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She morphs to a form, that can't be beat!
Many fans of Sailor Moon are unfond of the Cut and Paste Translation that Optimum Releasing gave the show under the direction of DiC and later Cloverway.
However there was another pitch being considered when TOEI was looking to different companies to handle the rights in North America, this pitch was made by a company called Toon Makers a branch of Renaissance Atlantic the same people who handled the adaptations of Super Sentai into Power Rangers for Saban Entertainment. Due to this, said pitch is often mistakenly called "Saban Moon" and... well it's even less faithful than what became of Sailor Moon's much maligned dub.
What little that is known about this production comes from a two minute music video that was made and that can be found online which is actually cut down from a 17 minute pilot episode that has yet to see the light of day, as well as from an interview with the man who produced, created, and directed it Rocky Solotoff. This version would have had the civilian lives of the very western Sailor Soldiers filmed in live action featuring a ethnically and disability diverse cast wherein Sailor Jupiter is black, and Sailor Mercury is a wheelchair user.
When they transform however the girls would have become animated heroines, in a style unintentionally reminiscent of Filmation's She Ra Princess of Power and would have fought Queen Beryl's space battleship a literal ship in space using solar "windsurfers" having gained the ability to breathe in space. Also there is no visible Artemis, only Luna and she is a white cat not a black cat, who wears eyeshadow when animated.
Due to the fact that the only footage in circulation was actually filmed at a panel at an Anime Convention only a low quality shakey camera version exists where the screen is somewhat off kilter with the camcorder and you can hear the reactions of the rest of the audience. A version with the perspective corrected exists, as does a slightly longer version which contains some of the preamble from the panel host Allen Hasting the author of the computer graphics software package Lightwave 3D who claims to have designed the vehicles, which leads to even more confusion as according Rocky Solotoff Lightwave wasn't used at all and a completely different person designed the vehicles.
Not to be confused with Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon a the full length live action adaptation made in Japan which diverges from the manga and anime's plot but nowhere near as much.
The original pilot episode was uploaded to Youtube on August 22 2022 and could be seen here
- Age Lift: Moon herself is 14 in the source footage but in this version she is 16 and also sometimes a fun loving girl.
- Badass Adorable:
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She can get dressed up |
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- Black and Nerdy: Seems to have been the plan for Sailor Jupiter, citing Benjamin Franklin mid-battle in the voiceover script.
- Eighties Hair: Well techinically early '90s hair, and fashion, but it's similar to the hair of the latter part of the '80s. Some people have said the live action footage looks a fair bit like it came from Blossom.
- Expository Theme Tune
- Five-Token Band: Sailor Jupiter is black, Sailor Mercury is a Wheelchair user and has long red hair. Ironically, perhaps, only one - who appears to be Sailor Mars - is Asian.
- Handicapped Badass: Presumably what they were going for by making one of the Sailor Soldiers a wheelchair user, whether this would have borne out will never be know with what little footage exists and given that she appears to be the more defense focused Sailor Mercury - she's wearing blue. They did give her a wheelchair enabled sailboard which fired lazers of some sort.
- I Broke a Nail: Played with when Venus tells their enemies that they are in for it and if she breaks a nail while battling them they will really be in for it.
- Merchandise-Driven: The Solar Sailboard "windsurfers" were parent company Renaissance Atlantic's idea in the hope of making some toy tie ins, which isn't that unlike the original show's plethora of toy marketable transformation trinkets, pretty pink magic wands, and magic staffs but still a bit strange when you are familiar with the original where the only vehicles are the actual cars and motorbikes of Sailor Uranus and Tuxedo Mask.
- Multinational Team: The Sailor Soldiers would have been compromised of girls from several nations according to Rocky Solotoff.
- Old Shame: Not the whole production which director/producer/writer Rocky Solotoff still looked back in fondness on back when Anime Fringe interviewed him, but he admitted the production staff were never happy with the animation.
- Race Lift: As per typical '90s kids shows, the cast would have been more diverse than the all Japanese Sailor Senshi or the implied all white Sailor Scouts in the dub. Also Luna gets a "Cat Breed Lift" going from a black shorthair to a white longhair.
- Space Sailing: They took the title 'Sailor Moon' rather... literally, probably due to the fact there would be no cultural connection to the common Sailor Fuku school uniform in the west, still kept the outfits as their heroine forms though sans the bows.
- Toon Transformation: The girls are live action when civilian, animated when they transform into Sailor Soldiers.
- Transformation Sequence: Actually both to and from being Sailor Moon if the music video is anything to go by.
- Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: Luna's eyeshadow
- Valley Girl: The princesses strangely spoke like this only during the battle scene.
- What Could Have Been: Though fans are all the more grateful for it not happening.
- Though much interest has been shown in how the wheelchair bound Mercury would have been portrayed.