Visual example of title character
Naoko Takeuchi amalgamated many seemingly disparate themes in the creation of Sailor Moon. Combining her love of space with Greek Myth, Roman Myth, Japanese elemental themes, and Meiji-era sailor-fuku school uniforms, she managed to fuse the popular magical girl and sentai genres and create a completely new and original idea
The premise is as follows: Immature, underacheiving student Usagi Tsukino (westernized name, family name second) discovers that she is the reincarnation of Princess Serenity, the princess of an ancient Moon kingdom. Her role as defender of the Solar System has been reissued to her in light of the reemergence of the evil force that originally destroyed her kingdom, the Silver Millennium. (Note: Silver Millennium is the name of the kingdom; it's not a time period.) She fights using the identity of Sailormoon. As the series progresses, Sailormoon is reunited with other reincarnated defenders—the princess's guardian soldiers. She is also reunited with her lover, the prince of Earth, who serves equally as romantic interest and primary protector.
Bishoujo Senshi Sailormoon ("Sailormoon" is written as one word or two when addressing the Japanese version because "Sailormoon" and "Sailor Moon" can be found in the original Japanese sources; the English dub shows just "Sailor Moon") is composed of five separate series: Bishoujo Senshi Sailormoon, Bishoujo Senshi Sailormoon R, Bishoujo Senshi Sailormoon S, Bishoujo Senshi Sailormoon SuperS, and Bishoujo Senshi Sailormoon Sailor Stars. There are three Sailormoon movies, and these have independent stories that are separate from the series. The movies fall in the general timeline of each of the three middle series (R, S, and SuperS). Additionally, there are several Sailormoon soundtracks available.
A dubbed North American version of the anime was created in 1995, initially airing on the USA Network in the states, and on YTV in Canada. Unfortunately, many changes were made to the basic storyline; it was rewritten to be aimed at very young American girls. Plots were vastly changed; others were completely dropped. Some of the changes include: naming the team the "Sailor Scouts" instead of the much more accurate Sailor Soldiers; making each of the Sailor Senshi princesses; renaming almost all of the original attacks; censorship of much of the adolescent sexuality; and a complete omission of the Japanese version's original music. This North American version was many people's first experience with Sailormoon, and the differences between the versions led to unnecessary 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.
The first two series of Sailormoon that came to North America (Sailormoon, and Sailormoon R) were dubbed by a company called DiC Entertainment, which has been considered to be a sub-standard dubbing company. 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, on affiliates of the FOX Network in the states, and on stations of the Global Television Network in Canada. DiC subsequently fell into breach of its contract to dub Sailormoon, allowing Cloverway Inc, the American branch of Toei Douga, to pick up the dubbing rights to Sailormoon S and SuperS. The North American versions of S and SuperS were totally different from Sailormoon and R in that all of the original animation and BGM was kept, keeping the series close to the Japanese version. One major thing that Sailormoon fans didn't like about S and SuperS was the fact that Cloverway "Americanized" the series by adding in slang words (such as phat) that weren't in the Japanese series, but many fans agreed that S and SuperS was a major improvement over DiC's dubbing of the first two series. S and SuperS were aired on the cable television network Cartoon Network in their Toonami programming block, and on YTV. The movies were also dubbed by Cloverway and aired on Cartoon Network and YTV. There is an extremely remote chance, at the current time, of the recently produced live action Sailormoon series coming to North America. Pioneer Entertainment (now Geneon Entertainment) has rights to release Sailor Moon S, SuperS and the movies on DVD and VHS both in the dubbed and uncut versions. ADV under their division ADV Films has rights to release on DVD the dubbed version of Sailormoon and Sailormoon R. It was announced recently that ADV has rights to release on DVD, the fully uncut, undubbed version of Sailormoon and Sailormoon R which has all of the fans of Sailormoon extremely happy.
Overview
Character listing
Protagonists
Princess Serenity and the Yon Shugo Jin no Senshi
These five senshi are the first to be introduced in the series. They serve as Earth's protectors. ("Yon Shugo Jin no Senshi" in Japanese means "soldiers of the four guardian deities"; that is their official name.) Sometimes they are called "Inner Senshi" by fans.
Gaibu Taiyôkei Yon Senshi
"Gaibu Taiyôkei Yon Senshi" means "four soldiers of the outer solar system." They protect the solar system from external threats. They are introduced in the third series, with the exception of Sailorpluto, who is first seen in the second series. Sometimes they are called "Outer Senshi" by fans.
Sailor Starlights
The Sailor Starlights were introduced in the final series of Sailormoon. In the manga, the trio adopt human identities as male pop stars, but in truth they are three mysterious new — and naturally female — Sailor Senshi; in the anime, they are men who become women when they transform into their Senshi forms.Additional protagonists
(*) Name not westernized.Antagonists
NOTE: In the North American dub, all of the different groups of antagonists are lumped together under the term "Negaverse", without really differentiating between them.Dark Kingdom (Anime season 1 / Live action series)
"Classic" is a fan-created name
Al and En section (Season 2a "R")
[NOTE: Anime only]
Black Moon (Season 2b "R")
Black Moon Clan
Ayakashi no Yon Shimai — Four Weird Sisters
R Movie
Death Busters (Season 3 "S")
Death Busters
Witches 5
S Movie
Dead Moon Circus (Season 4 "SuperS" Part of 5)
Amazon Trio
Amazones Quartetto
SuperS Movie
Shadow Galactica (Season 5 "Stars")
External Links
