Did you know Sailor Moon got a new dub without any weird edits?

[Purple]

Smack me if I already made a thread for this, but recently-ish I randomly noticed that Sailor Moon was on Hulu. And furthermore, all of it, and further still, there is a new modern dub which doesn't make efforts to scrub away all the queerness and doesn't switch people's pronouns up. So I've been blazing through that, and am currently uh... most of the way through S. Which is a whole dang season I'm just seeing for the first time (for whatever reason, in my neck of the woods the DiC dub was everywhere but we never got the Cloverway).

I honestly decidedly prefer the DiC dub for the first 20-something episodes, with its very overly emotive main character, British Nanny Luna, and of course

but new dub seems like an improvement for everyone else from Jupiter on.

Anyway, stuff that's been surprising for me:
- As far as I can tell, there are actually multiple instances in the first season where the old dub just straight up threw in original songs that just don't exist in the original/new dub? Like, we all remember this right?

- General monster horniness levels are a lot more... a lot, than I recall or would have thought. I mean...

With like, maybe 2 exceptions, there's only two kinds of monsters. 1- The artists were just in a shockingly horny mood and basically just drew some women in bikinis. 2- The artists were in an even hornier mood and got weirdly creative about it.
- Hey the end credits theme kinda sucks and a lot of the general recycled sequence music/attack noises do too.
- I remember Mercury being way more of an actual character who had, like, lines, and did things, but after losing her little laptop in the first big fight she kinda becomes a total non-entity.
- I was expecting this to be less overtly super queer all over.

Like, I feel I need to back up and explain that one.

So, when Uranus and Neptune show up, there's this episode where Moon and Venus are kinda clueless/have never met anyone going with a stone butch aesthetic and get it into their heads that Uranus is this hot new guy in town and fighting over who gets to date her/worrying about whether she's already dating Neptune (and to be clear, she absolutely IS, but they have an open thing where Neptune just kind of accepts that Uranus is gonna go out and bang every freaking girl in the world).

Then a bit after that, like, maybe one episode even, Jupiter just... straight up goes out on a date with them. And everyone else has a little meeting about it, and at first they're shocked because Jupiter has this whole thing about pining after her old boyfriend, and someone straight up says "did her orientation change?" and then it's cleared up that she went out with Uranus and Neptune and everyone's like "oh well I mean yeah, I would too" and basically everyone admits to actually being bi (except Mercury but again she just like, stops being a character after the first season) and they bust out Mars' secret Takarazuka Revue porn stash and my jaw is just on the floor. And then they keep doubling down on this and seriously like the whole third season here is just everyone being super horny for Uranus and oh yeah I guess fighting monsters.

Anyway now that I've basically broken that format I was going for, the villains' various deals are... interesting?

Season 1 we've got Queen Beryl and her 4 generals who all have slightly different MOs but stick to a general plan of starting new businesses around town, handing out coupons, and draining all their customers' life energy to give to Beryl who... doesn't really have a particularly well established use for it? Like near the end of the season there's this quick vague hinting that she's the underling of this other villain who needs reviving or something but, I dunno, she might just really like collecting the stuff.

Then there's the weird filler arc at the start of season 2 (R) with the alien twins who worship a big tree and are kinda vampires and have this tarot deck of pokemon cards they use, and... it's honestly kind of amazing how this plays out for as long as it does before the tree they work for just literally starts talking and basically goes "look you freaking idiots I was trying to be subtle with this whole wilting and growing hot/cold schtick but I don't need freaking 'life energy' to live I survive off you two being nice to each other where the hell did you even get this stupid idea?" and then they're just like "oh, whoops" and the tree just asks Sailor Moon to put a freaking pink heart beam through its head so it can reincarnate and try this whole raising hippie elves thing again from scratch.

Then there's the Black Moon Tribe who come from some kind of secret counter earth and also the future and they want to prevent Sailor Moon from becoming some sort of like, immortal God Empress of the whole world in whatever unspecified year it is that she has a 6 year old daughter and... I mean I get not wanting to live under the rule of this random idiot but the rest of it is pretty vague and the monsters of the week are all pretty boring and themeless and the whole thing exists under the dark cloud of freaking Chibi Moon who is just the worst and even if she wasn't just the worst is a living reminder that no, our 14 year old protagonist actually does eventually hook up with the awful jerk who negs her constantly and is in freaking college (and I swear there's an episode where they full on point out that them dading straight up illegal in most countries). On the upside though most of the evil generals just kinda defect and hang out and chill and that's nice to see.

