Sailor Moon (English versions)
Encyclopedia
Sailor Moon
is a media franchise
created by Naoko Takeuchi
. The series began as a manga
published in February 1992 and the anime adaptation began airing a month later. Since then, the series have been adapted into several different languages, including English
. One of the series' later localizations (the first dub
having been in French
), the English version has served as a profound introduction of anime to mainstream entertainment around the world. The entire manga series has also been translated into English twice.
The executive producer for the first 82 English adapted anime episodes was Andy Heyward and the other for the entire localization and the three films was Janice Sonski. Lisa Lumby-Richards is the only writer to be credited throughout the seasons, and the only script writer listed in the credits for the three Sailor Moon films and the last 17 episodes of Sailor Moon R.
. After a bidding war with Toon Makers, DIC Entertainment
(which at the time was owned by The Walt Disney Company
) acquired the rights to the first two seasons of the Sailor Moon franchise in early 1995,. Carl Macek
adapted the first few episodes for an English-speaking audience, and was then replaced by Fred Ladd
and Lisa Lumby-Richards. Through the omission of 6 episodes that were considered a lack of interest or inappropriate for the target audience, and the merging of two, the total episode count for the original adapted episodes was reduced from 72 to 65, the minimum number of episodes required for strip syndication
on U.S. television, stopping mid-way through Sailor Moon R. These remaining episodes were each cut by several minutes to make room for more commercials, to censor
plot points or visuals deemed inappropriate for children, and to allow the insertion of brief "educational" segments called "Sailor Says" at the end of each episode. The remaining 17 episodes of Sailor Moon R weren't adapted until 1997 after the series gained popularity in North America and were treated in much the same way; when Sailor Moon R was translated, it was marketed under the same title as the first season. At the time, it was unusual for anime theme songs to be translated, and this was one of the first such themes to be redone in English since Speed Racer
. In addition, some episodes from the first two seasons of Sailor Moon were introduced with the following text:
Production of the North American versions of Sailor Moon S and Sailor Moon Super S, as well as the movies from Cloverway Inc.
(the international branch of Toei Animation
, the Japanese production company), was strikingly different from DIC's dubs of Sailor Moon and Sailor Moon R in that they was much closer to the original version. The original animation and music was kept, except for the opening theme, which was the same as DiC's version with different animation, the closing theme, which omitted the vocal track, and CGI scene transitions which were continued for the edited television broadcast version to maintain consistency with the DiC-produced episodes. The "Sailor Says" segments were eliminated, and much less overt censorship was in evidence, as the rules for children's television in America having been relaxed in the intervening years due to the advent of a TV ratings system
; the show itself was rated "TV-Y7-FV". However, many Sailor Moon fans disliked Cloverway's "Americanization
" of the two series by the addition of slang words (such as "fine" or "buggin'") with no corollary in the Japanese series, as well as incorrect or inconsistent attack and transformation phrases being used at times. They also vehemently objected to the treatment of the characters of Sailor Uranus (Amara/Haruka Tenoh) and Sailor Neptune (Michelle/Michiru Kaioh) during Sailor Moon S. Though it was never stated in the show, in the original Japanese series it was strongly implied that they were lesbian
s, a fact that manga creator Naoko Takeuchi
has confirmed; in Cloverway's adaptation they became "cousins" instead, an attempt to explain their relationship away as something else, since homosexuality is typically an extremely taboo
subject in American children's entertainment.
The Cloverway-dubbed episodes are also notable for not reuniting many key members of the lead voice cast, resulting in many recasts, despite being recorded using the same studio. Out of all the major characters, only Sailor Mars, Sailor Jupiter, Luna, and Artemis retained their voices from the original seasons, however, Mars' voice was different during the additional 17 episodes from Sailor Moon R, making Sailor Jupiter the only inner Sailor Scout to be voiced by a single voice actress throughout the entire English run.
The dubbing in all cases was recorded at Optimum Studios in Toronto, Ontario, with Canadian actors in most of the character roles. The show was originally distributed for broadcast syndication by Seagull Entertainment, and later by Buena Vista Television
(who had obtained an interest in DIC after Disney purchased ABC
) and the Program Exchange. As indicated by the Optimum Productions website
, most the writing staff is employed by Optimum; as such, several writers are common to both the DiC and the Cloverway produced versions of the show (in Cloverway's case, all of the writers were employed by Optimum). The company boasts "trained adapters" who utilize "hip" colloquialized dialogue of the target country.
The English adaptation of Sailor Moon began broadcasting on August 28, 1995, on YTV in Canada, and entered syndication in the United States two weeks later. While the show had moderate success on YTV, in the U.S. the show struggled in early morning "dead" timeslots, implied to be due to local shows taking precedence for better times. The series was removed from syndication in 1996 after the original 65 English episodes were broadcast, leaving it in a cliffhanger
. In response to this, a fan organization called "Save Our Sailors" (SOS) was created. A 1996 Internet petition for the return of Sailor Moon is said to have garnered 30,000 signatures. Syndication meant that it was harder for Sailor Moon to make a profit, as advertising slots had to be sold, and ratings were key to selling advertising spots - which was difficult given the unfavorable times at which Sailor Moon was being aired. SOS organised a procott where fans would buy Pop-Tarts
to persuade them to advertise during Sailor Moon. The show was later picked up for US broadcast by Turner Broadcasting and resurfaced on their USA Network
a year later where it aired for several months before leaving the network after broadcasting all original 65 English episodes.
Although the series aired at various times in America, in Canada it was fairly consistently given an early-afternoon timeslot (YTV scheduled the program for noon), and this consistency may explain how Sailor Moon was initially far more of a ratings success in Canada than in the United States. In addition, the dialogue in the English-dubbed Sailor Moon was recorded in Toronto, and YTV had many on-air interviews with several of the lead voice actors. Since the series was considered legal "Canadian content" by the network, more effort was made to promote the series.
DiC originally dubbed a total of 65 episodes for distribution in 1995, a number that took them approximately two-thirds of the way through Sailor Moon R. Two years later, funding was acquired by DiC to dub the remaining 17 Sailor Moon R episodes into English and the episodes were broadcast in Canada to wrap up lingering plotlines. The last episode of Sailor Moon R was a clip show episode, which featured previews for Sailor Moon S, the show's third season. The remainder of Sailor Moon R was brought over to America a year later, initially billed as "The Lost Episodes."
Cloverway Inc., the international branch of Toei Animation
, the Japanese studio that produced the original version of the anime, later picked up the distribution rights to Sailor Moon S and SuperS from DiC as a result of the show's ongoing popularity.
In 1998, as a result of the Turner deal, Cartoon Network
was given the rights to the original 65 English-dubbed Sailor Moon episodes and began airing them as part of its anime-themed Toonami
block. The decision proved extremely profitable for Cartoon Network, as ratings for the show helped boost viewership for the Toonami programming block and generated revenue and interest for them to acquire more anime shows such as Dragon Ball Z to add to the block. Cartoon Network later acquired the rights to the 17 remaining Sailor Moon R episodes, and subsequently aired English versions of Sailor Moon S and Sailor Moon SuperS. The S and Super S episodes also aired in Canada on YTV in 2000.
The S and SuperS English dubs were first broadcast in 2000 on Cartoon Network as part of their Toonami
programming block, and also on YTV; and 13 episodes of the S dub were picked up for airing on Kids' WB
in September 2001, airing for 2 weeks, even continuing to air the remaining episodes after the September 11 attacks. The films were also licensed by Cloverway and aired on Cartoon Network and YTV. The broadcast syndication license for Sailor Moon in North America expired on May 31, 2004, and Cartoon Network lost the rights to it in May 2003 before this point, thus ending the English version's run in the United States, however, the show was pulled from Cartoon Network's schedule in July 2002 before that point.
In addition to Cloverway's edits, Cartoon Network cut out 1–2 minutes of footage per episode to make room for more commercials when shown on their network. Occasionally, they made additional changes to skip visuals they believed were inappropriate. For example, an image of full rear nudity when Sailor Uranus detransforms was skipped. Most cuts were made similar to DiC Entertainment's censorship policy (see "Alterations" below) although not as harsh nor restricted to just cutting out. Two episodes were skipped by Cartoon Network when the problem could not be solved. Episode 119 for instance was at first skipped because its monster-of-the-day was essentially naked, and thus deemed too risque for the show's target audience. In the series' second run, however, the episode finally aired, and solved the monster's revealing skin by digitally adding in a bikini
to it. Episode 152 was also skipped by Cartoon Network, but for reasons that are not as clear. Like Episode 119, it also eventually aired on the series' second run. The Edited VHS releases of Sailor Moon S and Sailor Moon SuperS by Pioneer Home Entertainment used the cut footage shown on Cartoon Network, while the uncut VHS and DVD releases restore most of the cut scenes, including the controversial ones.
During 1996-97, a total of six VHS tapes, each containing two key (nonconsecutive in most cases) episodes of the series, were released by Buena Vista Home Video
through DIC Entertainment
. These tapes were originally available exclusively through Toys 'R' Us stores, but later saw wider distribution in other chains. In 2001, a VHS boxset containing all thirteen episodes of the "Doom Tree" storyline (the first part of R) was released, also through Buena Vista.
Pioneer Entertainment (later Geneon Entertainment) had the rights to release Sailor Moon S, Super S, and the movies to Region 1 DVD
and VHS
under license from Cloverway. They released the movies in English dubbed and subtitled versions, as well as the edited TV versions, to VHS and DVD in 1999. They released Sailor Moon S and Super S to home video in a similar format in 2000. That same year, ADV Films released the English dubs of Sailor Moon and Sailor Moon R in a 20 volume VHS series series under license from DiC. During 2001, Pioneer had released Sailor Moon S and SuperS in four different stock-keeping units, and released a box set of the movies in that October. The first two seasons were later taken to DVD in 2002, released over fourteen Region-1 DVDs from ADV Films. ADV later released a subtitled version of the entire Sailor Moon and Sailor Moon R series in two separate limited edition DVD box sets in 2004-uncut, except for the removal of next episode previews and one episode (67) from the Sailor Moon R set, and using different versions of some openings than were in the original. ADV's license to distribute Sailor Moon and Sailor Moon R in either form expired at the end of March 2004. Geneon's license expired in 2005.
The plot of episode 67 involves Chibiusa finding and befriending a dinosaur, but not any fighting against the main villains of the series. Its absence is notable due to it being Sailor Moon Rs requisite "summer holiday" episode, of which one was featured in each of the five Sailor Moon series. Some printings of the ADV box set include a full description of episode 67 in their liner notes, perhaps suggesting that the decision to remove it was done relatively late in the production process.
So far, no American company is known to have ever had the rights to release either of the theatrical shorts, the Super S TV special, or the Sailor Stars season.
