Sailor Moon first aired in North America back in 1995, I was 11 years old and actually had never heard of the series. In an odd twist to that statement I never really knew what anime was back then either. I was actually a pretty big fan of the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers and one morning my brother and I went to watch it and discovered it wasn't on, instead it was the first episode of Sailor Moon.
I admit, I wasn't impressed. I mean it wasn't bad per say at the time, but the only good thing I liked back then for this series was Luna since she was a talking cat. The following week it was again Sailor Moon instead of Power Rangers and I still wasn't liking it. It wouldn't be until 3 years later where I actually wanted more...
I was 14 and in the 7th grade and much like every teenager I hated school. My stress from school life was pretty bad as when I get overly stressed out I tend to get migraines and this was such a day where it was the aftermath of one. The night before I had a really bad migraine to the point where I actually hadn't gone to sleep till almost 2 or 3am, my parents both had to work the next morning however they called me in sick so I could get the sleep I needed. It's every kids' dream to be left home alone on a school day and where as it was cool, I did have that uneasy feeling since I wasn't used to being alone, so to fill the silence I turned on the TV. Back then USA used to run something called "The Action Extreme Team" which was a 2-3 hour block of cartoons every weekday morning and this was when Sailor Moon had reentered my life.
I recognized the theme song right away and was almost loathing leaving the TV on this channel, but since it was just for background noise I left it alone and as I listened to the episode I found myself becoming more invested in it to the point where I wanted to see more. Unlike when I had first seen the series where it was only Sailor Moon and Luna, this episode had Mercury, Mars and Jupiter and honestly the more characters made all the difference. I was now becoming a fan and I had my mom record the episodes that were to air while I was at school. Sadly though, by the time I found Sailor Moon, USA was about to stop running it. I had yet to see all the episodes that had been dubbed, but thankfully a friend of my brother's had recorded most of them and let me barrow his videos. Even though we never finished Sailor Moon R, I was still a fan and the Internet provided me with a plethora of images to feed the desire for the series.
The next year I had found out that the manga had been brought over as I stumbled upon issue one in our local comic store, though issue one didn't start at the beginning; instead it started with the introduction to Sailor Venus. Be as it may, I was happy to have the series back in some form and I was hit with more good news as Cartoon Network was getting the last of Sailor Moon R and by this time I had gotten my two best friends into the series so I was elated that I had someone I could share these moments with and from there CN would also get Sailor Moon S and Super S, but that would be as far as the anime would get stateside.
Sailor Moon was really the start for me becoming an anime fan; it was the first anime I saw that I knew was labeled as anime. Why does that look funny? Because I found out some of the series I used to watch when I was really young; Transformers, Voltron, Rainbow Brite and Strawberry Shortcake were also anime. So by that logic I had been into anime since I was two lol. But it was Sailor Moon that made me interested in seeing what over series were out there, it also made me want to be more creative. I started to draw a lot more, even if it was only one free handed drawings of images that already existed. Some of my projects in school even included Sailor Moon; I made a poster for a "pop art" project that featured Sailor Moon in her traditional pose as she declares; "In the name of the moon", our vocab crossword puzzles we had to do in our science notebooks had Sailor Moon and Sailor Venus behind two of them (our teacher told us we had to do some sort of imagery behind it, even if it was color), we had to write our own creation myth in English class and I used Sailor Moon for a base for the story and the list goes on and on. Even today I still continue to make things for Sailor Moon and I am sure that that trend will go on for years to come.
Now where as I have many, many fond memories with Sailor Moon I have often had to wonder "Is it has good as I really remember?" In truth, I do look at it and go "I got into this how?" as some of the moments were rather goofy and made little to no sense, but I think it was that goofiness that made it worth while. It was fun and I felt it was worth my time. Sailor Moon continues to be one of the strongest series of all time as it is now making a revival around the world. Earlier this week Kodansha Comics USA announced they are bringing the Sailor Moon manga back to the states after being out of print for six years in addition to the prequel manga; Codename: Sailor V, in its first US release. In Japan this phenomenon as not only had the manga and anime, but also stage musicals and a live action adaptation entitled Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, which was the title of the manga in its release in Japan as opposed to Pretty Soldier (Bishojo Senshi) Sailor Moon.
