Viz licenses ALL of original Sailor Moon franchise; new English dub in the works
The holy grail of Sailor Moon has just been achieved. I never thought I’d be re-buying the Sailor Moon anime, but it looks like that’s about to change!
Viz Licenses Original Sailor Moon Anime Franchise – All 200 TV episodes, 3 films, & specials unedited with subtitles & new dub
North American anime distributor Viz Media announced after its Anime Central panel on Friday that it licensed the original Sailor Moon magical girl anime franchise. The streaming, digital, and home video licenses include all 200 episodes from the five television series, the three feature films, and the assorted tie-in specials. This will include the first North American release of the final television series, Sailor Moon Sailor Stars.
Viz is offering the franchise without edits in its original uncropped 4:3 aspect ratio, with the original Japanese names, story elements, and relationships. It is also producing an uncut English dub with a new voice cast.
Viz aims to release the franchise digitally with English subtitles starting this summer, followed by the English dub starting in late 2014. It also plans DVD and Blu-ray/DVD combo releases in half-season sets starting this fall.
Exclusive Interview: Viz Media’s Charlene Ingram and Josh Lopez on Sailor Moon
Sailor Moon is kind of that unlicensed “big” show that anybody would love to have, and I’m sure everybody has tried for it. So it’s been well over a year at least, trying to acquire it.
There’s going to be a combo pack that will be the limited edition, but there will also be the DVD version accessible to more mass-market retailers, that’s going to be positioned for new fans that might not know anime. Hopefully people will discover it that way or through the Hulu streams, too. For the limited editions, we want it to be beautiful and worthy of what Sailor Moon means to anime and deserves to have. It’s more than just making it pretty because it’s Sailor Moon. It needs to be an avatar for a great anime title, and have a full release look across all five seasons. We want that shelf continuity, we want that pride, and we want the fans old and new to look at it and say “Yeah, that’s the way it ought to be done.”
You can hear the voice of Sailor Moon’s new English voice actress call out “Moon Prism Power, Make Up!” at the very end of the official Viz announcement trailer: