Saturday Night Live Drops Spot-On Nods to Sailor Moon and Digimon

Saturday Night Live is back with a new year of content, and 2021 will have its own array of gags to go viral online. Of course, Weekend Update continues to be a heavy hitter when it comes to quotable moments, and that was made clear this past weekend. After all, the show had some clever anime references baked in, and we are pointing them out for everyone who may have missed them.

If you watched Weekend Update, the first big nod came from cast member Bowen Yang. The comedian took part in a skit addressing the high-profile string of anti-Asian hate crimes in the United States. It was there Yang gave audiences some actionable things to do to support Asian Americans, and he made the crowd roar with laughter with his last plea.

“Call your senators and demand that they know about the lesbian characters in Sailor Moon,” Yang demanded.

The gag was a clever one to mention, and it definitely has merit. If you did not know, Sailor Moon features a lesbian couple with Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune. The couple was presented as family in the English dub of Sailor Moon, but that is not the case in the original series. The anime clearly presented the two scouts as lesbians, but censors ultimately removed that content from North American dubs.

The other anime reference came from a skit dedicated to NFT, a booming type of digital artwork that is selling for big bucks. In the segment, fans watched as one cast member showed off a bunch of parody art, and one of them was all about Digimon. The crude drawing showed Agumon and Gabumon squaring up for battle. So if you missed this blink-and-miss moment, you best try to catch this episode again!

Did you even notice these little nods? Which other shows need a spot on SNL…? Share your thoughts with us in the comments section below or hit me up on Twitter @MeganPetersCB.