Sailor Moon. (Season 1, in english)

KO so the first "Season" Or Series of sailor moon is simply titled sailor moon in English and Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon if translated from Japanese into English.

So the first season has has 40 English and 46 Japanese episodes which is about twice the number of a American seasons for a show.

The creation of the show started when corperate excecutives at Toei Animation asked Naoko Takeuchi to help with the creation of a "Power Rangers like" TV show targeted at young girls.
So Naoko simply took a Manga. (Japanese Graphic Novel) Series she had already made about a magic powered super heroin and made it a group of super powered heroin's wile adding more of a story line.

The difference in Japanese and English episode numbers came along because of standards and practices in Canada (The first English County to air the show) DiC a company owned by Disney re-worked a number of plot elements and simply cut some of the episodes, ether because there wasn't enough of the episode left after editing, Or because the episode simply didn't translate over well if you didn't understand Japanese culture.


The biggest difference in the Japanese and English versions is by now Famous in the Anime Community. The "Bad guys" in the first seaons are a Evil queen and her four generals. In the English version the genereals are three men and one women, the last two of the generals clearly in a relationship.
This is pretty much the same in a Japanese Version with the exception of the fact that all the Generals are Male in the Japanese Version... So yes that means there is one Homosexual Couple.

Now don't get me wrong i could care less, and on top of that i could care less that they are a Homosexual Couple in a kids show, unless you were older then 12ish, you wouldn't pick up on it anyways. But that being said i see the point in the edit.
First off it would have never made it past Standards and Practices in the early 1990's and would have a very hard time now in 2010.
Second, even if it did, it would put a HUGE dent in the amount of money that could be made by the show. (The true reason to make almost any show)

There are also some subtile. (Again you wouldn't get them unless you were older) Lesbian Jokes or at least lesbian or homosexual nods in the show as well.
Which is the way Japanese shows work, even if they are made for kids, they don't ignore the rest of the Culture they were made in. And allot of shows have Inside jokes or Subtle jokes in them regardless of age target.

Also because of Culture they cut out allot of the "Hard Core" Element of the Japanese version, implying in the English version that they intent to do harm to the main character of the show. In the Japanese Version they Acutely Demand her Decapitated head. But again Decapitation is really.. well kind of part of Japanese Culture, its hard to even teach Japanese History without using the word.

And i often frown at the sterilization of American History, we teach kids about Columbus and thanks giving, but not about the darker side of American history until much later, if at all.

But the point being that the English Version is sanitized in comparison.

It's also important to note that there was no standard writing team for the English Version. So most of the writers had NO idle what was going on in the show, and it shows in the English Version, its very inconsistent, and some times the lines simply do not make any sense.

Anime Nostalgia [Sailor Moon] The Basics

OK so i said in the last post that i would be going over sailor moon.

If you have never seen the show, I will warn you ahead of time, its a little silly.
Even by the standards of the genera its in.
And that's the first thing to make note of.
Sailor Moon is a Mixed Genera Anime.
It's part Magical Girl part Sentai Member.

If you don't know what those are... you need to watch more anime.

Magical Girl is a anime were the main character is normally a girl, who for one reason or another has super national powers. Common Elements are; Cute... really cute animation, A Cute Talking Pet [Almost required for the genera] The pet often is the person who gives instructions. Like a cute talking operators manual for the characters powers. Friends are big in this Genera and the other lieing theme that Love and Friendship can overcome anything.
If you have ever seen Card Captor Sukura, this is a perfect example of Magical Girl.

Sentai anime, is a anime were a group of super hero's band together to fight evil.
They often have outfit's and powers based off of a common theme.
If you have ever seen... Wow were to start.
Power Rangers.
Ronin Warriors.
Voltron to some extent.
Gatchaman. AKA-G-Force. AKA-Battle of the planets.
Again this Anime has a HUGE love on for the idle that Teamwork! And Friendship can overcome anything.


