Comparison between the heavily censored US TV Version and the German TV Version.

German Version:	US Version:

The anime series Sailor Moon should ring a bell. The 200 episodes-series about a group of girls, who can perform magic tricks, fighting Evil is a classic which left a mark in the awareness of Japanese Productions (in both directions). No doubt about that. The series was a major success worldwide. But the German Version is quitr a surprise. In comparison to Saber Rider for instance, the German Version are based on the original Japanese master and the effort to keep it as close as possible to the Original was being made. Besides a few modification (please see below), the German Version is equal to the uncensored original Japanese Version.

Unlike the US North American Version.

The company DiC was calling the shots for the adaption of the first two seasons and Cloverway for the following two seasons. The final season 5 has never been released in the US, probably because of the controversial "Sailor Starlights", which also change the gender during their transformations. The realization is legen.... wait for it.... [sorry, wrong franchise -:)] The realization is legendary but it's also a perfect example for heavy censorship in animes these days. Especially season 1, produced by DiC, has a very dreadful rep and is the one with the most censorships being made. "Highlights" are the last two episodes of the first season. The remains of these episodes were put together to one single episode. Really preposterous.

The Modifications / Censorship

The

removal of scenes is the most common censorship. The length of the removed scenes is purely and simply impressive. Looks like the episodes were censored randomly. Besides the violence cuts, which could be expected, plot scenes, some gags and anything that could cause trouble with the FCC, was precautionally removed.

The meaning of scenes was changed very often, too. In most cases, the lines in the dub are softer but modifications of the footage were also being made. As a result of that, a scene might have an entirely different meaning than the exact same scene in the Original.

Americanization describes the pathetic attempt to make the series less Japanese. Not only the character names are different (please see below for details) but the Japanese ideographs (Kanji, Katakana, Hiragana) are wiped out as well. Further differences are renamed foot (but it still looks the same which is quite hilarious). But the best thing is: anything takes place in the US, Tokyo isn't being mentioned for once. These modifications aren't going to be mentioned anymore because it happens too often. Exeptions are extraordinary examples for that.
Examples:

German Version:	US Version:

Images were censored, especially when it became to revealing. This also and particularly concerns the transitions (except Sailor Moon's) where curves were removed like there were no tomorrow.
Examples:

German Version:	US Version:

CGI was added to a lot of scenes which doesn't contain any CGI in the Original Version. Listing all the CGI of any episode would break the mold but I can assure you: if there's a conspicuous CG shot, it wasn't in the Original Version.
Examples:

German Version:	US Version:

Transitions were added digitally as well. Recognizing them is a piece of cake because they're obviously a break of style and they're supposed to cover up the cuts. And here also counts: listing any transition would break the mold, so I'm not going to do that.
Examples:

Unfortunately there are some

removed episodes, too. From 46 Original episodes of season 1, only 40 were left over. The removed episodes Nr. 2, 5, 6, 20, 42 and the episodes 44 and 45 were so heavily cut that it was one single episode in the end.
In the second season, episode 67 was being removed. (Note: The German Vesion lacks episode 89 but it only consists of stock footage and is hated by the fanbase, so it's not a big loss at all.)

Gender change is a popular method to hide homosexuality. In this case, two characters are being affected: Zoicite (in Germany Zoisite) in season 1 is actually a man. But to avoid his homosexual relationship with Kunzite, he's a woman now. The second character is Fish Eye in season 4. Though he acts very feminine, he's actually a male (and he's also gay). A further victim of a gender change is Zirconia in season 4 for instance. And if such a censorship wasn't possible, the status of their relationship was being changed. The lovers Uranus and Neptun e.g. are cousins now.
The

modification of the audio track is no censorship in the proper sense but a lot of atmosphere gets lost. The reason for that is pretty simple: the US Version takes a pass on the original music and noises - a new audio track was being made. It works for the noises but it doesn't for the music. The original music is way better.

"Sailor Says" is a segment which exists exclusively in the US Version. If you know Filmation's "Masters Of The Universe" (good old times), the last scene should be look very familiar because it also with a scene where the kids were supposed to learn a lesson. This could be realized with stock footage.

Different names for the attacks and transformations were used, despite the fact that the names in the Original Version are English as well. But I must say that someof the German names were just made up, too. Here some examples of attacks, an entire list would be too long.

Original Version:	US Version:	German Version:
Moon Tiara Action	Moon Tiara Magic	Mondstein, flieg und sieg
Shabon Spray	Mercury Bubbles Blast	Seifenblasen, fliegt
Fire Soul	Mars Fire Ignite	Feuerball, flieg
Supreme Thunder	Supreme Thunder Crash	Donnerschlag, flieg
Cresent Beam	Venus Cresent Beam Smash	Halbmondstrahl, flieg

Change of names affects all characters. Here's a list of characters with more than one appearance in season 1. Find the original name in brackets if the German name is different.

