Compared are 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 episode series about a group of girls, who can perform magic and fight 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 quite a surprise. In comparison to Saber Rider for instance, the German Version is 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 modifications (please see below), the German Version is equal to the uncensored original Japanese Version.

The US North American Version however is a different matter.

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 - "Sailor Stars" - 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 legendary, but for all thw wrong reasons. It's a perfect example for heavy censorship in animes these days. After the horrors of the first season, everyone expected the worst... and it happened. DiC also created an absurd broadcast schedule. They first released 2/3 of the season (with the first 13 episodes for some reason put at the end of the broadcast) and then waited for almost three years before they bothered to do the remaining episodes (that's because they'd had the insane idea to just do 65 episodes for sydication, regardless if the story is done or not).

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 erased as well. Further differences are renamed food (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 too revealing. This also and particularly concerns the transformations (except Sailor Moon's) where body lines 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. In the second season, episode 67 was being removed. (Note: The German Version 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", 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 Princess Halation	Moon Sceptre Elimination	Macht des Mondes, verwandle ihn/sie zurück
Shine Aqua Illusion	Mercury Ice Storm Splash	Wasserstrahl, flieg
Burning Mandala	Mars Celestial Fire Surround	Feuerringe, fliegt
Sparkling Wide Pressure	Jupiter Thundercrash Zap	Donnerschlag, flieg
Venus Love Me Chain	Venus Love Chain Encircle	Feuerhertzenkette, flieg

• Change of names affects all characters. Here's a list of characters with more than one appearance in season 2. 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
Chibiusa	Rini
Der Erleuchtete	Wiseman
Prinz Diamond(Demand)	Prince Diamond
Saphir	Sapphire
Esmeraude	Emerald
Rubeus	Rubeus
Kermesite(Kōan)	Catzi
Bertherite(Berthier)	Bertie
Kavalerite(Calaveras)	Avery
Petzite(Petz)	Prizma
Ail(Eiru)	Ali
Anne(An)	En
Naru Osaka	Molly Baker
Motoki Furuhata	Andrew
Umino Gurio	Melvin
Shingo Tsukino	Sammy Tsukino
Ikuko Tsukino	Mom
Kenji Tsukino	Dad
Haruna Sakurada	Patricia Haruna
Yuuichirou Kumada	Chad
Königin Serenity	Queen Serena
König Endymion	King of Earth

It's also worth being mentioned that the German Version 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 dialog with subtitled Japanese episodes prove how close to the Original the German dialog is.

Only the comparison of the first episode of the second season (episode 47) mentions the differences of the opening and final credits, the title of the episodes, the preview of the next episode and the "Sailor Says". All these elements are being ignored in the calculation of the different lengths. Basically, cuts and modifications are the two issues that might have happened. Sometimes it's only one of them, sometimes both at the same time. The time index is based on the German Version.

Episode 79: Dog Day For Artemis

Artemis is in a bad mood due to the others always making fun of him and not appreciating his efforts to scout out the enemy. Finally hes had enough and leaves temporarily. Meanwhile Esmeraude has found a new place to attract dark energy: she takes over an animal shelter and infects the animals with dark energy, turning them into dangerous beasts listening to the orders of her Droid, Dogba. When Dogba brings the animals into the park in order to collect as many victims as possible, Artemis goes to investigate, only to again hear from Luna that he's wasting his time. However, things turn very different when Dogba does manage to corner many people with her animals in order to drain the energy to feed the dark energy. Artemis' first try ends with him getting injured. The Senshi have more success but are subdued by Dogba until Artemis manages to divert the Droid's attention. After they have won the battle Artemis is unhappy because even now he still doesn't get any respect.

Length German TV-Version: 19:00
Length US-TV Version: 17:53

The US TV Version lacks 1 Minute and 7 Seconds of footage.

[04:23]-[04:41]
[-18 Sek.]
Shortened Scene
Esmeraude is doing some more fawning over herself when suddenly she notices that a dog is taking a leak on her leg, causing everyone around her to laugh at her misfortune. Esmeraude is livid, screaming she's no tree, before she chases the dog through the gate of the shelter, while Ami and Makoto walk up to the gate.

[06:28]-[06:37]
[-9 Sec.]
Shortened Scene
Due to Esmeraude's laughter, the possessed animals keel over. Dogba suggests dialing down her laughter in the animals' presence in order to prevent such incidents. Esmeraude is visibly embarrassed.

[09:03]-[09:08]
[-5 Sec.]
Shortened Scene
How the possessed animals are attacking the spectators is missing. The then again seen panicking people becomes very strange due to this omission.

[10:19]-[10:27]
[-8 Sec.]
Shortened Scene
Artemis turns away from Luna in order to return his attention to the animals. Luna looks after him but then bursts into laughter when he trips over a can and falls onto his face.

[10:48]-[10:57]
[-9 Sec.]
Shortened Scene
Dogba tries to hit a little boy with her whip. His father manages to push him aside just in time - only to get hit by the whip himself and the following electro shocks.

[13:19]-[13:28]
[-9 Sec.]
Shortened Scene
Artemis erwades the whip strike, only to get kicked by a dog from behind. Artemis then lands in a heap at Dogba's feet.

[13:51]-[13:54]
[-3 Sec.]
Shortened Scene
Dogba prepares to whip Artemis again.

[13:55]-[13:57]
[-2 Sec.]
Shortened Scene
Artemis barely manages to avoid the strike.

[15:24]-[15:26]
[-2 Sec.]
Shortened Scene
Sailor Moon and Sailor Venus are attacked by possessed animals.

[16:50]-[16:52]
[-2 Sec.]
Shortened Scene
Artemis is thrown to the ground.

Trivia

Some probably have already noticed that starting with episode 73, next to no annoying CG-effects and picture alterations are seen anymore and the namber of especially altered (and therefore report-worthy) dialogue has significantly gone down as well. The reason is simple. DiC had worked through 65 episodes in one go and then for three years were unwilling to dub and release the remaining ones. Then they finally released the remaining 17 episodes.

Besides the obvious difference due to losing some voice actors, there are some interesting side-effects.

• Manipulation of the video outside of scene transitions almost never happens anymore. E.g. no CG-effects, colorful borders, etc. any more.


• Censorship of the video therefore also was almost entirely gone. Things were now simply cut directly. The transformations, when not cut away anyway, simply use the old and consored transformations where the lines already were erased. (Exception is Mercury, whose transformation did get edited earlier)


• Digital scene transitions are used more sparingly. Especially komplex ones like the "four-tiara-transition" were either no longer used or simplified. Some new, more simple transitions were used as well, like the "pixel-transition".


• The script is better and creates less idiotic dialogue. Sadly, that also caused new differences to the earlier episodes.