User:Ryanasaurus007/Sailor Moon
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The anime metaseries Sailor Moon has been translated into many different languages, including English. The show's English version is said to be the seed of the franchise's ensuing popularity outside of Japan, and has also served as a profound introduction of anime to mainstream entertainment around the world.
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[edit] Background
The North American dubbed version of the Sailor Moon anime was created in 1995, initially airing in syndication in the United States, and on YTV in Canada. Though the basic storyline remained more or less the same, many changes were made in the details; it was rewritten to be aimed at very young American girls. Therefore, censorship was applied to remove material deemed inappropriate for the target audience.
Purist Sailor Moon and anime fans familiar with the Japanese original disliked it. Plots were vastly changed; others were completely dropped. Some of the changes include: naming the Sailor Senshi team the "Sailor Scouts" instead of the more accurate translation "Sailor Soldiers" (although the latter term was used much more frequently in later episodes); renaming almost all of the original attacks; removal of much of the adolescent sexuality (including the apparent homosexual relationship between two villain characters, "solved" by giving the more effeminate of the two a female voice actor and using feminine pronouns in reference to this character); removal of even small amounts of violence involving humans (such as when Sailor Mars slaps Sailor Moon) that might have negatively influenced children's behaviour; and a complete omission of the Japanese version's original music (the melody of the Japanese show's theme song, "Moonlight Densetsu" or "The Moonlight Legend," was retained for the dub's theme, though with completely rewritten lyrics and instrumentation). No fewer than six episodes were skipped over altogether by the dubbers, for varying reasons usually but not always stemming from content concerns. Finally, an end-of-show "morals" segment, "Sailor Says," was added on to each episode to satisfy the contemporary requirement of educational content on American children's television programs.
Perhaps most infamously remembered among fans was the treatment of the episode "Day of Destiny," which concluded the metaseries' first Japanese 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, each of Sailors Jupiter, Mercury, Venus, and Mars sacrificed themselves to protect their friend and leader. Though these deaths ended up being rescinded in the conclusion, it was still deemed necessary to remove all references to death in the American episode (instead of being killed, it was stated 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. Bootleg copies of the original two-parter, known informally as the "death episodes" for quite some time (until the concluding episodes of Sailor Stars essentially repeated this climax), were popular among tape traders in North America during the height of the series's popularity in that region.
This North American version was the first experience with Sailor Moon (if not anime in general) for many anglophones, 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, thus most fans regard the North American version as a mixed blessing.
[edit] Production History
The first two series of Sailor Moon that came to North America (the eponymous first series and Sailor Moon R) were dubbed by a company called DiC Entertainment. The first two series, in addition to their dedicated airings on the USA Network and YTV, were aired in syndication, usually early in the morning, mostly on affiliates of the FOX Network in the States, and on stations of the Global Television Network in Canada. 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 States.
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 and ended on something of a cliffhanger. Two years later, in 1997, DiC was finally able to complete their adaptation of Sailor Moon R by releasing an additional 17 episodes, which concluded that series. The final 17 episodes of DiC's series were first screened in Canada, then brought over to America a year later, initially billed as "The Lost Episodes."
DiC subsequently fell into breach of its contract to dub Sailor Moon, allowing Cloverway Inc., the North American branch of Toei Animation, the Japanese studio that produced the original version of the anime, to pick up the distribution rights to Sailor Moon S and SuperS.
The production of the North American versions of S and SuperS was strikingly different from DIC's dubs of Sailor Moon and R in that all of the original animation and music was kept (except for the opening theme, which was the same as DiC's version, although the closing theme omitted the vocal track), the "Sailor Says" segments were eliminated, and much less overt censorship was in evidence (the rules for children's television in America having been relaxed in the intervening years due to the advent of a TV ratings system), keeping the two series relatively close to the Japanese version. However, many Sailor Moon fans disliked Cloverway's "Americanization" of the two series by the addition of slang words (such as "phat") with no corollary in the Japanese series. 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 explicitly stated, in the original Japanese series it was strongly implied that they were lesbian lovers, but in Cloverway's adaptation they became "cousins" instead, in an attempt to explain their relationship away as something else (homosexuality being a traditionally taboo subject in American entertainments aimed at children). Nonetheless, it was generally agreed among the fan community that Cloverway's efforts represented a major improvement over DiC's dubbing of the first two series.
