defined. In Sailor Moon, as in most posse-based shows, each girl has her own distinct attack specialization, usually elementally based — water, fire, lightning, love/metal, sky, ocean, time, death/silence, etc. In Wedding Peach however, the girls don't seem to have a clear specialization. Lily has "Lily Rainbow," a lasso attack, and "Saint Astral Stardust," which blasts stars at you; in the sequel, she gets a whip, which I guess kind of matches the rainbow lasso. Daisy has "Daisy Blizzard" and "Saint Tornado Dreaming" which implies a weather theme, although that's not evident in her character or henshin. And Salvia's defining combat trait is that she has a sword. Just, a sword. That's it. Add to this the fact that the girls' personalities can be summed up as "ladylike," "tomboy," and "arrogant aloof ally" respectively, and this lack of coherent themes makes them feel indistinct and forgettable. Even their "greyskull" spells are homogeneous-sounding — to transform, they yell "Wedding [Adjective] Flower!" with the adjective being Beautiful, Graceful, Attractive, or Excellent. *snore* Sailor Moon's girls may not have been terribly deep characters, but at least they stood out from one another and were easy to tell apart.
And finally, while Sailor Moon's conflict was a fairly simplistic fight between good and evil, with copious use of the power of loooove on the side of the goodies, its handling of the core conflict looks subtle and nuanced in comparison to Wedding Peach's thuddingly obvious approach. The heroes are called the "Love Angels," their boss is Aphrodite, and their enemies are simply the "Devils." The Angels' main power source is the "Love Wave," and dear god did I get completely sick of hearing characters bang on and on about the freaking Love Wave. It sounded stupid the first time and gets exponentially stupider with every reiteration. This show takes the whole concept of weaponized love and the care-bear stare and enemies who are physically injured by love to ridiculous extremes. The word "love" gets bandied about so frequently that it ceases to have any meaning or significance, and it just makes the show sound shallow and stupid.
In conclusion, here's my theory on why Wedding Peach gets so frequently labelled as a ripoff: it's so bland and boring that the only aspects of the show that stand out are the bits that were borrowed from the vastly superior Sailor Moon. Wedding Peach does do a lot of things different to Sailor Moon, but none of those differences are memorable enough or interesting enough to give it a distinct identity. Heck, I watched it yesterday and I'm already struggling to remember stuff about it. It's a show that completely fails to leave a lasting impression.
For those not in the know, Wedding Peach is a Magic Warrior anime that premiered in 1995, based on a 1994 manga of the same name. It's also the one Magical Girl series that most frequently gets accused of being a Sailor Moon "ripoff." Go to any Wedding Peach video on Youtube, and you'll find a comments section plagued by boneheaded flame wars between the Wedding Peach fans and the Sailor Moon fans.
Out of curiosity, I decided to skim some of the series to find out once and for all if the "ripoff" label is valid, but first let's debunk a common misconception about Wedding Peach:
Sailor Moon and Wedding Peach were not written by the same person. However they do share one writer — the co-author of the WP original manga, who served as one of four writers on the WP anime, also was the scriptwriter on 35 assorted episodes of the first 3 seasons of Sailor Moon. The two shows also share the same character designer, which I think is a big reason for the "ripoff" accusations — the shows' art styles are almost identical. However, aside from those two people, the two shows have entirely different production staffs.
So after watching portions of the series, here's my verdict: Wedding Peach does not rip off Sailor Moon. Honestly I wish it had, because then it might be worth a damn.
I should probably explain that.
As far as parallels, Wedding Peach is no more similar to Sailor Moon than any other Magical Girl show in which a group of teenage girls fight evil and save the world. Most of the tropes WP and SM have in common are just standard Magic Warrior tropes — calling your attacks, stock footage, nude transformations, "in the name of the moon" speeches, trademark poses, brainwashed boyfriend, the power of looooove, monsters/victims of the week, and of course the clumsy dumbass "this loser is you" heroine.