, the first 65 syndicated episodes of Sailor Moon were first seen afternoons on the ABC
's children's block in late 1995. The following year, they were transferred to the Seven Network
's Agro's Cartoon Connection
. They were replayed there several times, until early 1998, when Seven would finally air the newer 17 episodes. All 82 English episodes would be played on Seven once more; from late 1999 to early 2000 on their morning program, The Big Breakfast
. In early 2002, the series was again transferred, this time to Network Ten
's Cheez TV
. Cheez TV only played the first 65 episodes (twice), and due to classification restrictions, were forced to skip two episodes, "Match Point for Sailor Moon" (ostensibly because the episode's "monster of the day" had visible breasts) and "A Friend in Wolf's Clothing" (due to a graphic death scene).
Sailor Moon also played on Australian cable network Fox Kids in September 2001; Fox Kids was the first Australian outlet to play the entirety of the English-dubbed series, with Sailor Moon S starting in April 2002 and Sailor Moon Super S starting in August 2002. In December 2002, Fox Kids aired a marathon of all 159 episodes over two weeks.
Network Video released six volumes of Sailor Moon on VHS spanning the first 18 episodes in 1996.
In 2002, Madman Entertainment
acquired the rights to Sailor Moon video distribution in Australia and released the 82 DIC dubbed episodes on both DVD and VHS. These releases were nearly identical to the ones by ADV. The releases did well, with Madman stating they were in the process of acquiring the rights to release at least Season 1 uncut with subtitles as well. However, after the rights expired and were not renewed by Toei, this was no longer possible and the English volumes previously released also ceased to be printed.
, now known as Disney XD
, in the United Kingdom
in 1996 using the North American DiC Entertainment dub. Fox Kids repeated the Dark Kingdom arc and the Alan and Ann
arc of Sailor Moon R until airing the rest of R around the end of 2000. Fans with the Internet found out about the later seasons, and signed petitions to put Sailor Moon S on Fox Kids
. Fox Kids stated repeatedly that they were going to, and in 2002 they showed a preview clip with scenes from the S season that declared "New episodes of Sailor Moon coming soon!". The channel, however, never aired the series.
Around this time, ITV1
started showing Sailor Moon in a kids' segment of GMTV
on Saturday mornings, called "Up on the Roof" but later renamed "Toonattik". This, despite time edits which compounded the already problematic DIC Entertainment
cuts, proved popular. However, since Fox Kids held the UK rights for Sailor Moon but would not give them up apart from the inaugural thirteen episodes, Sailor Moon was canceled on that network and shortly thereafter canceled on Fox Kids as well. Although ITV put the first 13 episodes they had on VHS, they did not sell very well. MVM
, a UK anime company, released the dub versions of the first 24 episodes on VHS in 2001/2003, and then the complete first two seasons on DVD in 2003/2004. A box set of the first season were also released, but did not sell well either, a fact MVM attributes to the dub only status of the DVDs, as MVM were unable to secure uncut masters, and major retailers' refusal to support the show meaning the release neither appealed to children nor older anime fans.
, initially airing on YTV in Canada
and various television stations in the United States. Although the basic storyline remained the same, many alterations were made to the original Japanese material in order to make it acceptable for the younger target age group in America. So censorship
was often applied due to differences between Japan
ese and American
ideas about what is and is not appropriate material for younger viewers (a process known as Americanization
).
Some Sailor Moon fans who are familiar with the original Japanese version express dislike over the English adaptation, as the censorship levels of the English-dubbed version ranged from mild to severe. This lead to a negative reaction from Sailor Moon purists. The edits were made in several ways:
General renaming: Besides individual characters, the Sailor Senshi
became the "Sailor Scouts" instead of the more accurate translation "Sailor Soldiers". The latter term is used throughout the S series, whilst the group are almost always introduced as "Sailor Scouts" by Sailor Moon in SuperS. Almost all of the original attacks were renamed despite already being in English, and the phrase "Make-up!" was removed from transformations. It was replaced with the "Scout Power!" or "Transform!" only in group transformations. Scripts were also rewritten to suggest that all enemies came from the so-called "Negaverse," rather than having distinct alliances and histories, although the original manga has all the villains revealed to be different forms of a demon named Chaos. This practice was soon downplayed by DIC themselves, and dropped altogether once Cloverway took over.
Omission of the original Japanese music: The original background music was mainly recorded by a live orchestra, while the English dub music was all computer-made. The melody of the original theme song
, "Moonlight Densetsu" ("Moonlight Legend"), contrary to popular belief, was not retained for the dub's theme song, but the tempo was altered, an electric guitar riff was added, and only a small portion of the original music was retained in the very beginning with very different lyrics and redone instrumentation, animation, and special effects. A shorter version of the same song was used at the ending credits, replacing the original ending credit song. After Cloverway took over from DiC (episode #90 onwards) the original background music was retained, but the DiC theme song was kept.
Title sequences: A new opening sequence was created using clips from the original Japanese openings, as well as clips taken from the series. Most of the clips used were taken from dub episodes 18-40. The names of the all five Guardian Senshi were revealed in the song accompanied by a clip of their first attack. Small transition sequence-animations were added, used whenever the story skipped ahead in time or from one scene or location to another. Some of these were made with CGI
. In addition, the original eyecatch
-animations for the mid-episode commercial breaks were removed, and a differently-colored version of the show's logo was used. The TV and VHS releases of S and SuperS include these alterations, but are not included in the DVD releases.
Plot alterations: Some elements of the plot or dialogue were reworked, often resulting in continuity problems from one episode or one scene to the next. For example, in "Day of Destiny," "Serena" (Usagi) remembers a scene in which she and "Darien" (Mamoru) fall off a balcony and she uses an umbrella to float safely to the ground, but that scene was cut from the actual dub episode from which it came. A one minute "explanation sequence" was added at the beginning of episode one, explaining the background story of the plot. This sequence was edited together by clips from later episodes, combined with a narration voice. Often clips were used in these previews that were not viewed in the English season; defeating the purpose.
Censoring: Complete omission of six episodes by the dubbers for varying reasons not always but usually stemming from content concerns. These included the use of fortune telling and tarot cards in the second episode and Usagi's transformation into an older, "punkish" version of herself to get into a piano bar in the sixth episode. Removal of much of the adolescent sexuality
, and of homosexual
relationships. These relationships were 'solved' in three separate cases: twice by giving effeminate men a female voice actor and using feminine pronouns to make their relationships heterosexual. This was done with Zoisite, who was in a relationship with Kunzite, and with Fisheye, who cross-dressed and was openly attracted to various men (including Mamoru Chiba). They also made the character Zirconia male instead of female, due to fears that her relationship to Queen Nehellenia was bordering on being romantic. They made the characters Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune cousins (with the characters, who should have no knowledge of this fact, stating it regularly) instead of a lesbian couple with mixed results; while some of the flirting was removed, some of it was also left intact in order to appease fans wanting it to be closer to the original. This accidentally implied them to be incestuous lesbian lovers. For scenes of near-nudity, such as transformation sequences, body lines were removed around the breasts and pubic regions, and for bathing scenes, the situation was solved by either digitally "raising" the water level around the cleavage or by eliminating body visibility by toning the water a solid color with the rest of the body being hidden. In the DVD releases, the original sequences were left intact. Also, there were removals of "any violence" including violence to children and removal or alteration of small details like people sticking their tongues out; these scenes were believed to have a potentially negative influence on children's behavior.
Cultural edits: Removal or altering of some, though not all, specifically Japanese cultural references which might not have made sense to English-speaking audiences - for example, changing dumplings to doughnuts, removing references to mock exams and other characteristics of the Japanese school system, such as marking right answers with circles and wrong answers with crosses, and changing the cram school
that Ami Mizuno
attends to a computer school, though the dub script did refer to it as a "cram" school once. At the same time, the English dub left most of the Japanese text on signs, in publications, etc. untouched and untranslated, with a few exceptions, such as the sign over the junior high school. Even things inherent to the animation style, such as the famous Anime Sweat drop, were removed. Some scenes involving cars or buses were also flipped so the vehicles would be driven on the right side of the road instead of the left side. This occasionally caused incongruences when some scenes were not flipped.
Target audience additions: An end-of-show "morals" segment, "Sailor Says", which was added on to each episode to satisfy the contemporary requirement of educational content on American children's TV shows. Again, this no longer occurred after Cloverway began handling the dub. On several occasions, the "Sailor Says" segments - which were played out as voice-overs over vaguely-related clips from the episode they were tacked on to - contained footage that had been cut from the dubbed version of that episode, including some of the more controversial footage.
Editing of "Day of Destiny": Perhaps most remembered among fans was the treatment of the episode "Day of Destiny," which concluded the first series. The original version of this episode was actually two separate episodes, the first of which included the deaths of all the Sailor Soldiers except for Sailor Moon herself; as the storyline progressed, Sailors Jupiter, Mercury, Venus, and Mars sacrificed themselves to protect their friend and leader. The second episode involved the deaths of Tuxedo Mask and ultimately Sailor Moon herself. Though each character was resurrected in the conclusion, it was still deemed necessary to remove all references to death in the American episode: instead of being killed, the Senshi's death scenes were rewritten to say that the girls were captured and held hostage in the Negaverse. Enough editing was required, in fact, that the two episodes were merged into one.
The only Sailor Senshi who retains her original name is Hotaru Tomoe, though in line with English pronunciation practice, the final 'e' in her family name is not pronounced, for ˈtoʊ.moʊ with two syllables, rather than Japanese to.mo.e with three.
The North American version was the first experience with Sailor Moon (if not anime in general) for much of the English-speaking world, and the differences between the two versions led to much confusion. However, many fans worldwide would never have known about the series had it not reached North America, and so many regard the North American version as a mixed blessing. Of course, many fans do like the dub version.
presentation video, as well as a two-minute music video, for this concept, which Renaissance-Atlantic presented to Toei. Toei ultimately rejected Renaissance-Atlantic's bid because the series as Renaissance-Atlantic and Toon Makers envisioned it would have cost significantly more than simply exporting and dubbing the original anime.
The music video was exhibited at a panel at Anime Expo
1998 by Allen Hastings, then with NewTek, Inc.
, and met with scorn, ridicule, and derision. A convention attendee taped the music video off the screen and uploaded the footage, which includes an introduction by Hastings and brief comments by other convention attendees afterwards, to the Internet. The clip has since been copied numerous times and can currently be viewed on many streaming video sites. Because of the relatively poor quality of the source video and circulated footage, many anime fans believed that the music video was actually a leaked trailer for the now-inactive project instead of an exhibition of a promotion piece. Additional copies of the footage, with Hastings' intro excised, have since been uploaded to the Internet and served only to bolster the mistaken belief.
Because Renaissance-Atlantic had previously been instrumental in Saban Entertainment's acquisition of Toei's Super Sentai
series for reimagining as Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, people who viewed the music video mistakenly believed that Saban had actually created it and began to call it "Saban Moon." The Toon Makers music video has been called a worst-case scenario with regards to how Sailor Moon would have been presented in North America, in comparison to the original anime episodes that were eventually dubbed by DIC Entertainment
and Cloverway Inc.
and aired. Rocky Solotoff, Toon Makers' president and founder, wrote, directed, and produced the pilot episode of Renaissance-Atlantic's version of Sailor Moon, which to this day, has not been exhibited publicly.
