The North American Sailor Moon World - by Dan Bednarski (September 26th, 2000)

Most of you will agree, Y2K has been one hell of a year for Sailor Moon here in North America. We've finally gotten an English dub of SMS after waiting almost 2 years, we've got an English dub of SMSS thats currently airing now, as well as an announcement from Pioneer stating that they will release subs and uncut dubs of SMS and SMSS, which caused most distros to take them off their tape lists, even without any release dates given out. So if things seem all and well in the Sailor Moon world here in NA, why am I writing an editorial about it? It's because it's not being treated well, thats why. I'll start about where it all started, March 26, 2000. This was the day it was made offical, that SMS and SMSS were going to be dubbed into English. Some people loved the news because they can finally see more episodes, others weren't too fond of it because they thought that these two seasons would be killed. Either way you look at it, it was big news. The immeidate reaction to this would be from the major distros. VKLL gave a weeks notice before pulling their episodes from these two seasons and most distros followed. STV, the only major download distro also followed VKLL. While I didn't agree with all this because no sub was announced by anyone, I kept quiet about how I felt because they could do what they want and I knew whatever I had to say would be useless, so why bother? Instead, a few weeks later, I decided to open a download distro site. I had lots of episodes, but I knew that tons of people didn't, and that they would be in higher demand with the distros taking them down and there no longer being a major download distro. I was able to start and run MKBO without a problem for a long time. During that time, I was able to find some distros that still offered SMS and SMSS as well an an encoder whos encoding the first two seasons because subbers overlooked these seasons until recently, and STV refused to encode these episodes. All that was going in the SM world for these few months was pretty much predictions for SMS as well as MKBO gaining episodes from various places and people. Then June 6 came along. I got home, went to the computer, and my brother was watching TV and he thought he saw a commerical for new Sailor Moon episodes. So I kept watching every commerical break to see for myself and confirm it. And that I did. I saw the commerical and that SMS would start airing on June 13, just one week from that day. I immediately posted the great news on MKBO so peiople would know and was wondering how it could be. I mean, just dubbing 38 episodes in only a few months? And not even waiting for the current R run to end? It didn't make sense. June 13 then came, my last day of classes and the airing of SMS. I was impressed. A new company doing the dubbing, the orginal music, pretty damn good if I say so myself. I just wish it stayed that way. I found out that the S season wasn't even DONE being dubbed yet, that they still had some episodes to finish and were confident in finishing them on time. I couldn't believe it. They had begin airing a season without even finishing it? It would've made more sense to let the R run finish then start to air S so that way the series would continue from episode to episode rather then stop to air a new storyline in the middle of one. And S probably would've been finished by the end of the R run. So as S plays on, not much is happening besides comments about the S dub and how it compares to the orginal, which you can see here in our series section. Oh, I frogot to metion, the three of us were working on SMU about a couple weeks before the dub airing announcement. The dub announcement caused us to start with S rather than the other two because none of us had subs and dubs of those two, plus S would be fresh in everyone's minds. However, the S run proved to be a rushed and incosistent dubbing process. It showed in dialogue, and the big sign was the skipped episode. Episode 119, which is 112 in NA, was sent back to CWi for last minute editing, mainly because the daimon was naked. This could have been easily avoided if CN had taken the time to view each of the episodes to see if it was approiate to air. But since they made CWi rush through it because CN wanted to air it ASAP, actually sooner, the incosistencies came about as well as other things. If CN hadn't forced CWi to speed through dubbing S, then S would have much better quality with less mistakes and the skipped episode could've been avoided. CN had shown just how baka they were for rushing CWi, and future decisions show that they lost their minds totally. Many fans, myself and Bob included, e-mailed CN inquiring about why the episode was skipped, when it would air, etc. However, we all got an auto-response thinking us for the mail and that what we think is important, the normal stuff. We all awaited Monday (the skipped episode was supposed to air on a Firday) to see what CN would do. To our shock, there was no metion that they skipped an episode, and they just kept on going with the season! All they did was air the skipped episode in the second run and still made no metion of what was thought to be their mistake. It's one thing to make a mistake or a decision of that sort, but isn't it important for the fans to know whats going on? Are all TV shows just held in a disregard like this was? Well, continuing on, things besides this were going well until August 6th. This was the day that Pioneer announced the subs and uncut dubs for SMS and SMSS. This prompted all distros but two of us to take down SMS and SMSS at the end of August. Me being the download distro, and Mellisa F (Glass Rose) thet VHS distro. The two of us feel that we can still offer these seasons until we know when they will be released, then decide from there when a good time to take them down would be. This decision wasn't liked too well, but understood by just about everyone. Only a few people didn't like it at all for their reasons, and I talk about it in my other editorial, Sailor Moon Fansubs, where a link is below, so I won't talk about it here. Now things after a couple weeks have toned down a bit, but then rumors started popping up of the SMSS dub to begin airing today. TODAY?!?! I thought this was impossible. With one more episode than S, and if this turned out to be true, then it would seem like SMSS would have been rushed even more than S. But I decided to not even think about it until I heard offically. And that wasn't until yesterday. This is all the fault of CN. The only wise thing they've really done this year is bringing over Gundam Wing and the Tenchi sagas. Any decision they made regarding Sailor Moon was wrong. They made CWi rush not only S, and apparently SS as well, this caused a skipped episode, and they didn't even promo the airing of SMSS!!! How would anyone who was a fan of SM know about new episodes airing? Even airing them now is a big mistake they made. 77 new episodes in a year, no, HALF a year. It makes it hard to keep up with it and ratings will surely suffer. Why in what mind would CN do all this to Sailor Moon, Toonami's second highest rated show as well as the show that has been on Toonami the longest? Are they purposely trying to ruin SM's good name here in America? None of this makes sense and it's going to hurt Sailor Moon I'm not going to have a whole long editorial which is better than anything I write for school just point out whats going on. I'm going to state my suggestions that CN should've followed to make everyone happy and provide us with a better quality dub and keep SM as popular as it is. First off, they should not have rushed CWi at all which is the main cause for the problems. They could've spent more time producing a better quality dub, and it probably could've been finished, or close to it in a better state by the end of that R run. This would have allowed the series to continue episode to episode as well as a better dub. Although the skipped episode wouldn't have happened if they had done this, they should have somehow acknowledged the skipped episode instead of just ignoring it, and the fans, which really hurts them in the long run. They shouldn't have rushed CWi for SMSS either, or even show it right after the second SMS run. The non-rushing would probably cause a better quality dub that what we'll probably get (time will tell what the SMSS dub will be like, you can read about it when we get to it which I believe we're doing after S, but don't take my word for it). They should have also make a full run of the episodes they have so we could still watch the first two seasons and the third one again, and begin promoing the fourth one midway through S. This would make ratings go up because new episodes would have been promoed and anticipation of them would have helped as well. Well, I must once again applaud you if you made it this far (and notepad for not overloading) and I hope you all see whats been going on and what wrongs have been happening lately. My only thoughts about pioneer with the subs and uncut dubs of the two seasons is that I hope they give a date soon so I can tell people when SMS and SMSS will be taken down as well as when I can regain approximetly 3GB of my hard drive, lol. I hope that they do a good job with them, and judging by their work on the movies (except the cut versions, I believe DiC has something to do with them, but I won't say anything until I can find offival information) that it's all done well and that sales go well too. I'll be trying to get the DVDs (I'm getting a PS2! ^_^) and I'll be sure to tell you all about them when they come out and I get ahold of them. Well, I guess (and hope) I'm done and I'll see you next time!