So at first glance sailor moon is a Magical Girl Show.
The Characters Have talking Animal Mascots.
Magical Super Powers and ALLOT of stuff about love and friendship. Also allot of girlie romance stuff. But in reality this show is a 50/50 blend of the two genera. Because it has a heavy dose of teamwork as well, and the characters are all themed the same, even color coated.

Even the writer admits it.
When Naoko Takeuchi they asked her to make a Sentai Show for girls.
So she took a manga [Japanese form of comic book] she had done earlier in life. That had only one character in it, and simply made a team of them.

On the note of Naoko Takeuchi, she is one of the most widely regarded anime/manga artists in the world, and oddly enough she is a female. This isn't like a female NASCAR driver, its not THAT rare, its just rare to have one be That Famous.

Anime Nostalgia (Sailor Moon)

OK so i have TOTALLY run out of New Anime to watch.

So i have decided to go about re-watching from "The Day" So i started by watching the first anime that i watched that i knew was anime.

Sailor Moon.
OK so any one who has seen this show. (In ether English or Japanese)
Would relies that this is like a girlie anime power ranger show.
Most people would call the show a Magical Girl genera. And ya it does draw from it very heavily but at its core it's a Sentai Anime.

So it has the same Monster of the day set up, and episode to episode idle.
So each Episode goes like this.

Part 1. Evil Villein decides to do a bad thing.
Part 2. They make a monster out of ~Pick Random Item Here~
Part 3. The Hero shows up and destroys it with ~Insert Stock Footage here~

But that being said, its a fun show as a kid because you don't pick up on as many of the plot hole's and glaring problems with the idle of the show.
And as a Grown up its almost like watching a episode of MST3K. It so bad its good.

And to it's credit it does have more going for it then other Sentai shows like Power Rangers or Gatchaman (G-Force / Battle of the Planets) for the U.S. Watcher.

The show is actually maid up of 5 "Meta Series"
It's a common practice in Japan to stop making a show for a short time, and or at pivotal points in a short start a "new" show.
You see this in many animes. Dragonball lead into DragonBallZ then DrabonBallGT.
Naruto then lead into Naruto Shippoden.

Sailor Moon is in fact 5 series.
And when you watch it, keep this in mind.
Each Series is made as a complete and separate show.
The Villeins are completely different and only the basic ellements of the story are needed to understand the new Series or "Season"

It does seam to have more story line to it then most other Sentai, that's most likely because it was targeted at girls rather then young boys.

Japanese VS English.

Right so the first season was published in the Canada then the U.S. By DiC
a company that was, at the time owned by Disney. (My Former Employers) So needless to say some stuff needed to be changed to get it to pass standards and practices in the U.S. (At least for the Age Group they were shooting for)

But something went wrong.... horrible wrong. in the first season.
Basically the production team was changed for about every episode wile the English Dubbing was being done.
So none of the writers had the slightest idle what the hell was going on in the show.
As a result the show was inconsistent and some times just didn't make any sense, even in the eyes of a child for me.

But o well it was still popular. (Still one of the most popular in Japan) And holds a soft spot for many.

Over the next couple of Posts ill be covering each Mini-Series / Season, and giving you any nice little information i have.



P.S. on a side note its VERY hard to find Sailor Moon any more.
No one has the U.S. Distribution rights any more, So there are no new DVD or VHS collections for sale in the U.S. Some come over from Canada. But for the most part its impossible to find them on the market and or to find on the Intertubes.

BUT i have done so!

here.
http://www.watchsailormoon.com/
It's a little hard to navigate but its very helpful.

Anime movies. (A.K.A. What's wrong with hollywood)

OK.

So if you didn't know, I'm a pretty big fan of Anime. (Japanese Animation)
And i say that in this manner, I like allot of Anime, Not all, and not all in Subtitles. I'm not a fanatic or a Webo [Look it up on Urban Dictionary]

And if you didn't know there are at present a Slew of Anime's being made into Live Action Movies (Or VERY high budget) CG movies by Hollywood. This is for most anime fans news that causes dread. Why you ask? Because Hollywood has a bad track record with anime movies.

In the last year and a half Three Anime movies have come out. Two that were Horrible and one that was surprisingly passable. I am about to explain why. [Or at least why i think so]

First lets explain the examples.

