Ask John: (Once Again) Will Sailorstars Ever Be Released in America?

Question:
Now that the uncut 1st season of Sailor Moon along with Sailor Moon S and Sailor Moon SuperS is out in America, with the uncut 2nd season of sailor Moon, Sailor Moon R coming up soon, do you think there is a good chance that Sailor Moon Stars will finally be coming to America?

Answer:
I’m not particularly in any better position to predict the future of the Sailormoon franchise in America than any other average anime fan, so I can only repeat the same points I’ve made before. According to AD Vision’s Matt Greenfield, Toei Animation of Japan does not want the fifth season of the Sailormoon TV series released in America. The Sailorstars series contains nudity, apocalyptic violence, and characters that magically change their gender. These sort of mature elements may create controversy among American consumers that instinctively think of Sailormoon as a harmless “girl power” cartoon for children. Toei simply doesn’t want to jeopardize the mass market commercial appeal of Sailormoon in America by “tainting” its family friendly image with “adult” content. There’s simply no effective way around this problem. Toei doesn’t want to release Sailorstars in America uncut. American consumers don’t want a heavily edited Sailorstars DVD release. And releasing a heavily censored version of Sailorstars merely emphasizes the fact that Sailorstars originally included content that needed to be edited out for the protection of American children.

The fact that Pioneer and AD Vision have released subtitled, uncut versions of Sailormoon TV seasons 1-4 would seem to suggest that the chances are good for a similar domestic release of TV season 5. However, the fact that Toei apparently withheld TV episode 67 entirely from the forthcoming American release of the Sailormoon R TV series suggests that Toei of Japan is still quite willing to prevent certain Sailormoon episodes from being released in America. So at this point, it seems likely that the uncut, subtitled American DVD release of Sailormoon seasons 1 & 2 may have no impact at all on the chances of season 5 being released in America. Presently, it’s simply a case of maybe Sailorstars will come to America, and maybe it won’t. But right now it’s looking more like “won’t.”