You are browsing the archive for Sailor Moon.

The history, casting, and filming of PGSM

March 30, 2012 in Sailor Moon

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon (PGSM) is a live action version based on the Sailor Moon anime which is based on the manga. This 30-minute video is an in-depth look into the history, filming, and casting of the PGSM series before it was released in Japan and also served asa promo for the shows airing a few months later.

Apparently many thousand people applied in Japan for the individual parts and an already famous actor was chosen to play Queen Beryl. It covers interviews of the cast, behind-the-scenes sneak peeks, and even videos of the actual production. It also covers the Japanese press conferences with the cast and the cast getting to know each other personally. Several secrets about filming locations were also revealed plus a lot more.

 



Print Friendly

Recognizing the (S)ave (O)ur (S)ailors (SOS) Amazing Group

March 8, 2012 in Sailor Moon

One day, a long time ago, America had just begun importing Sailor Moon Episodes, Dubbing Them, Editing Them, and Releasing them for air. Many Americans of that generation quickly began to really like the show but the company which imported the episodes abruptly said one day in 1996 that no more episodes will be imported after Season 1.

This caused an uproar among the younger generation as it had become more popular than many native cartoons already airing. Instead of just giving up because of their age they actually started took a stand with their American rights. They started an online fansite which acted like a “Headquarters” so to speak where all the fans who didn’t want the show to get cancelled would go to to figure out exactly how, when, where, and what to do in order to keep it going.

The first thing they did was to do a unanimous vote on an item everybody should by at the exact same day and time to give word on the number of fans exist that want it to stay on air. The item was Strawberry Frosted Kellogg’s pop-tarts. At that exact chosen time, across the nation it seemed that item could not be kept in stock. People were lined up for that item some having no intention of eating it. This very quickly made it to the news, radio, and newspapers nationwide.

The second thing they did was take legal action and start an official petition, by law they had to get 30,000 signatures but they instead nailed it way over. The other issue was that it was too expensive to air this show but the pop-tart incident proved that whatever means necessary is fine to have it aired, even if it meant more commercial breaks, they’re there to watch the show.

After such a series of events, the TV company finally gave into re-airing the show, although SOS wanted it aired till the end of the series, it only went as far as Sailor Moon R. Today the SOS group is officially inactive, but they’re actions have been saved and referenced many times over. Old documents and polls such as the Pop-tart incident have been archived by other organizations for the general public to reference.

To this day, no other event like this has ever been done before, It really shows how great and one-of-a-kind anime this is! The SOS campaign lasted up until 2004 before it finally shutdown (it’s still being updated but it’s more of a news site now)

http://www.saveoursailors.org/

The following are the list of companies who helped SOS get to that level of recognition and even helped voice some of the fans to the nation:

ADV Films, Bandai, Bandai America, The Cartoon Network, Cloverway Inc., DiC Entertainment, The Walt Disney Company, The Forge, Fox Kids, General Mills, The Gersh Agency, The Guardians Of Order, Irwin Toys, Kodansha, Nielsen Media Research, Optimum Productions, Pioneer/Geneon Entertainment, Princess Naoko Planning, The Program Exchange, Saatchi & Saatchi, Toei Animation, USA Cable Television Network, Variety, Video Research Ltd. of Japan, and the YTV Network of Canada.

Print Friendly

Sailor Moon Storyline

March 8, 2012 in Sailor Moon

Varying Sailor Soldiers

Sailor moon has quite a complex and in-depth storyline. To give an example, there’s an entire wiki-based website dedicated to detail the entire storyline and it’s events, it’s been open for some time and the contributors are still adding new information. (Link Here: http://wikimoon.org). I have written 3 other articles for the storyline and the characters:

  1. The back-story which covers the core events before the series and that the series is built upon and frequently references.
  2. The “Sailor War” which describes the reality of the Sailor Soldiers. That is, the reality of separate kingdoms allied together and the general goals of each kingdom which frequently collide with others causing outbreaks of war including any disagreements and such plus wars over kingdoms wishing to conqueror. This is a big topic by the way, there are actually songs and other articles written on this concept
  3. Sailor V which covers the long history both in the storyline and in real-life on Sailor Venus and how she came to be in the Sailor Moon Series from her own series called Codename Sailor V

This will describe the storyline ahead, or the series storyline that the manga, anime, and to some extent, the live-action is based off of.

