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Sailor Moon S
This season debuted on March 19, 1994, and ran until
February 25, 1995. The S stands for "Super" as this is the very
first season where Sailor Moon becomes Super Sailor Moon. All of the episode
intros, previews and even the theme song for the eyecatch segment with Sailor
Moon, all refer to it as "Sailor Moon Super" despite the logo being
shortened to "Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon S". This season is considered by most fans to be the most dark
of the series, with the exception of the last two episodes of the first
season, the last half of Sailor StarS and Sailor Moon Crystal. The entire
premise of this season was death. One major change from the manga, is that Pluto dies at the
end of the season, and does not come back until Sailor StarS and in the
SuperS film. In the manga, Pluto had died at the end of the Black Moon Arc,
and this was the arc where she came back for good. Another change again sees
Diana missing completely from the season. In the manga, by this point, she is
more visible than Luna-P. Sailor Chibi Moon earns her hair clips halfway
through the series, but only Sailor Moon reaches Super status. None of the
other girls gain a Super transformation. The Sailormoon S movie is based on the Snow Princess
Kaguya story from the manga. While much of the story is kept in tact, some
changes were made. In the manga, Kakeru impregnates Himeko just before her
trip to outer space, while in the anime movie, the two are barely on screen
that long together. The film takes place sometime before episode 123 as the
snow is falling hard, and Sailor Moon can become Super Sailor Moon. In both the anime and in the manga, Chibiusa's body age is
eight, albeit with some alterations. In the manga, Chibiusa has developed
breasts, while here, her breasts only appear in a few scenes while she is
transformed. The rest of the time, she is shown as a regular kid. Her age is
never mentioned in the anime, but it is known she is attending the second
grade. In the manga, she is also attending second grade with Momoko and
Kyusuke, and celebrates her 902nd birthday in the Tanabata story
for Chibiusa's Diary. Just like in R, Momoko is seen with brown hair and green
eyes. In the manga by this point though, her hair and eyes are both magenta
pink. This season is noted for having several different
openings. The first two episodes only feature Sailor Moon, Mercury, Mars, Venus,
Jupiter and Tuxedo Mask. Later episodes add Sailor Uranus and Neptune to four
segments during the opening theme. Then after episode 104, Sailor Chibi Moon
is added, then Sailor Pluto, and lastly, Kaolinite's segment is replaced with
Hotaru, and Sailor Moon slowly morphs into Super Sailor Moon as the song goes
on. This was the most amount of changes to an opening scene, even more so
than the first season, which only had minor animation changes. The first half
of the season retained Sailormoon R's ending song "Otome No Policy"
and animation, but later episodes switch to a new ending with the Sailor
Senshi shown as princesses inside of a music box, as the song "Tuxedo
Mirage" plays. DiC had originally dubbed 13 episodes of Sailormoon S, but
the whereabouts of the tapes are unknown. They lost the deal for S shortly after
the last episodes of Sailormoon R had made their second rotation on Cartoon
Network. Disney and The Program Exchange had pulled away from DiC, and Toei
was not satisfied with DiC's habit of cutting up and out episodes. DiC and Optimum Productions edited the movie, using the
Sailormoon R cast. Only a few of the original voice actors from the DiC era
made it over to Cloverway. Due to DiC editing the film, many attack and
transformation names were changed, and do not match the SuperS TV edits. DiC
did choose to keep the names Kakeru and Himeko, but allowed each actor to
pronounce them differently. This resulted in the film's dub being the most
hated among fans. Cloverway officially dubbed and edited this season, with
the first episode airing in 1999 on Cartoon Network's Toonami block. Due to
the edgier themes, the show was re-branded for ages 11-16, and a new toyline
from Irwin, while still featuring toys for a younger crowd, boasted a new
line of dolls aimed only at adult collectors. The line was cut short however,
when Irwin filed for bankruptcy, shortly before the end of S's first run on
Cartoon Network. In a stark contrast to DiC's initial 65 episode deal, only
one episode was dropped by Cloverway due to nudity, but was later re-edited
and aired on Cartoon Network silently, during the season's second run. While Cloverway restored the Luna Sphere's name back to
it's rightful name of Luna-P, and Ami got her last name of Mizuno back, some
names were still changed. Sailor Chibi Moon became Sailor Mini Moon. Haruka
became Amara. Michiru became Michelle. Setsuna became Trista. Professor Tomoe
became Doctor Tomoe with a silent E at the end of Tomoe. Kaolinite became
Kaori Knight. Tellu became Teruru, while the Pioneer/Geneon DVD lists her as
Telulu. Eudial became Eugeal. Viluy became Beruit. Ptilol became Petorol.
Cyprine became Siprin. Momoko, who was Melissa in the DiC dub, was seen
briefly as "Katy". To make up for the changes, Hotaru and Mimette retained
their names. Worldwide, this season came under fire, because Sailor
Uranus and Sailor Neptune are a lesbian couple. To combat this, Cloverway
kept all of the romantic scenes between the two, but had the characters
address them as "cousins". The theory was that if they were
related, the hugging wouldn't seem "wrong". Instead, the newly
implied incest only drew more ire from parental and religious groups. This
wasn't the only issue Christians took with the show, when it came out that
the girls are looking for Talismans, The Holy Grail, and a female Messiah.
Catering to the death threats, Cloverway redubbed the offending words with
the following: Purity Chalice, Purity Cup, Purity/Precious Items and Purity
Maiden, among many, ever changing euphemisms. Another problem involved nude
or near nude teen and adult characters, leading the company to use digital
paint. While holy, adult nudity and teenaged lesbian issues were
dubbed over, in a creepy twist, Cloverway slowed down and expanded scenes of
Chibiusa in the nude, as a way to fill up time left by cutting the original
episodes. In one episode, Chibiusa falls in love with a cross dressing tween
boy named Tamasaburou. Fearing another waive of backlash due to Tamasaburou
being trans-gender, he was changed to a girl, but the romantic implications
were left 100% in. Curiously enough, while DiC lost the rights to dub this
season, several screenshots from a few episodes were used for their trading
cards. Haruka and Michiru each had their own profile cards, however with
their US Earth names omitted. They were shown in civilian clothes but only
addressed as Sailor Uranus and Neptune respectively. Viz began airing the series uncut via Hulu and Neon Alley
on March 23, 2015. Originally, S was supposed to air on Hulu on March 16,
2015, but due to unforeseen circumstances, Hulu and Viz had to break the
"two episodes a week" rule temporarily, delaying the start of S by
one week. Starting March 23rd however, the series resumed it's
promised two episodes a week airing. When announcing the fact that they now have rights to the
entire series, Viz made it clear they intend to keep intact Uranus and
Neptune's relationship. With Sailor Saturn, there are 10 Sailor Senshi officially
featured. Adding Tuxedo Mask makes 11. |
Episodes:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38
Movie
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