SAILOR MOON UNCUT: SEASON 1
Take that, stupid American conservative sensitivity! I got my body lines back, dammit!
Review by: M.H. "Gateway anime ahoy!" Torringjan
Length: 46 episodes, 25 minutes each
Genre: Magical Girl
Watched: All of it.
Okay, I'll level with you. I'm an enthusiastic moonie (and I don't mean the religious cult kind, either). This should be aptly evidenced by a look at my personal fanfiction webpage and my old computer's hard drive. I've been watching the show since 96, I seem to remember, since back when USA Network showed it and Samurai Pizza Cats was still on TV. Since about 97, when I learned that the show was edited like it was Terminator showing on Disney, I've been on a righteous crusade against DiC (which consisted of eating large numbers of cream-filled donuts and drinking much Fanta of various flavors), and recently, my prayers were answered in the form of ADV releasing the first season on DVD in the uncut, subtitled version. Having seen the first season about three times through already, I must admit that not much of it was all that new, but the significance of seeing the series as it was originally intended is hardly lost on me.
Plot synopsis: If you don't know the plot by now, crawl out from under that rock long enough to hear this, then feel free to return to your hermitdom. Tsukino Usagi is a clumsy, air-headed girl who lives basically in a standard teenage girl's world. One where what she wears to school that day is more important than political scandals and getting a boyfriend takes precidence over saving the whales (just so that you know, it's a pretty complex heirarchy from what I understand). After she saves a cat from a gang of young boys, the cat, Luna, tells her that she is, in fact, Sailor Moon, a superheroine who will fight along-side the other Sailor Senshi against the impending darkness while trying to locate the princess of the moon kingdom, Silver Millennium.
Artwork: Pure 80's. I swear, if they tried that sort of stuff these days, rabid Cowboy Bebop fans would hunt them down and beat them with sticks for the sacrelige against an art form. Not me, mind you, but other rabid Cowboy Bebop fans. That's probably why they decided to go with (shudder) live action for the newest series in the franchise, which will soon start airing in Japan and promises to be the next Power Rangers/VR Rangers/Kikaider for girls. On the art, though, as far as 80's art goes, this was pretty darned good for its time. The character design, though simple, serves to distinguish the characters from each other (take it from someone who's tried fanart of the Senshi). The monster design was very well-done for its days, and served as a nice model for other Monster-of-the-week series that came after it.
Music: Meh. The music in this version is, for the most part, better than the crap they slammed in the dub, but it's still sub-standard. Tux-boy, even though he's useless in battle, has a nice theme, and the words for the opening are much better. Overall, the j-pop music that was used for background in emotionally significant scenes could have been a bit more up-beat, but that's beside the point. The rare case in which the music of the dub was better than the original was in the final battle with Beryl. "Carry On" was just a lot better than "Moonlight Densetsu."
Characters: Tsukino Usagi is a stereotypical teenage girl down to her love of love and justice. The main purpose of her character is to show the power of the stereotypical girl in the face of normal life and other circumstances larger than herself. Mizuno Ami is the uber-intelligent, really, really, really cute girl with a rock-hard worker's ethic with perhaps the most consistently mature attitude of any of the girls. She's usually the peace-keeper of the group, but still understands when to reprimand the others to get them back on task. She's more interested in intellectual pursuits than she is in the world of romance, which makes her better suited to her role than anyone else. Rei Hino is the hot-tempered Shinto priestess who antagonizes Usagi, in order to improve her attitude or to point out the absurdity of her actions. Makoto Kino is the tough girl of the group, who cooks well and is the most independent of the group, from living alone for most of her life. Minako Aino is the most experienced Senshi since she started earlier (as Sailor V). Personality-wise, it seems that she was meant to be the parallel for Usagi's personality, as a stereotypical teenage girl with more life experience than Usagi.
Plot: At first glance, the plot may seem extremely episodic and ruled by monsters of the week. Now, I'm not here to say that it isn't that, but I will say that there is more to it than that. The overarching story line of the season, if not the series is that of a girl struggling to come to terms with her life being out of her control (among other things), which is a lot more interesting than a simple monster-of-the-week anime. Of course, the plot of this season isn't as complex or interesting as those of later seasons (see Stars, proceed to compare apples to oranges), but it's still pretty good in its own right.
