What's Japanese in Japanese Animation?

What's Japanese in Japanese Animation? The Japanese school system is another speed bump on the road to understanding the Japanese aspects of anime. The American school system is very different from the Japanese, thus making it difficult for American viewers to understand certain troubles characters experience. For instance, every Japanese student must pass shiken jigoku, or examination hell; students take rigorous entrance exams not only for college, but for high school and elementary school as well. These exams either make or break a Japanese student, because the school they attend intimately affects their whole future (Poitras 118). A graphic novel for Sailor Moon Super S includes a special addition in the back of the book called the exam battle chapters. These show the Sailor Scouts studying for their entrance exams and the stress that it causes them, which sometimes leaves them weak against their opponents from the Dark Moon Circus (Sailor Moon Super S vol 2). Another aspect of the Japanese school system shown in Sailor Moon is the public display of test grades. Similar to some American colleges, students receive their grades by consulting a list of scores in the front hall of the school. This practice is shown best in the Sailor Moon movie Amy’s First Love, where Amy, a.k.a. Sailor Mercury, keeps getting slightly lower scores than a student known only as Mercurius. The Sailor Scouts assume that Mercurius is sent by their enemy, the Dark Moon Circus, althought he turns out be harmless. Also in the Sailor Moon series, the main characters wear Japanese school uniforms, called sailor fuku, or sailor suits (Poitras 108). This style of uniform for middle and high school girls resembles European sailor uniforms. It is also where the ‘sailor’ part of Sailor Moon came from. In the Japanese version of the series, Sailor Moon’s catch often shouts "I’m the pretty soldier in a sailor suit!"