Ask John: Was Miracle Girls Inspired by Sailor Moon?

Question:
I was browsing the manga section of Borders the other day and I came across the title “Miracle Girls” by Nami Akimoto, and the artist’s style struck me as oddly familiar. In comparison, I picked up a random copy of the Sailor Moon manga and studied the two side by side. The similarity in artwork was almost uncanny! My question is, was Nami Akimoto heavily influenced as a mangaka by the legendary Naoko Takeuchi, or is Takeuchi-sensei penning her work under a different name now?

Answer:
My suspicion is that the art style of both Nami Akimoto’s Miracle Girls and Naoko Takeuchi’s Sailor Moon were influenced by the visual and artistic style of shoujo manga that pre-dated them both. But more specific to these two titles, it’s actually not possible that Akimoto’s Miracle Girls was influenced by Sailor Moon because Miracle Girls is the older manga series of the two.

Miracle Girls debuted in Nakayoshi Magazine in the November 1990 issue. Naoko Takeuchi’s Codename Sailor V premiered in Nakayoshi Magazine eight months later, in July 1991. The Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon manga didn’t premier until December 1991, more than a year after Miracle Girls was first published.

In case there’s any question, as far as I know, Nami Akimoto and Naoko Takeuchi are distinctly different people.