So do I prefer the English dub or the original Japanese? Well I have to say I have become more of a fan of the Japanese version over the years, that's not to say I didn't like the dub in it's own way. To change the names of the characters didn't bother me too much, in fact back then it really made sense to do so, so the audience could possibly relate and understand the characters more since the show was being shown inside a country that wasn't Japan, but on the same hand the show does take place in Japan so having the Japanese names remain would have made sense too. But on that note, it was actually what some of the names changed to that made me have to wonder where they came up with them;
Usagi/Sailor Moon:
In the dub she is known as Serena. I really don't have a problem with that name, in fact I think it's rather pretty for her. The confusing, yet not part is when they refer to her has the princess. For the Moon Kingdom and in the future Crystal Tokyo she is known as Princess/Queen Serenity, but the dub would call her Princess Serena. The reason for doing this was to not cause confusion among the viewers, so it's partly understandable, really, if you're following the series I doubt there would have been any confusion. However, interestingly enough they would use the name Serenity for her future self in Crystal Tokyo as Neo Queen Serenity.
Ami/Sailor Mercury:
The dub actually didn't change her name much at all going from Ami to Amy, but in the first chunk of dubbed episodes her last name was changed from Mizuno to Anderson and then later changed back to Mizuno.
Rei/Sailor Mars:
Another one like Mercury, her name actually didn't change save for the spelling, going from Rei to Raye. Her last name, Hino, remained intact.
Makoto/Sailor Jupiter:
I'm actually not really sure how they come up with the names as they want to change them. With Sailor Moon if I had to guess they took it from the soundings from Serenity, but with Jupiter I would have no idea where to begin as we dubbed name is Lita. Again like Serena, I don't mind this given name, I think it fits her.
Minako/Sailor Venus:
Very akin also to Ami and Rei, they were pretty close to leaving her name as it was giving her the dubbed name Mina.
Chibi-Usa/Chibi-Moon:
This was the first of the name changes that was reasonably so as Chibi-Usa is basically "Little Rabbit", playing off of Usagi's name. Thus with changing Sailor Moon's name to Serena they would need to change Chibi-Usa as well, deciding to use a nickname often associated with Serena; Rini. I really didn't mind that change as it made sense and in the manga they wanted to keep the association with the dub when they brought it over so they were using the dub names, which looked rather silly since they translated Usagi to Bunny and put Chibi-Usa as Rini. Which just brings up another thing; since they translate everything out Chibi-Moon became Mini Moon in the dub, but the manga left it as Chibi-Moon (thankfully).
Setsuna/Sailor Pluto:
Pluto first appears in Sailor Moon R inside the little Luna sphere that Chibi-Usa carried around. In the Japanese version Chibi-Usa refered to her as Puu where in our dub she called her Luna P. Later when she was introduced to fight along side the other Sailor Senshi she was given the name Trista for our dub. I actually looked this up and the name makes sense for as both her Japanese and English dub name mean sad or sadness.
Michiru/Sailor Neptune:
When Sailor Moon S was slated to be released my brother and I started to take guesses as to what the dubbed names would be for the Outer Senshi and I have to pat myself on the back for guessing correctly for Neptune as they named her Michelle. Only reason I could think of for this was because the sounds of her Japanese name was very close to her dubbed one.
Haruka/Sailor Uranus:
This one... is actually kinda funny. As you can see some of these kind of have no rime or reason to why the names are chosen and for me I pick Uranus for being the most out there one, not for the fact that her dubbed name is bad, but because I didn't expect her to have the name of one of my friends; Amara. When Sailor Moon S first aired my brother, my best friend and one of our other friends sat in our living room awaiting to here her dubbed name for the first time. The show cuts to commercial and the 4 of us are sitting there going, in a shocked/dead pan kind of tone; "They named her Amara..." Phone rings and it's our friend Jole who says in the same tone; "They named her Amara..." Another one of my friends calls right after that and in that tone says; "They named her Amara..." Another call comes through and all happy and excited on the other end was indeed my friend Amara saying; "They named her Amara!" Ah memories...
