I've been watching the 90s Sailor Moon anime with my niece (I'm doing my best for >>4373554) and it's gotten me thinking about Usagi (Sailor Moon) and Rei (Sailor Mars) again.

To the no doubt tiny number of /u/ unfamiliar with 90s magical girl anime, Rei and Usagi spend most of the first season fighting over everything, including a guy. Then, towards the end, they reach an understanding and become extremely close instead. As Ikuhara takes over in S2, their closeness starts involving a lot more touching and blushing than any other friendship in the series.

I don't know if anyone's ever talked about it on record (there's an old interview where Ikuhara sort of implies it), but it seems obvious the subtext is intentional. You don't really draw something like this by accident and they're both attracted to girls other than each other. The resident ESP lesbian Michiru even compares their relationship to her and her girlfriend's in the last season, made after Ikuhara left.

The thing I find incredibly compelling is that the relationship is doomed. Usagi's destined to marry the previously-mentioned guy, and it is of cosmic significance. And while Usagi herself is perfectly happy to marry him, Usagi's scenes and chemistry with her are better. They absolutely did not need to do any of that. The manga, for instance, gives Rei mutual gay feelings for Sailor Venus. What they did subverts the central het love story and looks forward to Utena's more open attack on heteronormativity.

So anyway, there's an esoteric yuri tragedy at the heart of this cartoon for seven-year-olds and it gave me a wound that will not heal.