Codename "Sailor V" Cover

Long after the destruction of the Moon Kingdom and the obliteration of all the allied planets kingdoms and their residents, Most everyone had been reborn most with no recollection of their past lives or “Original” lives before they were killed. Things developed very differently for each person reborn. Sailor Moon and the other Inner Soldiers were reborn with no previous knowledge of the past live. Sailor Venus on the other hand, had been reborn and gained not only her Sailor Power back but all of her past life memories as well long before the other sailor soldiers had realized exactly who they were. Venus even started crime-fighting solo and gained popularity leading to talk of “Sailor V” after which many manga and video games were made from.

Inner Sailor Soldiers

The other Sailor Soldiers realized who they were in general much later on but each shortly after the other (not all at once). The Outer Senshi were actually never reborn, so to speak, they were technically reborn sometime in-between the destruction of the Moon Kingdom and the rebirth of the people killed so they visit the other Sailor Soldiers later on in the series with the help of Sailor Pluto. Pluto is the only exception, she was reborn at the same time as everyone else but not on Earth like the other soldiers. Pluto was reborn on her own planet doing her duties as keeper of time and space. She acts as a midway point for many important events in future episodes.

Tuxedo Mask

Prince Endymion was killed during one of the Moon Kingdom parties when he was courting Princess Serenity, therefore he was reborn a bit differently. He was more or less not reborn but more appeared in the future still in his Tuxedo clothing. He had reappeared with no memory of who he was or his past life so he gave himself the nickname “Tuxedo Mask” since he didn’t know his real name or identity but made it his mission to find out his identity. Queen Beryl had captured and brainwashed Kunzite, Zoisite, and Nephrite into working with and fully obeying her without question. She and them were both reborn on the Dark Moon with all of their memories and thus she rebuilt her empire and tries to launch several attacks and conqueror the planet Earth. Each attack is basically an individual episode.

Princess Serenity

Venus, while working separately from the other soldiers for quite some time, eventually shows up and joins the group. Afterwards, Tuxedo Mask discovers Usagi, Sailor Moon’s civilian name, true identity as Sailor Moon. A metamorphic event happens where Sailor Moon discovers she’s actually also Princess Serenity, upon discovering this Tuxedo Mask finally remembers his identity as Prince Endymion. Shortly after, a final battle with Queen Beryl proves victorious but at the cost of everyone’s life except for Princess Serenity and Prince Endymion.

Sailor Chibi Moon

From there the story arc extends, Sailor Pluto becomes a very important figure as the keeper of time and space and allows Sailor Chibi Moon, Sailor Moon Daughter from the future, to join Sailor Moon and the other Sailor soldiers in the past for protection since the future is in great danger from an impending attack on Tokyo and Sailor Chibi Moon has what they’re looking for. The outer soldiers also come into play later on again through Sailor Pluto, this time from the mid-past. At some point Sailor Pluto was able to hand down her position to someone else temporarily so she could join the Sailor Soldiers.

After many enemies (each in their own story arc), the final enemy turns out to also be a Sailor Soldier and introduces many more foreign soldiers to the picture. Sailor Galaxia is a possessed Sailor Soldier who’s the strongest soldier in the galaxy. She is a good Sailor Scout who conquered all evil in the Galaxy and sealed it inside of herself. Upon doing so evil took possession of her and starting doing the reverse, conquering all good from the Galaxy. The last solar system left to be conquered was the one Earth is in. Another solar system with Sailor Soldiers flee to Earth’s Solar System for shelter and defense against the upcoming attack from Galaxia. Like the other story arcs Galaxia sends other controlled pawns to steadily attack Earth until finally Galaxia herself shows up, she was unable to do so before because the planets protector, Prince Endymion, was still alive so after killing him she was able to show up herself.

Sailor Galaxia

After an all-out war with Galaxia and the death of all the sailor soldiers including the foreign soldiers and mostly Sailor Moon, a tiny window of opportunity arose which Sailor Moon grasped and finally managed to release the evil from Sailor Galaxia freeing her from her prison within her body.

This is just a summary of the storyline – like I said entire projects have been created to put everything down on paper. Below is the final clip of the end of the Sailor Moon series with Galaxia (A really really good and very moving episode). Youtube has put restrictions on it because it didn’t pass the American Rating System so I don’t know how it will play on your end but it plays fine on my end.