Then there's season 3 (S) and season 3 freaking rules. We've got prophetic future visions of this Terminator 2 playground scene life-ending apocalypse that needs preventing, which apparently requires... the holy grail. Which has been broken into 3 triforce pieces that are hidden in people's hearts. And the villains also want these for reasons I don't think they ever even bother explaining (unless it's RIGHT at the end of the season). But the villains are freaking awesome, because we've just got this weird mad scientist who has a bunch of daemon eggs he's growing in test tubes, and this... semi-independent research think tank/coven called Witches 5 who all hang out in lab coats with apparently nothing under them doing internet research trying to figure out who's sufficiently pure of heart that they can throw a daemon egg at the nearest random object to get a monster to rip their heart out and check it for McGuffins. And they literally never once guess right so every episode is pick a target, create a ridiculous monster by turning a vacuum/tire/doorknob/whatever into a sleazy monster woman, monster woman rips heart out, U&N swipe it, check it, see it doesn't have a McGuffin, and give it back to the owner, whichever science witch is on deck today kinda goes "oh, well, this is awkward, bye... and oh, hey, monster, I guess kill these people while we're all here?" and just kinda leaves. And the monsters are consistently extra ridiculous and extra quirky. And by the end of her tenure one of the science witches just kinda gives up on the whole monster thing and just builds a flamethrower and a heart-removing gun which actually do work out a whole lot better, and then when it's time to do the whole kill her for failing too many times thing, rather than some big supernatural thing the incoming science witch just freaking cuts the brake line in her station wagon so she drives off a cliff, and oh yeah did I mention she's just driving around in a station wagon with a big pentagram on the side? Just... best villain group ever here. Top notch.

Anyway I'm almost done with this season and the big pressing question of the moment seems to be "Wait so like, Sailor Moon is Jesus?" and I think I might have missed a bit of villain exposition but I think at this point they're just making more monsters because they cannot handle that premise and hope that if they have enough monsters attack people this will somehow prove not to be the case.

Seems like it'll be pretty hard for the next two seasons to top science witches with flamethrowers making monsters out of doorknobs that proceed to freak out because all their skills just have door opening utility and they don't actually have any sort of combat skills whatsoever though.

 

[Peklo]

To get this out of the way: isn't the "bang, zoom" line in the collective lexicon because of the '50s sitcom Honeymooners? Wherein the context for it is a catchphrase that frames domestic violence as a joke? I would not evoke it now because of that.

- I was expecting this to be less overtly super queer all over.

I don't think the series is ever absent of it, but the S season marks Kunihiko Ikuhara's shift in production from episode to series director, so these themes become more present through his stronger influence over the material. Since Michiru and Haruka debut then it would be easy to associate and credit all of it around them, and while consistent in their portrayal, they're only a part of the overall series ethos at that point. R: The Movie, which Ikuhara directed, is also enormously, focally queer. I wrote about it here.

With like, maybe 2 exceptions, there's only two kinds of monsters. 1- The artists were just in a shockingly horny mood and basically just drew some women in bikinis. 2- The artists were in an even hornier mood and got weirdly creative about it.

Sometimes they're just plainly creative without especial caveats. My favourite is the queen of spades-looking gambler Daimon, with whose deck-shuffling they break out all the sakuga.

- I remember Mercury being way more of an actual character who had, like, lines, and did things, but after losing her little laptop in the first big fight she kinda becomes a total non-entity.

except Mercury but again she just like, stops being a character after the first season

I don't think this is true at all, or at least it feels like an odd singling out of a character whose development is shaped by storytelling practices that apply to everyone in the series. Sailor Moon is a monstrously rigid show in its structural narrative stylings, not just for the ongoing monster-of-the-week formula but how it handles character spotlight episodes: they always come in sequential batches, focusing on a single member of the central four, and then recede into the background so the Usagi-centric main plotting can go about its business until the cycle repeats. It's one of the truest executions of the old Marvel Comics editorial guideline that Stan Lee used to hammer in for prospective writers in that the only development or change in the stories is the illusion of one. The Sailor Soldiers' interpersonal dynamics are established, they congeal, and then remain static for the better part of 200 episodes plus, which is really fine; this isn't a serial that's thrilling to return to in the sense of an overarching plot, which is always incidental and interchangeable, but because the characters are compelling in the ways they relate to each other and riff on their respective traits. Sweeping changes were never on the table and it's not what the show is generally interested in doing, and I don't think it's a failure of the show to have those priorities.

