About the Series

What is Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon?

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon is a story about a girl named Tsukino Usagi, an average, kind hearted but clumsy school girl who one day stumbles across a talking cat named Luna and finds out that she secretly has the power to transform into the magical soldier Sailor Moon. She is soon joined by fellow sailor soldiers (Sailor Mercury, Sailor Mars, Sailor Jupiter and Sailor Venus) on her mission to find the Moon Princess and stop the evil Dark Kingdom that's threatening their world.

The series debuted in February 1992 as a continuation of Codename: Sailor V, published in Kondansha's monthly Nakayoshi magazine. Both manga titles were written and illustrated by Takeuchi Naoko and it was the first successful combination of the magical girl and super sentai (super hero team) genres.

The manga is available in three editions. The original run had a total of 18 volumes, all printed in the order of publication. The second edition, referred to as shinsouban (renewal) edition, consists of 12 condensed volumes and 2 separate volumes for the various side stories. This edition features new art, new cover art, touch ups to some of the internal artwork and corrections to dialogue.

Finally, the third edition is the kanzenban (complete) edition, a set of 10 further condensed volumes with 2 separate side-story volumes. All of the artwork has been digitally remastered and scaled up to a larger A5 size. Panels that were only seen coloured in their original magazine publication are included in these editions and there are brand new covers for these versions as well. (The manga artwork featured in this site is all from the kanzenban edition.)

The popularity of the Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon manga spawned a hit anime series that spanned five seasons, three movies, dozens of musicals, video games and much more. A brand new anime titled Sailor Moon Crystal, based closer to the original manga, is set to air in 2014 as a celebration of the series' 20th Anniversary.

The original anime became a popular success across the globe. It first made its appearance on North American television in the mid-90's; the first 65 episodes (all of the original season and about ⅔ of the second) were dubbed into English by DiC. Much was censored and changed to pertain to a younger Western audience; names were changed, any remote form of nudity was edited out and even whole episodes were eliminated from the line up. This did not change with the third and fourth seasons were picked up and dubbed by Cloverway years later, especially with the introduction of a lesbian couple (Uranus and Neptune) in the main cast. Uncut and unedited episodes were made available through home video distributors ADV and Pioneer Entertainment, but those licenses expired in 2004 and 2005 respectively. Sailor Moon Crystal, however, will be aired simultaneously in various different nations across the world.