Sailor Moon S


TRIVIA:

This season debuted on March 19, 1994, and ran until February 25, 1995.

 

The S stands for "Super" as this is the very first season where Sailor Moon becomes Super Sailor Moon. All of the episode intros, previews and even the theme song for the eyecatch segment with Sailor Moon, all refer to it as "Sailor Moon Super" despite the logo being shortened to "Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon S".

 

This season is considered by most fans to be the most dark of the series, with the exception of the last two episodes of the first season, the last half of Sailor StarS and Sailor Moon Crystal. The entire premise of this season was death.

 

One major change from the manga, is that Pluto dies at the end of the season, and does not come back until Sailor StarS and in the SuperS film. In the manga, Pluto had died at the end of the Black Moon Arc, and this was the arc where she came back for good. Another change again sees Diana missing completely from the season. In the manga, by this point, she is more visible than Luna-P. Sailor Chibi Moon earns her hair clips halfway through the series, but only Sailor Moon reaches Super status. None of the other girls gain a Super transformation.

 

The Sailormoon S movie is based on the Snow Princess Kaguya story from the manga. While much of the story is kept in tact, some changes were made. In the manga, Kakeru impregnates Himeko just before her trip to outer space, while in the anime movie, the two are barely on screen that long together. The film takes place sometime before episode 123 as the snow is falling hard, and Sailor Moon can become Super Sailor Moon.

 

In both the anime and in the manga, Chibiusa's body age is eight, albeit with some alterations. In the manga, Chibiusa has developed breasts, while here, her breasts only appear in a few scenes while she is transformed. The rest of the time, she is shown as a regular kid. Her age is never mentioned in the anime, but it is known she is attending the second grade. In the manga, she is also attending second grade with Momoko and Kyusuke, and celebrates her 902nd birthday in the Tanabata story for Chibiusa's Diary.

 

Just like in R, Momoko is seen with brown hair and green eyes. In the manga by this point though, her hair and eyes are both magenta pink.

 

This season is noted for having several different openings. The first two episodes only feature Sailor Moon, Mercury, Mars, Venus, Jupiter and Tuxedo Mask. Later episodes add Sailor Uranus and Neptune to four segments during the opening theme. Then after episode 104, Sailor Chibi Moon is added, then Sailor Pluto, and lastly, Kaolinite's segment is replaced with Hotaru, and Sailor Moon slowly morphs into Super Sailor Moon as the song goes on. This was the most amount of changes to an opening scene, even more so than the first season, which only had minor animation changes. The first half of the season retained Sailormoon R's ending song "Otome No Policy" and animation, but later episodes switch to a new ending with the Sailor Senshi shown as princesses inside of a music box, as the song "Tuxedo Mirage" plays.

 

DiC had originally dubbed 13 episodes of Sailormoon S, but the whereabouts of the tapes are unknown. They lost the deal for S shortly after the last episodes of Sailormoon R had made their second rotation on Cartoon Network. Disney and The Program Exchange had pulled away from DiC, and Toei was not satisfied with DiC's habit of cutting up and out episodes.

 

DiC and Optimum Productions edited the movie, using the Sailormoon R cast. Only a few of the original voice actors from the DiC era made it over to Cloverway. Due to DiC editing the film, many attack and transformation names were changed, and do not match the SuperS TV edits. DiC did choose to keep the names Kakeru and Himeko, but allowed each actor to pronounce them differently. This resulted in the film's dub being the most hated among fans.

 

Cloverway officially dubbed and edited this season, with the first episode airing in 1999 on Cartoon Network's Toonami block. Due to the edgier themes, the show was re-branded for ages 11-16, and a new toyline from Irwin, while still featuring toys for a younger crowd, boasted a new line of dolls aimed only at adult collectors. The line was cut short however, when Irwin filed for bankruptcy, shortly before the end of S's first run on Cartoon Network.

 

In a stark contrast to DiC's initial 65 episode deal, only one episode was dropped by Cloverway due to nudity, but was later re-edited and aired on Cartoon Network silently, during the season's second run.

 

While Cloverway restored the Luna Sphere's name back to it's rightful name of Luna-P, and Ami got her last name of Mizuno back, some names were still changed. Sailor Chibi Moon became Sailor Mini Moon. Haruka became Amara. Michiru became Michelle. Setsuna became Trista. Professor Tomoe became Doctor Tomoe with a silent E at the end of Tomoe. Kaolinite became Kaori Knight. Tellu became Teruru, while the Pioneer/Geneon DVD lists her as Telulu. Eudial became Eugeal. Viluy became Beruit. Ptilol became Petorol. Cyprine became Siprin. Momoko, who was Melissa in the DiC dub, was seen briefly as "Katy".

 

To make up for the changes, Hotaru and Mimette retained their names.

 

Worldwide, this season came under fire, because Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune are a lesbian couple. To combat this, Cloverway kept all of the romantic scenes between the two, but had the characters address them as "cousins". The theory was that if they were related, the hugging wouldn't seem "wrong". Instead, the newly implied incest only drew more ire from parental and religious groups. This wasn't the only issue Christians took with the show, when it came out that the girls are looking for Talismans, The Holy Grail, and a female Messiah. Catering to the death threats, Cloverway redubbed the offending words with the following: Purity Chalice, Purity Cup, Purity/Precious Items and Purity Maiden, among many, ever changing euphemisms. Another problem involved nude or near nude teen and adult characters, leading the company to use digital paint.

 

While holy, adult nudity and teenaged lesbian issues were dubbed over, in a creepy twist, Cloverway slowed down and expanded scenes of Chibiusa in the nude, as a way to fill up time left by cutting the original episodes. In one episode, Chibiusa falls in love with a cross dressing tween boy named Tamasaburou. Fearing another waive of backlash due to Tamasaburou being trans-gender, he was changed to a girl, but the romantic implications were left 100% in.

 

Curiously enough, while DiC lost the rights to dub this season, several screenshots from a few episodes were used for their trading cards. Haruka and Michiru each had their own profile cards, however with their US Earth names omitted. They were shown in civilian clothes but only addressed as Sailor Uranus and Neptune respectively.

 

Viz began airing the series uncut via Hulu and Neon Alley on March 23, 2015. Originally, S was supposed to air on Hulu on March 16, 2015, but due to unforeseen circumstances, Hulu and Viz had to break the "two episodes a week" rule temporarily, delaying the start of S by one week. Starting March 23rd however, the series resumed it's promised two episodes a week airing.

 

When announcing the fact that they now have rights to the entire series, Viz made it clear they intend to keep intact Uranus and Neptune's relationship.

 

With Sailor Saturn, there are 10 Sailor Senshi officially featured. Adding Tuxedo Mask makes 11.

 

 

Episodes:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38
Movie

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