Ami is actually central to one of my favourite subtle character bits in the series, which comes in a blink during R: The Movie. She's analyzing the environment through her visor as she so often does, and there's POV shot from her perspective, and you see that the HUD of her gadget displays in German. Maybe at first you think it's thoughtless exoticization of a foreign language to make something seem mysterious and cool, but one of the standout episodes for Ami and the R season in general is where she's deliberating whether to stay in Japan to continue superheroing and her expected course of education, or to transfer to Germany to pursue her medical studies and aspirations. In the end she decides not to go (illusionary change!) but it doesn't change who she is, what her plans for the future are, and how crucial German-language skills would be to her in her aspired profession and career. It's really easy to dress these characters down and reduce them to archetypes and lone traits, but there's always some level of verisimilitude that's bubbling under the surface if you're paying attention, and when the writers are on their game to reciprocate that interest.

freaking Chibi Moon who is just the worst

The only thing about Chibiusa I don't like is that in a medium where every frame of animation is deliberately created and applied by artists, there's a regular practice of slipping in upskirt shots of the six or seven-year-old. It doesn't reflect well on anyone involved. Otherwise, she's Sailor Moon's Cable, and very fun. This is her best scene.

Witches 5

The best gag around them is how the gradual thinning of the ranks in the membership is marked by hasty paste-up jobs at their HQ to update the group moniker.

Second-best? Evil game of Twister.

​

Anyhow, I've been watching the series for five years or more now, and only just recently wrapped up the third season. My media consumption habits are usually intensive and frantic in their obsessiveness, so this pace is very uncommon for me, even if 200 episodes of anything is a tall order under any circumstances. Something about the series--the discussed structural nature of it, partly--doesn't call for marathon sessions to get the most out of it; in fact I think it rejects such notions outright, even if that's still a valid way to experience it. I think it's because the large-scale "plot" of Sailor Moon is so immaterial that the concept of "filler" ceases to have any meaning, and what draws me to the series is the reverse of how that term is usually applied to fiction anyway. No episode is irrelevant and so even a little of it at a time sustains me for a long time.

 

[Octopus Prime]

I'm glad to see that Purple and I have the exact same opinions re: that moon, and the sailors who help it fight

 

[Pajaro Pete]

i was trying to think of how to explain the monster aesthetic to someone and settled on "Sexy Halloween Costume Versions Of Everyday Objects"

- I remember Mercury being way more of an actual character who had, like, lines, and did things, but after losing her little laptop in the first big fight she kinda becomes a total non-entity.

i think this is broadly true of all the guardians - as the series goes on and the cast gets more and more crowded they essentially become clusters rather than individuals.

anyway stream Moon Effect from the hit new animated film Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2, available exclusively on Netflix because why should an entire property be available on one platform???

 

[q 3]

My personal pet peeve: no spinoff of Sailor Neptune smugly outsmarting and outbluffing and outlesbianing every villain and most heroes too. Only partly rectified decades later when Precure introduced a bootleg Cure Neptune

 

[FelixSH]

I love Sailor Moon, warts and all. And I swear, it strongly influenced my personal philosophy of "humanity is good, at it's core". The show is flawed in that regard, but it's engrained into me.

Especially the first and third season are my favourites - Uranus and Neptune play a huge part in my enjoyment of the third one. I should be too old for this, but they still seem like the older, cooler people that hang out with you. Even though they can be jerks.

When I last rewatched the show, in 2014, I think, I was really surprised when rewatching the episode where Makoto has the crush on Haruka. I didn't remember it, but loved it a lot.

The Witches are, indeed, the best villains. So, so fun. The whole season is such a joy to watch, and has so much fun with itself.

Uh, I have a really hard time writing anything nearly complex today. I'll just end by "this is one of the, to me, most important shows ever".

 

[Vaeran]

To get this out of the way: isn't the "bang, zoom" line in the collective lexicon because of the '50s sitcom Honeymooners? Wherein the context for it is a catchphrase that frames domestic violence as a joke? I would not evoke it now because of that.

Yeah. Also, call me old-fashioned, but I would put the thing the thread is about somewhere in the thread title.

