The Sailor Moon manga opens with Usagi, who is late for school as usual. On her way there she accidentally steps on a black cat with plasters on it's face. She peels them off, exposing a crescent shaped "bald-spot". The reference to the moon shape on Luna as a "bald-spot" continues throughout the acts of the first book, much to Luna's chagrin. Revealing the crescent moon, restores Luna's powers and, as we find out later, allows her to identify the clumsy Usagi as Sailor Moon.
Much of the earlier pages are spent establishing Usagi's character as a normal girl, with normal friends, who enjoys gossip and shopping. We are however alerted to the fact that Usagi is failing school when she recieves a grade of 30/100 on a test. Her protest of "But i hate English!" only serves to cement her in the readers mind as being perhaps slightly childish. This however is where the characters main development takes place over subsequent acts.
Usagi's friend Naru Osaka is the daughter of a jewellery store owner and it is here that we first meet an enemy from the Dark Kingdom. Naru's mother (who is tied up in the basement) has been replaced by a minion of Jaedite who is stealing energy and searching for the Silver crystal. Usagi, oblivious to this goes along to a sale but finds that she cannot afford anything and due to failing her test is unlikely to be able to convince her parents to purchase her a gift. Unwittingly, these facts save her.
Later, while taking a nap, Usagi is awoken by Luna who tells her that she is a warrior, here to protect a mystical princess and find a crystal. Usagi, understandably, believes it to be dream and attempts to go back to sleep but Luna gives her brooch which immediately perks up the fashion conscious 14 year old. After her first transformation, Usagi shows one of her most appealing traits; her ability to toss all of her doubts aside in order to save a friend. In the first and last use of her goggles, Sailor Moon sees her friend Naru being attacked by the creature that has taken the place of her mother.
Next thing we know, Usagi is at the jewellery shop to save her friend. She wins the fight in truly spectacular cry-baby style and saves the day leaving her friend to tell everyone about the new heroine on the scene, Sailor Moon!
Also important in this act, is that it is the kick-start for the love story between Princess Serenity and Prince Endymion. The first meeting between Usagi and Mamoru does not go particularly well. While sulking about her low test score and lamenting the fact that her parents will not buy her anything from the jewellery store sale, Usagi throws her scrunched-up test paper behind herself, accidentaly hitting Mamoru in the face. He tells her off, calling her "cow-tails". This annoys her and her first observation about him is that "he thinks he's so cool". After Sailor Moon's first battle however, she meets Tuxedo Kamen who was observing her from the shadows. Not realising that he and Mamoru are one and the same, Usagi is rather taken with the well dressed man and this begins a love affair that will last throughout the Sailor Moon story.
This act introduces the two absolute main characters in the manga plot line; Usagi and Mamoru, while drawing the reader into the story by maintaining a certain level of mystery alongside the dramatic irony of the duel characters, e.g. the fact that Mamoru is also Tuxedo Kamen. This encourages the reader to continue reading as we want to know if these two characters will ever know what we do about each other.
"Luna! I don't get any of this, but Naru's in trouble!" - Usagi Tsukino, Act 1.
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