Other Editorials

Why Fan Translations Are Still Necessary - by Dan Bednarski (May 16th, 2011) Sailor Moon Re-launch in North America: What I'd Like to See - by Dan Bednarski (January 22nd, 2011) Can we start to put an end to the stupidity? - by Dan Bednarski (September 19th, 2010) Goodbyes Are Always the Hardest - by Robert Wheeler (May 4th, 2005) Goodbye SOS. Good Riddance or Fond Farewell? - by Robert Wheeler (December 16th, 2004) The Trouble With Whiners - by Robert Wheeler (October 10th, 2004) Uncut Sailor Moon: Worth the Wait? - Part 2 - by Dan Bednarski (January 6th, 2004) Uncut Sailor Moon: Worth the Wait? - Part 1 - by Dan Bednarski (September 23rd, 2003) Disliking Vs. Hating - by Robert Wheeler (April 3rd, 2002) The Twelve Dubs of Christmas - by Tiffany Wood (December 23rd, 2001) Optimum Productions? Flagrant False Advertising... - by Robert Wheeler (September 3rd, 2001) The Anime Translation and American Society Problem - by Dan Bednarski (August 6th, 2001) Pioneer's First SMS Release: Heart Collection I - by Dan Bednarski (March 5th, 2001) Annoyance: A Letter to the People - by Tiffany Wood (February 9th, 2001) Cartoon Network - The Hypocrite - by Robert Wheeler (January 14th, 2001) Moonian Rhapsody - by Tiffany Wood (December 25th, 2000) Does Your Site Suck? (Repost) - by Tiffany Wood (October 28th, 2000) The North American Sailor Moon World - by Dan Bednarski (September 26th, 2000) The Trouble With Dubbies - by Robert Wheeler (September 13th, 2000) Sailor Moon Fansubs - by Dan Bednarski (August 13th, 2000) Does Your Site Suck? - by Tiffany Wood (August 6th, 2000)