Beyond the Big Two Week: Sailor Moon!

[aeka]

With the recent announcement that Japan will be producing a brand new Sailor Moon anime series for summer 2013 (which will be more closely written to the manga), now is a perfect time to whip out all of my Sailor Moon manga, which at the moment only consist of the Infinity and Stars arcs. Thanks for the perfect timing greenmask!! ;)

Since I didn't finish my Usagi/Haruka shippage from the last meme (Cute Romance Week to be exact), I suppose now is a perfect time to do so.

These are not the current Kodansha English translations (I own the original Japanese-language reprints), but these translations do belong to a former friend of mine who translated these from the current Japanese prints. So they are new-ish and more accurate to the original Japanese text than the Mixx version I posted last time.



Picking up where we left off last time, The Inner Senshi meets Sailors Uranus and Neptune for the first time (and Sailor Saturn for that matter)!

From Act 28 (reprint): 16 out of 54, right to left:













And of course the Inner Senshi and cats have a discussion on the existence of other senshi, particularly the ones they saw just now. They also suspect that the two Infinity School students (Haruka and Michiru whom they met earlier) may be linked to their new enemy and decide to treat them as potential enemies as well.

Meanwhile at Haru and Michi's place...





Sometime later Mamoru runs into Michiru and they sort of flirt before she gives him two tickets for her concert: one for himself and one for a date of his choosing.

Usagi sees all this and gets jealous, but runs into a certain someone of her own and gets...feels.





Oh Haruka. Never change. ♥

And of course, they meet again...for Rei's birthday no less. And Makoto decides to challenge that cocky *bloke* they keep running into, haha.

(Also....Little Harley Quinns in the background behind Haruka? Sorry I couldn't resist. ;))









And Eudial breaks things up...and oh speaking Eudial of the Witches 5...She unleashes more Daimon, which causes the Inners to meet with Sailor Uranus...again...





Dun dun dun....

And now Act 29: 8 out of 54:

Haruka and Usagi chase! And then...other things....

















Heh. Even Haruka makes girls dream about snogging with her. ;)

Up next....Uranus and Neptune reveal introduce themselves!

Comments

[hyperactivator]

I love the hair in this. Love it.

[medster_comics]

That remind me something, my big sister and brother and I were watching every morning before school. I can't remember but its very very very simillar.

[drexer]

Well... it would make sense that it reminds you of Sailor Moon. Gonna link to the original version of the opening, find the one relevant to your language and see if it awakens any memories.

I'm betting if you've seen it the first three seconds should be enough.

[aeka]

Ah Moonlight Densetsu. I recall singing this song at a Japanese karaoke place a few years back. XD

Though this admittedly will always be my favourite version of that song. :3

[icon_uk]

Moonlight Densetsu is a fun little number! :)

Have you ever heard the song it's derived from? "Sayonara wa dance no Atoni" (More or less "Say goodbye at the end of the dance") was a 1960's number you can listen to here

[aeka]

I had no idea Moonlight Densetsu got it's melody from a 1960s song. Good to know! :)

[drexer]

Ah yes. That version, I do love it both due to the song and due to the visuals I mentally associate with it. The two seconds that include Saturn always give me shivers.

Specially because I remember that when I saw SM in Portuguese this was one of the openings which included the initial bell sounds(which surprisingly the first one did not include).

Brb, going to get all of the soundtracks.

[aeka]

Yeah, dub versions are known to alter things in anime including music sometimes. Admittedly none of the other dubs I've watched of Sailor Moon made quite the same drastic changes to the anime that the English dub did. Most dubs stayed true to the original story lines and character names.

Not even the English version of the theme song had the bells. :(

[drexer]

I remember that the Portuguese version was mainly imported from Japan(through France probably) but it sometimes had episodes which I think came from the English dub (mainly because of the censoring of Haruka&Michiru) which always annoyed me to no end. Sometimes I really feel sad for English viewers because I watch some of those openings and the lyrics are turned into simple recitations of the various Sailor's names; at least the Portuguese writers had the decency to write congruent and varied songs.

Taking out the bells of that version of the opening is criminal though.

