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August 26, 2022 12:52 AM Subscribe
The 10-minute pilot episode of the 1994 Live-Action US version of Sailor Moon
Even before the infamous DiC dub of Sailor Moon, Toon Makers had tried to adapt the anime classic from scratch in a show that combined live action and animated sequences. The pilot was not successful. Following a 1.5 hour documentary in March discussing everything known about the show, lost media researcher Ray Mona followed it up this week with another 2 hours documenting the pilot's eventual discovery.
Mona is previously known for such findings as the unpublished Nintendo DS game adaptation of the movie Mean Girls.
Even before the infamous DiC dub of Sailor Moon, Toon Makers had tried to adapt the anime classic from scratch in a show that combined live action and animated sequences. The pilot was not successful. Following a 1.5 hour documentary in March discussing everything known about the show, lost media researcher Ray Mona followed it up this week with another 2 hours documenting the pilot's eventual discovery.
Mona is previously known for such findings as the unpublished Nintendo DS game adaptation of the movie Mean Girls.
Thank you for this! I've been meaning to take a look. I will soon!
I did see a clip of this a while back, just what they had at the time, and what struck me is how lifeless the Sailor Moon character design was. I was a big fan of nonsense like this when I was little, and I don't think I would have liked it for reasons I couldn't say. Now I know -- it looks like a knockoff, because it is. They hadn't figured out how to use the big eye convention from anime, for one thing.
posted by Countess Elena at 6:40 AM on August 26, 2022
I did see a clip of this a while back, just what they had at the time, and what struck me is how lifeless the Sailor Moon character design was. I was a big fan of nonsense like this when I was little, and I don't think I would have liked it for reasons I couldn't say. Now I know -- it looks like a knockoff, because it is. They hadn't figured out how to use the big eye convention from anime, for one thing.
posted by Countess Elena at 6:40 AM on August 26, 2022
Why does it start with the Jeff Wayne War of the Worlds theme?
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 7:58 AM on August 26, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 7:58 AM on August 26, 2022 [2 favorites]
This is a classic situation where a researcher finds something in a library or archives and then claims to have "discovered" it. As a librarian, I'm always thinking about how the work of the librarians/archivists involved in actually accessioning, documenting, and preserving the item is completely erased from these narratives. Like, this item had thorough metadata describing it in the Library of Congress's publicly accessible database.
To give Mona some credit though, the new work she did put in here was getting permission from the rightsholder to release the video to the public. She probably shouldn't have watermarked it, but kudos to her for at least securing a wider access to this thing.
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 9:40 AM on August 26, 2022 [14 favorites]
To give Mona some credit though, the new work she did put in here was getting permission from the rightsholder to release the video to the public. She probably shouldn't have watermarked it, but kudos to her for at least securing a wider access to this thing.
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 9:40 AM on August 26, 2022 [14 favorites]
This is very much Serena the Teenage Sailor Scout.
I find it so interesting that they kept the same basic "types" of most of the five original sailor scouts but shifted them around - the short dark haired-Sailor Mercury type one becomes Sailor Mars, the redhead Sailor Jupiter-type one becomes Sailor Mercury, Sailor Venus is kind of similar except has dark hair and then a Black girl (the one real shift!) is Sailor Jupiter. I do love that this Sailor Mercury is in a wheelchair, which is even now pretty unheard of for a superhero character.
It's also impressive that they made it more unnatural than the English dubbing came across in the original series. And frankly OFFENSIVE how they somehow made Tuxedo Mask/Darien not hot.
Eh, I would watch the hell out of this show, even now, even that wooden.
posted by urbanlenny at 6:57 PM on August 26, 2022 [2 favorites]
I find it so interesting that they kept the same basic "types" of most of the five original sailor scouts but shifted them around - the short dark haired-Sailor Mercury type one becomes Sailor Mars, the redhead Sailor Jupiter-type one becomes Sailor Mercury, Sailor Venus is kind of similar except has dark hair and then a Black girl (the one real shift!) is Sailor Jupiter. I do love that this Sailor Mercury is in a wheelchair, which is even now pretty unheard of for a superhero character.
It's also impressive that they made it more unnatural than the English dubbing came across in the original series. And frankly OFFENSIVE how they somehow made Tuxedo Mask/Darien not hot.
Eh, I would watch the hell out of this show, even now, even that wooden.
posted by urbanlenny at 6:57 PM on August 26, 2022 [2 favorites]
WHAT FRESH HELL IS THIS
posted by Going To Maine at 9:18 AM on August 27, 2022
posted by Going To Maine at 9:18 AM on August 27, 2022
[watches transport ship explode, presumably killing hundreds of people including Darien]
[barely escapes to Earth through a dangerous black hole leaving everything behind]
[stares longingly at the sky remembering what life used to be life before everything fell apart]
Victoria/Sailor Moon: "Oh well, I guess it's time to randomly dance around for no reason with my fellow exiles hiding out at this boarding school. That always cheers me up!"
posted by RonButNotStupid at 7:11 PM on August 28, 2022 [2 favorites]
[barely escapes to Earth through a dangerous black hole leaving everything behind]
[stares longingly at the sky remembering what life used to be life before everything fell apart]
Victoria/Sailor Moon: "Oh well, I guess it's time to randomly dance around for no reason with my fellow exiles hiding out at this boarding school. That always cheers me up!"
posted by RonButNotStupid at 7:11 PM on August 28, 2022 [2 favorites]
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