I was pretty into Sailor Moon back in the day, but by the time they got around to dubbing more episodes beyond the initial run that got partway into R and then reran a thousand times, I had kind of moved on to other things. Also, the dub theme for the Inner Senshi transformations/attacks weirdly slaps??? Like to this day??? Gets me pumped to fight evil with colorful sparkles.

I haven't watched the movie that's on Netflix yet, but I couldn't help but notice that one of its descriptor tags is GAL PALS. We've learned nothing!

 

[Octopus Prime]

I question if there are any gals in this who are not pals.

 

[Purple]

To get this out of the way: isn't the "bang, zoom" line in the collective lexicon because of the '50s sitcom Honeymooners? Wherein the context for it is a catchphrase that frames domestic violence as a joke? I would not evoke it now because of that.

Yeah. Also, call me old-fashioned, but I would put the thing the thread is about somewhere in the thread title.

Excellent points. I have renamed the thread.

Ami is actually central to one of my favourite subtle character bits in the series, which comes in a blink during R: The Movie. She's analyzing the environment through her visor as she so often does, and there's POV shot from her perspective, and you see that the HUD of her gadget displays in German. Maybe at first you think it's thoughtless exoticization of a foreign language to make something seem mysterious and cool, but one of the standout episodes for Ami and the R season in general is where she's deliberating whether to stay in Japan to continue superheroing and her expected course of education, or to transfer to Germany to pursue her medical studies and aspirations. In the end she decides not to go (illusionary change!) but it doesn't change who she is, what her plans for the future are, and how crucial German-language skills would be to her in her aspired profession and career. It's really easy to dress these characters down and reduce them to archetypes and lone traits, but there's always some level of verisimilitude that's bubbling under the surface if you're paying attention, and when the writers are on their game to reciprocate that interest.

That's interesting. And again, it might just be a juxtaposition thing against my memories of the original dub, which thanks to syndication looping meant I saw the first half of season 1 a whole lot more than the rest and got cut off before cast bloat really kicked in, but I'd recalled her doing a whole lot more and here it's just, like, "gotta study gotta study gotta study" and kinda stepping off to the side whenever there's any sort of infighting shenanigans. And then Neptune shows up who's ALSO a water-themed prodigy type, and they could have made a whole thing out of that where either there's an "oh no I'm being replaced" thing or them bonding over shared gimmicks (which yeah there's one episode of that), but... yeah for me she's just really one-note and forgettable this rewatch.

Of course in general I'd say if I could change one thing about Sailor Moon it'd be giving more individual spotlight time to everyone who isn't the designated focal point of the arc. They do a nice job early on where there's really just the three characters to worry about, maybe even 4, but then it's all future visions and is Tuxedo Mask going to be evil and we never get to sit down and really get into whether Venus gets royalties from all the games and manga and such or what, you know?

And if I could change 2 things I'd maybe step back some from how many major arcs resolve with characters straight up getting killed but whatever they're reincarnated/revived and it's all fine. Or maybe lean into it way more. One of the two though.

The only thing about Chibiusa I don't like is that in a medium where every frame of animation is deliberately created and applied by artists, there's a regular practice of slipping in upskirt shots of the six or seven-year-old. It doesn't reflect well on anyone involved. Otherwise, she's Sailor Moon's Cable, and very fun. This is her best scene.

Yeaaaaaaah.

And I mean I do really like how the first thing she does when she's introduced is just straight up pulling out a gun. And her general weird gremlin energy is all well and good. And having a special move that does basically nothing but everyone stops to humor her is pretty great. But she's still got a whole Scrappy Doo thing going on, and like... yeah all the transformation scenes and upskirts are already pretty not great when you remember that in spite of the lanky designs everyone's supposed to be 14 (or... what, 16 for Uranus and Neptune? And then ???? and like 10 for Pluto and Jupiter). And her just being there is just this inherent reminder of how creepy the whole Moon/Mask pairing is.

The best gag around them is how the gradual thinning of the ranks in the membership is marked by hasty paste-up jobs at their HQ to update the group moniker.

Fantastic.

I was pretty into Sailor Moon back in the day, but by the time they got around to dubbing more episodes beyond the initial run that got partway into R and then reran a thousand times, I had kind of moved on to other things. Also, the dub theme for the Inner Senshi transformations/attacks weirdly slaps??? Like to this day??? Gets me pumped to fight evil with colorful sparkles.

I haven't watched the movie that's on Netflix yet, but I couldn't help but notice that one of its descriptor tags is GAL PALS. We've learned nothing!

