Comparson 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.

Folge 50: Mirror, Mirror On The Wall

Anne reads the fairy tale Snow White as an English exercise and dreams about being the Princess and Mamoru being the Prince who kisses her. Later, she surprisingly gets her chance. Mamoru contacts the girls with the help of Naru. He's looking for people who want to perform Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with him after the original cast has fallen out. In the following fight about the lead, Anne manipulates the others to get the job. But she didn't expect Ail, who's full of jealousy when he just thinks about the fact that Mamoru is going to kiss Anne. That's why he sends a kardian to sabotage the performance and harvest energy at the same time. But he Sailor warriors can destroy the kardian and come up with an awesome performance, which gets a lot of applause, at the same time while Anne is freaking angry with Ail and blames him.

Running time German episode: 19:00
Running time US episode: 17:53

That means: minus the non-existent scenes in the Original Version, the US Version lacks 1 minute and 9 seconds.

[00:00]-[00:45]
[-45 sec]
Shortened scene
The entire opening scene is missing.

Luna checks out whether Bunny is doing her homework but it turns out Bunny has been falling asleep while doing her homework again. Luna isn't surprised at all. She looks into Bunny's book and sees the picture of Snow White and the Prince. Luna belives Bunny was dreaming about that and starts romancing about her own Prince. Unfortunately she slips and hits Bunny. Bunny spits at Luna what the hell she was thinking because she'd just had an amazing dream about food. Luna laughs till the tears run down her cheeks about the fact that Bunny always thinks about eating, even in her dreams.

[00:46]
[+2 sec]
Added scene
Added shot of the appartment tower where Ail and Anne are living in in the US Version.

[00:46]-[01:16]
Modified scene
The conversation between Ail and Anne is different.

In the German Version, Ail yells at Anne there was no need for her to learn Englisch (it's the same book Bunny had on the table) and tells her she better look for new energy sources. He leaves when he doesn't get a reply. Anne thinks about reading the part with Snow White and the Prince, how she can steel a kiss from Mamoru and win his heart.

In the US Version, Anne reads the book out loud (which wasn't an issue in the Original Version). Ail spits at her they didn't have time for stupid fairy tales and they needed new energy instead. Anne ignores him and he leaves. Anne says to herself it shouldn't be a problem for her if it was so easy for the Prince.

[01:17]-[01:33]
[-16 sec]
Shortened scene
Next morning at the Hikawa shrine. The warriors gather and Bunny apologizes for being late. Rei says he wasn't surprised at all, Bunny is not amused about that. But Rei doesn't want to argue with her and comes straight to the point. He says Mamoru was waist deep in trouble.

[02:09]-[02:12]
[-3 sec]
Shortened scene
Bunny reads the wish Mamoru left at the temple. This scene has obviously been removed due to the Kanji and Katakana.

[02:15]-[02:17]
Modified scene
Due to the digital transition, the original one got lost here. The original transition got covered by its CG equivalent, which consists of Luna's head. The mouth opens in the following scene.

German Version	US Version

[02:40]-[02:46]
Modified scene
Now one of the usual moderated dialogs.

In the German Version, Makoto says bluntly she could play the Snow White character perfectly because she already had the body of a woman, which was quite obvious (she points at her boobies while she's saying that).
In the Original Version, she simply mentions she had the biggest boobs.
In the US Version, she says she had the biggest talent.

But she always points at her boobs (see below), which has caused a running gag in the US fan scene where big-boobed chicks in the show business are being considered "talented".

[02:48]-[02:51]
[-3 sec]
Shortened scene
In relation to previous modifications when Rei and Bunny react piqued, Makoto kind of exposes her boobs and asks if anyone has the guts (or in th this specific case the boobs) to compare.

[03:50]-[03:56]
Modified scene
This time, the entire scene of the fighting girls hasn't been modified with a muticolored CG frame. Of course not. This time it's a blue one!

German Version	US Version

[06:12]-[06:17]
Modified scene
The shot of the civic center has been replaced by a hostile building. The reason is presumably the sign at the entrance.

German Version	US Version

[11:18]-[11:20]
[-2 sec]
Shortened scene
The shot of the appartment Ail and Anne live in starts earlier, so that it begins with the sign (which contains Japanese ideographs of course).