Sailor Moon (DiC/Cloverway dub)
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| Sailor Moon (DiC/Cloverway dub) | ||||||||||||||||||
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 "Botching characters by moonlight! Americanizing by daylight! Never giving us a good dub! They're the one they call Sailor DiC!"
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The DIC Entertainment (Seasons 1-2) and Cloverway (Seasons 3-4) dubs of Sailor Moon is a series of English dubs for the show which was produced from 1995 to 2000 and broadcasted via syndication on channels such as YTV, Fox Kids, Toon Disney, USA Network, and Cartoon Network's Toonami block, where the dub was arguably the most successful on. Although they were well received for the time, they were (and still are to this day) heavily criticized for their censorship and unnecessary changes to the story and characters.
Background
In 1993, Toon Makers originally planned to release an absurd live action/animated hybrid Americanized Sailor Moon (known as Saban Moon or Saban's Sailor Moon, even though it was really produced by Toon Makers) to the Western countries. However, after a bidding war, DiC Entertainment acquired the rights to dub the first two seasons of Sailor Moon. Optimum Productions was hired to dub the anime. Despite being a shojo anime (13-year-old girls and up) The anime was marketed as a children's show in North America, DiC censored the show and removed some episodes due to not being "kid-friendly" enough. The original music score was replaced with a new background score written by Bob Summers.
Why the Dub and Live Action/Animation Adaptation Shall Be Punished in the Name of the Moon
DiC/Cloverway dub
- Much like the Ocean dub of Dragon Ball Z and the 4Kids dub of One Piece, it is an expurgation of a popular anime series, as anything which they thought was violent and/or sexual was censored.
- The transformation scenes were toned down because DIC claimed that they had partial nudity, which makes no sense. After all, the characters are completely naked during them, just with chroma-keying on their skin.
- Another example was that the first season finale was heavily censored/bastardized, for the following reasons:
- The two final episodes of Season 1 were meshed together because of the countless cuts.
- In the original, the Senshi (sans Sailor Moon) perish, making it a saddening finale. But in the DiC version, it was rewritten as them being held prisoner by the Negaverse. Not only does that make it generic, but it also ruins the emotional impact that the finale has.
- The fight between Sailor Moon and a brainwashed Endymion (Prince Darien in this version) was heavily altered and shortened with any parts of Moon getting hurt cut out, resulting in an underwhelming scene instead of an emotional and intense fight scene.
- Sailor Moon also dies after sacrificing her life using the Silver Crystal to defeat Queen Beryl once and for all. As she dies, she wished for her, and her friends resurrected and live a normal life. This happens, albeit with no memories of them meeting each other or as the Sailor Guardians. Here, it just cuts from Beryl's defeat to Serena waking up and going about her day, making it look as if it were all a dream and making things confusing for the next season when Luna restores Serena's memories.
- Questionable changes were made throughout the series:
- The characters' names were changed to sound more Americanized.
- Usagi was renamed Serena, though it would make sense as it sounds closer to her ancestor's name Princess Serenity. Not to mention, it sounds closely like Selene, who was the moon goddess in Greek mythology.
- Minako was Romanized as Mina. (Which was her nickname in the original Japanese version)
- Makoto was renamed Lita, which may be a play on how similar Minako and Makoto's names are. But if this is true or not is yet to be confirmed.
- Chibiusa was renamed Rini, which is a play on the "Rena" in Serena, which is similar to how Chibiusa is supposed to be a play on "Chibi Usagi".
- Ami was changed to Amy Anderson (though later seasons, she inexplicably regained her Japanese surname).
- Rei was changed to Raye. (Though it’s still pronounced the same way).
- Mamoru was changed to Darien Shields
- Haruka was changed to Amara
- Michiru was changed to Michelle
- Setsuna was changed to Trista
- Naru was changed to Molly Baker
- Umino was changed to Melvin Butlers
- Shingo was changed to Sammy
- Rather confusingly, Hotaru kept her Japanese name, though her last name is pronounced differently.
- In the "Nurse Venus" episode, Rei is given something else instead of rice porridge.
- The characters' names were changed to sound more Americanized.
- Terrible voice acting for the most part.
- Serena/Usagi's voice by Linda Ballantyne sounds too old to be a 14–16-year-old. She speaks with a strange accent, and her voice was made even worse in Cloverway's dub to the point where she sounds like a 40-year-old drunk woman with a cigarette addiction. You be the judge.