I mean does anyone ever actually refer to "gals being pals" anymore without it being an ironic euphemism?

Also yeah, I'm actually kinda surprised looking back at how I kinda generally prefer any musical changes/insertions made in the old DIC dub. Not as good as the violin and drum machine theme the Outers get though of course.

I question if there are any gals in this who are not pals.

I mean, just in that one episode I rambled about they unambiguously plopped everyone on the team but Mercury unambiguously down into the Sapphic Zone. Don't think there's a single female general in any season who isn't exempt. At least a very sizable selection of the monsters. Literally everyone in the background in any scene Uranus is in. Uh... Naru (Molly for the oldschool) might be straight?

 

[Octopus Prime]

Yeah but she’s also in a committed relationship with a 400 year old space vampire who is presented as a guy in his 30s

A situation that everyone knows about and just… kind of hopes doesn’t become a problem

 

[Purple]

And then somehow it doesn't and she starts dating Milhouse and somehow that isn't a throwaway joke and they really stick to it.

 

[Peklo]

Umino and his relationship to Naru can be summed up thus:

 

[Johnny Unusual]

This is a beautiful gif.

 

[FelixSH]

Fun fact: Did you know that, in the German version, Usagi was called Bunny? I do find it neat, that the name was translated, but not into the otherwise used language.

 

[gogglebob]

It's one of the truest executions of the old Marvel Comics editorial guideline that Stan Lee used to hammer in for prospective writers in that the only development or change in the stories is the illusion of one.

I don't know what cultural cross-pollination there was at the time, nor have I read any interviews that confirmed this on either side, or whatever, but I have been banging my drum on a personal theory for years:

Sailor Moon is Spider-Man

And, yes, both franchises subsist on a number of Young Adult fiction tropes, but very specifically for both cases...

1. The central "Marvel" conflict of Spider-Man was always that Peter Parker kind of sucked as Peter Parker, but excelled at being Spider-Man. Iron Man had his potentially deadly shrapnel that "made him" Iron Man, the Incredible Hulk had his man/monster dichotomy, and Spider-Man had the unbearable burden of having to be a good Peter Parker and super hero. He failed. A lot. Nearly everyone in Peter Parker's life, from his adopted mother to his boss, thinks Peter Parker is a slacker that is never going to achieve anything, and this is primarily because Pete puts too much of an emphasis on saving the world. He was late because he was stopping a mugging. He missed Aunt May's birthday because he was dealing with Galactus. It's kind of a "nice guy" fantasy wherein your every failing has a big, important reason that no one would ever understand because it must be a secret for their own good. But, end of the day, Spider-Man is saving the day, even though J.J. would never believe Peter Parker is capable of accomplishing anything. In much the same way, Usagi is the world's biggest screw-up, and if you told her parents that she was destined to rule a thousand years of peace after banishing all evil witches from the land, they would likely die laughing. Very similar "secret identity hijinks" on both sides, with a heavy emphasis on simultaneously being super important but extremely poorly regarded by their friends and family.

2. Similarly, Spider-Man is effectively two different people inside and outside of uniform. Again, a common trope, but this one is central to the character, with "nerdy" Peter Parker rarely capable of defending himself or making the moves he needs to make, while Spider-Man routinely quips his way through battles that would scare off seasoned warriors. And, while you could claim that Sailor Moon is still "crybaby Usagi" in a lot of situations, that same "crybaby Peter Parker" was a lot more prominent in early (like pre-90s) Marvel comics. Spider-Man just happened to have a running, internal monologue conveyed through thought balloons about how much he was concerned about Aunt May while hopping around Green Goblin, while Sailor Moon has to "reveal" she still has issues in more immediately obvious ways for the audience. In both cases, you have a character that generally projects confidence after their "transformation", but is still clearly the same person underneath it all.

3. And, in both cases, the "crybaby" super hero is continually confronted with people who are "better" at being heroes, often because the other heroes are somehow veterans of the new and emerging field of monster/villain extermination. Spider-Man tried out for the Fantastic Four in (I believe) his first issue of his self-titled series. To this day, Spider-Man media seems to set the hero as a "protégé" in random stories, most notably with his relationship with Iron Man in the MCU (and that was theoretically based on a similar dynamic in the comics), despite the fact that he is very established both inside and out of his universe(s). Similarly, Sailor Moon is literally the titular character, but both Mars and Mercury join and are immediately identified as "better" Sailor Scouts by that talking cat. Later, Sailor Venus, Sailor Uranus, and Sailor Neptune all sign up with varying degrees of "we've been doing this longer, and we're pretty good at it" positions. And, in all of these cases, this happens after Spider-Moon has a victory count starting in the double digits, and quickly climbing to somewhere in the hundreds. They're good at what they do! But people keep saying they're better than them! Show me the proof! Having a cool sword doesn't count!

