Sailor Moon has been enjoying a bit of a successful revival these past several years. Sailor Moon Crystal was a big enough hit to get three full seasons. Two theatrical movies were recently released (though they were put on Netflix in the states). There is a tone of mature merchandise being sold to fans every year, and this is all leading up to another two-part movie release that will adapt the Sailor Stars manga the way the author intended it to be. The manga has even gotten beautiful Eternal Editions that present the original story in the most definitive release to date. There is so much Sailor Moon content available that it may be easy to forget that for more than a decade Sailor Moon simply wasn’t available to purchase OR watch!
You couldn’t buy the show, no streaming service had it, and the books were out of print. While normally a product would become scarce due to a lack of demand, the strange situation (at least in America) wasn’t that the series was no longer selling, but rather that the parent company refused to renew any of the licenses. You heard me right: Toei Animation, Kodansha, and Naoko Takeuchi all let Sailor Moon fall into licensing hell and refused to sign new contracts despite there still being high demand from the fans. Why was this done?
The Situation
Starting in 2003 DVDs of Sailor Moon started going out of print. ADV Films confirmed that while they made an attempt to extend the licensing agreement of the first two seasons of Sailor Moon in partnership with DiC Entertainment, Toei Animation was not interested in having those conversations. Pioneer Entertainment would also confirm this as the third and fourth seasons would go out of print in the fall of 2004 along with the movies, even though Pioneer was still selling enough discs to make them inquire about renewing the license.
Then you had Tokyopop, who became a powerhouse manga publisher primarily because of the initial success of their Sailor Moon manga releases. Their license had expired a couple of years ago, but all attempts to re-license the manga were rejected (in many cases no one even answered the phone). Come 2005 Sailor Moon was officially out of the US market, and fans didn’t understand why.
An Attempt to Sell the Live Action Series
While Toei Animation may be a household name, the Toei Company is less known to Americans. This is the parent company of which Toei Animation is a division of, which includes other company divisions like publishing, live-action movies, and other non-animated projects. Toei decided to try and revitalize Sailor Moon by creating a live-action adaptation called Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon. Not only did Toei believe the series would be a hit in Japan, but they also wanted to sell the new series to other countries as well.
There were reports by studio producers on the Anime on DVD forums (a popular way for anime fans to communicate back in the day) that Toei was refusing to renew the Sailor Moon anime license unless they also bought the live-action series.
While this was never publicly confirmed at conventions, the topic of the live-action series would frequently come up, with many of the anime companies questioning how the series could be sold in America. Due to the actors' faces being seen, an Americanized edit of the series in the vein of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers would not be possible.
Dubbing a live-action series never looks convincing (and there were no guarantees TV stations would air it even if it was dubbed), and the license was too expensive to entertain a subtitled-only DVD release. As a result, American companies passed on the series, and Toei’s dreams of revitalizing the franchise around the world were crushed. What’s more, while the show was a minor hit in Japan, it wasn’t a big enough hit to warrant more than one season. The future of the franchise looked bleak.
The Author Wanted More Control
It was also around this time that Naoko Takeuchi decided to take more control of the creation that made her famous. She decided to form her own company, where she would develop new projects based on her manga. One of her first projects would be to prepare for a re-release of the manga, that would feature retouched artwork.
These books were released in Japan where fans ate them up. She then took a more active role in discussions of re-releasing the anime worldwide, and she made a decision with Toei that they wouldn’t re-license the show unless a studio committed to acquiring the entire franchise (sans live-action series, which continued to be a sticking point for international companies). To make the offer more enticing, they decided to take advantage of a very big anniversary coming up.
The 25th Anniversary Revives Interest
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For the 25th anniversary of the Sailor Moon franchise, Toei Animation announced a new Sailor Moon anime called Sailor Moon Crystal. It would be one of the first OWA (Original Web Animation) in Japan, and this was a way for the company to announce that Sailor Moon was back on the market. After some intense negotiations, Viz Media agreed to acquire the rights to Sailor Moon Crystal and the entire 90s anime (movies and specials included). On the manga side, Kodansha agreed to re-release the books in America.
After more than ten years Sailor Moon was back in America. Since then the series seems more popular than ever and gains new fans every day. Not that there haven’t been hiccups in the road. Netflix stepped in and purchased the rights to the recent movies, preventing American fans from seeing them in theaters, and the initial translation by Kodansha was spotty at best. Oh, and there is still no announcement of the live-action series coming to America, so you have to keep waiting for that news. That being said, we now have beautiful restorations of the classics, an excellent dub that’s consistent, and the best versions of the manga we’ve ever gotten. While it was a long break, it’s nice to have the Moon Princess back in our lives!