- The casting choices are also questionable like Ami’s who for some reason talks in a British accent (the voice would fit more to Minako since she lived in London), and Luna has an elderly voice (akin to that of Julie Andrews) when she is said to be around the same age as Usagi.
- Rini's voice in the DiC dub sounded horrible, as Tracey Hoyt gave her a snotty and bratty performance that made the character less likable, which is the reason why a lot of people hated Chibiusa to begin with. Thankfully, her voice got better in the Cloverway dub.
- Speaking of the Cloverway dub, Zirconia was given a deep, guttural voice that just eerily sounds like that of Yoda.
- Hotaru Tomoe has a rather weird voice which makes her sound like a spoiled rich girl.
- Oh, and let's not forget about Molly's voice by Mary Long in which she was notoriously given a heavy Brooklyn accent to the point where she makes Karen from SML sound hilarious in comparison. Just listen to it.
- The soundtrack was completely replaced with a cheesy, generic soundtrack which is considered disrespectful as the soundtrack in the original Japanese version was great but understandable as DIC likely didn't license the original songs. The Cloverway dub did however include the original Japanese BGM since Cloverway was formerly Toei's US branch.
- Although the second soundtrack album Sailor Moon and the Scouts: Lunarock did include two songs from the original Japanese version, it's unknown if was due to licensing or not.
- Laughable or in worse cases, cringy, and/or even downright offensive dialogue that poorly translates from Japanese to English, including, but not limited to:
- "I'll give you a ride home on my motorcycle and make sure you go straight to bed."
- "Ever since you fell off the roof, you've been acting like a granola bar!"
- "What did you call me, you top place on the worst dress list?!"
- "Me, Serena? A princess? Now, this is way past weird!"
- "I love tuna fish and field mouse pudding."
- "Call my lawyer." ("No! Please! I'll lose my wheel!")
- "First kiss? How about kissing your heart goodbye?"
- "Serena-moon-face-girl", which is not only a stupid insult but was said long before Amara and Michelle knew Serena is Sailor Moon.
- "Meatball Head." This line, in particular, could be seen as racism towards the Japanese, & Italians for their looks, which by 1995 was practically inexcusable.
- Pointless CGI transition effects as a cheap way to make it look hipper and cooler, which makes it look more like a Calico Entertainment production than a DiC Entertainment/Cloverway production.
- The Sailor Says segments, which were so out of place and were only made to meet certain E/I criteria, though they could've aired it on cable so that it won't happen, making the segments even more inexcusable. On top of that, they had very little (or nothing) to do with the plot of the episode.
- Most of the censorship, name changes, and scene alterations (mostly in the case of the DiC dub, mind you) made little to no sense at all.
- For one, most of the names of the attacks were changed (i.e., Moon Tiara Action → Moon Tiara Magic, Fire Soul → Mars Fire Ignite, Supreme Thunder → Jupiter Thunder Crash, Dead Scream → Pluto Deadly Scream, etc.), which makes no sense as they are all said in English in the original Japanese dub.
- For the name changes...
- The Dark Kingdom's name was already in English, so there was no reason to change it to something like Negaverse. The same is said with Queen Metaria and her name changed to the Negaforce. Not to mention, the names of the Shitennou are spelled and said differently (Jadeite → Jedite, Nephrite → Neflite, and Zoisite → Zoycite), though they at least sound similar to the original, except for Kunzite's new name, which is Malachite.
- Prince Endymion is now Prince Darien, and for some odd reason, the English dub decided to keep his last name the same as his reborn name. This also led to confusion as in one episode, he doesn't recognize the name "Darien", even though he goes by the name Prince Darien. Not only that, but it also ruins the play on the mythological story of Selene and Endymion.
- For scene alterations, they tended to remove certain scenes that didn't need to be cut (though they may have been so for commercial times). Also, some of the scenes that were cut can be seen in either the Sailor Says segment or in the intro segment. Perhaps the most notable was the inclusion of the scene in the season 1 finale where the ghosts of the Senshi comfort Sailor Moon.
- Then there is the fact that, in the season 1 finale, the scene where Endymion had a vision of Usagi visiting him in a hospital (which was part of his memories coming back) was moved to the end of the episode, passing it off as a real event.