The S and SuperS dubs were first aired in 2000 on the cable television network Cartoon Network as part of their Toonami programming block, and on YTV. The movies were also dubbed by Cloverway and aired on Cartoon Network and YTV. The broadcast syndication licence for Sailor Moon in North America recently expired, so the English version of the show is now nowhere to be seen on television in any English-speaking country. PBS still reruns the Japanese version from WNET Channel 13 New York.
The dubbing in all cases was performed at Optimum Studios in Toronto, Ontario, with Canadian voices in most of the character roles. The show was distributed for broadcast syndication by Buena Vista Television.
[edit] Home Video
PBS Video has rights to release Sailor Moon S, SuperS and the movies on Region-1 DVD and VHS, both in the dubbed and uncut versions. In 2003, ADV, under its ADV Films division, released the English dub of Sailor Moon and Sailor Moon R as a set of fourteen Region-1 DVDs. ADV also released a subtitled version of the entire Sailor Moon and Sailor Moon R series in two separate DVD boxsets -- uncut, except for the removal of next episode previews and episode 67, 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.
The removal of episode 67 was due to Toei Animation's refusal to grant ADV the license to distribute the episode. It is unknown why Toei took this action. Possible reasons include it containing strange fantasy elements even atypical of the metaseries (the basic plot involves Chibi-Usa finding and befriending a dinosaur). Its absence is notable due to it being the requisite 'holiday' episode that is featured once per series (and the few times the girls all appear in bathing suits, to the joy of male viewers). Some printings of the ADV box set include a full description of episode 67 in their liner notes, perhaps suggesting that Toei's decision to withhold it was done relatively late in the production process.
During 1996 and 1997, a total of six VHS tapes, each containing two key (if nonconsecutive in most cases) episodes of the series, were released by Buena Vista Home Video and PBS Home Video. These tapes were originally available excuslively through Toys 'R' Us stores, but later saw wider distribution in other chains. In 1998, a VHS boxset containing all thirteen episodes of the "Doom Tree" storyline (the first part of R) was released, also through Buena Vista and PBS.
So far, no American company is known to have the rights to release the "Ami-chan no Hatsukoi" theatrical short (shown prior to the SuperS movie), the SuperS TV special, or the Sailor Stars series. Toei Animation has expressed that they do not want to licence Sailor Stars for a North American release due to content that some American viewers may find inappropriate for children. Due to this, the difficulty of circulating fansub tapes in the past, and the series' long run, many fans have not actually seen the entire series in full.
Toei has also stated that it does not ever intend to licence its most-recently-produced live-action Sailor Moon series or the musicals outside of Japan, so viewers outside the country, including those in North America, have to rely on alternate means to view those presentations.
[edit] Trivia
- When Sailor Moon was up for bid by Toei to be produced in North America, Haim Saban attempted to obtain the rights to the franchise so that his company could make an original Power Rangers-style version of Sailor Moon, half live-action and half American-style cartoon. A two-minute pilot for this proposal was produced by Saban, but rejected by Toei. Today, this short film clip, commonly known as "Saban Moon" in fan circles, is often pointed to by defenders of the dubbed episodes as an example of just how bad things could have been.
- Very early on, 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; Serena (Usagi) was called "Victoria," Amy (Ami) was "Blue," Raye (Rei) "Dana," Lita (Makoto) "Sara," and Mina (Minako) "Carrie."
[edit] External link
- Sailor Moon Uncensored: Details on the differences between the Japanese and English-language episodes of the show