All five Guardian Senshi are depicted in the music video. Though Solotoff is legally prohibited from divulging much information regarding the Renaissance-Atlantic/Toon Makers version of Sailor Moon, he does reveal, in an interview with Animefringe magazine, the origin of the concept and music video, debunking many of the stories and speculations that had been connected to both. Details revealed in the interview include confirmation that both a white and black cat were planned to be in the series, although only a fluffy white cat is seen in the music video (according to the lyrics, this cat was meant to be Luna), and that each Senshi was written to be of a different nationality.
Two curious remnants of Toon Makers' involvement with Sailor Moon remained after Renaissance-Atlantic shelved the project. The Renaissance-Atlantic series featured vehicles which did not appear in the original metaseries. One of these was the Moon Cycle, which Bandai
manufactured a toy version of as part of the North American line of Sailor Moon toys. The Moon Cycle toy remains one of the more curious pieces of Sailor Moon merchandise produced for the North American market. More prominently, the Sailor Moon logo featured at the end of the music video was retained as the official North American Sailor Moon logo for the metaseries and all related programs and merchandising.
). The manga was initially syndicated in MixxZine
but was later pulled out of that magazine and moved into a secondary magazine called Smile
. Smile serialized the SuperS storyline, while the portions of the earlier storylines that were not finished in MixxZine finished as individual comic books. Daily pages from the Tokyopop version ran in the Japanimation Station, a service accessible to users of America Online. Like many early manga titles released in the US, the Tokyopop editions of the Sailor Moon manga remained flopped in a mirror image to confirm to American book standards for the entire run.
The U.S. Sailor Moon monthly comic ran for 35 issues, and aside from finishing up the Dark Kingdom storyline, it featured the manga versions of Sailor Moon R and Super. The US manga volumes were released as three series: "Sailor Moon", which collects the first three arcs (the Dark Kingdom, Black Moon, and Infinity arcs), Sailor Moon SuperS, which collects the Dream arc, and Sailor Moon Stars, which collects the Stars arc. The original Codename: Sailor V manga was not a part of Mixx/Tokyopop's release. As of May 2005, Tokyopop's license to the Sailor Moon manga has lapsed, and the original Tokyopop editions are officially out of print.
having been used in the text, the editors translated it back from the Japanese rather than using the original English.
Other changes of note are the covers, which do not exactly match the original, and the sizes of the manga are slightly different. (The original is 4.5" x 6.75", but the Mixx manga is 4.5" x 7.75".) As Sailor Moon was Mixx's first title, the quality of its translation in the beginning is considered poor, though it improves somewhat towards the end of its publication run.
Mixx also altered Takeuchi's side-notes in the manga, completely rewriting them so the fundamental points were the same but they took on the appearance of an interview between herself and MixxZine (which did not occur). Cultural references were Americanized, and because Japanese is read right-to-left and English is read left-to-right, Mixx flipped the pages (save for full-page images) so that all the drawings were mirror-images.
The new edition — with "new cover art, retouched interior art and dialogue along with extensive bonus material from Takeuchi" is based on the 2003 Japanese re-release of the manga,. The release's English translation is adapted more close to the Japanese original, and is expected to retain the relationship between Haruka and Michiru. In addition, the Kodansha Comics editions feature all the color pages made for the 2003 Japanese reissue In addition, the books are being produced larger than the Mixx, Tokyopop, and Japanese editions. They are also the first English release of the Sailor Moon manga to be printed in its original right-to-left format as opposed to the left-to-right format of the Mixx/Tokyopop editions.
This first volume of Sailor Moon was published, along with the lead in series Codename: Sailor V, on September 13, 2011. The manga will continue to be released bi-monthly with the next Sailor Moon and Codename: Sailor V volumes being released on November 15, 2011.
The Kodansha USA editions of Sailor Moon have been a success, with Sailor Moon and the first volume of Sailor V topping the New York Times Manga Bestsellers for the week September 11-17 2011 with the #1 and #2 spots, respectively, and remaining in those positions for a second week. Both graphic novels have been consistently on the list, and Kodansha USA had to go into a second printing to meet demand. According to Nielson reports, Sailor Moon Volume 1 was the bestselling graphic novel for both September and October of 2011. There are currently over 100,000 copies of both manga in print. Rebecca Silverman of Anime News Network
noted in her review of the first Sailor Moon volume noted that there were many typos with homonyms, and that the new translation "sometimes sacrifices fluidity of language for accuracy". Although the manga has been generally well received, and is usually regarded as an improvement over the Mixx/Tokyopop editions.
, the final season of the Sailor Moon anime, would not be dubbed because Toei was not putting it up for license. The manga was expected to remain out-of-print as well, although TokyoPop was looking into renegotiating the rights. On May 5, Marc Lunden of Mania Entertainment reported from Anime Central 2007 that "Toei [Animation] currently has a lockdown on all Sailor Moon licenses, but Geneon expressed interest in case the situation changed." However, Geneon was merged with Universal Studios
in February 2009. Similarly, Madman Entertainment
was forced to stop print of the Sailor Moon DVD licenses it acquired, despite the R4 DVD releases being very successful.
In August 2007, Toei held a poll to determine viewer interest in potential series to make available for Video on Demand
. There were 50 options, including popular titles such as Sailor Moon, Digimon
, and Ojamajo Doremi. The results of the poll show that 2535 out of 3979 votes—63.7 percent—had been placed for the Sailor Moon series. The Sailor Moon anime is currently part of a subscription service in Japan where premium members are allowed full access to their titles. This was produced in accordance with the ISP BIGLOBE and subscribers pay ¥1554 (US$13) (UK£6:50) per month.
In May 2009, Funimation Entertainment
released a poll to gauge consumer interest in potential DVD releases; one option was "re-dub of entire Sailor Moon series." This helped viewer interest rise, and got many fans' hopes up that Funimation may indeed license Sailor Moon. A fan campaign, organized by former members of the SOS group, continued to survey fans to gain their opinions on hypothetical details of the redub. The poll has recently closed, and the results have not been publicly revealed.
In 2010, one of several YouTube videos featuring Sailor Moon was removed due to a copyright claim by Funimation. Funimation later commented that, despite their attempts to acquire the rights to Sailor Moon, the company does not have the rights yet. In addition, Sailor Moon in chibi form was featured as a magnet decoration in a Funimation office during a Hetalia Axis Powers preview video.
On March 18, 2011, Kodansha Comics USA
announced that they would be reprinting Sailor Moon in English in new deluxe editions beginning in September 2011, along with its prequel, Codename: Sailor V. The first volume of both series were released on September 13, 2011, and will continue to be to be released bi-monthly.
According to the Italian Sailor Moon website, the North American video game rights to Sailor Moon are owned by Namco Bandai Games
and the American toy rights are owned by Topps
. Hot Topic
has also licensed the exclusive apparel rights to the franchise, and has been offering T-Shirts both online and in Hot Topic stores, along with a Halloween costume as a part of their new costume line; leading some fans to hope that the anime will be licensed for an American release.
Sailor Moon
Sailor Moon, known as , is a media franchise created by manga artist Naoko Takeuchi. Fred Patten credits Takeuchi with popularizing the concept of a team of magical girls, and Paul Gravett credits the series with "revitalizing" the magical-girl genre itself...
is a media franchise
Media franchise
A media franchise is an intellectual property involving the characters, setting and trademarks of an original work of media , such as a film, a work of literature, a television program or a video game. Generally, a whole series is made in a particular medium, along with merchandising and endorsements...
created by Naoko Takeuchi
Naoko Takeuchi
is a Japanese manga artist who lives in Tokyo, Japan. Takeuchi's works have a wide following among anime and manga fans worldwide. Her most popular work, Sailor Moon, rose to become one of the most recognized manga and anime products to date.-Early life:...
. The series began as a manga
Manga
Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...
published in February 1992 and the anime adaptation began airing a month later. Since then, the series have been adapted into several different languages, including English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
. One of the series' later localizations (the first dub
Dubbing (filmmaking)
Dubbing is the post-production process of recording and replacing voices on a motion picture or television soundtrack subsequent to the original shooting. The term most commonly refers to the substitution of the voices of the actors shown on the screen by those of different performers, who may be...
having been in French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
), the English version has served as a profound introduction of anime to mainstream entertainment around the world. The entire manga series has also been translated into English twice.
The executive producer for the first 82 English adapted anime episodes was Andy Heyward and the other for the entire localization and the three films was Janice Sonski. Lisa Lumby-Richards is the only writer to be credited throughout the seasons, and the only script writer listed in the credits for the three Sailor Moon films and the last 17 episodes of Sailor Moon R.
Production
The English adaptation of Sailor Moon was produced in an attempt to capitalize on the success of Mighty Morphin Power RangersMighty Morphin Power Rangers
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers is an American live-action children's television series based on the 16th installment of the Japanese Super Sentai franchise, Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger. Both the show and its related merchandise saw unbridled overnight success, catapulting into pop culture in mere months...
. After a bidding war with Toon Makers, DIC Entertainment
DiC Entertainment
DIC Entertainment was an international film and television production company. In addition to animated television shows such as Ulysses 31 , Inspector Gadget , The Littles , The Real Ghostbusters , Captain Planet and the Planeteers , and the first two seasons of the English adaptation of...
(which at the time was owned by The Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company is the largest media conglomerate in the world in terms of revenue. Founded on October 16, 1923, by Walt and Roy Disney as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, Walt Disney Productions established itself as a leader in the American animation industry before diversifying into...
) acquired the rights to the first two seasons of the Sailor Moon franchise in early 1995,. Carl Macek
Carl Macek
Carl F. Macek was an American writer and controversial anime pioneer and producer of the 1980s and 1990s.-Robotech and Harmony Gold USA:...
adapted the first few episodes for an English-speaking audience, and was then replaced by Fred Ladd
Fred Ladd
Fred Ladd , is an American television and film writer and producer. He is notable as one of the first to introduce Japanese animated cartoons to North America....
and Lisa Lumby-Richards. Through the omission of 6 episodes that were considered a lack of interest or inappropriate for the target audience, and the merging of two, the total episode count for the original adapted episodes was reduced from 72 to 65, the minimum number of episodes required for strip syndication
Television syndication
In broadcasting, syndication is the sale of the right to broadcast radio shows and television shows by multiple radio stations and television stations, without going through a broadcast network, though the process of syndication may conjure up structures like those of a network itself, by its very...
on U.S. television, stopping mid-way through Sailor Moon R. These remaining episodes were each cut by several minutes to make room for more commercials, to censor
Censorship
thumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...
plot points or visuals deemed inappropriate for children, and to allow the insertion of brief "educational" segments called "Sailor Says" at the end of each episode. The remaining 17 episodes of Sailor Moon R weren't adapted until 1997 after the series gained popularity in North America and were treated in much the same way; when Sailor Moon R was translated, it was marketed under the same title as the first season. At the time, it was unusual for anime theme songs to be translated, and this was one of the first such themes to be redone in English since Speed Racer
Speed Racer
Speed Racer is an English adaptation name of the Japanese manga and anime, which centered on automobile racing. Mach GoGoGo was originally serialized in print form in Shueisha's 1958 Shōnen Book, and was released in tankōbon book form by Sun Wide Comics, re-released in Japan by Fusosha...
