Americanized Sailor Moon pilot mistakenly called 'Saban Moon'

Animefringe interviewed Rocky Solotoff in 2000, check out the interview here.

What is still called by Sailor Moon fans as 'Saban Moon,' which spawned a fanfiction that was the Power Rangers vs. Sailor Moon, was not actually spearheaded by Haim Saban. When Sailor Moon was up for bids by Toei to be produced in North America, Renaissance-Atlantic Entertainment, worked closely with Bandai and Toon Makers, Inc., conceptualized their own version of the property, which was half live-action and half 'Americanized' animation (which was made by Koreans, Americans and yes, some Japanese). The pilot was made in late 1993 by Toon Makers. Two minutes of the pilot presentation was leaked at a convention and went online, stirring fans to believe it was by Haim Saban, they hated it and called it 'Saban Moon.'


The full pilot still hasn't seen the light of day. Rocky Solotoff says he has the info on the characters some where but can't find it, there was Tuxedo Mask, Queen Beryl and Moon's queen mom. Toei gave the okay to DiC to use the original Anime, so they didn't give the rights to this production, because they didn't want to compete with themselves. So if anyone wants to blame anyone, they can aim to Bandai, who did spearhead this. Rock Solotoff did wish the animation was better but they had a limited budget. The team had different colors than the original Sailor Senshi and were of other ethnicities, one girl being paraplegic, one being Asian (I guess), Black and a Red-head (apparently being a ginger is an ethnicity).

I must also clarify that the reason people thought it was Saban was because he was tied to Renaissance-Atlantic Entertainment at one point, distribution or something, something second-hand.

Lee Lee's Saban Moon page, it really wasn't by Saban!
Download the video of the 2 minute musical clip

Two interesting leftovers from the project was vehicles that didn't appear in the original Anime, being the Moon Cycle (seen above), which was made by Bandai America as a toy for the 1995 Sailor Moon toy line. The second being the logo that appears at the end of the 2 minute music video, it is still the same Official North American Sailor Moon Logo (also seen above).