Speed Racer. [Directed by Andy and Lana/Larry Wachowski] (I say Lana/Larry because Larry Wachoswki had gender reassignment surgery)
[Cost:$120 Million, Made:93.945 Million] For a loss of $26,055,000.

DragonBall Evolution. [Directed/Produced by James Wong & Stephen Chow]
[Cost:Ether $100 Million, or $45 Millon; fox is to embarrassed to say which]
[Made:57.497 Million] For there 42ish million lost or 12ish million made.

Astro Boy. [Directed by David Bowers] [Distributed by a US company, but was made in Hong Kong] [Cost:65 Million, Made:28.815 Million]

It's also important to note that Transformers is a Anime, and that the first movie was good and made allot of money... the Secont movei sucked, and made allot of money.

OK so all Failed to make money. (The true goal of any film)
Before these three movies were made i thought there were only three ways to make a cross over movie. That is a movie adapted from another medium. (TV show, Cartoon, Book so on)

Stay the Coarse.
The first idle is to stay as close to the original idle of the anime as you can with the budget and technology can allow. As of yet we have not really seen this, but Transformers comes much closer to the idle. The up side to this is that your base, the people who have seen the original medium of the story will stick with you and like it. The down side is that your not going to get that many new people, because they need to have so much explained to them, and because some anime just does not lend itself well to movies.

Fishing for a new audience.
This idle simply try's to keep close enough to the idle of the story that the Base will be OK with it, wile adding enough exposition and new stuff that the people who have not seen the base medium will like it as well. So far this has been a total failure.

Keep to the shallows.
This idle is that the Base are going to watch and like it regardless of what it's like, so they do every thing they can to make new people like it, the problem is that this is MUCH more likely to make the base hate you. And has so far failed Abysmally.

So like i said i thought those were the only three ways to make a movie out of anime, but the Wachowski's prvoed me wrong with there way of make a movie.

Damn the Torpedo!
This is were you go.. Screw it, lets put as much flashy explosive sword wielding stuff into this movie as we can.

_
So like i said.
No one has tried to stay that close to the base idle. Michel Bay. (Who i generally dislike and would knife just for making pearl harbor) Did the best job by keeping to the basics in the first transformer movie. (Not that the idle was that hard to follow in the first place) And even if he did go a little A.D.H.D. Over board in the 2nd movie, its still not THAT bad.

With Speed Racer the Wachowski's picked a Old anime, that's barley know in the US, Generally disliked in Japan and honestly just not that good. And just went crazy with it, Now in there defense they did say even before making the movie that they were doing it just for fun. And they did pay for a good part of it there self. (Matrix / V for Vendetta money anyone?)
So that just goes down to bad planning.

Dragon Ball on the other hand is HUGE! In Japan its like Teen Age Mutant Ninja Turtles + G.I. Joe + He Man + EVEY OVER SATURDAY MORNING CARTOON you can think of rolled into one. The only show to rival it in sheer kid/teen age/big kid fan base is Sailor Moon.

So its a good pick, and it the US it has a large fan base as well, the largest of any anime in fact.

So why the flop? Because not only did they keep to the shallows, they were fishing in a rubber kiddie pool. It was (I don't care what they say) Under Funded. (I go for the 45 million, not the 100 million) And it lacked everything that made the anime cool.

If you have ever watched the final fight in the Matrix Trilogy, THAT is what i should have been like. Not what we got.


And as for astro boy?
Well honestly it got the best ratings, and did Alright in china.
It was a kids show made into a kids movie.
It was Done with CGI making it well funded for its type of movie. And it was actually not that bad if you had not seen the Anime.
But that's just it, you were better off not having seen the movie.
Making a Astro boy movie is like making a Bugs Bunny movie.

The people who know and love the character are old or they only know him is passing.
And the People who know him ether love him or hate him.
So really it was a bad pick for a movie in the first place.

_
Well that's all for now.
I will be posting about the Up Coming Anime Movies soon.
And my idle of what would make a good movie for anime.