Sailor Moon: Heroine Is Chosen
by Junichi Sato
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DVD details
Actor: Jill Frappier, Karen Bernstein, Katie Griffin, Ron Rubin, Susan RomanDirector: Junichi Sato
Producer: Andy Heyward
Producer: Nicole Thuault
Writer: Phil Harnage
Writer: Todd Swift
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0; English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0
Format: Animated, Color, DVD, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 135 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2002-04-16
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Adv Films
DVD Reviews of Sailor Moon: Heroine Is Chosen
DVD Review: Great anime, bad dub.
Summary: 2 Stars
Sailor Moon is a classic example of how to make a bad dub of a great anime. There were actually three companies that worked on the dub of Sailor Moon. The first company was Dic, who produced the dub of the first two seasons. They made the most cuts to the show and are the main reason the dub is so loathed by most Sailor Moon fans. The second company was Geneon (formely known as Pioneer), who dubbed the Sailor Moon movies. Geneon was a little more accurate to the Japanese version but still continued to make most of the same types of cuts Dic made. The best of the three companies was Cloverway, who dubbed the S and Supers seasons. Although they were far from being perfect, they stayed the most faithful to the Japanese version, even going so far as to keeping the Japanese music, although they still made a lot of cuts to the dub. So, for this review I will focus on comparing the Japanese version of Sailor Moon to the Dic dub (since that's what is presented on this DVD). I won't list all of the cuts Dic made since there's just too many to list here, but I will list the major cuts to give you a general idea of what the Japanese version is like. Hopefully, it'll encourage you to seek out the Japanese version of Sailor Moon instead and see what this series is truly like.
The first major change is in the music. The Japanese version used a very beautiful orchestrated musical score which perfectly conveyed the emotions felt in each scene. The dub replaces all of this with cheesy disco style music, and while Dic attempted to recreate the original emotions of the series with their new musical score, it failed to recapture the same exact feeling the way the Japanese music had. All the Japanese songs were catchy J-pop songs sung by real proffessional Japanese pop singers while all the dub songs were cheesy songs about believing in the power of love which were all played on a synthesizer and sung by third-rate nobodies that Dic pulled off the streets. Dic also changed may of the Japanese names to American names, believing that American children are too stupid to remember the Japanese names. Once again, there's too many changes for me to list here, but I will list the name changes Dic gave to the major characters. Usagi Tsukino is changed to Serena; Ami Mizuno is changed to Amy Anderson (although there is some debate about whether Anderson is really her last name in the dub or not); Rei Hino is changed to Raye Hino; Makoto Kino is changed to Lita; Minako Aino is changed to Mina; Mamoru Chiba is changed to Darien; Chibi-usa is changed to Rini; Sailor Soldiers is changed to Sailor Scouts; and Dark Kingdom is changed to the Negaverse.
In the Japanese version, whenever the Soldiers transformed, they always shouted "Make up!" at the end of their transformation sequence, but the "Make up!" part is oddly omitted out in the dub for some unknown reason. Dic also changed many of the Soldiers' attack names even though they were all spoken in English to begin with. Censorship cuts Dic made included anything that they considered to be too violent for children's American television. Dic was so strict about the censorship of violence that they wouldn't even let the characters slap each other in the comical scenes, fearing that the stupid children of America would start copying the Scouts. Other cuts included strong language, brief nudity, and cutting out homosexuality by changing Zoicite's gender from being male to female.
Several episodes were also skipped and combined because Dic felt those episodes had too many scenes that needed to be cut. The episodes that were skipped were Japanese episodes two, five, six, 20, 42, and 67. And the two episodes which were combined were Japanese episodes 45 and 46 (dubbed episode 40). These episodes were combined because in the Japanese version, the Soldiers died while fighting the Dark Kingdom and Dic didn't want to expose children to death, so they combined the episodes by cutting out all the death scenes and re-writing the plot to have it explained that the Scouts were "captured" by the Negaverse instead. Needless to say, the ending to the first season was greatly screwed up in the dub. Several changes to character personalites were also made. Because Japanese episode 42 was skipped (an important background episode about Sailor Venus), part of the serious side of Minako's personality is missing from the dub and Dic also cut out Minako's habit of getting famous quotes wrong. It's no wonder so many American Sailor Moon fans think Mina is a rip-off of Serena.
Raye is also a lot snobbier than Rei is in the Japanese version. While yes, Rei and Usagi did argue a lot in the Japanese version, Rei used a thing called tact which made many of their arguments actually quite comical. Raye, on the other hand, was downright rude to Serena and many of the scenes in the Japanese version that showed that despite all of the arguments they had, Rei was still the closest of Usagi's friends, were completely screwed up, destroying part of Rei's character that made her so much fun. Rei's grandfather was also originally a very perverted man who often flirted with both guys and girls of any age and gained a bad reputation of being a perv. Dic decided to cut this out turning Raye's grandfather into just an ordinary old man and cutting out any of his funniest moments in the show completely.
Dic also inserted many CGI scene transistion graphics throughout the episodes and a Sailor Moon Says segment at the end of the show, in which Sailor Moon would appear and say some sort of cheesy moral value message that usually wouldn't have anything to do with the actual show itself, while various clips of the series were being played. These additions were completely pointless and only made the show exteremly cartoony. I doubt most kids could even care less about the Sailor Moon Says segments. I know I sure didn't. One thing that is interesting about Sailor Moon Says though, is that sometimes you could see clips that were cut out of the episodes in the Sailor Moon Says segment, like a clip of Umino/Melvin being hit in the face by a stream roller in the "So, You Wanna Be A Star?" episode.
Dic even went so far as to attempt to change parts of the plot, too. One example is that in the Japanese version all of the groups of villians worked seperately from each other, but Dic didn't like this for some reason and decided to change it so that all the villians came from the Negaverse. Even in the dub, this doesn't make any sense at all. Why should we believe that Ail/Alan and En/Ann worked for Beryl when they lived all alone their whole lives? How could the Black/Negamoon be from the Negaverse when they were originally human beings themselves? It makes no sense for them to try and link all of the villians together. Do they think kids won't like the new villians if they don't still work for Beryl or what? This is just a small example of many of the cuts Dic made to the dub. There are even more changes that they made to the show that destroyed the original series. The only reason why I'm giving the Sailor Moon dub two stars instead of one is because of the incredible impact the series has had in North America.
Even though the dub was really crappy, it was many fans first experience with the show, myself included. So, we as Sailor Moon fans do owe some credit to the dub for introducing us to the series. Sailor Moon was also a series that introduced many Americans to anime in general, and when compared to other bad dubs (like Cardcaptors or Mew Mew Power), Sailor Moon isn't that bad, but when compared to the Japanese version, it's downright terrible. If you've only seen the dub version, I urge you to seek out the Japanese version, which is widely available on DVD in the U.S. (it's even on sale at this very website). Yes, it's in Japanese, which means yes, you'll have to read subtitles to watch it, but it's not really hard to do at all. The subtitles are positioned at a good enough place on the screen were you can still see all the action that's going on while you read the subtitles. I actually think it's more fun to watch anime subbed than it is dubbed. Even if you hated the series because you've only seen the dub, you should still give the Japanese version a chance, anyway. There's so many differences between the two versions that they're almost like completely seperate shows. And if you've never seen Sailor Moon before for whatever the reason, do yourself a favor, ignore the crappy dub, and watch the Japanese version. Every anime fan owes it to themselves to see the original version of Sailor Moon at least once, if anything just to support the downfall of bad dubs. The Japanese version surely won't disappoint you.
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