Pretty Soldier - Sailor Moon

Sailor Moon (美少女戦士セーラームーン, Bishōjo Senshi Sērā Mūn?, officially translated as Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon) is the title of a Japanese media franchise created by Naoko Takeuchi. It is generally credited with popularizing the concept of a sentai (team) of magical girls, as well as "revitalizing" the magical girl genre itself.

The story of the various metaseries revolves around the reincarnated defenders of a kingdom that once spanned the solar system, and the evil forces that they battle. The major characters—called Sailor Senshi (literally "Sailor Soldiers"; frequently called "Sailor Scouts" in the North American version)—are teenage girls who can transform into heroines named for the moon and planets (Sailor Moon, Sailor Mercury, Sailor Mars, etc). The use of "Sailor" comes from a style of girls' school uniform popular in Japan, the sērā fuku (sailor outfit), after which the Senshi's uniforms are modeled. The elements of fantasy in the series are heavily symbolic and often based on mythology.

The Sailor Moon manga was preceded by Codename: Sailor V, which centered around just one Sailor Senshi. Takeuchi devised the idea when she wanted to create a cute series about girls in outer space, and her editor asked her to put them in sailor fuku. When Sailor V was proposed for adaptation into an anime, the concept was modified so that Sailor V herself became only one member of a team. The resulting manga series was a fusion of the popular magical girl and sentai genres of which Takeuchi was a fan, making Sailor Moon one of the first series ever to combine the two.

The manga resulted in spinoffs into other types of media, including a highly popular anime, as well as musical theatre productions, video games, and a live-action (tokusatsu) series. Although most concepts in the many versions overlap, there are often notable differences, and thus continuity between the different formats is limited.

The English adaptation of Sailor Moon was produced in an attempt to capitalize on the success of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. After a bidding war between Toon Makers, who wanted to produce a half live-action and half American-style cartoon version, and DiC Entertainment, DiC—then owned by The Walt Disney Company—acquired the rights to the first two seasons of Sailor Moon, of which they cut six episodes and merged two. The remaining episodes were each cut by several minutes to make room for more commercials, to censor plot points or visuals deemed inappropriate for children, and to allow the insertion of "educational" segments called "Sailor Says" at the end of each episode.

The English adaptations by Optimum Productions for Cloverway of Sailor Moon S and Sailor Moon Supers (the third and fourth series) stayed relatively close to the original Japanese versions, and no episodes were skipped or merged. Some controversial changes were made, however, such as the depiction of Sailors Uranus and Neptune as cousins rather than lovers.

The fifth and final series, Sailor Stars, has never been licensed for adaptation into English. As of May 2004[update], the rest of the metaseries has officially gone off the air in all English-speaking countries due to lapsed licenses which have not been renewed.

The manga was translated into English in 1997 by manga publisher Mixx (now renamed Tokyopop). The manga was initially syndicated in MixxZine but was later pulled out of that magazine and moved into a secondary magazine called "SMILE." The US comic was released as three series: Sailor Moon, which collects the first three arcs (the Dark Kingdom, Black Moon, and Infinity arcs), Sailor Moon Super S, which collects the Supers arc, and Sailor Moon Stars, which collects the Sailor Stars arc. They feature all of the content from the original manga collections (though the names of characters introduced in the first two story arcs were changed to those used in the English anime), as well as the occasional new sketch and "thank you" commentary from the series' creator.

As of May 2005[update], Tokyopop's license to the Sailor Moon manga has lapsed, and the English-language manga is out of print.

Segments Alluded To

 * ''Sailor Moon Confronted
 * Queen Beryl is Mad
 * Anime Sure is Weird
 * Girl Toys