Print Friendly

The Story on the Sailor War

December 30, 2011 in Sailor Moon

The Sailor War is the tragic name describing a war that's been taking place for millions of years and will go on forever (hence the tragic part). Sailor Soldiers are elite warriors for the kingdom they protect. They're are Sailor Soldiers all over the universe as just about every comet, star, sun, galaxy, and planet has an associated Sailor Soldier. That being said, a majority of the soldiers are not good, some sailor soldiers remain neutral, others are good but very territorial and will kill any soldier who stands in it's territory.

There is a constant fight for territory, alliances are always under question and challenge, new compromises are always having to be made, disagreements are always coming up. Basically every kingdom is it's own government and desires to expand it's covered territory. What happens when the new territory crosses into an existing territory from another kingdom? A war breaks out over the territory. Kingdoms often want to destroy other kingdoms for one of many reasons, Sailor Soldiers may want to destroy other soldiers as well. Sometimes a kingdom will want to rule over all the other kingdoms and destroy any that get in it's way. Often kingdoms will cluster together and form sides against other kingdoms which is the case with the Moon Kingdom.

In Sailor Moon, there have been many occasions where they've have sailor invaders who've come to dominate the solar system. Most of the enemies have been Sailor Scouts then there's also Sailor Galaxy (Galaxia) who seeks to dominate the entire Milky-way Galaxy and appears at the very end of the Sailor Moon Series.

In our solar system there are 9 allied planets (Before Earth joined), Mercury, Venus, Moon, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. Among these planets is a subdivision which was created out of conflict for leadership of the alliance, the "Inner Soldiers" consist of Mercury, Venus, Moon, Mars, and Jupiter. The outer soldiers consist of Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. Their are many differences between the 2.

The outer soldiers are more powerful and isolated than the inner soldiers because they are first defense to deal with outside threats. They can also ward off enemies just by themselves. They very often like to be alone and isolated from each other plus they don't attain well to conformance as they, by their nature, like to do things their "own" way so their alliance is very loose with the Moon Kingdom and they believe they would make a better leader than Queen Serenity.

The Inner Soldiers are very different type people, they usually have to fight together to defeat an enemy as a single soldier might not be strong enough to defeat an enemy alone. The Inner Soldiers usually love to always hang out in groups and make deep friendships. They are usually much friendlier than the Outer Soldiers and can often be very outgoing and humorous. The Outer Soldiers are usually very withdrawn and dead serious having little humor.

The division between Inner and Outer soldiers started a very long time ago, Sailor Neptune and Sailor Uranus claimed they were smarter, more intelligent, and much stronger than the moon kingdom. They should be the leader of the alliance. Sailor Pluto and Sailor Saturn agreed with Neptune, they were the "elite" group and should be the one making the calls. Sailor Moon disagreed and persisted they were the proper ones to run the alliance, Sailor Mercury, Venus, Mars, and Jupiter stood behind Sailor Moon's decision.

After a long time of arguing back and fourth, Sailor Uranus and Neptune finally launched an attack against the Moon Kingdom but were defeated very quickly. Sailor Uranus and Neptune went back to their planets and formed an "unofficial" government between themselves, on many occasions they would selectively choose orders to act upon or ignore from the Moon Kingdom and it really stayed that way onward as a big split between the planets and kingdoms.

The Alliance with the Moon Kingdom was very restrictive on which Sailor soldiers were allowed to live. Basically the Moon Kingdom laid out these rules. The Solar System is the sole domain of the Moon Kingdom, Any Sailor Soldier who lives within the solar system must be allied with the Moon Kingdom or be destroyed and killed. Any Sailor Soldier from outside the Solar System must be killed upon entry as there is no way to know if she's friend or foe. Only under express permission of the Moon Kingdom can an outsider remain unharmed within the domain of the Moon Kingdom.

The outer soldiers ignored the last part "Only under express permission of the Moon Kingdom can an outsider remain unharmed within the domain of the Moon Kingdom." - They believed that the Moon Kingdom wasn't smart enough to determine friend or foe and that any outsider must be killed regardless. They also disagreed with the notion that the solar system is solely the domain of the Moon Kingdom.

 

Print Friendly

The Full Story of the Moon Kingdom

December 29, 2011 in Sailor Moon