Although the first English dubs of the 1990s and 2000s played a major role in helping the medium of anime spread and grow in popularity internationally, a lot of the dubs from that era made numerous and often very significant changes to the content of those series: the rice balls in Pokémon were changed to donuts, "kill" and "die" in Yu-Gi-Oh were censored to "send to the Shadow Realm" (which, actually, still sounds pretty bad), and any violent or suggestive content that was deemed too much for North American kids were cut out entirely, sometimes leading to the removal of entire episodes.
The original English dub of Sailor Moon has gone down as one of the most significant examples of '90s anime dubs being heavily altered. Virtually all of the characters were renamed to some extent, with some characters getting completely different names (Sailor Moon's name went from Usagi to Serena) and some getting away with Anglicized versions of their Japanese names (Sailor Mars went from Rei to Raye). The episode count was reduced, with several multi-episode arcs condensed into single episodes and other episodes removed entirely. Sometimes this was simply because the episodes in question didn't really add anything to the overall plot, mostly notably the episodes where Sailor Moon encounters a haunted house and a dinosaur that make one appearance and are never mentioned again.
Perhaps the most infamous change in the original Sailor Moon dub involved Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune. In the original Japanese script, Uranus and Neptune are openly and obviously in a romantic relationship. The writers of the first English script deemed a same-sex relationship too controversial for a 90s-era kids' show and rewrote Uranus and Neptune into "cousins." However, the re-write of the dub didn't actually change much of how they were portrayed on-screen, leading the them now being openly and obviously in a romantic relationship and cousins.
Admittedly, the changes weren't all bad. "Sailor Scouts" is a pretty catchy team name.
Thanks to the original Japanese version now being easily accessible to international audiences around the world, as well as a new English dub that is significantly more faithful to the Japanese script, fans who grew up watching the 1990s dub of Sailor Moon can see for themselves just how different that version of the series was.
Sailor Moon is actually a pretty mature story
Although the initial dub of Sailor Moon was aimed at fairly young elementary-school age audiences, the various streaming services that have the Japanese version available have it rated 14+. On the whole, it probably deserves it.
Most infamously, while the English version of the season 1 finale has the Sailor Scouts staying behind to hold off the bad guys so Sailor Moon can move forward, in the Japanese version they all get killed off one by one in pretty graphic and brutal fashion — somewhat mitigated by the fact that the season ends with the universe being reset, but it's still pretty shocking if you only know the '90s dub version. Although that's the most severe example, there's actually quite a bit of character death throughout Sailor Moon and some of the bad guys, especially in later seasons, are pretty intense, out to basically destroy the entire universe.
There's also the fact that romance is a major aspect of the story of Sailor Moon. While it's never really too explicit for young audiences, the discussion and portrayal of romance in the series are probably too self-serious to really be appealing to younger audiences.
On the whole, the original Japanese script of the '90s Sailor Moon anime is significantly darker and more mature and serious than the initial English dub. The change in tone can actually be pretty surprising for those of us who first discovered Sailor Moon through that initial dub.
Sailor Moon Crystal is a better representation of the original manga
The original 1991-1997 Sailor Moon manga is one of the most important female-created manga series of all time. The '90s anime is similarly influential in its own medium, especially as part of the growth of anime as an international phenomenon. Interestingly, the '90s anime is actually a fairly loose adaptation of the manga's storyline. Despite covering essentially the same story, exactly how that story unfolds is different between the two versions of the story, with different aspects of the story and different elements of each character's personality being emphasized in each version.
This is where the 2014 anime Sailor Moon Crystal comes in. Crystal was intended as a more direct and faithful adaptation of Naoko Takeuchi's original manga series, reflected by the fact that even the animation and character design better captures Takeuchi's art style in the original manga that the '90s anime.
Ultimately, this means that Crystal is yet another drastically different take on the story that North American fans likely best remember from the original English dub. It's an intetesting counterpoint to the original '90s anime, especially considering the fact that English-language distributor Viz Media released Crystal at the same time as a new dubbed version of the '90s anime, allowing English-speaking fans to see versions of the Sailor Moon story more faithful to both the first anime's original script and Takeuchi original vision of the story. Notably, both the '90s Sailor Moon and Crystal from Viz utilize the same English cast.
Where to Watch Sailor Moon in 2025
It's unlikely that the '90s English dub of Sailor Moon will ever be officially re-released. DIC Entertainment, the production company behind the original dub, went bankrupt in 2008. Although most of the DIC library is now owned by Canadian studio Wildbrain (the English dub used a primarily Canadian cast recording in Vancouver), the license to the Sailor Moon anime itself is owned by Viz, who likely feel that their own new dub makes the original dub obsolete.
With that in mind, the original '90s Sailor Moon anime is available on Blu-ray from Viz, with both the new English dub and the original Japanese voice track. Fans who want to stream the '90s Sailor Moon anime can find it in the original Japanese on Tubi and Pluto, while Crystal is streaming on Crunchyroll and Hulu, depending on international region. The Sailor Moon Crystal movies that serve as continuations and ultimately the conclusion of the anime series — Eternal andCosmos — are streaming on Netflix.
Finally, the original Sailor Moon manga is published by Kodansha and is available through various bookstores and anime websites such as the Crunchyroll Store.
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