4. And, as stated by Peklo, they both exist in a very deliberate character stasis that means they are somehow teenagers that have histories that are longer than the lives of most of their audience at this point (and you can't tell me that modern Spider-Man, in all incarnations, is not written like a teenager). There's always that epiphany that lets them overcome their latest mental hang-up, and they're always going to have a similar mental breakdown a whole two episodes/issues later. Peter Parker can be the focal point of the multiverse, "graduate" to teaching at a public school, and save the world... but he'll be back to working at the Daily Bugle and worrying about paying Aunt May's rent in a month. Sailor Moon has pink-haired living proof that she is going to be the queen of the world and marry the man of her dreams, but she gets de-aged like one time, and she's ready to never leave her room again. There is never going to be enough change for either of them, so you know you're looking at the same ol' problems all over again when they pop up.

5. And, yeah, despite the fact that they are household names now, Spider-Man initial rogue's gallery was a collection of big "generals" (Doc Ock, Green Goblin), and then many more villains that were just whatever happened be on this year's animal-of-the-month calendar. The Vulture! The Rhino! The Scorpion! The Vermin? A... dude... who... wears animal pelts? The... Spot? Crap, that was just where Stan Lee circled his cousin's birthday. Oh well, run it anyway. You can't tell me Sailor Moon's monsters don't come from the same basic inspiration of "wouldn't it be cool if this week's villain had a tail?"

And, all that said, obviously Sailor Moon was then a huge influence on any future Magical Girl media. So if that all traces back to Spider-Man in the first place, I really want Peter Parker to be recognized as a magical girl.

yeah all the transformation scenes and upskirts are already pretty not great when you remember that in spite of the lanky designs everyone's supposed to be 14 (or... what, 16 for Uranus and Neptune? And then ???? and like 10 for Pluto and Jupiter)

Chibiusa claims to be... let's see here... 902 years old. I believe this is the first instance of that whole "immortal kindergartner" thing I can think of. So gonna go ahead and blame that skeevy trope on exclusively Sailor Moon...

DISCLAIMER IN CASE ANYONE MISINTERPRETS THIS POST: I goddamn love Sailor Moon. And Spider-Man, I guess.

 

[FelixSH]

Chibiusa claims to be... let's see here... 902 years old. I believe this is the first instance of that whole "immortal kindergartner" thing I can think of. So gonna go ahead and blame that skeevy trope on exclusively Sailor Moon...

But not many people actually know this, right? I mean, if I remember correctly, that is just an idea from the manga (that was mentioned one time, and than dropped immediately, which is the way with many ideas from the mange). I don't think the anime ever mentions it, and I'd assume that roughly 80% of all people who have consumed Sailor Moon media only watched the show.

 

[gogglebob]

I literally cannot parse the exact explanation from various wikis, but I seem to recall that in whatever version of Sailor Moon I watched last, it was noted that Chibiusa had some kind of arrested development as a result of not being able to manifest her magical girl powers, and she had been stuck as a little kid for hundreds of years. It was a stated reason for her Dark Lady turn. That said, I literally do not recall where I absorbed this information... but I'm kind of thinking it was a dub of Sailor Moon Crystal. I know it wasn't the manga, though, as I've never read the manga up to the point that Chibiusa is introduced.

It goes without saying, but I have no idea how many people saw Crystal compared to OG Sailor Moon (and even that past the point where Ami has to win a chess match for her friend's lives and then the whole syndication block resets).

 

[Pajaro Pete]

to be honest folks are probably distracted from the upskirt shots by the whole "Chibi Usa literally is in love with her actual father who she knows is her father" thing

 

[Octopus Prime]

I suspect thanks is to be laid at the feet of the target demo, but I was always relieved, surprised and delighted by the near lack of upskirt shots in this series, especially given everyone’s hemlines.

Also, as an adult I’ve come to sympathize more with Jadeite than any other character in the show; dude just wants to run a successful small business and every week it gets run into the ground because the same bunch of teenagers come in and hassle (and indeed, attack) his employees.