. In addition, some episodes from the first two seasons of Sailor Moon were introduced with the following text:
Production of the North American versions of Sailor Moon S and Sailor Moon Super S, as well as the movies from Cloverway Inc.
Cloverway Inc.
Cloverway Inc. was the international branch of the Toei Company, headquartered on 444 W Ocean Blvd, Long Beach, California USA. They specialize in distributing Toei properties for release in different countries, and often act as the middle man between distribution in Japan and distribution in...
(the international branch of Toei Animation
Toei Animation
Toei Animation Co., Ltd. is a Japanese animation studio owned by Toei Co., Ltd. The studio was founded in 1948 as Japan Animated Films . In 1956, Toei purchased the studio and it was reincorporated under its current name...
, the Japanese production company), was strikingly different from DIC's dubs of Sailor Moon and Sailor Moon R in that they was much closer to the original version. The original animation and music was kept, except for the opening theme, which was the same as DiC's version with different animation, the closing theme, which omitted the vocal track, and CGI scene transitions which were continued for the edited television broadcast version to maintain consistency with the DiC-produced episodes. The "Sailor Says" segments were eliminated, and much less overt censorship was in evidence, as the rules for children's television in America having been relaxed in the intervening years due to the advent of a TV ratings system
TV Parental Guidelines
The TV Parental Guidelines system was first proposed on December 19, 1996 by the United States Congress, the television industry and the Federal Communications Commission , and went into effect by January 1, 1997 on most major U.S...
; the show itself was rated "TV-Y7-FV". However, many Sailor Moon fans disliked Cloverway's "Americanization
Americanization
Americanization is the influence of the United States on the popular culture, technology, business practices, or political techniques of other countries. The term has been used since at least 1907. Inside the U.S...
" of the two series by the addition of slang words (such as "fine" or "buggin'") with no corollary in the Japanese series, as well as incorrect or inconsistent attack and transformation phrases being used at times. They also vehemently objected to the treatment of the characters of Sailor Uranus (Amara/Haruka Tenoh) and Sailor Neptune (Michelle/Michiru Kaioh) during Sailor Moon S. Though it was never stated in the show, in the original Japanese series it was strongly implied that they were lesbian
Lesbian
Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...
s, a fact that manga creator Naoko Takeuchi
Naoko Takeuchi
is a Japanese manga artist who lives in Tokyo, Japan. Takeuchi's works have a wide following among anime and manga fans worldwide. Her most popular work, Sailor Moon, rose to become one of the most recognized manga and anime products to date.-Early life:...
has confirmed; in Cloverway's adaptation they became "cousins" instead, an attempt to explain their relationship away as something else, since homosexuality is typically an extremely taboo
Taboo
A taboo is a strong social prohibition relating to any area of human activity or social custom that is sacred and or forbidden based on moral judgment, religious beliefs and or scientific consensus. Breaking the taboo is usually considered objectionable or abhorrent by society...
subject in American children's entertainment.
The Cloverway-dubbed episodes are also notable for not reuniting many key members of the lead voice cast, resulting in many recasts, despite being recorded using the same studio. Out of all the major characters, only Sailor Mars, Sailor Jupiter, Luna, and Artemis retained their voices from the original seasons, however, Mars' voice was different during the additional 17 episodes from Sailor Moon R, making Sailor Jupiter the only inner Sailor Scout to be voiced by a single voice actress throughout the entire English run.
The dubbing in all cases was recorded at Optimum Studios in Toronto, Ontario, with Canadian actors in most of the character roles. The show was originally distributed for broadcast syndication by Seagull Entertainment, and later by Buena Vista Television
Buena Vista Television
Disney-ABC Domestic Television is the domestic television syndication firm of the Disney-ABC Television Group, a division of The Walt Disney Company, that handles the television distribution of product from Walt Disney Television, Walt Disney Television Animation, BVS Entertainment, and ABC...
(who had obtained an interest in DIC after Disney purchased ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
) and the Program Exchange. As indicated by the Optimum Productions website
Website
A website, also written as Web site, web site, or simply site, is a collection of related web pages containing images, videos or other digital assets. A website is hosted on at least one web server, accessible via a network such as the Internet or a private local area network through an Internet...
, most the writing staff is employed by Optimum; as such, several writers are common to both the DiC and the Cloverway produced versions of the show (in Cloverway's case, all of the writers were employed by Optimum). The company boasts "trained adapters" who utilize "hip" colloquialized dialogue of the target country.
Beginning
The English adaptation of Sailor Moon began broadcasting on August 28, 1995, on YTV in Canada, and entered syndication in the United States two weeks later. While the show had moderate success on YTV, in the U.S. the show struggled in early morning "dead" timeslots, implied to be due to local shows taking precedence for better times. The series was removed from syndication in 1996 after the original 65 English episodes were broadcast, leaving it in a cliffhanger
Cliffhanger
A cliffhanger or cliffhanger ending is a plot device in fiction which features a main character in a precarious or difficult dilemma, or confronted with a shocking revelation at the end of an episode of serialized fiction...
. In response to this, a fan organization called "Save Our Sailors" (SOS) was created. A 1996 Internet petition for the return of Sailor Moon is said to have garnered 30,000 signatures. Syndication meant that it was harder for Sailor Moon to make a profit, as advertising slots had to be sold, and ratings were key to selling advertising spots - which was difficult given the unfavorable times at which Sailor Moon was being aired. SOS organised a procott where fans would buy Pop-Tarts
Pop-Tarts
Pop-Tarts is a brand of rectangular, pre-baked toaster pastries made by the Kellogg Company. Pop-Tarts have a sugary filling sealed inside two layers of rectangular, thin pastry crust. Some varieties are frosted. Although sold pre-cooked, they are designed to be warmed inside a toaster or...
to persuade them to advertise during Sailor Moon. The show was later picked up for US broadcast by Turner Broadcasting and resurfaced on their USA Network
USA Network
USA Network is an American cable television channel launched in 1971. Once a minor player in basic cable, the network has steadily gained popularity because of breakout hits like Monk, Psych, Burn Notice, Royal Pains, Covert Affairs, White Collar, Monday Night RAW, Suits, and reruns of the various...
a year later where it aired for several months before leaving the network after broadcasting all original 65 English episodes.
Although the series aired at various times in America, in Canada it was fairly consistently given an early-afternoon timeslot (YTV scheduled the program for noon), and this consistency may explain how Sailor Moon was initially far more of a ratings success in Canada than in the United States. In addition, the dialogue in the English-dubbed Sailor Moon was recorded in Toronto, and YTV had many on-air interviews with several of the lead voice actors. Since the series was considered legal "Canadian content" by the network, more effort was made to promote the series.
DiC originally dubbed a total of 65 episodes for distribution in 1995, a number that took them approximately two-thirds of the way through Sailor Moon R. Two years later, funding was acquired by DiC to dub the remaining 17 Sailor Moon R episodes into English and the episodes were broadcast in Canada to wrap up lingering plotlines. The last episode of Sailor Moon R was a clip show episode, which featured previews for Sailor Moon S, the show's third season. The remainder of Sailor Moon R was brought over to America a year later, initially billed as "The Lost Episodes."
Cloverway Inc., the international branch of Toei Animation
Toei Animation
Toei Animation Co., Ltd. is a Japanese animation studio owned by Toei Co., Ltd. The studio was founded in 1948 as Japan Animated Films . In 1956, Toei purchased the studio and it was reincorporated under its current name...
, the Japanese studio that produced the original version of the anime, later picked up the distribution rights to Sailor Moon S and SuperS from DiC as a result of the show's ongoing popularity.
Cartoon Network
In 1998, as a result of the Turner deal, Cartoon Network
Cartoon Network
Cartoon Network is a name of television channels worldwide created by Turner Broadcasting which used to primarily show animated programming. The channel began broadcasting on October 1, 1992 in the United States....
was given the rights to the original 65 English-dubbed Sailor Moon episodes and began airing them as part of its anime-themed Toonami
Toonami
Toonami was a registered trademark of Cartoon Network, used initially for action-oriented programming blocks on Cartoon Network television channels worldwide, mostly showing American cartoons and Japanese anime, originating in the United States on March 17, 1997 and ended on September 20, 2008.The...
block. The decision proved extremely profitable for Cartoon Network, as ratings for the show helped boost viewership for the Toonami programming block and generated revenue and interest for them to acquire more anime shows such as Dragon Ball Z to add to the block. Cartoon Network later acquired the rights to the 17 remaining Sailor Moon R episodes, and subsequently aired English versions of Sailor Moon S and Sailor Moon SuperS. The S and Super S episodes also aired in Canada on YTV in 2000.
The S and SuperS English dubs were first broadcast in 2000 on Cartoon Network as part of their Toonami
Toonami
Toonami was a registered trademark of Cartoon Network, used initially for action-oriented programming blocks on Cartoon Network television channels worldwide, mostly showing American cartoons and Japanese anime, originating in the United States on March 17, 1997 and ended on September 20, 2008.The...
programming block, and also on YTV; and 13 episodes of the S dub were picked up for airing on Kids' WB
Kids' WB
Kids' WB! was Warner Bros. American childrens programing division brand for The WB Television Network. In September 2006, the block moved to The CW Television Network. The CW is the result of The WB's merger with UPN in 2006...
in September 2001, airing for 2 weeks, even continuing to air the remaining episodes after the September 11 attacks. The films were also licensed by Cloverway and aired on Cartoon Network and YTV. The broadcast syndication license for Sailor Moon in North America expired on May 31, 2004, and Cartoon Network lost the rights to it in May 2003 before this point, thus ending the English version's run in the United States, however, the show was pulled from Cartoon Network's schedule in July 2002 before that point.
