Is Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon Anime's Gateway Drug?

Many people who began watching anime in the nineties cite this program as being the most influential and often the first they viewed.

Sailor Moon, a show beloved by many thousands of people from all walks of life and age groups, is the story of a young girl who has no ambition in life other than to be a teenager. This incredibly clumsy, and educationally dysfunctional, girl suddenly finds herself with a talking cat, a sacred mission, horrible memories of a lost kingdom, and terrifying encounters with some of the strangest creatures in existence. While these creatures seem far too comical to be realistic or even remotely fright inducing to the average person, I often found myself considering what I would do if faced with such opponents. She would eventually find out she was a princess and run into a dozen or so friends to help her battle, even though only nine were primary sailor senshi. The rest sort of did the best they could, or came in much later in the series and were from outside the planetary system. Each of the primary senshi were connected to one of the planets of our solar system, and that is from where they derived their powers and abilities.

Sailor Moon is a series primarily dealing with the power of love and friendship over coming all obstacles and utilizing these powers as a team to protect the world from menaces both hilarious and nefarious. The series even had social commentary in the vein of 'Sailor Moon says' at the end of each episode. These were short little vignettes that ranged from the importance of homework to the need to go out and exercise.

Most people naturally assume that since this show is about a magical girl sentai team, think power rangers except that they are teenage girls with actual acting ability and competent enemies, that it was aimed entirely at young girls. This fallacy is solely due to the way that the shows were dubbed and censored when brought to America from Japan. Many loyal fans feel that Dic, the company responsible for dubbing the shows, butchered its content and removed most of what made the series phenomenal.