Beyond that, WP has a lot of details that differ from SM. The outfits, for a start: SM's were based on sailor-suit school uniforms, while WP's look more like armor, specifically that particular variety of pretty-but-useless armor that female characters always wear in fantasy series. The hair colors and styles of the girls are different between the two shows, WP's heroine has a dead mom, and the girls of WP start out the series as best friends, as opposed to the SM crew who only met after getting their powers. WP has a Tuxedo-Mask-style mysterious protector, but he has more of a knightly look to him, carries a sword, is from another world, and ends up romancing one of the girl-posse members instead of the heroine. The cutesy mascot actually starts out as a villain who gets converted and switches sides a few episodes in. I could go on, but basically when you examine the nitty-gritty, Wedding Peach is too frequently different from Sailor Moon to be a straight ripoff.
So what's the problem with Wedding Peach? Well, it's bland. It just doesn't seem to have any clear identity of its own, and what little identity it does have is laughably dorky. For example, look at the theme-naming for each series. Sailor Moon's theme-naming is a rich trove of references to astronomy and Greco-Roman myth. Wedding Peach on the other hand has a theme of, well, weddings. Some of the attack names are things like, no joke, "Passionate Cake Cut!" and "Wedding Engagement Gift, Saint Crystal Love For You!" But even the wedding theme isn't terribly consistent; the show also has a flower theme, with each of the posse-members being named after a flower, and an overall theme of over-the-top girlyness — one of the girls' main magical device is a freaking lipstick whose main attack is called "Saint Lipliner Lily Rainbow!" I mean, Sailor Moon could be a pretty silly at times ("Star Gentle Uterus" anyone?) but its silliness pales in comparison to Wedding Peach.
Another problem with Wedding Peach is that the theme of each girl seems poorly defined. In Sailor Moon, as in most posse-based shows, each girl has her own distinct attack specialization, usually elementally based — water, fire, lightning, love/metal, sky, ocean, time, death/silence, etc. In Wedding Peach however, the girls don't seem to have a clear specialization. Lily has "Lily Rainbow," a lasso attack, and "Saint Astral Stardust," which blasts stars at you; in the sequel, she gets a whip, which I guess kind of matches the rainbow lasso. Daisy has "Daisy Blizzard" and "Saint Tornado Dreaming" which implies a weather theme, although that's not evident in her character or henshin. And Salvia's defining combat trait is that she has a sword. Just, a sword. That's it. Add to this the fact that the girls' personalities can be summed up as "ladylike," "tomboy," and "arrogant aloof ally" respectively, and this lack of coherent themes makes them feel indistinct and forgettable. Even their "greyskull" spells are homogeneous-sounding — to transform, they yell "Wedding [Adjective] Flower!" with the adjective being Beautiful, Graceful, Attractive, or Excellent. *snore* Sailor Moon's girls may not have been terribly deep characters, but at least they stood out from one another and were easy to tell apart.
And finally, while Sailor Moon's conflict was a fairly simplistic fight between good and evil, with copious use of the power of loooove on the side of the goodies, its handling of the core conflict looks subtle and nuanced in comparison to Wedding Peach's thuddingly obvious approach. The heroes are called the "Love Angels," their boss is Aphrodite, and their enemies are simply the "Devils." The Angels' main power source is the "Love Wave," and dear god did I get completely sick of hearing characters bang on and on about the freaking Love Wave. It sounded stupid the first time and gets exponentially stupider with every reiteration. This show takes the whole concept of weaponized love and the care-bear stare and enemies who are physically injured by love to ridiculous extremes. The word "love" gets bandied about so frequently that it ceases to have any meaning or significance, and it just makes the show sound shallow and stupid.
In conclusion, here's my theory on why Wedding Peach gets so frequently labelled as a ripoff: it's so bland and boring that the only aspects of the show that stand out are the bits that were borrowed from the vastly superior Sailor Moon. Wedding Peach does do a lot of things different to Sailor Moon, but none of those differences are memorable enough or interesting enough to give it a distinct identity. Heck, I watched it yesterday and I'm already struggling to remember stuff about it. It's a show that completely fails to leave a lasting impression.
