This section deals with rumors that don't fall into the above categories but still remain extremely
common misconceptions. They will remain here unless I get enough of one set to qualify them for another
category.
The English dub only made small cuts for censorship.
As with any Americanized anime, not
by a long shot. Sequences were cut for time, any hint of violence is cut, including the Sailors
slapping each other or Sailor Moon being cut by a spear (which looks like a tiny paper cut),
and entire storylines were changed. No, not just homosexuality, but the entire background of
the Moon Kingdom was rewritten, and several of the character's personalities were changed. Compare Rei
from Japan with Raye of America, or the snobby Amara and Michelle with the more mysterious
Haruka and Michiru. Also look at the first season finale, which was supposed to be
two episodes but was smashed into one. Numerous episodes were dropped for no reason, as they contained
no inappropriate content that couldn't be easily clipped. Want to know more? This isn't the
page to look, as I'm really only dealing with changes in the dub as they relate to legends about
the show. Check out the Links section for some more thorough references.
Sailor Moon was actually for adults.
This ties right into the censorship rumor-that
if they had to cut stuff out, it must be because the show wasn't aimed at kids. Yes, actually,
it was. The target audience was the elementary school aged group, though it found a wider appeal.
Things cut from Sailor Moon, while they're not allowed on TV here, were considered appropriate for
that age group. Compare Sailor Moon with anime that actually IS aimed at adults (i.e. Hellsing)
and you'll see a dramatic difference in content. I think this stems also from the fact that some
people, not wanting to be poked fun of for liking a kids show, try to say that it was meant for
older audiences to justify it, buying into an old myth that all anime is aimed at adults.
Mixx/TokyoPop did a fully accurate
translation of the Sailor Moon manga.
Again, not by a long shot. They actually did a rather
sloppy job, with all sorts of inconsistencies popping up. Many names changed from volume to volume.
They also changed several lines, not for censorship, but seemingly for the hell of it. Some of these
were ridiculously out of character (i.e. Darien complaining about drinking too much at a frat party,)
and some seemed to have been changed into the infamous "kewl speak." Fortunately, accurate translations
exist on the web, which you can find in the Links section.(Thanks to Ian for pointing this out to me
enough times to get me to add it!)
Ami transferred to Usagi's school in Episode 8.
Ami was not a transfer student.
This is only in the dub. The japanese dialogue keeps reffering to her as always coming in first in
the school and the girls talk about her as if they already know her. There's no mention of her
transferring, or what school she came from.
Minako comes from England, where she gained her Sailor V powers.
Both of these are
false, stemming from a misinterpretation of Episode 42 of the anime, where some of Minako's past was
revealed. Because the backstory mentions Minako as Sailor V while in England, many fans have thought
this meant all her time was spent in England, or that she was actually from England. Minako actually
says during the episode that she was in England because she was following a youma there about half a year
before the episode takes place. This is somewhat in tune with the Sailor V manga, where Minako did
occasionally go to some other countries to fight the Dark Agency. There's no reason given for why Minako
stayed there as long as she did, but we know she came back not too long before the start of the show
because the first episode talks about Sailor V stopping a recent jewel robbery.
Minako was cursed to never find love in the manga.
She wasn't cursed. This is a misinterpretation
of Danburite's last words at the very end of the Codename wa Sailor V manga. Before he died, he told
Sailor V's final love fortune-that she would always choose to protect those close to her instead of
have a love life. Minako does indeed choose this path, but of her own free will and also her destiny as Sailor Venus,
not because she was cursed. The other Senshi all make this same decision, and they weren't cursed either.
Yuuichirou is a rock star.
I'm putting this here because way too many sites keep saying this. Yuuichirou, in the original anime,
was never a rock star, just a drifter. This is entirely an invention in the English dub of
Sailor Moon (hence there are no scenes featuring "Chad" singing and ruining "Raye's" eardrums.)
Chibi Usa is supposed to be 7/8/9/902 in the anime.
The anime is very vague about Chibi Usa's age during the course of the series, and never actually says how
old she is. However, the BSSM R: Authoritative Edition (Ketteihan) finally answers that question in a description
of Chibi Usa as being a six year old in her first-year of grade school. The 902 age refers to the manga, in which
they explicitly state her age and attribute her physical appearence and mental capacity to her lineage.
When you see the dead Serenity and Endymion floating after
they die in the Moon Kingdom during Episode 44, you can see Uranus, Neptune and Saturn in the background.
This is an old urban legend. There is a person in the background who sort of looks like Neptune, but there is no reason to
believe this could be her because the character designs for the Outer Senshi hadn't even be imagined yet. The woman
is also missing many key elements that appear in Neptune's character design. Though reports still say that Uranus
and Saturn are also present, there's never a shot that shows anyone besides this vague woman.
The animators would not include a character they had no idea about.
There are more or less than five seasons of Sailormoon.
While usually, you hear about
that "lost season," every now and then someone doesn't believe that Sailormoon is five seasons,
generally someone from a country where the show has not been aired in full (i.e. North America).
There's no lost seasons, either.
Sailormoon SuperS stands for...
Nothing. The S doesn't stand for a word, it implies
more than one Super (because the other Inners receive their Super forms in this series). The S in SailormoonS
stands for Super, as they say it in the eye catches, and the R in SailormoonR stands for Romance.
By the way, the manga was always called Bishoujo Senshi Sailormoon. The multiple titles were
only used in the anime.
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