- On top of that, they added scenes that were cut out for the memory montages in both the season 1 finale and the season 2 premiere. Most notable was where Endymion got impaled by one of Beryl's crystal shards and Sailor Moon cried over his dead body afterward in the season 2 premiere.
- There are animation errors and frequent snippets due to censorship.
- Also, several inconsistencies will make your head hurt at times. One example was the names of the attacks are altered from time to time.
- Possibly the most infamous censorship of all is the removal of LGBTQ+ characters. Though, it can be understandable because LGBTQ+ themes can be very controversial in kids' TV shows.
- Zoisite was changed to be female due to his relationship with Kunzite.
- It should be noted that the two are heterosexual in the manga (and in Sailor Moon Crystal); the sexualities of the two were changed because of Kunihiko Ikuhara, who's known to like homosexual characters.
- Fish Eye was changed from an effeminate, androgynous, and homosexual male to being female. In fairness, you would be forgiven for initially assuming Fish Eye is female before you saw his shirtless scene.
- Most infamous of all, changing Sailor Uranus and Neptune from lovers to cousins...which was done so poorly that many people see it as an incest couple. We are not making this up!
- Zoisite was changed to be female due to his relationship with Kunzite.
- Some episodes were skipped and left undubbed in this dub. Episode 42 (Minako's backstory), was cut for unknown reasons, possibly because it could be found as too upsetting for a younger audience. Episode 2 was also skipped due to Umino's vandalism being too violent and raunchy for a younger audience. Episode 67 was cut because of DIC not receiving the episode in their licensing package due to Sailor Moon creator Naoko Takeuchi's supposed disdain for the episode.
- The dialogue doesn’t properly fit into the character’s actions. Not to mention, there are moments where the dialogue fills the silence and thus ruins the dramatic tension built up for those moments.
- The Cloverway dub worsened most of these problems, as it was rushed due to Cartoon Network wanting the rest of the series to be done in just a year, which of course means many more errors, more inconsistencies, and questionable rewriting decisions.
- The fifth and final season, Sailor Stars, was never dubbed due to a plethora of reasons:
- The English rights to the entire franchise expiring.
- Toei Animation does not want the season dubbed in English, stating that it wasn't suitable for the kid-friendly direction the dub was taking.
- The Sailor Starlights are rather hard to censor, due to their heavy transgender undertones, and Seiya Kou, Sailor Star Fighter, having a crush on Usagi (a huge plot point in Sailor Stars).
- Naoko Takeuchi hates the dub and refuses to license the fifth season.
- Speaking of the 5th season being left undubbed, it also means the dub ended on a cliffhanger with Queen Nehellenia undefeated at the end of SuperS (Season 4) and returning as the villain for the first 6 episodes of Sailor Stars. The Inner Sailor Guardians were also not seen finally getting into high school, which they regularly gushed about during seasons 3-4.
- Regarding characterizations, many characters were either rewritten or flanderized as a whole.
- For starters, Rini (Chibiusa's name in this dub) is extremely unlikeable in this dub, seeing as her brattiness is cranked up to eleven. In this dub, she's more of a bossy bully. While Chibiusa was kinda bratty and somewhat bossy in the original Japanese version and even the Viz dub, she's nowhere that much of a brat. At least she does care for Usagi, and she went on better terms with her in the later seasons. In this dub, however, they made Rini (Chibiusa) bossy and disrespectful to Serena (Usagi) like no tomorrow.
- It gets worse. Rei (named Raye) isn't immune to flanderization either, because she's more snobbish, arrogant, and immature in this dub. Sure, Rei was hot-headed in the Japanese version and the Viz dub, but then again, at least she does care for Usagi and is often willing to help her out.
- One noteworthy example of this: in episode 43 (38 in the DiC dub, that is) Sailor Moon entrusted Sailor Mars with her Moon Stick, which showcased how close the two were. However, in the DiC version, Sailor Mars said that Sailor Moon left it in her room, so Mars kept it. This made out to indicate that Mars was seeking to usurp Moon's position as a leader as if she were Starscream. In turn, it ruined how close the two were.
- Usagi was also a victim of flanderization, as she became more idiotic, more annoying and lazier, and acts more childish. Usagi was dumb, lazy, and childish in the original Japanese and Viz dub, but she becomes much smarter and braver as the series progresses while in the DIC/Cloverway dub she barely learns anything, which makes the Sailor Moon Says segments very ironic.
