Title - Bishjo Senshi Sailor Moon/Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon
Alternative name(s) - Pretty Girl Soldier Sailor Moon
Genre(s) - Mah shjo, fantasy, comedy, etc.

When a person asks me about a mah shjo series, the first series that easily pops into my mind is Takeuchi Naoko-sensei's "Sailor Moon". Simple as that. A good amount of anime and manga fans, including myself, will say that "Sailor Moon" is their first shjo series. If not, then it is one of their first series. Simply put, if it wasn't for "Sailor Moon", I would have never been able to enjoy the shjo genre in the first place.

Both, the anime and manga came out in 1992. The manga came out in February. The Toei "Sailor Moon" anime started in March. Well, don't stop there yet. This series was actually based on a story Takeuchi-sama wrote the year before, dealing with a character named Sailor V. There are 200 episodes in the series and a few movies.

I want to say that there are some good parts about the series. Yes, there are some good parts to the series. Just wait a bit.

Tsukino Usagi is your typical teenage girl who acts like a klutz at times, but overall, she's a caring person. She finds out that she is able to turn into Sailor Moon, a soldier who has to protect the universe. She finds out that there are more sailor soldiers out there and they find out about the mess caused by an evil force.

Hmmm. Where should I start in terms of good qualities? This was the #1 shjo series in Japan during its time. It was because of "Sailor Moon" that various series like "Akazukin Cha Cha" got a magical girl theme going and "Cha Cha" never had that in its manga.

Mitsuishi Kotono-sama's first popular anime role was in "Sailor Moon". She was Usagi for most of the time. At the same time, she was also in "Hummingbird". Araki Kae-san, who also played as Chibi Usa and Black Lady played as Usagi while Kotono-sama was out.

If there is one aspect to love about "Sailor Moon", it would be the seiy. Why do you think I talked so much about Kotono-sama? Besides that, one of the most respected groups out there was Peach Hips, which had the seiy of the inner soldiers: Hisakawa Aya-sama as Mizuno Ami/Mercury, Tomizawa Michie-sama as Hino Rei/Mars, Shinohara Emi-san as Kino Makoto/Jupiter and Fkami Rika-san as Aino Minako/Venus as well as Kotono-sama. If you go hear their songs and songs of the series for that matter, you'd know why. "Sailor Moon" had some of the best seiy ever.

Like many series that hit North America, the dub here turned out to be bad. Oy vey! Where do I begin? You know, it's better off if I go to the scores first. That way, you can catch the bad parts about the series.

Fun - 3

High points. High points. At times, there would be funny conversations between the senshi. There are the image songs - *. Other than that, there's not much else that backs this series up. The same theme is used over and over again. It's really outdated if you ask me.

Life - 3

You can keep the series if you want, but I would call it a "weak keeper" series.

Story - 3

Monster of the week anyone? Fame does not mean much if you have a tiring story going on. That's the same problem "Dragonball Z" had, even though it was the number one shnen for teenage guys back then in Japan.

Audio - 6

I have said so much about the music already. What I like about it is that the theme song in the English dub is the translated version of the original. This is a good trait, unlike a certain series out there.

*Coughs*

"Dragonball Z".

*Coughs again*

The seiy: I don't have to say much here. I talked about Peach Hips. I talked about Kotono-sama. What I do want to say is that I wish the dub had actors as good as them.

In the dub, there were a few characters with voices that did fit. Note the "few". For some reason, in place of senshi, I would hear "scout" instead of "soldier". This is "Bishjo Senshi Sailor Moon", not "Bishjo Sukauto Sailor Moon"!

Art - 8

This is 1992 and for a series made in 1992, it looks real good. In today's standards, it would be a bit below average and I would be in some sort of seesaw if I was grading this series seven years ago, but since the series came out in the early 1990's, I had to be fair. I can't grade it on today's standards you know.

I admit that our heroines here look good, though I never liked Usagi's style in the first place. Oh and before I forget, Zoicite is a man, not a woman. Since North America did not want to see any guy relationships, Zoicite had to be a woman since he looked more like a woman than Kunzite, his love interest. If you don't believe me, his original actor, Nanba Keiichi-san, is a man as well. Uh, yeah, Zoicite is the only soldier of Queen Beryl that got a gender change.

While we're at it, two of the sailor soldiers are lovers as well - Kai Michiru/Sailor Neptune and Ten Haruka/Sailor Uranus. (I swear, Haruka really looks like SNK's King.) To cover this up in the North American version, they ended up as cousins. Anyone want to believe this? I sure don't.

Overall - 4

Well, I can say that this series got the mah shjo theme rolling. Other than that, what else is there to back this series up? Not much.

+

This series got the mah shjo theme rolling. You also have the Japanese version, which is nice, especially in its soundtrack, the fair art and its fair share of funny moments.

-

It's outdated, the series really drags on and the dub makes the series worse.

Date of creation - 1/13/03

Last update - 8/10/04

* Image songs are songs by the seiy. They are songs that are supposed to give fans satisfaction.

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