[aeka]

The English version did more than just change the music though. They changed whole characters and story arcs to implement conservative values and make it more American. Also, Haruka and Michiru weren't the only characters that were censored. Zoicite underwent a sex change to completely remove the character's homosexuality. :(

[drexer]

Yeah I knew of some of that, didn't knew how deep it went though. I don't remember everything about the Portuguese airing(memory and being a kid and all that) but I do believe it went by mostly untouched. Although from what I remember more from Cardcaptor Sakura whose subtext was quite more frontal I don't remember any censorship so there must not have been almost any on SM. The differences I'm remembering might be because two different channels got the right for SM at two different times so even though the translation was the same the public access one(a bit conservative although not to the degree of the USA) might have cut some scenes.

Thinking about that I wonder, how did series like Cardcaptor make their way into the States. Quite a lot was edited, no?

[aeka]

Card Captor Sakura also underwent some of the same changes that Sailor Moon did, but to a much lesser extent. It wasn't really until the 2000s when Adult Swim came around that anime geared towards more mature audiences got dubbed with very little to no changes because they were shown really late at night. Other shows that were shown in the day time were censored to keep it "appropriate" for children, but kept the original story lines intact.

With Sailor Moon, the first two seasons were heavily altered because they were licenced by DiC at the time (which most of its programming was aimed at really young children from toddlerhood to age six), and the last two seasons that aired in the US (Stars never saw the light of day in the US ;_;) were done by Cloverway which kept the original Japanese music and kept most of the original story arcs intact. The only thing they changed really was Haruka and Michiru's relationship; they went from being a lesbian couple to kissing cousins. The ironic thing is that most of the lesbian subtext wasn't even edited out, lol.

[medster_comics]

Now I remember.

[drexer]

If I'm remembering correctly this is also the first place where it's clearly seen the subtext on Chibiusa/Hotaru(Saturn). Or to better say it, the subtext before it becomes text.

Still disappointed that Makoto didn't put up more of a struggle though. I don't remember, did she ever get a rematch?

[aeka]

Nope. She never got a rematch. So her humiliation in these pages was never properly rectified. :'(

[icon_uk]

Haruka and Michiru are just so damned cute together!

(Though Setsuna was always my preferred out Senshi, she had the advantage that if a "Dead Scream" didn't stop an opponent, she had a metal, five-foot quarterstaff with a weighted end she could hit them with instead!)

[aeka]

Aren't they? =^_^=

Pluto is indeed an awesome senshi. Anyone who has the power to control time is already awesome by default. But don't forget, Saturn as the Silence Glave. In addition to being able to stab opponents with it, she also has the deadliest attack that scares even the most powerful of Sailor Moon's enemies! (Well, except for maybe Sailor Galaxia, but she's a whole other story). ;)

[drexer]

The presentation of Saturn both in the opening you linked above and the way the series teased her appearance always made my skin tremble. They really managed in making the suspense grow around her and making it seem like every time she made a move there would be reverberating consequences.

In the end, any of the outer Sailors is quite a special case of awesome, be it due to the simple things like the touch of lipstick in their transformations(that one detail has been kept in my minds across the years) or the way that when they appeared and started acting there was so much gravitas pulled towards their actions and that helped elevate all of the other Sailors to a new class altogether.

[aeka]

I felt Hotaru was less mysterious and eerie in the anime compared to the manga version to be honest. In the anime she was depicted as more of a loner and sickly, but she was always shown to be friendly and desiring friendships. In the manga her father experimented on her and turned her into a vehicle for Mistress 9. She was also a cyborg and didn't particularly like being around other people. :/

I do have to agree with your comment on the Outers. Even though I love all of the Inners (Sailor Mars is my favourite of that group), both the outer Senshi and the Sailor Starlights resonated with me more. I'm not sure how much of that is the fact that they have more queer characters, the fact that they have (in my opinion) the best attacks and powers, or the fact that they're willing to make the sacrifices the Inners are not necessarily willing to make to achieve their own goals.

[mercia]

Setsuna's my favorite, too. I was always pretty upset at how the anime treated her. She was much more human and likable in the manga.

[darrylayo]

Really cool--I haven't read the later Sailor Moon stuff before.

[aeka]

Yeah I think the first Dark Kingdom story arc of the Sailor Moon manga was posted on here, but I haven't seen anyone post anything from the Black Moon arc, let alone the Infinity, Dream, and Stars arcs which were some of my favourites.

[cypherfdp]

so many sparkles