In addition to Cloverway's edits, Cartoon Network cut out 1–2 minutes of footage per episode to make room for more commercials when shown on their network. Occasionally, they made additional changes to skip visuals they believed were inappropriate. For example, an image of full rear nudity when Sailor Uranus detransforms was skipped. Most cuts were made similar to DiC Entertainment's censorship policy (see "Alterations" below) although not as harsh nor restricted to just cutting out. Two episodes were skipped by Cartoon Network when the problem could not be solved. Episode 119 for instance was at first skipped because its monster-of-the-day was essentially naked, and thus deemed too risque for the show's target audience. In the series' second run, however, the episode finally aired, and solved the monster's revealing skin by digitally adding in a bikini
Bikini
The bikini is typically a women's two-piece swimsuit. One part of the attire covers the breasts and the other part covers the crotch and part of or the entire buttocks, leaving an uncovered area between the two. Merriam–Webster describes the bikini as "a woman's scanty two-piece bathing suit" or "a...
to it. Episode 152 was also skipped by Cartoon Network, but for reasons that are not as clear. Like Episode 119, it also eventually aired on the series' second run. The Edited VHS releases of Sailor Moon S and Sailor Moon SuperS by Pioneer Home Entertainment used the cut footage shown on Cartoon Network, while the uncut VHS and DVD releases restore most of the cut scenes, including the controversial ones.
Home Video
During 1996-97, a total of six VHS tapes, each containing two key (nonconsecutive in most cases) episodes of the series, were released by Buena Vista Home Video
Miramax Films
Miramax Films is an American entertainment company known for distributing independent and foreign films. For its first 14 years the company was privately owned by its founders, Bob and Harvey Weinstein...
through DIC Entertainment
DiC Entertainment
DIC Entertainment was an international film and television production company. In addition to animated television shows such as Ulysses 31 , Inspector Gadget , The Littles , The Real Ghostbusters , Captain Planet and the Planeteers , and the first two seasons of the English adaptation of...
. These tapes were originally available exclusively through Toys 'R' Us stores, but later saw wider distribution in other chains. In 2001, a VHS boxset containing all thirteen episodes of the "Doom Tree" storyline (the first part of R) was released, also through Buena Vista.
Pioneer Entertainment (later Geneon Entertainment) had the rights to release Sailor Moon S, Super S, and the movies to Region 1 DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
and VHS
VHS
The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....
under license from Cloverway. They released the movies in English dubbed and subtitled versions, as well as the edited TV versions, to VHS and DVD in 1999. They released Sailor Moon S and Super S to home video in a similar format in 2000. That same year, ADV Films released the English dubs of Sailor Moon and Sailor Moon R in a 20 volume VHS series series under license from DiC. During 2001, Pioneer had released Sailor Moon S and SuperS in four different stock-keeping units, and released a box set of the movies in that October. The first two seasons were later taken to DVD in 2002, released over fourteen Region-1 DVDs from ADV Films. ADV later released a subtitled version of the entire Sailor Moon and Sailor Moon R series in two separate limited edition DVD box sets in 2004-uncut, except for the removal of next episode previews and one episode (67) from the Sailor Moon R set, and using different versions of some openings than were in the original. ADV's license to distribute Sailor Moon and Sailor Moon R in either form expired at the end of March 2004. Geneon's license expired in 2005.
The plot of episode 67 involves Chibiusa finding and befriending a dinosaur, but not any fighting against the main villains of the series. Its absence is notable due to it being Sailor Moon Rs requisite "summer holiday" episode, of which one was featured in each of the five Sailor Moon series. Some printings of the ADV box set include a full description of episode 67 in their liner notes, perhaps suggesting that the decision to remove it was done relatively late in the production process.
So far, no American company is known to have ever had the rights to release either of the theatrical shorts, the Super S TV special, or the Sailor Stars season.
Australia
In AustraliaAustralia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, the first 65 syndicated episodes of Sailor Moon were first seen afternoons on the ABC
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly referred to as "the ABC" , is Australia's national public broadcaster...
's children's block in late 1995. The following year, they were transferred to the Seven Network
Seven Network
The Seven Network is an Australian television network owned by Seven West Media Limited. It dates back to 4 November 1956, when the first stations on the VHF7 frequency were established in Melbourne and Sydney.It is currently the second largest network in the country in terms of population reach...
's Agro's Cartoon Connection
Agro's Cartoon Connection
Agro's Cartoon Connection was an Australian children's television show that aired on the Seven Network from 1989 to 1997. Shown on weekday mornings, it was primarily hosted by Agro, a puppet played by comedian Jamie Dunn...
. They were replayed there several times, until early 1998, when Seven would finally air the newer 17 episodes. All 82 English episodes would be played on Seven once more; from late 1999 to early 2000 on their morning program, The Big Breakfast
The Big Arvo
The Big Arvo was an Australian television series that was broadcast on the Seven Network from 1999 until 2005. It starred four hosts, who hosted the show in a large model bus. They had segments such as "cool job" and "dare" to amuse younger viewers and to teach viewers who had outgrown Play School...
. In early 2002, the series was again transferred, this time to Network Ten
Network Ten
Network Ten , is one of Australia's three major commercial television networks. Owned-and-operated stations can be found in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth, while affiliates extend the network to cover most of the country...
's Cheez TV
Cheez TV
Cheez TV was an Australian children's cartoon show, created by Bill McQueen, that aired on weekday mornings on Network Ten. It began broadcasting on 2 July 1995 and it ended on 31 December 2004 with the presenters leaving. After eight months of being without presenters, it officially ended on 20...
. Cheez TV only played the first 65 episodes (twice), and due to classification restrictions, were forced to skip two episodes, "Match Point for Sailor Moon" (ostensibly because the episode's "monster of the day" had visible breasts) and "A Friend in Wolf's Clothing" (due to a graphic death scene).
Sailor Moon also played on Australian cable network Fox Kids in September 2001; Fox Kids was the first Australian outlet to play the entirety of the English-dubbed series, with Sailor Moon S starting in April 2002 and Sailor Moon Super S starting in August 2002. In December 2002, Fox Kids aired a marathon of all 159 episodes over two weeks.
Network Video released six volumes of Sailor Moon on VHS spanning the first 18 episodes in 1996.
In 2002, Madman Entertainment
Madman Entertainment
Madman Entertainment is an Australian company that distributes international films as well as Japanese anime and manga in Australia and New Zealand. The company is owned by Funtastic Limited and is one of the major entertainment companies in Australia. It employs 130 people and has an annual...
acquired the rights to Sailor Moon video distribution in Australia and released the 82 DIC dubbed episodes on both DVD and VHS. These releases were nearly identical to the ones by ADV. The releases did well, with Madman stating they were in the process of acquiring the rights to release at least Season 1 uncut with subtitles as well. However, after the rights expired and were not renewed by Toei, this was no longer possible and the English volumes previously released also ceased to be printed.
United Kingdom
Sailor Moon first aired on Fox KidsFox Kids
Fox Kids was the Fox Broadcasting Company's American children's programming division and brand name from September 8, 1990 until September 7, 2002. It was owned by Fox Television Entertainment airing programming on Monday–Friday afternoons and Saturday mornings.Depending on the show, the...
, now known as Disney XD
Disney XD
Disney XD is a brand of children's TV channels worldwide targeting young males, owned by The Walt Disney Company. The channel was formerly known as Toon Disney and/or Jetix in most areas. According to Gary Marsh, President of Entertainment for Disney Channel Worldwide, "XD" does not "stand for...
, in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
in 1996 using the North American DiC Entertainment dub. Fox Kids repeated the Dark Kingdom arc and the Alan and Ann
Makaiju
The Makaiju arc is an early set of episodes from the Sailor Moon anime series. It makes up the first segment of the Sailor Moon R series, and is unique to the anime. This arc was literally filler, made to fill the time while Naoko Takeuchi finished the first series' story arc for the manga...
arc of Sailor Moon R until airing the rest of R around the end of 2000. Fans with the Internet found out about the later seasons, and signed petitions to put Sailor Moon S on Fox Kids
Fox Kids
Fox Kids was the Fox Broadcasting Company's American children's programming division and brand name from September 8, 1990 until September 7, 2002. It was owned by Fox Television Entertainment airing programming on Monday–Friday afternoons and Saturday mornings.Depending on the show, the...
. Fox Kids stated repeatedly that they were going to, and in 2002 they showed a preview clip with scenes from the S season that declared "New episodes of Sailor Moon coming soon!". The channel, however, never aired the series.
Around this time, ITV1
ITV1
ITV1 is a generic brand that is used by twelve franchises of the British ITV Network in the English regions, Wales, southern Scotland , the Isle of Man and the Bailiwicks of Jersey and Guernsey. The ITV1 brand was introduced by Carlton and Granada in 2001, alongside the regional identities of their...
started showing Sailor Moon in a kids' segment of GMTV
GMTV
GMTV was the national Channel 3 breakfast television contractor, broadcasting in the United Kingdom from 1 January 1993 to 3 September 2010. It became a wholly owned subsidiary of ITV plc. in November 2009. Shortly after, ITV plc announced the programme would end...
on Saturday mornings, called "Up on the Roof" but later renamed "Toonattik". This, despite time edits which compounded the already problematic DIC Entertainment
DiC Entertainment
DIC Entertainment was an international film and television production company. In addition to animated television shows such as Ulysses 31 , Inspector Gadget , The Littles , The Real Ghostbusters , Captain Planet and the Planeteers , and the first two seasons of the English adaptation of...
cuts, proved popular. However, since Fox Kids held the UK rights for Sailor Moon but would not give them up apart from the inaugural thirteen episodes, Sailor Moon was canceled on that network and shortly thereafter canceled on Fox Kids as well. Although ITV put the first 13 episodes they had on VHS, they did not sell very well. MVM
MVM Films
MVM Films is a British distributor of Japanese animation. The company sublicenses anime titles from US Anime companies such as Media Blasters, Geneon, Nozomi Entertainment, Urban Vision, AnimEigo, and US Manga Corps, which do not have a UK presence, and releases them on Region 2 DVD...
, a UK anime company, released the dub versions of the first 24 episodes on VHS in 2001/2003, and then the complete first two seasons on DVD in 2003/2004. A box set of the first season were also released, but did not sell well either, a fact MVM attributes to the dub only status of the DVDs, as MVM were unable to secure uncut masters, and major retailers' refusal to support the show meaning the release neither appealed to children nor older anime fans.
Alterations
The North American version of the Sailor Moon anime was translated and distributed in 1995 by DIC EntertainmentDiC Entertainment
DIC Entertainment was an international film and television production company. In addition to animated television shows such as Ulysses 31 , Inspector Gadget , The Littles , The Real Ghostbusters , Captain Planet and the Planeteers , and the first two seasons of the English adaptation of...
, initially airing on YTV in Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
and various television stations in the United States. Although the basic storyline remained the same, many alterations were made to the original Japanese material in order to make it acceptable for the younger target age group in America. So censorship
Censorship
thumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...
was often applied due to differences between Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
ese and American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
ideas about what is and is not appropriate material for younger viewers (a process known as Americanization
Americanization (foreign culture and media)
In American media, the term Americanization is used to describe the censoring and editing of a foreign TV show or movie that is bought by a U.S. station. This editing is done with the aim of making the work more appealing to American audiences, and to respond to perceived American sensitivities...
).
