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Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon Guide

Sailor Moon poster featuring the main characters

Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon is a Japanese TV animation starring an average Tokyo highschool girl who hides a secret identity as the magical superheroine "Sailor Moon". The "Bishoujo Senshi" in the title means "Pretty (or Beautiful) Soldier". Sailor Moon's motto is, "For love and justice, I am the sailor-suited pretty soldier, Sailor Moon!" Her superpowers stem from being the reincarnated Princess of the Moon from an ancient lunar civilization. Sailor Moon's human identify is TSUKINO Usagi, and she has a group of friends who are also Sailor Soldiers, all named for the planets of the Solar System. Together with her team of female warriors, Sailor Moon saves Earth and the universe from powerful supervillains intent on destroying the beauty and life found there. The show was based on a girls' manga (comicbook), and focuses on the power of love and the characters' ability to face down obstacles thru personal strength and teamwork.

The show ran for five years and each year featured a new, more powerful enemy with a different plan for destroying the Earth/universe/galaxy. Quite literally the battle is between the forces of light (the Sailor Soldiers) and darkness (the villains generally want to pitch the universe into oblivion or "turn" the Earth to the dark side). In each season the Sailor Soldiers must become stronger through a series of power-ups as they defeat increasingly powerful minions, until they face the head villain in a final showdown. Since the seasons are quite long (around 40 eps each), most episodes feature minor character development without contributing significantly to the seasonal story arc. These regular slice-of-life episodes can be quite enjoyable and amusing, and tide the viewer over until the climactic battle episodes show up. Mid-season is when things start to heat up, and at the end of the season when it all goes down. The manga is much shorter and the action constantly builds towards the climax of each storyarc.

Sailor Moon was created for young girls but has also attracted a much older audience than is usual for mahou shoujo or "magical girl" anime. Perhaps this is because it combines the magical girl genre, so popular in girls' manga, together with the sentai (fighting team) genre. Significantly, the TV show was the first girls' anime to appear in North America, and it sparked a new generation of mainstream anime fans. Both the anime and manga have enjoyed great success internationally, throughout Asia, Europe, South America, and North America. Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon originally aired in Japan at 7pm Saturdays from March 1992-February 1997.

WikiMoon is a wiki dedicated to the Sailor Moon franchise.

Series & Movies

There are five Sailor Moon series in total (each year is a new series):

  1. Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon
  2. Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon "R" ('Returns')
  3. Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon "S" ('Super')
  4. Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon "SuperS" ('Supers' plural)
  5. Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon "Sailor Stars"

A Sailor Moon movie appear in theatre during "R", "S" and "SuperS". Each was 60 minutes long and was paired with a short 20 minute special which aired before the movie. The movies are standalone stories which take place at an unspecific point during the year:

  1. Sailor Moon R The Movie - coupled with "Make Up! Sailor Soldiers"
    [North American Title-- Sailor Moon R The Movie: Promise of the Rose]
  2. Sailor Moon S The Movie - no special
    [North American Title-- Sailor Moon S The Movie: Hearts in Ice]
  3. Sailor Moon SuperS The Movie: The Fabulous 9 Get Together! Miracle in the Black Dream Hole! - coupled with Ami-chan's First Love
    [North American Title-- Sailor Moon SuperS The Movie: Black Dream Hole)

Sailor Moon in English

The English language version debuted in North America in 1995. Only the first four series were officially released in English. The TV broadcast version featured dialogue that was heavily change from the original script and the music and opening and closing credits replaced. A faithful and accurate translation of the first four seasons, with the original dialogue, music and characterization, was eventually released in English on DVD. However all international licenses were revoked in 2004 and by 2005 the Region 1 DVDs were no longer in print. It is highly unlikely that any North American companies will relicense any of the Sailor Moon anime due to its age. The final season, SailorStars, was never officially released in English but was fansubtitled by the Canadian fansubber VKLL on VHS and DVD (distribution ceased as of spring 2006). Anime fansubs are now primarily distributed digitally. Sailor Moon Sailor Stars and Sailor Moon SuperS Ami-chan no Hatsukoi Special can be downloaded from AnimeSuki.

There are many bootleg box sets of Sailor Moon floating around. They are of terrible quality and should be avoided. Don't let the shiny covers of bootleg box sets fool you: the video quality and subtitle quality is very poor, full of sentence fragments and terrible translations from Chinese to English; sometimes there aren't any English subtitles despite claims by the seller. There are no legally produced Sailor Stars DVDs with English subtitles. See this eBay Guide to Spotting Bootleg Sailor Moon & Other Anime DVDs and the The Pirate Anime FAQ for tips on avoiding bootlegs.

Here are the covers of the officially licensed English DVDs.

Sailor Moon Musicals

A very popular stage musical version of Sailor Moon has run every year from 1993 to January 2005. Visit Wikipedia and WikiMoon for an introduction to the wonderful world of "SeraMyu".

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon (Live Action TV Series)

A live action series based loosely on the first story arc of the manga aired in Japan from October 2003 to September 2004. This successfully revived interest in the series and contributed a new telling of the story and characters to the Sailor Moon universe. This series is officially known in Japan as both Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon and Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, however it is usually referred to by the latter name. It is unknown why the Japanese creators switched from calling the senshi "soldiers" to "guardians" since that is not the actual meaning. The story is a retelling of the battle with the Dark Kingdom. It starts off as a close adaptation of the manga, but after the first few episodes it quickly diverges into its own storyline with new characters, items, and plot twists. PGSM is a quirky blend of magical girl and sentai shows, with action and effects very reminiscent of the original Japanese Power Rangers. It's campy but has a lot of heart. The choice to keep the actresses' natural hair color while in their "civilian" forms and use wigs when they transform made the concept of blond- and blue-haired Japanese girls plausible. The costumes, which are based on the manga, were also done quite well. Thanks to the internet, the show's actresses have developed quite a fan following outside of Japan, with numerous fansites springing up to showcase their solo and PGSM-related CDs, photobooks, and cute merchandise. Fansubtitled episodes of the entire series (49 episodes plus two DVD specials) can be downloaded from various places.

Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon Manga

The Sailor Moon anime is based on a manga (comicbook) series which was published concurrently with the broadcast of the TV show from 1992-1997. The manga was originally published in the monthly girls' manga anthology Nakayoshi ("Best Friend") and then collected into volumes called tankoubon. The manga has been translated into numerous languages, however the English edition is out of print as of June 2005. Visit my sister site Manga Style! to learn more.