The Toronto Queer Film Festival has decided to mark the 30th anniversary of the Sailor Moon anime by airing a parody fandub of Sailor Moon R Movie: Promise of the Rose.
The film festival announced that the parody titled Sailor Moon Rated R: The Promise of His Rosebud will be airing on April 1st and no, this doesn't seem to be an April Fools' Day joke. The film has been edited and rewritten to tell a dark comedy story about "issues related to queer folx, women, and people of colour."
In this version of the film Darien — AKA Tuxedo Mask — must confront his repressed sexuality when a childhood cuddle buddy named Fiore returns to his life in an attempt to reveal his secret identity. Possessed by a sex-positive Kisenian Blossom, known as the Xenian Flower in other official dubs, Fiore fights for Darien's "D" in a battle against the Sailor Scouts.
The film will be followed by a question and answer session with its creator Harjot Bal. Bal released the film on Instagram in September 2021 and has already released his second Sailor Moon parody fandub titled Sailor Moon Scandalous - PSPSPS: I love you. This film follows Luna who struggles with a toxic relationship while trying to find more meaning in her life. Both films are quite explicit and can be viewed for free on the sailormoonparody Instagram account.
Those who watched the dubbed versions of Sailor Moon on Toonami may remember that its lesbian relationship between Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune was censored when released in North America in order to avoid controversy. The two "cousins" still caused problems as trying to dub around romantic and flirting scenes resulted in parts of the show being cut entirely. It has even been implied that the gap in dubbing the original series and Sailor Moon S was because of these problems.
Anime has come a long way in terms of representation with many shows prominently featuring queer characters today but it makes sense that LGBT+ fans may look to reclaim the series that inspired them in their childhoods as Bal has done. While the film does have a disclaimer stating "This work contains copyrighted content not authorized for use by the owner. Usage of such content in this work is to parody its original source," it is yet to be seen if Toei Animation may try to stop the airing due to copyright concerns as they and other companies have done previously.