German Version:	US Version:
Bunny(Usagi) Tsukino	Serena Tsukino
Mamoru Chiba/Tuxedo Mask	Darien Shields/Tuxedo Mask
Ami Mizuno	Amy Anderson
Rei Hino	Reye Hino
Makoto Kino	Lita Kino
Minako Aino	Mina Aino
Luna	Luna
Artemis	Artemis
Königin Perillia(Beryl)	Queen Beryl
Königin Metallia	Negaforce
Jedite (Jadeite)	Jadeite
Neflite(Nephrite)	Neflyte
Zoisite(Zoicite)	Zoycite
Kunzite	Malachite
Naru Osaka	Molly Baker
Motoki Furuhata	Andrew
Umino Gurio	Melvin
Shingo Tsukino	Sammy Tsukino
Ikkuko Tsukino	Mom
Kenji Tsukino	Dad
Mika Kayama	Mika Cassidy
Haruna Sakurada	Patricia Haruna
Reika	Rita
Yuuichirou Kumada	Chad

It's also worth being mentioned that the German was being modified here and there, too. Zoisite e.g. is a woman as well (I guess the channel changed that) and attempts to avoid words like "kill", "die" etc. were being made, which causes an odd result in some scenes. But still: these modifications are pretty harmless in comparison to the DiC Version. Comparisons of the dialogs with subtitled Japanese episodes proof how close to the Original the German dialogs are.

Just as in the first season, the second season also offers a different opening, different credits, different episode titles, as well as the "Sailor Says". These things will only be mentioned in the report of the first episode of the second season. Any of these differences will be ignored for the overall difference in time for each episode, which means that only the "real" content of the episode matters for these statistics. Therefore, the reports will basically concentrate on cuts as well as alterations (some of the scenes actually offer both things at the same time). The time designations always refer to the German version.

Episode 48: Raye's Day in the Spotlight

Rei is pretty stressed out. She took on the task of organizing the school festival of her high school for girls and for all the other pupils can't organize anything, she has to do everything by herself. Moreover, she wrote a song for the final show and so she's nervous about her performance. To Rei's detriment Anne and Ail heard about this celebration too and they see in it a good opportunity to harvest some energy from all the visitors. At that day, the Warriors have a great time at the festival but they don't know of Ail and Anne lying in ambush, they invoke a cardian right at the moment when Rei starts her song. The Warriors are put out of action pretty soon and only the Moonlight Knight can save Rei from a knockout. Being mad for the cardian ruined her performance, she burns the cardian nearly by herself and afterwards she tries to save her show.

Running Time of the German version: 19:00
Running Time of the American version: 17:59

Missing in the American version: 1 minute and 1 second(Minus the scenes which are not included in the original)

[00:07]-[00:44]
[-37 sec.]
Cut
The whole intro scene is missing.

You can see some school girls praying at the Hikawa Shrine, when they hear Makoto. She promotes loudly for some lucky charms which help in love and she assures that they really worked in her case. She sounds perfectly convincing so she and Minako can sell the whole stock. Grandfather Hino thanks them for helping him after the visitors have left.

[00:58]-[01:05]
[-7 sec.]
Cut
Grandfather Hino reacts piqued as Bunny dismisses his lucky charms as rubbish. Afterwards, there's also missing the sign of Rei's school. That's maybe because of the kanji and katakana on the sign, but if so it's inconsequent because the sign is shown later (generally there are many Japanese ideographs in this episode so the cut is quite obscure).

[02:04]-[02:09]
[-5 sec.]
Cut
Rei keeps listening to Bunny's strange explanation and then Bunny pulls Luna and Artemis as she's sarcastically offering their help, which shocks Ami.

[02:12]-[02:13]
[-1 sec.]
Cut
There's a quick cut when Bunny carelessly throws away Luna and Artemis.

[02:22]-[02:26]
[-2 sec.]
Cut
The turning-on of the spotlight at Rei's rehearsal is missing.

[05:08]-[05:20]
Alteration
They integrated a colorful and ugly CGI frame in the scene where the girls are enjoying the activities at the festival. It's inexplicable why this was done.

German version	American version

[07:21]-[07:26]
[-5 sec.]
Cut
Luna receives a clout from Bunny after she ridiculed Bunny's laziness once again and Luna complains why she can't shut her mouth in such moments. This cutting leads to an aftereffect because Luna has a visible bump in the following scene.

[10:02]-[10:05]
Alteration
There were integrated some lightning flashes after the appearance of the cardian in this scene for unknown reasons.

German version	American version

[13:08]-[13:21]
Alteration
The body shape of Rei during her transformation was deleted. This was done in such an amateurish way that the picture became very muddy and unsharp. This affects all future transformations of Rei.

German version	American version

[13:38]-[13:42]
[-4 sec.]
Cut
The cardian keeps burning because of Rei's attack before she extinguishes herself with some water.