Sailor Moon

Sailor Moon title card

*Sailor Moon* is a media franchise created by Naoko Takeuchi. The series began as a manga published in 1991, and later spawned an anime adaptation beginning in March 1992. The original animated series has been adapted into several different languages, including English. One of the series' later localizations (the first dub having been in French), the original English version, produced from 1995-1998 by DiC Entertainment and later Cloverway, in association with Optimum Productions, was a broadcast success, although it was highly controversial for its edits and changes to the story material. The entire manga series has also been translated and published in English twice, once by Mixx (later Tokyopop) and again by Kodansha Comics USA.

## Attempted American remake

When *Sailor Moon* was to be licensed 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 concept presentation video, as well as a two-minute music video, for this concept, which Renaissance-Atlantic presented to Toei. Toei eventually 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.

## Production

The English adaptation of *Sailor Moon* was produced in an attempt to capitalize on the success of *Mighty Morphin Power Rangers*. In 1995, after a bidding war with Toon Makers, DIC Entertainment acquired the rights to the first two seasons of the *Sailor Moon* franchise. Carl Macek adapted the first few episodes for an English-speaking audience, and was then replaced by Fred Ladd and Lisa Lumby-Richards, with all the voice recordings being handled by Optimum Productions in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Through the omission of six 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. In addition, the background musical score, and insert songs were also replaced. The remaining 17 episodes of *Sailor Moon R* were not adapted until its sponsor General Mills bought the rights to syndicate the show in 1997. After that, 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 Sailor Moon's 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: "From a far away place and time, Earth's greatest adventure is about to begin."

## Alterations

The North American version of the *Sailor Moon* anime was translated and distributed in 1995 by DIC Entertainment, initially airing on YTV in Canada and various television stations in the United States including....

Although the basic storyline remained the same, several alterations were made to the original Japanese material to make it acceptable for the younger target age group in the United States.

## Episodes

**Season 1**

**Season 2**