Great news! Part 2 of “The Western World of Sailor Moon” documentary series as part of Ray Mona’s Tales of the Lost has been released. It’s over two hours long and it’s full of information about the Toon Makers’ Sailor Moon pilot, often referred to as Saban Moon, which was a planned but never completed series which mixed animated and live action footage to create an American version of Sailor Moon. The documentary does a great job to teasing out all of the new information in a compelling way so if you’ve got two hours to spare you should go watch the whole thing now on YouTube or embedded below.
If you don’t have two hours to spare you may want to skip ahead to around 1h43m where a high quality version of the music video can be seen or 1h46m where the full pilot is now available to see the first time! An amazing discovery by super sleuth Ray Mona who was able to track this footage down at the Library of Congress.
Unfortunately I found this a bit late in the evening and won’t be able to watch the whole documentary right away but I wanted to make a quick post about it. Except a lengthier commentary on it in a few more days. For now enjoy a couple of screenshots of the episode including a never before seen look at Queen Serenity and Tuxedo Mask.
For those who are good with faces do you recognize this actress who played Sailor Venus? She hasn’t been identified in the documentary, but I hope someone out there will be able to put a name to the face!
There’s a lot in here so do make sure to watch the full video when you have a chance!
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The actress who plays Venus looks alot like Jenna Leigh Green aka Libby from Sabrina the teenage witch, i dont think its her but she came to mind. i feel like i have seen her somewhere before.
Oh, how I’ve waited for this day. My centuries-long life is finally validated! I hope I don’t hear some guy’s braying laugh in my head as I watch this, though. And now I play…!
I just wanna go back in time 20 years ago, or whatever, and tell my younger self, “Dude, it’s so worth the wait. By the way, you won’t believe what else has happened since…!”
I’m not kidding. When will they announce some news in September?
First there were no news of September 2022, now there are no news of October 2022? I’m losing my temper!
I was just thinking the same thing! The original video we all saw so long ago of that pilot was already cringe enough but that guy’s laugh was beyond obnoxious
I still heard him in my head. I hope you did better than me!
It’s about, time.
It’s a shame; what racism; tried to, do.
Love always; conquer, all.
If nobody tells me when they will release September 2022 news, I’m gonna be super duper mad!
That’s a good picture of Tuxedo Mask.
Wow, this is a legendary find! It’s interesting how the exposition at the beginning of the pilot accidentally predicted the plot of the Stars arc (main antagonist collecting crystals belonging to the sailor guardians).
There was also a brief mention of the outer planets, If this show got greenlit, I wonder if the outer guardians (or at least Neptune and Uranus) would’ve appeared as brainwashed/evil sailors under Beryl’s control at some point.
September is almost over, and there’s still no news. That makes me mad!
hi,
its an inserting piece of 90’s action, but there is something different i can’t seem to put my finger. i think i have been spoil on the original sailor moon. it reminds me of the difference between the 70’s battle of the planets and the original gatchaman. . plus, the script sounded like a take from Sweet valley high.
thanks for the hard work raven.
jen.
The script is butt I prefer the original English version of Sailor Moon
yea! it’s kinda laughable, i do love the DIC then later Cloverway shows. i have sone idea why they decided to make a fast buck, but Toei had some of their insight and dropped the Toonmakers version., it’s like the idea of taking a classic like Sailor moon and make a different beast all together,
I was just thinking of this the other day! Wow, that’s incredible. I’ve added it to my Watch Later and will hopefully be able to watch it very soon.
Just watched the video! The music video and pilot are cringey as hell, but it’s cool that this whole thing has finally been revealed.
Did they steal that rainbow shot from E.T.? Lol. The animation also has a decidedly 80s look to it.
So many mixed feelings. First and foremost thank you for your tireless research.
Adam didn’t do any research for this. He literally has nothing to do with this.
Did you even watch Raven’s documentary?
I like it this version was inclusive it had a girl who was disabled in a wheel chair, Asian and African American it feels great to see many ethics are in this version of sailor moon I hope there will be a reboot or find the other lost episodes and the rest of the seasons
I like chairs and ethics. They make me feel good.
Not sure if you’re serious, but I wouldn’t call this “inclusive”; my term for it is “Captain Planet diversity”. This sort of thing was pretty common back in the day, like “Okay, we have to have a Black Kid, Asian Kid, and definitely a Wheelchair Kid, but we’ll always have one or more White Kids, at least one of whom will always be the main character”. But they would almost always end up as cringeworthy cliches. I think they’re doing a better job of portraying real diversity in entertainment now, or at least trying, even if they don’t always get it quite right.
Exactly. Most viewers are too basic to differentiate between actual diversity and Hollywood’s checklist virtue signaling, which is often so obviously contrived to the point that it becomes pointlessly self-defeating.
When will they announce some September news?
No, toxic cishet white men crying about seeing minorities on their screen have no standing in the conversation about diversity. Inclusivity is universally good, period.
I feel like I’m usually the last to find out about news updates, but this time I managed to see this article the day after it was written. I went and had a look, and… Wow. Just… yikes. And I thought the cheesy music video was bad. (It’s still the worst part, though, and I got that stupid song stuck in my head for a few days after.) I know people have said that because this was a “proof of concept” video (not an actual pilot) that the budget and animation would have been better if they actually got greenlit, but no extra amount of money was going to fix that terrible plot or flat, emotionless voice acting. Or the the vapid and shallow portrayal of the live action girls checking off every cliche in the book. I mean no offense to the young actresses, who I’m sure did what they could with what they had, but this reminds me why I outgrew “girls’ shows” really fast as a kid and gravitated toward shows for boys or mixed gender audiences more. In fact, I think Sailor Moon was the first “girly” show I started watching again in years. Never thought something could make the DiC dub look like a masterpiece, but here we are.
Of course, it’s great fun to mock, and last night I made someone else suffer along with me, forcing them to watch the whole thing (though we muted the song) because I am evil. Kudos to Ray Mona for unleashing this abomination upon the interwebs! Queen Beryl (the real one) would be so proud!
Huge praise to Raven and her meticulous research. However the pilot is so cheesy, cringey, clichéd and dated even for 90’s standards.
Toei wanted to create butchered American adaptions of their properties for the sole purpose of creating merchandise, and making lots of money. Thank God this failed or things would’ve turned out a lot differently.
Somewhere in an alternate universe this became a huge success over here rivaling the likes of Power Rangers while the original Sailor Moon Manga and anime were never translated/dubbed outside of Japan and lapsed into obscurity.
It’s not just America. To be fair, nineties Sailor Moon and all of Toei’s tokusatsu properties exist primarily to sell merchandise, even today in Japan. The bulk of funding for Super Sentai has historically been advertising revenue from retailers. When people stop buying toys and themed backpacks, advertisers pull out and shows either cancel or are forced to look elsewhere for funding.
When I went back and re-read some older articles about this, I was displeased to remember that the live action cat was all drugged up. There are many well-trained cats (it’s not impossible!) in the entertainment industry; this probably wasn’t one of them. Somebody was probably like “Hey, we need a fluffy white cat for this thing we’re shooting” and someone else was like “Oh, my neighbor’s kid has one, I’ll bring it over” without any regard for how that would turn out.
So there’s ANOTHER reason why it’s good that this crap never got to be an actual series. Why make a poor animal suffer needlessly when you can get an animated feline to do whatever you want on the first take? I honestly don’t get the appeal of mixing live action with animation; thank goodness that fad died out.