Some Sailor Moon fans who are familiar with the original Japanese version express dislike over the English adaptation, as the censorship levels of the English-dubbed version ranged from mild to severe. This lead to a negative reaction from Sailor Moon purists. The edits were made in several ways:
General renaming: Besides individual characters, the Sailor Senshi
Sailor Senshi
A appears as a type of heroine in the metaseries known as Sailor Moon. The name comes from sailor fuku, a type of school uniform, and senshi, which can mean "soldier" or "warrior". Naoko Takeuchi, the manga artist who originated the series, coined the term by fusing English and Japanese elements,...
became the "Sailor Scouts" instead of the more accurate translation "Sailor Soldiers". The latter term is used throughout the S series, whilst the group are almost always introduced as "Sailor Scouts" by Sailor Moon in SuperS. Almost all of the original attacks were renamed despite already being in English, and the phrase "Make-up!" was removed from transformations. It was replaced with the "Scout Power!" or "Transform!" only in group transformations. Scripts were also rewritten to suggest that all enemies came from the so-called "Negaverse," rather than having distinct alliances and histories, although the original manga has all the villains revealed to be different forms of a demon named Chaos. This practice was soon downplayed by DIC themselves, and dropped altogether once Cloverway took over.
Omission of the original Japanese music: The original background music was mainly recorded by a live orchestra, while the English dub music was all computer-made. The melody of the original theme song
Theme music
Theme music is a piece that is often written specifically for a radio program, television program, video game or movie, and usually played during the title sequence and/or end credits...
, "Moonlight Densetsu" ("Moonlight Legend"), contrary to popular belief, was not retained for the dub's theme song, but the tempo was altered, an electric guitar riff was added, and only a small portion of the original music was retained in the very beginning with very different lyrics and redone instrumentation, animation, and special effects. A shorter version of the same song was used at the ending credits, replacing the original ending credit song. After Cloverway took over from DiC (episode #90 onwards) the original background music was retained, but the DiC theme song was kept.
Title sequences: A new opening sequence was created using clips from the original Japanese openings, as well as clips taken from the series. Most of the clips used were taken from dub episodes 18-40. The names of the all five Guardian Senshi were revealed in the song accompanied by a clip of their first attack. Small transition sequence-animations were added, used whenever the story skipped ahead in time or from one scene or location to another. Some of these were made with CGI
Computer-generated imagery
Computer-generated imagery is the application of the field of computer graphics or, more specifically, 3D computer graphics to special effects in art, video games, films, television programs, commercials, simulators and simulation generally, and printed media...
. In addition, the original eyecatch
Eyecatch
An or internal eyecatch is a scene or illustration used to begin and end a commercial break in a Japanese TV program, especially in anime and tokusatsu shows, similar to how "bumpers" into/out of commercial breaks are used in the United States...
-animations for the mid-episode commercial breaks were removed, and a differently-colored version of the show's logo was used. The TV and VHS releases of S and SuperS include these alterations, but are not included in the DVD releases.
Plot alterations: Some elements of the plot or dialogue were reworked, often resulting in continuity problems from one episode or one scene to the next. For example, in "Day of Destiny," "Serena" (Usagi) remembers a scene in which she and "Darien" (Mamoru) fall off a balcony and she uses an umbrella to float safely to the ground, but that scene was cut from the actual dub episode from which it came. A one minute "explanation sequence" was added at the beginning of episode one, explaining the background story of the plot. This sequence was edited together by clips from later episodes, combined with a narration voice. Often clips were used in these previews that were not viewed in the English season; defeating the purpose.
Censoring: Complete omission of six episodes by the dubbers for varying reasons not always but usually stemming from content concerns. These included the use of fortune telling and tarot cards in the second episode and Usagi's transformation into an older, "punkish" version of herself to get into a piano bar in the sixth episode. Removal of much of the adolescent sexuality
Adolescent sexuality
Adolescent sexuality refers to sexual feelings, behavior and development in adolescents and is a stage of human sexuality. Sexuality is often a vital aspect of teenagers' lives...
, and of homosexual
Homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
relationships. These relationships were 'solved' in three separate cases: twice by giving effeminate men a female voice actor and using feminine pronouns to make their relationships heterosexual. This was done with Zoisite, who was in a relationship with Kunzite, and with Fisheye, who cross-dressed and was openly attracted to various men (including Mamoru Chiba). They also made the character Zirconia male instead of female, due to fears that her relationship to Queen Nehellenia was bordering on being romantic. They made the characters Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune cousins (with the characters, who should have no knowledge of this fact, stating it regularly) instead of a lesbian couple with mixed results; while some of the flirting was removed, some of it was also left intact in order to appease fans wanting it to be closer to the original. This accidentally implied them to be incestuous lesbian lovers. For scenes of near-nudity, such as transformation sequences, body lines were removed around the breasts and pubic regions, and for bathing scenes, the situation was solved by either digitally "raising" the water level around the cleavage or by eliminating body visibility by toning the water a solid color with the rest of the body being hidden. In the DVD releases, the original sequences were left intact. Also, there were removals of "any violence" including violence to children and removal or alteration of small details like people sticking their tongues out; these scenes were believed to have a potentially negative influence on children's behavior.
Cultural edits: Removal or altering of some, though not all, specifically Japanese cultural references which might not have made sense to English-speaking audiences - for example, changing dumplings to doughnuts, removing references to mock exams and other characteristics of the Japanese school system, such as marking right answers with circles and wrong answers with crosses, and changing the cram school
Cram school
Cram schools are specialized schools that train their students to meet particular goals, most commonly to pass the entrance examinations of high schools or universities...
that Ami Mizuno
Sailor Mercury
, in Japan, is one of the central characters in the Sailor Moon metaseries. Her real name is , a genius schoolgirl who can transform into one of the series' specialized heroines, the Sailor Senshi....
attends to a computer school, though the dub script did refer to it as a "cram" school once. At the same time, the English dub left most of the Japanese text on signs, in publications, etc. untouched and untranslated, with a few exceptions, such as the sign over the junior high school. Even things inherent to the animation style, such as the famous Anime Sweat drop, were removed. Some scenes involving cars or buses were also flipped so the vehicles would be driven on the right side of the road instead of the left side. This occasionally caused incongruences when some scenes were not flipped.
Target audience additions: An end-of-show "morals" segment, "Sailor Says", which was added on to each episode to satisfy the contemporary requirement of educational content on American children's TV shows. Again, this no longer occurred after Cloverway began handling the dub. On several occasions, the "Sailor Says" segments - which were played out as voice-overs over vaguely-related clips from the episode they were tacked on to - contained footage that had been cut from the dubbed version of that episode, including some of the more controversial footage.
Editing of "Day of Destiny": Perhaps most remembered among fans was the treatment of the episode "Day of Destiny," which concluded the first series. The original version of this episode was actually two separate episodes, the first of which included the deaths of all the Sailor Soldiers except for Sailor Moon herself; as the storyline progressed, Sailors Jupiter, Mercury, Venus, and Mars sacrificed themselves to protect their friend and leader. The second episode involved the deaths of Tuxedo Mask and ultimately Sailor Moon herself. Though each character was resurrected in the conclusion, it was still deemed necessary to remove all references to death in the American episode: instead of being killed, the Senshi's death scenes were rewritten to say that the girls were captured and held hostage in the Negaverse. Enough editing was required, in fact, that the two episodes were merged into one.
Name changes
Before Sailor Moon's American debut, DIC distributed a promotional tape to syndicators and stations to sell the series. This tape is notable in that it features completely different names for the five main characters; Usagi was called "Victoria," Ami "Blue," Rei "Dana," Makoto "Sarah," and Minako "Carrie." Tuxedo Mask was temporarily "The Masked Tuxedo." However, when the series aired the names were closer to their original form, either in sound or meaning:- Usagi Tsukino - Serena (from "Serenity")
- Ami MizunoSailor Mercury, in Japan, is one of the central characters in the Sailor Moon metaseries. Her real name is , a genius schoolgirl who can transform into one of the series' specialized heroines, the Sailor Senshi....
- Amy - Rei Hino - Raye
- Makoto KinoSailor Jupiteris one of the central characters in the Sailor Moon metaseries. Her real name is , a strong schoolgirl who can transform into one of the series' specialized heroines, the Sailor Senshi....
- Lita (a pun of the word "lightning") - Minako Aino - Mina
- Haruka Tenoh - Amara
- Michiru Kaioh - Michelle
- Setsuna Meioh - Trista
- Mamoru Chiba - Darien
- Chibiusa - Rini (diminutive of "Serena", as "Chibiusa" from "Usagi")
The only Sailor Senshi who retains her original name is Hotaru Tomoe, though in line with English pronunciation practice, the final 'e' in her family name is not pronounced, for ˈtoʊ.moʊ with two syllables, rather than Japanese to.mo.e with three.
The North American version was the first experience with Sailor Moon (if not anime in general) for much of the English-speaking world, and the differences between the two versions led to much confusion. However, many fans worldwide would never have known about the series had it not reached North America, and so many regard the North American version as a mixed blessing. Of course, many fans do like the dub version.
The Toon Makers Music Video
When Sailor Moon was up for bids by Toei to be produced in North America, Renaissance-Atlantic Entertainment, who worked closely with Bandai and Toon Makers, Inc., conceptualized their own version of the property, which was half live-action and half Western-style animation. Toon Makers produced a 17-minute proof of conceptProof of concept
A proof of concept or a proof of principle is a realization of a certain method or idea to demonstrate its feasibility, or a demonstration in principle, whose purpose is to verify that some concept or theory that has the potential of being used...
presentation video, as well as a two-minute music video, for this concept, which Renaissance-Atlantic presented to Toei. Toei ultimately rejected Renaissance-Atlantic's bid because the series as Renaissance-Atlantic and Toon Makers envisioned it would have cost significantly more than simply exporting and dubbing the original anime.
The music video was exhibited at a panel at Anime Expo
Anime Expo
Anime Expo, abbreviated AX, is an American anime convention held in Los Angeles, California and organized by the non-profit Society for the Promotion of Japanese Animation . With rare exceptions, the convention is traditionally held on the July 4th weekend and lasts for four days...
1998 by Allen Hastings, then with NewTek, Inc.
NewTek
NewTek, Inc. is a San Antonio, Texas-based hardware and software company that produces live and post-production video tools and visual imaging software for personal computers...
, and met with scorn, ridicule, and derision. A convention attendee taped the music video off the screen and uploaded the footage, which includes an introduction by Hastings and brief comments by other convention attendees afterwards, to the Internet. The clip has since been copied numerous times and can currently be viewed on many streaming video sites. Because of the relatively poor quality of the source video and circulated footage, many anime fans believed that the music video was actually a leaked trailer for the now-inactive project instead of an exhibition of a promotion piece. Additional copies of the footage, with Hastings' intro excised, have since been uploaded to the Internet and served only to bolster the mistaken belief.
