I do mean stuff like removed scenes from international airings, replacing objects like cigarettes or vine with any other objects.
I do mean stuff like removed scenes from international airings, replacing objects like cigarettes or vine with any other objects.
When Sailor Moon was airing on American TV back in the late 90’s, they completely censored out every aspect of romantic relationship between Sailor Neptune and Sailor Uranus. Turned them into cousins.
It was a shock to me when I bought the subtitled version and they were suddenly lesbians.
That’s so disappointing. To me, Sailor Moon is the OG all inclusive series. (It was my very favorite show ever as a kid and probably still is.) I kinda love how they didn’t make a big deal out of it. The star sailors change sex when they transform and it’s not even talked about. It just is how it is and nobody wonders about it. Neptune and Uranus having the hots for each other is portrayed as any other romance is and iirc no character ever addresses the “taboo” of it. Even the alien incest is somehow fine (I mean they are aliens and extinct so they do them).
I understand the LGBTQ+'s struggle for representation and acceptance, so probably they do need somewhat of an over accentuated representation on screen to eventually reach full acceptance. But Sailor Moon seems to be what comes “after” this, just normalization without it ever being a question. All the while sparking an interest in astronomy in kids who then know all the names of the dwarf planets in our solar system before they know the multiplication table.
Man I can’t wait till my kid reaches Sailor Moon watching age.
I hope your kids like it.
It has always seemed to me that my kids have gone out of their way to avoid liking anything I like. That’s fine, but I never could relate to them.
I adopted my son so it was different with him. We did everything together and he was happy to look into my interests sometimes. He and I played world of Warcraft together for a decade and I’d cut off a couple toes to go back and have that with him again.
Out of curiosity, (if you’d like to share), how old were you when you found out and how did you take it? Were you on board with it or did it feel weird?
I was a freshman in high school when I found out, and I was dumbfounded. I’d always chalked the wonky scenes up to being a culturally Japanese thing. And anime in itself was more “effeminate” overall than anything we had in America.
I was shocked, but it all suddenly made sense. I was fine with it. Early 2000s where I lived at the time was pretty accepting. I had friends in high school who were openly gay, and no one bothered them about it.
I think now it’s pretty wild that sailor moon was even on the air back then, though. There were definitely series they could have played that wouldn’t have to edit out huge chunks just to keep in line with broadcast regulations. The fact it got airtime at all is astounding. I mean, I’m happy it did, because SM is awesome, but still.
::: I spoiler tagged this long ass post in order to hide it from folks who don’t care.
I’m not that person but I had the exact same thing happen to me! And let me tell you, when I was first watching it as a middle schooler, I knew they were in love! I didn’t know that women-who-like-women had a word (lesbian), so I thought, “Well, if you’re in love with someone, they’re probably your friend. Probably your best friend, so that makes sense. But you can’t just call them your girlfriend, because-”
I grew up in rural Oklahoma (and now live in Tennessee). A woman, who has a friend, and that friend is a woman, makes her a girlfriend. I still call women who are my friends, ‘girlfriends,’ even though it obviously could mean something romantic. So Uranus and Neptune probably couldn’t just say ‘girlfriend,’ because all the girls who were their friends were their girlfriends, so ‘best’ friend is probably a friend who is such a good friend, that you’re also in love with them. (This was the logic of a sixth grader.)
It’s one of the reasons that Sailor Moon fans have always been so inclusive, have always stood up for other presentations or orientations. Why on earth would we support people trying to hide this stuff from children, when a not-so-small number of us knew what we were looking at when we were children?
To add to that, I might have had a very unique interpretation of the situation, because I would later learn that I was a demi bisexual (we didn’t even have the word ‘demisexual’ when I was a girl) and what that means is… For me, I usually only want a relationship with the person who is such my best friend, that I also am in love with them!
:::
I watched Sailor Moon on German TV in the 90s (RTL 2 gang unite!). And whenever this topic of changes in the dubs comes up I struggle to remember how they put it in the German translation exactly because of what you said. It doesn’t matter how they translated it. It was so obvious. I haven’t known anyone who didn’t know exactly what was going on (but to be fair, it was common knowledge what lesbians were).
(Also 90s German dubs in general sometimes turned out weird - looking at you, first three seasons of FRIENDS - so I kinda didn’t over interpret the exact wording because I was so used to strange ways of putting things.)
And now we are friends!
That’s the other cool thing about the Sailor Moon fandom. I’ve never once met a Sailor Moon fan who was a racist, or a bigot, or… anything. It comes with the ‘love and justice’ thing.
Now you must tell me about the first three seasons of FRIENDS. (Please?)
When I was a teenager, I bought a DVD that had a few Sailor Moon episodes that I had never seen before (being from the U.S.) In these episodes, Makoto (or “Lita” AKA Sailor Jupiter) develops a crush on Haruka (or “Amara” AKA Sailor Uranus) and has to cope with her being unattainable. The DVD included both an English dub and the original Japanese with English subtitles.
In the original Japanese version, the crush is treated as romantic in nature, with Makoto’s friends telling her that Haruka already has “a girlfriend” (Michiru AKA “Michelle” AKA Sailor Neptune.) In the English dub, Makoto wants Haruka to be her “best friend,” with the rest of the Sailor Scouts telling her that Haruka already has “a best friend.”
The visuals all stay the same, complete with roses and Makoto’s starry love-eyes. The romantic implications are so obvious it’s painful.
lol yeah. They didn’t edit out all the flirting though or all the embarassed or indignant reactions by the characters around them, which presents those “cousins” in a really interesting light ;)
The US version of Sailor Moon was also censored and edited in different other ways. IIRC:
I believe there was also a scene in Sailor Moon where a character was in the bath. In order to make the water opaque the censors decided that red would be the best colour to use, so it looks like she’s bathing in blood.
That honestly sounds absurd to me and makes me want to see sailor moon or (but the uncensored version).