Flaming Geeks

Sailor Moon S C&C

That's C&C for Comments and Criticism but also for Cuts and Changes. I'd call it 4C, but those are bread crumbs. Sailor Moon S is currently being shown on Cartoon Network weekday afternoons at 4pm Eastern. The people doing the dub are CWI, about whom I know nothing. I just know they're not DiC. But are they better than DiC? That is the question of the summer.

General Overview

The Opening sequence has been completely cut so that Cartoon Network can do their own thing. And inexplicably, there's a graphic of some Japanese writing that scrolls up the left-hand side. Want to know what it says? It says Sera Ve-, in other words, the first part of Sailor Venus. Why it doesn't say Sailor Moon is anyone's guess. Maybe they're trying to make up for the short shrift Minako got in the DiC version?

The background music and sound effects are intact. Yay. So if they sound silly to you, blame the original animators. The ending sequence is one of the SMS original endings, but cut about halfway through. Don't worry, you're not missing too much. That original ending was long, slow, and rather boring. The music they're using is an instrumental version of the opening theme, so it's not too bad.

Some other things seem to be cut, probably for time more than anything. It doesn't seem to be anything substantial, just shortening of a few scenes without dialogue or action, such as a shorter transformation sequence or cutting the bits when Kaolinite (Kaori Knight) is showing the most cleavage.

Names, ah yes, names. I'm theorizing that they were under contract to keep the DiC names, such as Mixx was. So it's still Serena, Darien, Amy, Raye, Mina, and Lita. And Michiru is now Michelle. Now, this isn't so bad. If they had to change her name, I can't think of any better one. But Haruka is Amara. Amara?! Sounds like they pulled that out of a place where monkeys fly out of. It is not androgynous. It is not masculine. It's not a very common name, but then neither is Serena. It sounds sort of like Haruka, but not very much. I rather like it though, so help me. The Sailor 'Scouts' seem to be Sailor 'Soldiers' now at least. A much more accurate translation and a bit less wimpy.

The background signs and letterings and things like that are all still as they are in the original. That means it looks very Japanese. But it also looks rather ridiculous when Darien has a book clearly labelled, in English lettering, M. Chiba. Or when Michelle's painting claims to be by Kaioh Michiru. Was the dub company just being lazy? Do they know how silly that looks? Is it someone's way of telling us, "Yes, my company is doing bad things to this series, but I'm going to keep this bit intact for those paying attention."?

Oh yea, Dr. Tomoe is called Dr. Tomo. I don't know if that was a conscious change or the actors just pronounced it wrong when they saw it. But it presents interesting ideas for Hotaru's name. Jojo Tomo. Koko Tomo. Cuomo Tomo. Shlomo Tomo. Tomo.. do they know that that's the name of an evil gay bishounen in Fushigi Yuugi? No offense, Tomo, I think you're gorgeous without that makeup.

All mention of talismans, the Messiah, or the Holy Grail have been altered or removed. There was a reference today to the 'purity chalice'. Woowoo. Somehow that sounds a little ecchi to me. But at least it's no longer a religious reference. Yeah. That'd be bad.

Michelle is a bitch, pardon my language, and Amara is a wuss. Well, they're both wusses. You can read more about them in some of the episode reviews. So, that's enough of an overview. For more information and rants, check the links below.

Update

The episodes seem to be getting shorter. Something is getting cut that I haven't been able to identify. In one episode, where Mina is angsting about not having had her heart crystal snatched, they made so many cuts that they had to put the OP back in to stretch the time out. That was scary, let me tell you. It had the little teaser before the episode, that was nice, but the OP song was scary. It was the DiC song to whole new clips. The clips seemed to be from the first two seasons and the movies. So any shot of Rini or the outers was a clip from a movie.

Rini, that's the other thing I wanted to mention. I've been spelling it Reeny, unsure of the correct spelling, but today Rini's name was in the title of the episode, so I now know the correct spelling. I apologize for any instances of 'Reeny'. We also heard some more names you may be interested in knowing. Setsuna - Trista, Hotaru - Hotaru, Eudial - Eudial, Mimete - Mimete. Alter some of those for mispronounciations. All of the outers got to keep their last names, though Hotaru's sounds like Tomo and Trista's sounds like Mayo.

Trista's attack is 'Pluto Deadly Scream' and she shouts it. Bah. And she sounds like a little kid, roughly Hotaru's age. Bah humbug. Anyway, on with the reviews and rants and things.

Episode Reviews

Episode 3 - Suteki na Hunkasaurus! Haruka's Downfall
In which we and the Sailor Soldiers meet the dynamic duo. Only they're not so dynamic. And they're not much of a duo either.
Episode 21 - Cousin Tachi no Shi? Acting Shutsugen
Some very refreshing things in this episode. Episode 110 in the original.

Miscellaneous
Brad Shrine
Brad no Miko's shrine to her sweet Brad.

Raves
Reeny Rocks
I'm going to admit to something really terrible. I like Reeny's voice. Her new voice that is. Her voice actor makes her sound adorable. Read more...

Rants
Joxer: Warrior Prince
What will stop the bastardizing of Japanese cartoons here in North America? [...] To wreck perfectly good female role models is unforgiveable. Read more...


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and J. Dunbar. Email is flaminggeeks@yahoo.com.