Because Renaissance-Atlantic had previously been instrumental in Saban Entertainment's acquisition of Toei's Super Sentai
Super Sentai
The is the name given to the long-running Japanese superhero team genre of shows produced by Toei Co., Ltd., Toei Agency and Bandai, and aired by TV Asahi...
series for reimagining as Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, people who viewed the music video mistakenly believed that Saban had actually created it and began to call it "Saban Moon." The Toon Makers music video has been called a worst-case scenario with regards to how Sailor Moon would have been presented in North America, in comparison to the original anime episodes that were eventually dubbed by DIC Entertainment
DiC Entertainment
DIC Entertainment was an international film and television production company. In addition to animated television shows such as Ulysses 31 , Inspector Gadget , The Littles , The Real Ghostbusters , Captain Planet and the Planeteers , and the first two seasons of the English adaptation of...
and Cloverway Inc.
Cloverway Inc.
Cloverway Inc. was the international branch of the Toei Company, headquartered on 444 W Ocean Blvd, Long Beach, California USA. They specialize in distributing Toei properties for release in different countries, and often act as the middle man between distribution in Japan and distribution in...
and aired. Rocky Solotoff, Toon Makers' president and founder, wrote, directed, and produced the pilot episode of Renaissance-Atlantic's version of Sailor Moon, which to this day, has not been exhibited publicly.
All five Guardian Senshi are depicted in the music video. Though Solotoff is legally prohibited from divulging much information regarding the Renaissance-Atlantic/Toon Makers version of Sailor Moon, he does reveal, in an interview with Animefringe magazine, the origin of the concept and music video, debunking many of the stories and speculations that had been connected to both. Details revealed in the interview include confirmation that both a white and black cat were planned to be in the series, although only a fluffy white cat is seen in the music video (according to the lyrics, this cat was meant to be Luna), and that each Senshi was written to be of a different nationality.
Two curious remnants of Toon Makers' involvement with Sailor Moon remained after Renaissance-Atlantic shelved the project. The Renaissance-Atlantic series featured vehicles which did not appear in the original metaseries. One of these was the Moon Cycle, which Bandai
Bandai
is a Japanese toy making and video game company, as well as the producer of a large number of plastic model kits. It is the world's third-largest producer of toys . Some ex-Bandai group companies produce anime and tokusatsu programs...
manufactured a toy version of as part of the North American line of Sailor Moon toys. The Moon Cycle toy remains one of the more curious pieces of Sailor Moon merchandise produced for the North American market. More prominently, the Sailor Moon logo featured at the end of the music video was retained as the official North American Sailor Moon logo for the metaseries and all related programs and merchandising.
Voice Cast
| Character | English Voice Actor |
|---|---|
| Sailor Moon / Serena | Tracey Moore Tracey Moore Tracey Ann Moore in Calgary, Alberta) is a Canadian animated voice actress. She was the voice of Princess Toadstool in the two North American cartoon television series, The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World... (Eps. 1 - 11, 15, 21) Terri Hawkes Terri Hawkes Terri Hawkes is a Canadian actress. She first gained fame as a voice actress, her most definitive role being that of Sailor Moon for most of the first season, all of the second season, and all three movies... (Eps. 12 - 14, 16 - 20, 22 - 82, Movies) Linda Ballantyne Linda Ballantyne Linda Ballantyne is a Canadian voice actress.Born in Toronto, Canada, she is best known for voicing the title role of Serena/Sailor Moon in the the second half of the English version of Sailor Moon.... (Eps. 83 - 159) |
| Sailor Mercury / Amy Sailor Mercury , in Japan, is one of the central characters in the Sailor Moon metaseries. Her real name is , a genius schoolgirl who can transform into one of the series' specialized heroines, the Sailor Senshi.... |
Karen Bernstein Karen Bernstein Karen Bernstein is a Canadian voice actress who is best known to many in North America as the voice of Sailor Mercury in the American dubbing of the first two seasons of Sailor Moon..Also known for Tara/Jett in Beverly Hills Teens.-Filmography:... (Eps. 5 - 82, Movies) Liza Balkan Liza Balkan Liza Balkan is a Dora Award winning Canadian actress, director, writer, teacher and dancer.She received Toronto's Dora Mavor Moore Award for her performance in Still the Night... (Eps. 83 - 159) |
| Sailor Mars / Raye | Katie Griffin Katie Griffin Katie Griffin is a Canadian actress, voice actress, and singer. She is most famous for voicing Alex in Totally Spies! and Sailor Mars in Sailor Moon. She is also the voice of Yoko in Team Galaxy and Laugh-a-Lot Bear in Care Bears: Journey to Joke-a-lot and as a plush toy... (Eps. 7 - 65, 83 - 159, Movies) Emilie Barlow (Eps. 66 - 82) |
| Sailor Jupiter / Lita Sailor Jupiter is one of the central characters in the Sailor Moon metaseries. Her real name is , a strong schoolgirl who can transform into one of the series' specialized heroines, the Sailor Senshi.... |
Susan Roman Susan Roman Susan Roman is a Canadian voice actress best known for voice acting the role of Lita/Sailor Jupiter in the North American DiC dub of the anime, Sailor Moon. She is one of the few voice actors to remain throughout the entire run of the series... |
| Sailor Venus / Mina | Stephanie Morgenstern Stephanie Morgenstern Stephanie Grace Morgenstern is a Swiss-Canadian actress, filmmaker, and screenwriter for television and film. Born in Geneva, Switzerland and raised in Montreal, Quebec, Morgenstern began her acting career when she was 15. She has worked extensively on stage, film, and television in both English... (Eps. 29 - 82, Movies) Emilie Barlow (Eps. 83 - 159) |
| Tuxedo Mask / Darien | Rino Romano Rino Romano Rino Romano is a Canadian voice actor who has portrayed Batman in the animated series The Batman, Spider-Man in Spider-Man Unlimited, and Tuxedo Mask in the English dub of the anime Sailor Moon... (Eps. 1 - 11) Toby Proctor Toby Proctor Toby Proctor is a Canadian voice actor. He voiced Darien/Tuxedo Mask in the English dub of the Sailor Moon anime in 54 episodes of the first season. His other roles include Alex Flash Gordon in Flash Gordon and Copycat Ken in Ranma 1/2.-References:... (Eps. 12 - 65) Vince Corazza Vince Corazza Vincent Corazza is a Canadian-born actor known for playing the role of Alden Jones in the television series Braceface.... (Eps. 66 - 159, Movies) |
| Sailor Mini-Moon / Rini | Tracey Hoyt Tracey Hoyt Tracey Hoyt is a Canadian voice actress and alumna of York University and the Second City National Touring Company , possessing a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Theater Performance. She played the first North American voice of Rini in the Sailor Moon R series and movies. Hoyt played the voice of Me Bear... (Eps. 54 - 82, Movies) Stephanie Beard Stephanie Beard Stephanie Beard is a Canadian actress, voice actress and television and radio personality. Her radio host persona goes by Suga BayBee, and as co-host of The Zone, she was called Sugar.Beard was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada... (Eps. 96 - 159) |
| Sailor Uranus / Amara | Sarah LaFleur Sarah Lafleur Sarah Lafleur is a Canadian-born actress, most recognizable for her roles in Ugly Betty , The Mentalist , Grey's Anatomy , CSI: NY , Crossing Jordan , Without a Trace , Playmakers ; and the films Shall We Dance? , Master Spy: The Robert Hanssen Story and Daydream Believers: The Monkees Story... |
| Sailor Neptune / Michelle | Barbara Radecki Barbara Radecki Barbara Radecki is a Canadian actress who is most popular for her role as the voice of Sailor Neptune in the English version of Sailor Moon S; she had appeared in several earlier episodes as Ikuko Tsukino and Queen Serenity as well... |
| Sailor Pluto / Trista | Sabrina Grdevich Sabrina Grdevich Sabrina Grdevich is a Canadian actress.Sabrina portrayed Dana Ballard in the 1999 made-for-TV movie Ultimate Deception with Yasmine Bleeth. Her starring roles include Mile Zero and Lola... (Eps. 68 - 82, Movies) Susan Aceron Susan Aceron Susan Aceron is a Canadian actress known mostly as the voice of Sailor Pluto in Sailor Moon. She has appeared in Shaggy's music video for It Wasn't Me, as well as a number of movies and television roles. Her birthday is July 6... (Eps. 108 - 120) |
| Sailor Saturn / Hotaru | Jennifer Gould |
| Luna | Jill Frappier Jill Frappier Jill Frappier is a Canadian voice actress.She was formerly known for voicing Luna in the American dub of Sailor Moon, Mrs... |
| Artemis | Ron Rubin Ron Rubin (voice actor) Ron Rubin is a veteran voice actor whose voice is most easily recognized as that of Artemis from the English translation of Sailor Moon.-Career:... |
| Diana | Loretta Jafelice Loretta Jafelice Loretta Jafelice is a Canadian voice actress. She voiced Eudial and Diana in the English version of the Japanese anime Sailor Moon.-Sources:* http://www.tv.com/loretta-jafelice/person/194865/summary.html... (TV Series) Naomi Emmerson (Movie 3) |
| Queen Beryl | Naz Edwards Naz Edwards Naz Edwards is an American voice actress, singer, and Broadway star who is most remembered as the voice of antagonist Queen Beryl in the DiC English version of Sailor Moon. She is of Armenian descent.-External links:*... Jill Frappier (Ep. 83 flashback) |
Mixx/Tokyopop Editions
Although the original manga came before the TV series, it was not initially translated into English until three years after the anime. The original English version of the manga was released in 1998 by manga publisher Mixx (now renamed TokyopopTokyopop
Tokyopop, styled TOKYOPOP, and formerly known as Mixx, is a distributor, licensor, and publisher of anime, manga, manhwa, and Western manga-style works. The existing German publishing division produces German translations of licensed Japanese properties and original English-language manga, as well...
). The manga was initially syndicated in MixxZine
TOKYOPOP (magazine)
Tokyopop magazine, originally named MixxZine, was a manga anthology published in North America by Tokyopop .MixxZine at the start published four series, two of which were shōjo and two of which were seinen:...
but was later pulled out of that magazine and moved into a secondary magazine called Smile
Smile (magazine)
Smile was a magazine aimed at teenage girls. At first it was supposed to be a mainstream teen mag similar to Seventeen, but with added manga; later, it became more focused on manga and removed most of its other features. It was discontinued in 2002. It was published by TOKYOPOP.Sailor Moon, Peach...
. Smile serialized the SuperS storyline, while the portions of the earlier storylines that were not finished in MixxZine finished as individual comic books. Daily pages from the Tokyopop version ran in the Japanimation Station, a service accessible to users of America Online. Like many early manga titles released in the US, the Tokyopop editions of the Sailor Moon manga remained flopped in a mirror image to confirm to American book standards for the entire run.
