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is the title of a famous media franchise created by Japanese manga artist Naoko Takeuchi. It is generally credited with popularizing the concept of a sentai (team) of magical girls (mahō no shōjo), as well as the general re-emergence of the magical girl genre itself. The story of the various metaseries revolves around the reincarnated defenders of a kingdom that once spanned the solar system, and the evil forces that they battle. The major characters--called Sailor Senshi (or Sailor Soldiers) (Scouts in the dub)--appear as teenage girls who can transform into heroines named for the moon and planets--Sailor Moon, Sailor Mercury, Sailor Mars, etc. The original manga resulted in spinoffs into many other types of media, including a highly popular anime, musical theatre productions, video games and a live-action tokusatsu series. Although most concepts in the many versions overlap, there are often notable differences, and thus there is limited continuity between the different formats.
Story Fourteen-year-old Usagi Tsukino is an ordinary schoolgirl until she is found by a talking cat named Luna. Through Luna, Usagi learns that the world is about to be attacked by a Dark Kingdom that had appeared once before, long ago, and destroyed the kingdom of the moon. She is granted powers to defend the Earth against the coming onslaught, and is led to a number of friends who join her in the battle. Usagi fights using the identity of Sailor Moon, and as the story progresses she learns more and more about the enemies which face her and the evil force that is sending them. Gradually she discovers the truth about her own past life, her destined true love, and the possibilities for the future of the Solar System. The plot spans five major story arcs, each of which is represented in both the manga and the anime, usually under different names. These are the unnamed original arc, the Black Moon arc (Sailor Moon R), the Infinity arc (Sailor Moon S), the Dream arc (Sailor Moon SuperS), and the Stars arc (Sailor Stars). Characters In order of appearance. See individual articles and the article on the Sailor Senshi for more detail. Manga The Sailor Moon series began as a manga drawn by Naoko Takeuchi. It was an evolution from her earlier Codename wa Sailor V idea, expanding the concept into a team of five girls rather than just one. • The story's themes are an amalgamation of Takeuchi's various passions, including astronomy, astrology, Greek myth, Roman myth, geology, Japanese elemental themes, and schoolgirl antics. Sailor Moon is also a fusion of the popular magical girl and sentai genres, one of the first series ever to combine the two. Anime
Musicals The musical stage shows, usually referred to collectively as Sera Myu, were a series of live theatre productions that played over 800 performances in some 26 musicals between 1993 and 2005. The stories of the shows include original plotlines as well as a large amount of new material. The series ran twice a year, in the winter and in the summer. In the summer, the only venue for the musicals was the Sunshine Theatre in the Ikebukuro area of Tokyo; however, in the winter it went on tour to the larger cities in Japan. The final incarnation of the series, , was staged in January 2005. After the January 2005 show, the series went on a "hiatus", according to the current producer, BMO. There have been no signs that the show will continue. Live-action series A live-action version of Sailor Moon was broadcast from October 4, 2003 through September 25, 2004. The series is known officially as Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon (usually abbreviated to PGSM by fans), and it is the first series in the franchise to have a fully English title. It lasted a total of 49 episodes, and the broadcast originated from the Tokyo Broadcasting System. Another 28 television stations in Japan retransmitted the series. The series' storyline more closely follows the original manga than the anime at first, but in later episodes it proceeds into a significantly different storyline from either, with original characters and new plot developments. In addition to the main episoes, there were two direct-to-video releases after the show ended its television broadcast. These were the "Special Act" (the wedding of Usagi and Mamoru), set several years after the series ended, and "Act Zero", a prequel which showed the origins of Sailor V and Tuxedo Mask. Video games The Sailor Moon console and arcade games have been released only in Japan. They have never been released in any other country (with the exception of the Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon game developed by Angel, which was released in France in 1996). The games are hard to find in any other country unless downloaded from the internet as ROMs. Bandai produced a small number of Sailor Moon games, but the majority were handled by a Japanese game company called Angel. Early games were side-scrolling fighters, whereas later games were unique puzzle games, and even later titles chose to go a versus fighting game style. Another Story was the only game to stand out, being a role-playing game. The games mainly saw release on the Super Famicom, with the first side-scroller being ported to the Sega Mega Drive. A separate arcade side-scrolling fighter was also released. In addition, two side-scrolling adventure games were produced for the Game Boy (Sailormoon and Sailormoon R), and a side-scrolling game was also produced for the Game Gear (Sailormoon S). A final versus fighting game was released for the Sega Saturn and Sony PlayStation. English adaptations English-dubbed anime After a bidding war between Toon Makers and DiC Entertainment, DiC (which at the time was owned by The Walt Disney Company) acquired the rights to the first 72 episodes of Sailor Moon, consisting of the entire first series and two-thirds of Sailor Moon R. Through the omission of 6 episodes and the merging of two, the total episode count was reduced to 65, the minimum number of episodes required for strip syndication on US television. The remaining episodes were each cut by several minutes to make room for more commercials, to censor plot points or visuals deemed inappropriate for children, and to allow the insertion of "educational" segments called "Sailor Says" at the end of each episode. The remaining 17 episodes of Sailor Moon R were adapted later, and were treated in much the same way. The English adaptations by Cloverway of Sailor Moon S and Sailor Moon SuperS (the third and fourth series) stayed relatively close to the original Japanese versions, and no episodes were skipped or merged. The 5th and final series (Sailor Stars) has never yet been licensed for adaptation into English. As of May 2004, the rest of the series has officially gone off the air in all-English speaking countries due to lapsed licenses which have not been renewed. English-language manga The manga was translated into English in 1997 by manga publisher Mixx (now renamed Tokyopop). The US comic was released as three series: "Sailor Moon", which collects the first three arcs (the Dark Kingdom, Black Moon, and Infinity arcs), Sailor Moon SuperS, which collects the SuperS arc, and Sailor Moon Stars, which collects the Sailor Stars arc. While they feature all of the content from the original manga collections, the volumes also contain the occasional new sketch and "thank you" commentary from series creator Naoko Takeuchi. As of May 2005, Tokyopop's license to the Sailor Moon manga has lapsed, and the English-language manga is out of print. • • | ||||||||||
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