- Ail and An (renamed Alan/Ali and Anne/En) were rewritten so they were affiliated with the Negaverse and knew Queen Beryl (and that it was her who "advised" them to go after Earth) making them generic villains instead of tragic antagonists who are trying to save their species from extinction. Also too, we learn of their backstories in one episode, completely contradicting the whole Negaverse debacle.
- Luna herself isn't safe from flanderization, because she's bossier and more unlikable, always attacking Usagi for being immature, and berating her as well. Luna was bossy in the original Japanese and Viz versions, but she at least was concerned for her and care about her.
- Not even Haruka and Michiru are immune to flanderization because they're much bossier and much more arrogant towards Usagi. While Haruka and Michiru are somewhat bossy and arrogant in the original Japanese and Viz versions, at least they trust Usagi as a friend and care about her.
- Due to the excessive amounts of edits, the dub has lots of plot holes that weren't in the original nor the Viz dub
- It isn't explained how the Sailor Guardians and Tuxedo Mask lost their memories after that battle against Queen Metaria.
- Fish Eye's shirtless scene is kept intact despite being female in the dub. Although the scene was edited in the U.S. and Canadian versions, same could not be said for other international versions where Fish Eye is likewise made female.
- Due to episode 42 being skipped, it is never explained how they found entrance to the Dark Kingdom (or Negaverse).
- Sailor Mars being imprisoned by the Dark Kingdom makes no sense due to her killing the last two DD (Doom and Gloom) girls.
- Kaolinite knowing about Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune's cousinly relationship even though she is not meant to know anything about the two.
Live Action pilot
- The Live Action Animated Pilot was even worse as it was completely unfaithful to the source material that was the anime and the manga.
- A few Include, the Senshi having different personalities:
- Sailor Moon being the competent leader but WITHOUT any likable charm that she had
- Sailor Mercury being the party girl
- Sailor Mars being the tomboy
- Sailor Jupiter being the smart girl (which was originally Mercury)
- Sailor Venus being the vain one (and also really unlikable)
- The monsters being aliens rather than Youma
- Battling in their home planet instead of the Earth
- The senshis not being reincarnated
- And the most egregious part is that NONE OF THE ORIGINAL CHARACTERS ASIDE FROM THE INNER SENSHI, TUXEDO MASK, LUNA, QUEEN SERENITY, AND QUEEN BERYL RETURN FROM THE ANIME AND EVEN THE MANGA (however Artemis would have appeared (albeit with his colors swapped with luna) later as confirmed by Toon Makers, the outer senshi's planets were mentioned in the opening to have been captured by Queen Beryl (implying they were going to be Brainwashed and Crazy) and some of the youma making cameos in the fight on the moon).
- A few Include, the Senshi having different personalities:
- Some characters designs looking either ugly or bland and nothing like their canon selves such as:
- Queen Beryl looking like Maleficent and Tuxedo Mask/Prince Endymion looking like a Disney Prince
- Luna looking like a genderbent Artemis(due to the swapped colors) and the Sailor Senshi looking like rejected She Ra characters as notable ones include:
- Usagi/Sailor Moon not having her iconic Odango
- Ami/Sailor Mercury being a redhead and have long hair
- Rei/Sailor Mars having short hair
- Makoto/Sailor Jupiter also having short hair and being black
- Minako/Sailor Venus having brown hair (though it could be to differentiate her from Sailor Moon as they looked very similar) and not having her iconic red bow.
- And lastly, their bow ties being removed, them getting their bow colors as their accent colors and all of them having Usagi's S1 transformation brooch(Best shown in the transformation sequences)
- On top of all that, each of the Sailor Senshi in the Toon Makers Pilot (Except for Sailor Mars) was to be a different ethnicity.
- Sailor Moon would be Caucasian
- Sailor Mercury would also be Caucasian with red hair but be a paraplegic who uses a wheelchair despite being able bodied in the anime
- Sailor Venus would either be Latino or Mediterranean (the leaked artwork makes it unclear which) and have brown hair
- Sailor Mars would remain Asian but have short hair
- and Sailor Jupiter would be African-American (and have lips and eyeshadow that would have made her look like a racist caricature, which by 1993 was downright inexcusable).
- Overall, these two attempts at localizing Sailor Moon were very awful and a proper English dub would not be made until 2014 with Viz Media.