The U.S. Sailor Moon monthly comic ran for 35 issues, and aside from finishing up the Dark Kingdom storyline, it featured the manga versions of Sailor Moon R and Super. The US manga volumes were released as three series: "Sailor Moon", which collects the first three arcs (the Dark Kingdom, Black Moon, and Infinity arcs), Sailor Moon SuperS, which collects the Dream arc, and Sailor Moon Stars, which collects the Stars arc. The original Codename: Sailor V manga was not a part of Mixx/Tokyopop's release. As of May 2005, Tokyopop's license to the Sailor Moon manga has lapsed, and the original Tokyopop editions are officially out of print.
Alterations
For the most part, the names chosen for the English manga matched up with those chosen the English television dub. Some modifications were made—for instance, Darien is given a surname, Shields (a play off of his Japanese name, Mamoru, 'to guard/protect'), and Serena is usually called by the nickname "Bunny" (a literal translation of her original name, Usagi). Other senshi are given family names matching the Japanese versions (Tsukino, Aino, Kino, Mizuno, and Hino). The Outer Senshi, who were introduced in the English manga before their appearance in the American run of the anime, retain their original names. The manga was also flipped left to right, which was standard at the time of publication. The US manga, while omitting some of the bonus artwork included in the original manga, featured new bonus artwork commissioned exclusively for the US manga series. Inserts, dust jackets, and introductory pages were cut for budget. There were a few minor tweaks at the beginning, where many of the girls talked in stereotypical teenager talk. This was later changed when the editor changed. Also, in the instance of a poem by William Butler YeatsWilliam Butler Yeats
William Butler Yeats was an Irish poet and playwright, and one of the foremost figures of 20th century literature. A pillar of both the Irish and British literary establishments, in his later years he served as an Irish Senator for two terms...
having been used in the text, the editors translated it back from the Japanese rather than using the original English.
Other changes of note are the covers, which do not exactly match the original, and the sizes of the manga are slightly different. (The original is 4.5" x 6.75", but the Mixx manga is 4.5" x 7.75".) As Sailor Moon was Mixx's first title, the quality of its translation in the beginning is considered poor, though it improves somewhat towards the end of its publication run.
Mixx also altered Takeuchi's side-notes in the manga, completely rewriting them so the fundamental points were the same but they took on the appearance of an interview between herself and MixxZine (which did not occur). Cultural references were Americanized, and because Japanese is read right-to-left and English is read left-to-right, Mixx flipped the pages (save for full-page images) so that all the drawings were mirror-images.
Kodansha USA Editions
Kodansha USA Publishing announced on March 18, 2011 that its Kodansha Comics imprint will reprint the Sailor Moon manga and its two-volume prequel Codename: Sailor V starting in September.The new edition — with "new cover art, retouched interior art and dialogue along with extensive bonus material from Takeuchi" is based on the 2003 Japanese re-release of the manga,. The release's English translation is adapted more close to the Japanese original, and is expected to retain the relationship between Haruka and Michiru. In addition, the Kodansha Comics editions feature all the color pages made for the 2003 Japanese reissue In addition, the books are being produced larger than the Mixx, Tokyopop, and Japanese editions. They are also the first English release of the Sailor Moon manga to be printed in its original right-to-left format as opposed to the left-to-right format of the Mixx/Tokyopop editions.
This first volume of Sailor Moon was published, along with the lead in series Codename: Sailor V, on September 13, 2011. The manga will continue to be released bi-monthly with the next Sailor Moon and Codename: Sailor V volumes being released on November 15, 2011.
The Kodansha USA editions of Sailor Moon have been a success, with Sailor Moon and the first volume of Sailor V topping the New York Times Manga Bestsellers for the week September 11-17 2011 with the #1 and #2 spots, respectively, and remaining in those positions for a second week. Both graphic novels have been consistently on the list, and Kodansha USA had to go into a second printing to meet demand. According to Nielson reports, Sailor Moon Volume 1 was the bestselling graphic novel for both September and October of 2011. There are currently over 100,000 copies of both manga in print. Rebecca Silverman of Anime News Network
Anime News Network
Anime News Network is an anime industry news website that reports on the status of anime, manga, Japanese popular music and other otaku-related culture within North America, Australia and Japan. Additionally, it sometimes features similar happenings throughout the Anglosphere and elsewhere in the...
noted in her review of the first Sailor Moon volume noted that there were many typos with homonyms, and that the new translation "sometimes sacrifices fluidity of language for accuracy". Although the manga has been generally well received, and is usually regarded as an improvement over the Mixx/Tokyopop editions.
Future development
Online petitions requesting the dubbing of Sailor Stars have been held since 2000. It has been previously confirmed that Sailor StarsSailor Stars
The following list of episodes of the Sailor Moon anime series covers , the fifth season of the series. Children's TV Asahi, Toei Agency and Toei Animation co-produced the episodes; Takuya Igarashi directed. The series originally aired on Children's TV Asahi between March 9, 1996 and February 8, 1997...
, the final season of the Sailor Moon anime, would not be dubbed because Toei was not putting it up for license. The manga was expected to remain out-of-print as well, although TokyoPop was looking into renegotiating the rights. On May 5, Marc Lunden of Mania Entertainment reported from Anime Central 2007 that "Toei [Animation] currently has a lockdown on all Sailor Moon licenses, but Geneon expressed interest in case the situation changed." However, Geneon was merged with Universal Studios
Universal Studios
Universal Pictures , a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, is one of the six major movie studios....
in February 2009. Similarly, Madman Entertainment
Madman Entertainment
Madman Entertainment is an Australian company that distributes international films as well as Japanese anime and manga in Australia and New Zealand. The company is owned by Funtastic Limited and is one of the major entertainment companies in Australia. It employs 130 people and has an annual...
was forced to stop print of the Sailor Moon DVD licenses it acquired, despite the R4 DVD releases being very successful.
In August 2007, Toei held a poll to determine viewer interest in potential series to make available for Video on Demand
Video on demand
Video on Demand or Audio and Video On Demand are systems which allow users to select and watch/listen to video or audio content on demand...
. There were 50 options, including popular titles such as Sailor Moon, Digimon
Digimon
, short for , is a Japanese media franchise encompassing digital toys, anime, manga and video games. The franchise's eponymous creatures are monsters of various forms living in a "Digital World", a parallel universe that originated from Earth's various communication networks.-Conception and...
, and Ojamajo Doremi. The results of the poll show that 2535 out of 3979 votes—63.7 percent—had been placed for the Sailor Moon series. The Sailor Moon anime is currently part of a subscription service in Japan where premium members are allowed full access to their titles. This was produced in accordance with the ISP BIGLOBE and subscribers pay ¥1554 (US$13) (UK£6:50) per month.
In May 2009, Funimation Entertainment
Funimation Entertainment
Funimation is an American entertainment company. Originally founded in 1994 by Gen Fukunaga, the company became a subsidiary of Navarre Corporation on May 11, 2005...
released a poll to gauge consumer interest in potential DVD releases; one option was "re-dub of entire Sailor Moon series." This helped viewer interest rise, and got many fans' hopes up that Funimation may indeed license Sailor Moon. A fan campaign, organized by former members of the SOS group, continued to survey fans to gain their opinions on hypothetical details of the redub. The poll has recently closed, and the results have not been publicly revealed.
In 2010, one of several YouTube videos featuring Sailor Moon was removed due to a copyright claim by Funimation. Funimation later commented that, despite their attempts to acquire the rights to Sailor Moon, the company does not have the rights yet. In addition, Sailor Moon in chibi form was featured as a magnet decoration in a Funimation office during a Hetalia Axis Powers preview video.
On March 18, 2011, Kodansha Comics USA
Kodansha Comics USA
Kodansha Comics USA is a manga publishing imprint. It is the American subsidiary of Japanese publisher Kodansha. The company was formed on July 1, 2008. Their launching titles were the re-prints of Masamune Shirow's Ghost in the Shell and Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira manga, previously published by Dark...
announced that they would be reprinting Sailor Moon in English in new deluxe editions beginning in September 2011, along with its prequel, Codename: Sailor V. The first volume of both series were released on September 13, 2011, and will continue to be to be released bi-monthly.
According to the Italian Sailor Moon website, the North American video game rights to Sailor Moon are owned by Namco Bandai Games
Namco Bandai Games
is an arcade, mobile and home video game developer and publisher based in Japan which is the product of a merger between the video game development divisions of Bandai and Namco. Namco Bandai Games is a wholly owned subsidiary of Namco Bandai Holdings and specializes in production and sales of...
and the American toy rights are owned by Topps
Topps
The Topps Company, Inc., manufactures chewing gum, candy and collectibles. Based in New York, New York, Topps is best known as a leading producer of baseball cards, football cards, basketball cards, hockey cards and other sports and non-sports themed trading cards.-Company history:Topps itself was...
. Hot Topic
Hot Topic
Hot Topic is an American retail chain specializing in music and pop culture-related clothing and accessories, as well as licensed music on CD. The majority of the stores are located in regional shopping malls. The first Hot Topic store was opened in 1988 by Orv Madden, who retired as CEO in 2000...
has also licensed the exclusive apparel rights to the franchise, and has been offering T-Shirts both online and in Hot Topic stores, along with a Halloween costume as a part of their new costume line; leading some fans to hope that the anime will be licensed for an American release.
International revival
Toei froze the license to distribute Sailor Moon outside of Japan in 2004. On February 4, 2010, Toei began negotiations to re-license the series for an international release. Since March 2010, a new remastered Sailor Moon airs in Italy. Toei has stated if it is popular in Italy (to date, Sailor Moon has gauged close to a million Italian viewers), an international revival will be produced. To date, Sailor Moon has since also been re-licensed in several countries including (but not limited to), Albania, Hong Kong, Mexico, Portugal, Brazil, some African nations (for the first time), Israel (for the first time), Russia, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Taiwan, The Philippines, Chile, Thailand, and Malaysia. However, it has yet to be announced if the Sailor Moon anime will be re-licensed for an English-language release, especially the un-aired Sailor Stars series, or any other material not available in English. Recently, Toei is offering 200 refurbished episodes of Sailor Moon at MIPTV.See also
- List of Sailor Moon chapters
- List of Sailor Moon episodes
- Sailor Moon soundtracks (USA)Sailor Moon soundtracks (USA)This page lists English-language soundtracks from the anime series Sailor Moon. Three albums were released from 1996 - 2002.-Sailor Moon - Songs From The Hit TV Series:...
- List of minor Sailor Moon characters
External links
- Optimum productions - Official website of the English dubbing company.
- Sailor Moon Uncensored - Details on the differences between the Japanese and English versions of the show.
- The Tour - A guide to the dubbed version of Sailor Moon, including character info and voice acting info.
- Toonami Digital Arsenal - A page with many Sailor Moon downloads, including the Toon Makers trailer clip and the DiC promotional video.
- Wikimoon - Your encyclopedia for everything Sailor Moon.
- Sailor Moon at TV.COM
- Moon Chase! - A news blog explaining what is happening with the franchise, as well as with the actresses, producers, etc.