The North American Sailor Moon English version was first produced by DIC and is now
currently being produced by Cloverway, Toei Animation's American branch. In total, DIC
produced about 82 episodes which more or less cover the first two seasons of
Sailormoon, SM and SMR. I won't say that the series is "translated" by DIC, because it's
not, it's actually an "adaption" (which the dub even says in the end credits). DIC
seriously edited and changed the original Sailormoon anime. Dialogue, story elements, the
animation itself, music, and characters were changed, not to mention episodes being
dropped out entirely, and there was the unwelcome addition of 'Sailor Says' at the end
of the first 65-so episodes. (Ironically, the 'Sailor Says' often had the cut scenes from
the episode in it.) Sailor Moon in the US began showing in the fall of 1995.
Just as a bit of trivia, DIC won the rights to dub Sailor Moon over Saban. Essentially,
Saban's version was half live action, half animation with none of the characters Asian
except for Mercury, the stereotype smartie; Jupiter would be black; Mars would be in a
wheelchair. The animation was totally new and looked like She-ra, and the live action
girls were all Sweet Valley High type of people playing with make-up and fashion. They'd
all fight on these crescent moons that they'd ride.
The newly dubbed SMS episodes (38 in total) were produced by Cloverway and were
shown on Cartoon Network's Toonami at 4:00 PM, having started their run June 12,
2000. The SMS episodes are now being shown in Canada on YTV. Cloverway has also
produced the SuperS season, which began showing on Cartoon Network in September
2000 at 4:30 PM EST.
NASM has been shown in several countries, enjoying high popularity in Canada on YTV
and then good ratings on Cartoon Network in the United States. It has also gained some
popularity in Australia, and the first two seasons are gradually being shown in the United
Kingdom.
Buena Vista Entertainment originally released select episodes of the DIC Sailor Moon
series on video tape, two episodes per tape. The boxes were bright pink and glittery
(making any male or person over the age of 15 horrified to buy the tapes), and they
featured extremely poor artwork. There were not many episodes released this way,
though there was a Doom Tree box set with four VHSes. As of fall 2000, ADV bought the
rights to DIC's dub and is releasing all of the SM and SMR on VHS. Each VHS will have
four episodes per tape. Pioneer has released the three Sailormoon movies subtitled on
VHS, the three Sailormoon movies dubbed on VHS, and the three Sailormoon movie dual
layer DVDs with both subbed and dubbed versions. Pioneer plans on releasing DVDs and
VHSes of the Sailormoon S and SuperS TV series both dubbed and subtitled.
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