Mamoru/Tuxedo Kamen:
Even the male lead can't escape the name change as he is given the dubbed name Darien. Much like his love Sailor Moon, he too went under the stick with the one dubbed name for your past and future lives as they dubbed him Prince/King Darien instead of using the name Endymion. Also like with Chibi-Moon for the anime, they translated out his name making him Tuxedo Mask.
The changes in terms of names weren't that bad, but since I was looking into the series a lot more online I was rather saddened that they had to edit so much to the point I wish they never aired the dub on TV at all. For starters it kind goes off on a double standard; Sailor Moon is a story that mainly focuses on love and the primary characters that it revolves around are Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask. For an American audience I am amazed this got past the FCC since Sailor Moon is a 14 year old girl and Tuxedo Mask is at least an 18 year old college student. Yes, it is only a 4 year difference, but she is still underage by US standards. (where as in Japan 14 is of legal age btw) But when Sailor Moon S and Super S were brought over they edited and CHANGED Uranus and Neptune's relationship; taking them from being lovers to making the cousins. COUSINS! This was horribly done too as there are countless scenes that could not be cut due to story importance that there is still flirtation within their body language.
Episodes themselves were also cut completely due to some content not being suitable to air on American television. In fact, because Sailor Moon was primarily targeted towards children here in the states, the final episode of the first season was edited and cut so much taking it from a two episode finale to one. And honestly I don't know why, especially with the way they cut it. In the episode the Sailor Senshi and Tuxedo Mask all die and get reborn at the end. Because death isn't suitable for a kids' show they had cut out the scenes where they were killed one by one and said they were captured. A nice attempt for a cover up, but anyone with half a brain could figure out they were killed. The end has one of those "it makes no sense" moments that I mentioned before as they have no memories at the end and for them to have been captured this part makes no sense. The memory loss is of course is due to them going through the rebirth.
But as I got older and looked at more of the Japanese version, including watching a fansub of Sailor Stars, I could really see the difference in the show. Take a look at these two scenes; one from the Japanese version and the other from the English dub.
I do apologize for the raw Japanese, I couldn't find the clip with subs that was under 10 minutes. But you can get the sense of tone. Usagi goes looking for Chibi-Usa and finds out that her parents were attacked in the future. The enemies from the Black Moon locate her and go in their attempts to kill her only to be interrupted by Sailor Moon and the other Sailor Senshi. Rubeus then goes for the kill himself but Sailor Moon protects Chibi-Usa as she slowly starts to realize there is something about her that draws her to her and the desire to protect her. Tuxedo Mask appears as he always does and tells Sailor Moon that she is really the only one who can protect the girl. Now here's the scene again (it's really the scene with Rubeus that I am pointing out) in the English dub;
I really do love the voice cast for the early Sailor Moon R, the voice for Sailor Moon was just perfect. The song in the background was really unique too as they tended to use original stuff for the English adaptation and it really fit for the scene in my opinion. But it's the dialog that seems to make the scene fall apart. Rubeus saying he doesn't want to hurt Sailor Moon is total BS. Tuxedo Mask's entrance is about the same in both basically be raiding Rubeus for targeting a helpless child. I do like the dub line of "Cape Boy" for some reason, it's like he's making fun of him for wearing a cape lol. But it's when Tuxedo Mask tells Sailor Moon to take him out basically that I have to scratch my head a little. As I said for the Japanese version he tells her that she is the only one who can protect the girl; where the line in the dub is corny (as were most of his lines in the dub) and really didn't fit for the emotion the scene was supposed to have. I remember finding this scene a year ago and was like; "wow... did he REALLY just say that?"
Over all though I still love the series and could easily recommend it to people. See you all next time for my Part 2. ^^/
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