Ask John: When Was The Sailor Moon Manga Released?

Question:
When did Naoko Takeuchi bring out her first manga of Sailor Moon to Japan?

Answer:
Naoko Takeuchi premiered her “Codename wa Sailor V” manga in August of 1991. After the publication of the second collected manga volume, Toei Animation asked Takeuchi to expand the world of Sailor V, thus Sailor V evolved into Sailor Moon in February 1992. Only a month later, Toei premiered the first episode of the Sailormoon TV series. The Sailor Moon manga ran for a total of 18 volumes, finally capped off by a third an concluding manga volume of Codename Sailor V to wrap up the original story.

The Sailormoon TV series broadcast 200 episodes and one TV special, through 5 TV seasons before finally being concluded mainly due to steadily declining ratings. Along the way, the Sailormoon phenomenon had a multitude of live-action stage musicals, three theatrical films and two short “mini-films” (“Ami’s First Love” and “Make Up! Sailor Soldiers”), video games incarnations on virtually every system from the Super Famicom to the Playdia, and enough other merchandise to virtually start its own genre.

Article updated on October 30, 2002 with assistance from “Cat Clan.”