Redeeming Qualities
- It introduced the English-speaking world to Sailor Moon. Like the dubs or not, the series' popularity wouldn't be as massive in the English-speaking world had they not existed, and instead, we could have had a more awful Americanized Sailor Moon which apart from the name didn't have anything to do with Sailor Moon (see in the Trivia down below).
- Or we could have gotten an even worse dub by their little-known, but a similar in-production-terms rival, Calico Entertainment. (Well, we know there's no evidence suggesting that Calico planned to make one, but considering they abused transition & scaling effects ad nausea in their cartoons, overused a bunch of "hip" and "cool" colors for their characters & settings, essentially made the same theme song in their cartoons over & over again, & the above-mentioned awful Bubsy pilot they did, it can be safe to imagine just how much worse it'll be.)
- Despite the cheesy lyrics, the theme song has been nostalgic and recognizable by many even after the dub ended and it has been heavily associated with the franchise as a whole. Not to mention that it was the first time an anime opening was translated into english.
- Though most of the voice acting isn't good some actors did at least try, Like Emilie-Claire Barlow (Best known for voicing Courtney in Total Drama) as Minako (Or Mina in this dub), Stephanie Beard (AKA Sugar Lyn) as Rini, and Tracey Moore as the first English voice of Usagi (Or Serena).
- It later spawned the Viz dub which was far better received and considered an improvement. Not only that, but the Viz dub has no censorship or changes, making it more loyal to the original Japanese version, and includes the cut episodes and Sailor Stars.
- Minako herself is still a funny character, even if most of the lines given are terrible.
- Although still rushed, when Cloverway obtained the rights, their dub was much less censored, especially episode 125, one of the darkest episodes of the entire series (and it was left mostly uncensored in Cloverway's dub). Not only that, but Cloverway fixed some of the problems of the DiC dub, such as licensing the soundtrack, and forgoing the CGI transitions and Sailor Moon Says segments.
- The concept of the Live action with animation during the action in this pilot is cool, but the execution is extremely poor due to these reasons.
- Thankfully The Toon Maker Pilot was cancelled and instead we had the dub.
- Despite its problems, these dubs have a fair number of fans (a cult classic, if you will) who unironically enjoy them and prefer them over the Viz Dub and original Japanese version. They can also be enjoyed in a "so bad, it's good" way with unintentionally hilarious moments.
- While some of the dialogue is terrible at times, it can be funny for viewers to enjoy, such as "NOT THE DUCKS!", "Go bleach your roots creep!", "Heistuxedomask.Idon'tbelieveit.", and "Major Bumsville!".
- Neither DiC, nor Cloverway is entirely to blame for the poor quality. Optimum Productions was a heavy reason as to why the dub sucked, and while DiC was more hands-on during their time, Cloverway didn't do much with them, though DiC and Clowerway's lack of quality control with the dubs were not to blame either.
Trivia
- Although Usagi is called Serena in this dub, in the early English releases of the Sailor Moon manga, Usagi was named Bunny. (Which makes sense, since Usagi does mean "bunny" in Japanese). Though as for the other characters, their names were the same as in this dub except for Setsuna, Haruka, and Michiru as they had different English names in Irwin's Doll lines.
- The dubs are long out of print and considered lost due to the North American license to the entire franchise currently being owned by Viz Media, who aren't planning on re-licensing the dubs anytime soon and instead have opted to do their redub of the entire series; said dub is MUCH better than the original. Nowadays, the dubs can only be watched via buying the DVDs/VHS Tapes second-hand or illegal means such as torrents and streaming on piracy sites. Or they can be watched legally on archive.org, with separate parts of it all seen here, here, here, or here.
- When it had a Thanksgiving marathon on WBNX-TV in Cleveland, Ohio, there were some obscure live-action segments that had corny dialogue and acting.
- Dubs of all three of the movies based on the show were also produced by Cloverway. They suffer from many of the problems the dub of the show itself faces.
- The Cancelled Toon Makers' Sailor Moon show was considered lost from the public, until in August of 2022 when a YouTuber named Ray Mona was able to discover a copy of the pilot in the Library of Congress. She, with the permission of Frank Ward, eventually uploaded the pilot on YouTube. You can check it out here.
- A clip about another attempt at remaking Sailor Moon for American audiences was found by Kotaku called Team Angels.
- Fred Ladd said that all changes made to the show in the dub's DiC run were approved by Toei themselves.
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