Sailor Moon (TV series)

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  Sailor Moon first aired in Japan on the 7th of March 1992, and within three years the franchise had generated $1.5 billion in merchandise sales. A show built around a clumsy, overemotional 14-year-old who would rather sleep than save the world had become one of the most successful media properties Japan had ever produced. How does a middle school girl who overreacts the first time she transforms into a magical warrior end up at the center of a global phenomenon? That is the question this documentary explores. The answers run through one creator's struggle to keep the story alive, a censorship battle on two continents, a fan petition that changed the course of American television, and a piece of music that kept winning awards for years after the show ended.

• 2. The World of Usagi Tsukino

  ›

  Set in Tokyo in the 1990s, the series opens on Usagi Tsukino, an underachieving middle school student who encounters a magical talking cat named Luna. Luna gives Usagi the power to become Sailor Moon, tasked with locating the moon princess and battling the forces of the Dark Kingdom under Queen Beryl. Usagi does not accept this destiny gracefully. She overreacts, she resists, and she is uncertain what has happened to her.

  That reluctance was intentional. Creator Naoko Takeuchi's manga, published in the magazine Nakayoshi from 1992 to 1997, centered the story on a character who had to grow into her role rather than arrive already heroic. The anime closely followed this structure, tracking the maturation of Usagi from an emotional schoolgirl to a responsible young adult across five seasons.

  Usagi is joined by four other Sailor Soldiers, each awakened over the course of the first season: the timid but intelligent Ami Mizuno as Sailor Mercury, the hot-headed miko Rei Hino as Sailor Mars, the tomboyish Makoto Kino as Sailor Jupiter, and the aspiring idol Minako Aino as Sailor Venus. The mysterious Tuxedo Mask, whose civilian identity is the college student Mamoru Chiba, becomes Usagi's eventual romantic partner. Their romance is described by scholars Martha Cornog and Timothy Perper as an archetype where the lovers become more than the sum of their parts, promising to be together forever.

  Writer Nicolas Penedo attributes much of the show's appeal to its fusion of the shojo genre of magical girls with the fighting-team structure of series like Saint Seiya. That combination allowed Sailor Moon to reach audiences beyond the teenage girls the manga aimed at directly, pulling in a broader viewership who responded to both the action sequences and the emotional weight of the relationships.

• 3. Five Seasons of Story

  ›

  Naoko Takeuchi initially planned for only one season of both the manga and anime. Due to the first season's popularity, Toei Animation asked her to continue, but she struggled at first to develop a second storyline. Her editor Fumio Osano suggested focusing the second season on Sailor Moon's daughter from the future, which became the driving concept for Sailor Moon R.

  To give Takeuchi time to write the Black Moon story arc, the anime team developed an original filler arc called the Makai Tree arc. This kind of production pressure shaped the whole run. Because the manga was often published during the anime's production, the anime would lag the source material by only a month or two. The result, as one production observer noted, was that the anime followed the manga fairly closely, though with deviations. Takeuchi herself stated that Toei's largely male production staff gave the anime version, in her view, a slight male perspective. Commentators picked up on this too, detecting a more shonen tone in the anime that broadened its appeal beyond the manga's core audience.

  The five seasons each had distinct directorial hands. Junichi Sato directed the first season, with Kazuko Tadano as character designer. Kunihiko Ikuhara directed the Black Moon arc of Sailor Moon R and then the entire third and fourth seasons, with Ikuko Itoh taking over as character designer from the third season. Takuya Igarashi directed the fifth and final season, Sailor Stars. The series ran for 200 episodes, concluding on the 8th of February 1997.

  Alongside the television run, three theatrical films were produced: Sailor Moon R: The Movie in 1993, Sailor Moon S: The Movie in 1994, and Sailor Moon SuperS: The Movie in 1995. Each released in December to coincide with Japanese school winter vacations and each told an original story set during its corresponding season. By the end of 1995, the anime series had been sold in Japan as 20 volumes, each selling approximately 300,000 copies.

• 4. The English Dub Wars

  ›

  In 1995, a bidding war erupted over the North American rights to Sailor Moon. Toon Makers and Renaissance-Atlantic Entertainment wanted to produce an American live-action and animated hybrid adaptation. DIC Productions, together with SeaGull Entertainment and Sachs Finley Media, won the license for the first two seasons. The Mississauga-based Optimum Productions was hired to dub the show, and composer Bob Summers wrote an entirely new background score.

  DIC mandated cuts to content and length that reduced the first 89 episodes by seven. Their adaptation was built explicitly to capitalize on the success of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. The series premiered in Canada on the 28th of August 1995, on YTV, and in first-run syndication in the United States on the 11th of September. Production halted in November 1995 after two seasons due to low ratings.

  Anne Allison, examining the U.S. broadcast, identifies the core problem as scheduling. The series aired in early morning dead timeslots on weekdays, at 9:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m., times she describes as unsuitable for the target audience. In Canada, the dubbing process meant the show qualified as local content and aired in primetime. In the United States, it did not receive that treatment. Executives involved with the show also suggested that poor localization played a role, and British authors Helen McCarthy and Jonathan Clements went further, calling the dub indifferent.

