Sailor Moon returns to the US..

[GeorgeC]

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/20 ... moon-manga

After 6 years out of print in the US. the original Sailor Moon goes back into print in the US starting in September 2011. The series' predecessor, Codename: Sailor V (Venus), will also be published. This is the first time Sailor V will receive an official English publication in the US.

The Sailor Moon English manga edition will be based be based off the 2003 Japanese reprint edition. The series has been repackaged so that it will release in 12 volumes instead of the 18 of the original print run. In addition, new artwork, covers, sketches, retouched art, and two volumes of short stories will be featured.

Sailor Moon was a phenomenon when it originally released in Japan in the early 1990s. The success of the manga spread further when its anime adapatation appeared in 1992 and was licensed (along with the anime) in anime countries around the world. The American English adaptation appeared in 1995 but initially failed to find a sizeable audience until it was re-aired with English adaptations of Seasons 3 and 4 on Cartoon Network a few years later. Tokypop, a US manga licensor and publisher, handled the English adaptation of the manga.

In many regions of the world, licensed Sailor Moon items flew off the shelves. These included towels, books, reprints of the manga, best-selling videogame fighters featuring the "Sailor Scouts", and dolls. Licensed items sales were muted in the United States but a substantial hit in Canada. The import items were very popular at Little Tokyo and Chinatowns across North America while the series and manga initially remained available in Japan. These items remained perpetually in-stock until manufacture of said-materials ceased when Kodansha and Toei removed their licenses from the market. For years, stories have circulated out of Japan about legal battles between the manga series' creator, Naoko Takeuchi, and Kodansha Japan, the publisher of the manga. These battles supposedly resulted in the worldwide withdrawal of all Sailor Moon licenses for at least 3-5 years.

6 years ago, the licenses for Sailor Moon were pulled and all English manga and anime adaptations went out of print in the US. Subsequently, these items became collector's items on the aftermarket and prices went far beyond the original MSRP. Recently, the anime has been allowed to be licensed for airing in Italy. A videogame edition also followed.

Rumors have circulated for the past two years that Funimation may be picking up the license to re-release the Sailor Moon anime series on DVD or Blu ray in the US. Four of the five seasons of the original, uncut Japanese edition were released in the US under previous licenses held by ADV Films (now Section 23) and Pioneer (later Geneon, defunct in the US as of 2-3 years ago). The fifth season of the series remained off-limits for license in the US due to sexual content and the wishes of Toei for the series to be perceived as a young girls' series -- in spite of the fact that the series had a substantial male following in both Japan and America! The ADV Films' DVD release of Seasons 1 and 2 were hampered by poor quality master tapes sent out by Toei, the anime series' producer, which also disallowed restoration of the material. Seasons 3 and 4, released by the defunct Pioneer/Geneon animation branch in the US, were based on the Japanese laserdisc masters and were of substantially higher quality than the ADV Films' releases (excepting the edited English language releases of Seasons 1 and 2). Only the Pioneer DVD releases featured dual language (Japanese and English) releases with English subtitles. ADV Films' unedited Season releases were Japanese language only, subtitled English.

The Sailor Moon series remains a legend in anime circles and is perhaps the closest in popularity amongst "girls anime series" to rival the success of the more popular Dragon Ball Z series.
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Yes, before anybody asks, I was and AM a fan of the anime series. It's something of a car wreck/eccentric series that you catch a bug for after watching an episode or two. That's the closest I can come to describing WHY any guys would watch the series... I was never one of those crazy, eccentric fans who dressed up as a Sailor Scout (I never did cosplay anything, period!) and feel that the Sailor outfits look best on female fans who are in reasonable (generally petite) shape and are under 25 years old.

I DO own all 4 available seasons in English on DVD and can confirm that the ADV releases of Seasons 1 and 2 were @#$%!

[EricJ]

Yes, before anybody asks, I was and AM a fan of the anime series. It's something of a car wreck/eccentric series that you catch a bug for after watching an episode or two. That's the closest I can come to describing WHY any guys would watch the series..

It helps if you watch it in subs (for those who didn't blink and were able to grab ADV's sub-only of the first two seasons, and/or Pioneer's sub-dub of the third, fourth, and Movies):
The voices aren't horrendous in the original, Moon is more of an optimistic sympathetic ditz in the Japanese, the supporting characters are more distinct, and the action is pitched at more of a less campy, straight-on level.



(...Oh, and the third series is cooler. )