Debunking the Myth of Naoko Takeuchi having "no friends".

A popular “wholesome meme” that has been periodically making the rounds over the last few years is a screenshot image of the text “Let's celebrate Naoko Takeuchi. She was a struggling artist when she created Sailor Moon. 'I was at a low place, so I write about girls I wished were my friends.'”

In the age of easily shareable, bite-sized quotes on social media, it's easy to get hooked into a feel-good, wholesome meme. So of course whenever this specific image is posted, it tends to go viral and spread like wildfire. It's been shared online probably thousands of times, everywhere from Facebook to Reddit to Twitter, and people share it because, well, Sailor Moon is important to its fans, and this seems like the underdog story of the century, right???

Except that all signs point to it being not true. At all.

The Anime Nostalgia Podcast ep 06

 

Here's a shorter in-between-longer-episodes ep of The Anime Nostalgia Podcast, in which I answer the "40 Anime Questions" meme that's been floating around Tumblr here and there. I figured this was a fun way for my listeners who don't know me all that well to get a bit of an idea of what kind of stuff I liked, mixed with a little of my first anime titles and personal opinions.


Stream the episode above, or [Direct Download]

If you're more into podcast episodes where I talk to guests about specific topics, fear not--I have another episode just like that (which I'm editing as we speak!) that will be released before the end of the month. So hopefully this will tide you over until then.

(I should note that when I copied down the meme, I apparently got a copy of it where 1 question was accidentally asked twice...it seems to have been revised since then, thankfully. If you want to do the meme yourself, check out the questions here.)

As always, feel free to give me your thoughts and comments on this and for future episodes! Thanks for listening!