  After cancellation, a fan petition gathered over 12,500 signatures. It caught the attention of General Mills, which in 1997 agreed to sponsor and syndicate the dub through The Program Exchange. This became regarded as an early example of successful fan activism. Re-runs began on USA Network on the 9th of June 1997. On the 1st of June 1998, the series moved to Cartoon Network's Toonami block, where the ratings success of the re-runs led to the remaining seventeen episodes, promoted as The Lost Episodes, beginning to air on the 30th of November.

• 5. Censorship and What Was Cut

  ›

  Sailor Moon's original North American release involved heavy editing that altered almost every aspect of the show: character names, clothing, scenes, and dialogue. Some scenes depicting brief nudity and bathing were removed. Any type of violence, including violence against children, was cut.

  The censorship extended to character identity. Zoisite and Fisheye, both male in the Japanese version, were changed to female characters in the dub. Sailor Neptune and Sailor Uranus, whose relationship in the original is clearly romantic, were reframed as cousins in the edited English version. This pattern appeared in other countries as well, ranging from removing gender-fluid character traits to editing same-sex romantic pairings into family relationships.

  Sociology professor Rhea Hoskin argues that removing homosexual and gender-fluid characters from the 1990s Sailor Moon obscured what was otherwise notable representation of LGBTQ characters in a female-lead superhero show. The website AfterEllen described the relationship between Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune as the best-known yuri relationship in anime history. The website Yuricon described it as butch-femme in character, and CBR called it one of the most beloved and complex relationships in the series.

  When Viz Media acquired the full anime series in North America in 2014, announced on the 16th of May of that year, it specifically cited restoring the content removed from the first 89 episodes as part of its mandate. The Studio City, Los Angeles-based Studiopolis was hired to re-dub the entire series. Modern releases across all regions restore the censored material, making the original depictions available to audiences who only knew the altered versions.

• 6. The Music of Sailor Moon

  ›

  Takanori Arisawa composed the score for the series, and the recognition that followed was substantial. Columbia Records awarded him the Golden Disk Grand Prize for his work on the first series soundtrack in 1993. In 1998, 2000, and 2001, Arisawa won three consecutive JASRAC International Awards for most international royalties, a run that reflected just how widely Sailor Moon music had spread around the world.

  The opening theme song was used for the first 166 episodes of the series. DALI performed it for the first two seasons; Moon Lips took over for the next two. For the final season, the opening changed to Sailor Star Song, performed by Kae Hanazawa. The last ending theme, used for the series finale at episode 200, was Moon Lips's version of Moonlight Densetsu.

  Moonlight Densetsu was released as a CD single in March 1992, and was described at the time as an explosive hit. In Animage magazine's annual Anime Grand Prix poll, Moonlight Densetsu won first place in the Song category in both the 15th and 16th editions. It placed seventh in the 17th Grand Prix. The song Moon Revenge, from Sailor Moon R: The Movie, came eighth in that same poll.

  The English dub used the melody of Moonlight Densetsu with entirely different English lyrics. This was unusual practice for the era. One of the first anime theme songs to be redone in English since Star Blazers, the resulting Sailor Moon theme has been described as inane but catchy. The original Japanese song is a love song built around the relationship between Usagi and Mamoru, rooted in the idea of being born on the same Earth. The English version shifted that tone toward a superhero anthem, reflecting the broader reframing of the show for Western markets.

• 7. Reception and Global Reach

  ›

  Originally planned to run for six months, Sailor Moon aired every Saturday night in Japan in primetime at 7 p.m., drawing an average viewer rating of 11-12% across most of its run. The anime won the Animage Anime Grand Prix prize in 1993. By 2005 and 2006, ten years after the series ended, it still placed in the top thirty of TV Asahi's Top 100 anime polls.

  Spain and France became the first countries outside Japan to broadcast the series, beginning in December 1993. The show spread across South Korea, the Philippines, Poland, Russia, Italy, the Czech Republic, Mexico, Guatemala, Brazil, Ukraine, Belarus, Sweden, Germany, Bulgaria, Austria, Indonesia, Croatia, Hungary, Taiwan, Thailand, Romania, and Hong Kong before North America picked it up. In the Philippines, Sailor Moon became one of the main draws for the broadcaster ABC, helping it become the third-biggest network in the country. In South Korea, where most Japanese media had been banned for decades due to anti-Japanese sentiment, a KBS producer initially did not even try to acquire the show, assuming it would not clear censorship. By April 1997, it was airing on KBS 2 without difficulty and was described as enormously popular.

  Sales of Sailor Moon fashion dolls overtook those of Licca-chan in Japan during the 1990s. Mattel attributed this to what it called the fashion-action blend of the storyline. The broader merchandise campaign covered more than 5,000 items. In 2001, the Sailor Moon manga was Tokyopop's best-selling property in North America, outselling its next-best title by at least a factor of 1.5.

  Critics have noted the show's portrayal of strong female friendships and a cast of strikingly different characters who develop further dimensions as the series continues. The first season holds a 90% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with the site's consensus describing it as powerfully feminine and hypnotically cheesy. When Viz Media began streaming the newly re-dubbed series on Hulu and Neon Alley on the 19th of May 2014, and when the Viz dub began airing on Adult Swim's Toonami Rewind block on the 31st of May 2024, it marked the first broadcast of Sailor Moon on American television after a gap of 23 years.