How Is Sailor Moon A Gender Bender

Why is Sailor Moon considered a Gender Bender?

I’m not sure what you mean in the context of “Gender Bender”. Sailor Moon/Usagi Tsukino is more of a cis-gendered woman in the series. She doesn’t really have a male counterpart in Western or Eastern animation that could have her be considered “Gender Bending”.If you mean Gender Bending in reference to gender identity of other characters in the series, Lynn described that perfectly for Sailor Uranus (Haruka Tenoh) and Sailor Neptune (Michiru Kaioh). Sailor Uranus could be considered “bigendered” in that she has both male and female qualities to her character and personality.If you mean the anime, manga, and the mangaka, Naoko Takeuchi writing characters a different way; then that overall is a longer story.Anime wise, countries edited things differently depending on social norms. In a previous answer of mine, the US edited quite a bit of things to make it seem more acceptable; and ultimately have it also “kid friendly” in their eyes. Zoisite (Season 1) was changed to a woman, because in the original version he was in a same-sex relationship to Kunzite, another man. Fisheye could be considered transgender, as their gender was changed to female. In the original Japanese version, she/they cross-dressed often and went after only male victims. Zirconia, one of the villains in SuperS, was changed to male based off her appearance and voice in the original version (my speculation).Sailor Stars never aired in the U.S.; which could be due to the fact that Sailor Star Fighter, Sailor Star Maker, and Sailor Star Healer all went from male to female during transformations. Naoko herself wasn’t too happy about that, as she wrote them as more of crossdressers (females dressing as males) in the original manga. Sailor Star Fighter (Seiya Kou) also gives off a similar demeanor and personality like Haruka as well. Plus, she or he totally hits on Usagi in Sailor Stars!

Why is Sailor Moon the leader?

Quick answer: Nobility. Because in essence, the entire Sailor mythos is ultimately based on a distant (prehistoric) version of feudalism where Usagi/Bunny was the woman in charge. In other words, like any other noblewoman, she rules because of bloodline and tradition.Longer answer: To properly understand the context, one needs to be aware that the overall SailorMoon timeline starts somewhere way, way back in the era of prehistory.According to the lore, back then, there was a race of very-longlived (non-human but mostly human-looking) beings dwelling on our moon. They erected a small but dazzling civilization in the Mare Serenitas, called the "Moon Kingdom". It was allegedly older than the budding civilizations on earth, but tried to foster and help them. That era is commonly referred to as the "Silver Milennium" in the various works. The Moon Kingdom (yes, that's the moon in the sky, it's... complicated.)It was at some point in this period that the Moon Kingdom introduced very powerful "guardians". It's not entirely clear what they were called back in the day, but they existed as a sort of small praetorian elite guard to protect the royal family - as well as to generally safeguard the overall territory of the earth/moon. And there's the catch - Tsukino Usagi, the lead protagonist of the show, is supposed to be a direct reincarnation of "Princess Serenity", once a (the?) leading member of the royal family of that Moon Kingdom. The other sailor scouts are reincarnations of those ancient "guardians", and owe her loyalty by way of... well bloodline and tradition, as mentioned up there.Pictured: Boss and EmployeesOr, phrased in a less romantic way: All the "Sailors" are technically reincarnations of prehistoric aliens. And everyone except for "Moon" was part of a lower social caste back then - as such, they are supposed to obey their superiors.