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 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.

Only the comparison of the first episode 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 of them, sometimes both at the same time. The time index is based on the German Version.

Episode 11: Match Point for Sailor Moon

Queen Beryl orders her general Nephrite to continue the energy harvest after Jedite has failed. Nephrite already has a plan to steal a person's energy exactly when it reaches its maximum due to a certain star constellation. After an argument with general Zoisite he starts working on his plan. His first victim is Rui, a friend of Naru, who is an enthusiastic tennis player. He curses her racket, making her more and more angry and causing her to produce a Youma on her energy maximum. In the meantime, Luna got some new information about their enemies and Bunny embarasses herself once more in front of Ami and Rei. Eventually, Naru notices the change in Rui and asks Bunny for help. As soon as they arrive on the tennis court, they see Rui's energy flowing into a Youma. Sailor Moon wants to fight, but her chances are rather bad. When Tuxedo Mask helps and distracts it, Sailor Moon manages to apply an effective strike and kills it, giving Rui back her energy. Nephrite's plan has failed.

Running time of the German episode: 18:24
Running time of the US episode: 17:38

Disregarding newly added scenes, 46 seconds are missing.

[01:16]-[01:38]
[-22 sec.]
Cut
Rui's introductory scene is missing. She is about to leave school when a lot of reporters approach her and ask her questions about tennis, mentioning her being one of the best tennis players. Rui evades the questions and then says that she needs to go practicing. She leaves, the journalists follow.

[03:05]-[03:16]
[-11 sec.]
Cut
Bunny is more and more angry about Naru not telling that she had a sister. (Naru eventually says that it was only a saying and she was an only child.)

[04:04]-[04:20]
Alteration
The students' comments were changed quite significantly. In the German Version, they only say that Nephrite seems to be a rad guy and that he probably was very rich. In the US, a student says that he was a young industry owner who recently moved to Tokyo. This was overdone because it claims that Nephrite had created a whole company including paperwork, making him well-known (we learn later that this is not the case).

[05:46]-[05:56]
[-10 sec.]
Cut
A tennis player, probably influenced by his hormones, wants to play against Rui and shows off a lot. The others say that he would push in, but he says “first cometh, first serveth” (approx.) before saying that Rui did not have the least chance against him.

[06:45]-[06:48]
[-3 sec.]
Cut
A shot of a skyscraper in the Juuban Shopping District was removed due to the Kanji on the facade.

[09:00]-[09:04]
Alteration
Instead of the block in which the Osa-P jewellery and Naru's apartment are, the house of the Tsukino's can be seen. It remains unclear why this alteration has been made, especially because it causes a logical mistake in the US Version. Naru still thanks Bunny for coming, which now makes no sense.

German Version	US Version

[17:37]-[17:40]
Alteration
Instead of the school sign featuring some Kanji, the standard shot of the school including a translated sign is shown. This will happen more often from now on and will therefore not be mentioned again.

German Version	US Version