CHICKS!!! I'd be willing to say that this series is legendary for its chicks, which number perhaps in the millions at last count. The prominent ones are the most important ones, so I'll keep it to them. First, start with Usagi. She's a girl who knows how to have fun, to say the least. Also, while her curves are reasonable as far as fourteen-year-olds go (or fiften or sixteen as the series proceeds), they're still enough to catch your eye. Her airy attitude could get a bit too heavy for some guys at times, but she has an understanding, serious side when it comes to the guys she cares about. Also, she can't cook worth crap, so that might be a problem for those who don't like burned TV dinners and overcooked water (Yes, she could do that). However, you'd have to compete a little bit with Mamoru, but as long as you're semi-efficient with some form of fire-arm, you should be able to take him out easily enough. Ami is one of the more popular of the girls, probably because she's the cutest of them all. And the first one of you to argue with me will sustain injuries. The blue hair, the glasses that she sometimes wears, her compassion, her sense of loyalty, and her capacity for caring just add up to one of the cutest things that anyone's ever seen. Plus, added bonus, no competition! (And the first person to mention the name "Ryo Urawa" in my presence will sustain multiple injuries; two appearances do *not* classify you as an official suitor). Rei is a firecracker for anyone watching, and probably shouldn't be undertaken by anyone who hasn't been in the military for a couple of years. Otherwise, harmony will never be mutually obtained, leaving you a withered, miserable husk of your former self. However, her physical attributes are as nice as the others and could easily be appreciated by anyone with a telescope and a ladder. Mako is the most complex of the girls, personality-wise, in my mind. She puts up a tough exterior, but underneath, she's a soft, cuddly, warm, fuzzy, lovable, huggable, sqeezable, spankable target of affection. She's great at cooking and cleaning, just like a traditional Japanese wife, but she's also got a strong, masculine side to her, making her the best of both worlds, and a nice match for almost every guy in some form. Also, it would be pretty easy to catch her attention, since most guys seem to resemble her old sempai who broke her heart in some way. A final point I'd like to note is that by her own admission, she has the largest breasts of anyone in the group. So, if that's your selling point, consider yourself sold. Minako is the loose one of the group. You can fling around "honorable" and "valiant" all you want, but let's face it, anyone who tries dating two guys at once in an attempt to keep both of them, while never realizing that both of them are aliens out to steal a peek at her dreams, is indeed loose. Being the representative of Venus, she has to be the most beautiful of the group, which she pulls off nicely. The long, blond hair and incredibly curvaceous figure pull off the image nicely. And the award for "diamond in the rough" for this anime goes to Naru Osaka, which most Sailor Moon fans will remember as *shudder* Molly from the English dub (or, as Craig and I like to call her, Sailor F-in' Brooklyn!). However, when viewed in the original form without the obnoxious Northern accent, her character is even more bearable, even desirable, as you feel sorry for her losing Nephlite, as well as copious amounts of energy, and ending up with Umino (Melvin).
Overall: Now, everything that I've talked about so far has been about the series itself and the differences between the dub and original. That's to say nothing about the box set itself, which seemed, to say the least, rushed and rather lackluster. There were no extras on the DVD's, there were no choices as to what type of subtitles you could read (say, other languages), not to mention the lack of any type of dub track (not necessarily a bad thing, I suppose, but still). The packaging was simple and contained little imagination. And, perhaps the worst issue of all, was the quality of the video and audio tracks. No effort was made to spruce anything up, leaving the visuals slightly fuzzy from age and the audio sounding as if the microphone had been inside the VAs' ears instead of near their mouths. On the other hand, even though those were sub-par, the subtitles themselves were tight and crisp. As such, even though you couldn't hear what the characters were saying, you could read it perfectly (which kind of defeats the purpose if you actually like listening to Aya Hisakawa, which I rather do). In the end, I enjoyed being able to watch the original version of the anime that introduced me to anime, and the effort, although half-assed, was greatly appreciated. Now, if only I could afford the second season's box set so that I could see even more of the stuff that I missed with DiC(k).
IN A NUTSHELL:
+No censors
+5 episodes lost to censors restored
+Large cast of desirable chicks
- Generic artwork
- Generic music
- Episodic, monster-of-the-week
- Very little post-production restoration
Final grade: 7.5/10
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NOTE: Some images were used without permission from Sailor Moon Uncensored. Hope you guys don't mind!