Eventually his boss, who is basically a bank-loan manager, is riding his back about how much money he’s wound up losing that he’s got no choice but to start throwing airplanes at people.

 

[Büge]

So, when Uranus and Neptune show up, there's this episode where Moon and Venus are kinda clueless/have never met anyone going with a stone butch aesthetic and get it into their heads that Uranus is this hot new guy in town and fighting over who gets to date her/worrying about whether she's already dating Neptune (and to be clear, she absolutely IS, but they have an open thing where Neptune just kind of accepts that Uranus is gonna go out and bang every freaking girl in the world).

Everyone wants to be cousins with Uranus.

 

[Purple]

And, all that said, obviously Sailor Moon was then a huge influence on any future Magical Girl media. So if that all traces back to Spider-Man in the first place, I really want Peter Parker to be recognized as a magical girl.

If you really want to put this take through its paces, consider too that Sailor Moon, honestly, has way less to do with any preceding magical girl show than it is just kind of a magical girl aesthetic reskin of a Super Sentai show, and Super Sentai's whole costumes and robots thing can be traced back to...

Also speaking of weird ideas from the manga that never made it into the show, I think we're all aware by now that at one point Mercury was going to be a robot, and that Mars has two pet crows named Phobos and Deimos, but did you know that said crows also have human forms?

 

[ArugulaZ]

I tried to watch this new dub on Amazon Prime. Sorry, I'm just too stuck on the DiC version, with the weird edits and the renamed characters and Serena's epic freakouts. I have more personal attachment to it, too, waking up early every morning to watch each episode, because Pokemon wasn't out yet and American television executives buried anime in the dusty corners of their schedules. You had to work to get your fix back in the 1990s, unless you were planning to trudge down to Blockbuster to rent something. Did you ever watch the Dragon Warrior (Quest) cartoon? You had to sweat blood to catch an episode, since it aired really early in the morning and only once a week, on Saturdays.

Now that you can watch anime anytime you want on streaming services, the mystique is gone. It's no longer appointment television; it's "eh, you'll get around to it eventually" television.

 

[Johnny Unusual]

3. And, in both cases, the "crybaby" super hero is continually confronted with people who are "better" at being heroes, often because the other heroes are somehow veterans of the new and emerging field of monster/villain extermination.

As superheroes go, this element reminds me more of Kinnikuman. And in both cases, part of the charm is someone who is something of a fuck up proving to their "betters" that they have amazing intangibles that aren't readily available until you get to know them.

 

[Torzelbaum]

If you really want to put this take through its paces, consider too that Sailor Moon, honestly, has way less to do with any preceding magical girl show than it is just kind of a magical girl aesthetic reskin of a Super Sentai show, and Super Sentai's whole costumes and robots thing can be traced back to...

 

[FelixSH]

I watched part of that movie, and the thing that stuck out to me is, that they kept the old mistranslation, when the senshi transform. You know how the transformation phrases always end in "Make-up", like the stuff that one puts on their face? Back in the 90s, the German version translated the two words as "mach auf", which would actually be back translated as "open up". It's a weird translation error, and I expected it to be fixed, and just kept as "Make-up". Considering that this version keeps all kinds of english terminology (basically all the attacks, and even the senshis name - back in the 90s, Sailor Moon was Sailor Moon, but Sailor Mercury was Sailor Merkur (Merkur being the German word for Mercury. Now it's Sailor Mercury)).

German translations are such a weird thing, with what they keep in English, and what will be translated in weird, bad ways.

 

[Johnny Unusual]

Dear nerds, the Sailor Moon Says youtube channel is getting taken down. Get it while you can.

 

[Peklo]

Absolute fuckery.

 

[Johnny Unusual]

There's still going to be a twitter presence, for what its worth.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1405601138242580481

 

[Purple]

I'm still totally shocked by that one. Like, I get it in the sense of rights holders being unthinking flailing beasts and all but like.... this thread exists because I saw a bunch of the clips on that youtube channel and got nostalgic enough to rewatch the whole series. It's just free advertising.

 

[Vega]

Has anybody created a Sailor Moon-alike that more or less scratches the same itch (er, not the best metaphor, but you know what I mean, right?) but is different enough to avoid the wrath of said copyright holder? People upthread have mentioned many shows inspired by Sailor Moon over the years, but does anything exist specifically in response to blunt takedowns like this?