The Sailor Moon anime, co-produced by TV Asahi, and Toei Animation,
started airing only one month after the 1st issue of the manga (created, written and drawn by Naoko Takeuchi) was
published. With 200 episodes airing from March 1992 to Feb 1997 on
TV Asahi, Sailor Moon is one of the longest 'magical-girl' Anime series.
The merchandising campaign of over
5,000 items has contributed to demand all over the world and
translation into numerous languages. Also, Italy is getting it
rebroadcast in northern-hemisphere autumn 2010, also getting permission
from Takeuchi who will be releasing new artwork to promote. Sailor Moon
consists of five separate arcs. The titles of the series are Sailor
Moon, Sailor Moon R, Sailor Moon S, Sailor Moon SuperS and Sailor Moon
Sailor Stars.
Toei regained control over the license to distribute Sailor Moon outside
of Japan in 2004. The Sailor Moon Anime stop running on North American airwaves and no
more merchandise around 2003. In August 2007, Toei held a poll to
determine viewer interest in potential series to make available for
Video on Demand. There were 50 options, including popular titles such as
Sailor Moon, Digimon, and Ojamajo Doremi. The results of the poll show
that 2535 out of 3979 votes—63.7 percent—had been placed for the Sailor
Moon series. The Sailor Moon anime is currently part of a subscription
service in Japan where premium members are allowed full access to their
titles. Due to its resurgence of popularity in Japan, the
series returned to the airwaves on September of 2009. On February 4, 2010, Toei began
negotiations to
re-license the entire series globally.
After a bidding war with Toon
Makers, DIC Entertainment acquired the rights to the first two seasons
of the Sailor Moon franchise in 1995,. Carl Macek adapted the first few
episodes for an English-speaking audience, and was then replaced by Fred
Ladd and Lisa Lumby-Richards. 6 episodes were omitted because of a lack
of interest or inappropriate for the target audience, the total episode
count for the original adapted episodes to 65, the minimum number of
episodes required for strip syndication on U.S. television, stopping
mid-way through Sailor Moon R. The episodes were each cut by several minutes to censor plot points or
visuals deemed inappropriate for children, and to allow the insertion of
brief "educational" segments called "Sailor Says" at the end of each
episode. The remaining 17 episodes of Sailor Moon R were not adapted
until 1997 after the series gained popularity in North America and were
treated in much the same way.
In May 2009, Funimation Entertainment released a poll for mostly North
Americas to gauge consumer interest in potential DVD releases; one
option was "re-dub of entire Sailor Moon series." This helped viewer
interest rise, and got many fans' hopes up that Funimation may indeed
license Sailor Moon. A fan campaign, organized by former members of the
SOS (Saved Our Sailors) group, continued to survey fans to gain their
opinions on hypothetical details of a redub (if it happens). The results have not been
publicly revealed.
In 2010, one of several YouTube videos featuring Sailor Moon was removed by Funimation, citing copyright infringement. The company later commented that, despite their attempts to acquire the rights to the series, the company does not have the rights yet. Kodansha Comics USA announced that they would be reprinting Sailor Moon in English in new deluxe editions beginning in September 2011, along with its prequel, Codename: Sailor V. Hot Topic has also licensed the exclusive apparel rights to the franchise, and has been offering T-Shirts both online and in Hot Topic stores, along with a Halloween costume as a part of their new costume line; leading some fans to hope that the anime will be licensed for an American release. The first episode of Sailor Moon (Crybaby Usagi's Magnificent Transformation) aired in Japan on March 7, 1992. I love Sailor Moon so much, since I first read an article about it in 1995 before the dub aired. I was so disappointing when it ended in a 'cliffhanger' and felt like it took 'forever' for the new episodes to air..... which aired first in Canada and then on Cartoon Network which I did not have at the time.
Lavender Ranger says:
My mom blames SM for me being gay as I have said many a time. Her reasoning is that Sailor Neptune and Sailor Uranus' lesbianism inspired me but of course that is just silly. I have a friend in the Navy that his parents thought just because he liked Anime, he was gay----actually, he's straight. I would love a re-dubbing of Sailor Moon, keeping all the 'offensive behavior' DiC didn't like, getting rid of 'Sailor Says' and dubbing episodes that were skipped and keeping original music---which most English dubs of Anime do these days. I did like some of the DiC songs but I also have learned to love the original scoring through the years. And maybe they can keep the Neptune and Uranus relationship intact. They never outright said 'gay' or 'lesbian' in the series. And if Funimation does dub it, maybe just on DVD and say its not for kids. Or maybe air at 1am on Adult Swim. 
