Sailor Moon

*The* first formulaic magical girl franchise to get popular in the US (though not the last).

To sum it up, Usagi Tsukino (renamed Serena in the DiC dub) meets Luna, who gives her the ability to turn into Sailor Moon. From there, she battles monsters every week (in the anime, at least).

Its Toonami run helped jumpstart it to become one of two popular magical girl anime series in the US.

Now has a reboot by the name of *Sailor Moon Crystal*.

## Tropes

* Cartoon Network Isn't Teletoon: Obviously averted between Japan and everywhere else, considering TV Asahi doesn't qualify for this trope. However, this is played straight between the US and Canada, only remedied by the fact that YTV aired several Cartoon Network series beginning in the late 90's and wouldn't stop completely before finishing Transformers: Animated.
	+ Also averted for the manga license-wise: the license holder is Kodansha USA, and the Japanese branch published the series in Japan. Previously played completely straight, but that was since Kodansha USA didn't exist at the time.
* Obscurity, much?: The live-action Sailor Moon series.
	+ Also, the ToonMakers pilot. Thought that the DiC dub was semi-obscure? Nope- even the DiC dub is more well-known than ToonMakers' pitch.
* Pop culture: In its heyday. Even then, pre-orders for Viz' boxset topped even *JoJo's Bizarre Adventure*. This proved that the franchise was treated by Viz better than the treatment other magical girl series get in America, at least.
* The Colbert Effect: It didn't start a magical girl fad in the US. Instead, the franchise and Cardcaptor Sakura *were* the US market for formulaic magical girl series. Shows such as *Ojamajo Doremi* and *Mew Mew Power* aside, it took the popularity of *Puella Magi Madoka Magica* for other competing magical girl series to reach North America (most of which were dark or at the very least deconstructive).
	+ This is Toei's first popular magical girl series. Had it been obscure (or more popular in the States than it was in Japan), Pretty Cure wouldn't have existed.
* You Messed Up, Now You're the Magical Girl: More of a case of "Queen Beryl trashed everything, now you're the magical girl".
* Satisfactory Conclusion: The final episode of *Sailor Stars* for the first anime. But then Toei revived the Sailor Moon anime to be more like the manga...
* Cute Mascot: Luna.
* This gave us inspiration: More and more series about magical girls would come on Japanese TV after this. One of those shows? Cardcaptor Sakura, which also became popular in the US but nowhere near as popular as Sailor Moon.
* Super Evil: Queen Beryl.
* Fauxnime: The ToonMakers pitch. Well, except Queen Beryl. It's worth nothing that the character designers didn't intend for this to happen.
* Padding Filler Z: The entire Doom Tree arc was filler. A good chunk of filler episodes in the anime can be removed without affecting the plot, too.
* Shonen Beat: Quite the reason why it's one of few magical girl anime to be popular not just with girls, but also *guys* in America- due to the magical girl warrior aspect.
* Dubless Series: The only European-originated languages *Sailor Stars* got dubbed in were Spanish, English (as of 2019) and French. All other *Sailor Moon* dubs outside of Asia, including the German and Italian dubs, end right at the end of *SuperS*, if not at some point before then.

TBA.