Today marks a historic day here at Sailor Moon Uncensored. Today marks 10 years that we have been up and running. It's quite an honor to hit such a milestone and have all of you to thank for it. To celebrate, for the first time in years we have a combined update from all three of us with our own messages on the past 10 years not only here, but all around us.
Bob Wheeler - Animeguru0
Wow. It's been ten years.
I don't know whether I should be happy I was a part of something that has lasted ten years or go curl up in the fetal position and cry since I'm freaking OLD now. Seriously, I'm creeping up to 30. Here's the real question: When the hell did I become an adult???
It's truly been a remarkable time. When we started this site, I was a mere 16 years old. I was transitioning into my junior year of High School. I didn't know how to drive a car. I had acne. Now? I'm 26 years old (math, duh), I work Internal Audit for the largest gaming company in the world, I have a responsibility to almost half the properties on the Las Vegas Strip, and the most important thing: No acne. I'm so much busier now than I was at 16. So much has changed, but really, the foundation remains the same. Three friends sharing their common interest with the masses.
Aside from just us all growing up, the thing that has changed the most is not us, but Sailor Moon itself. One of the things that was so fun about maintaining this site was, Sailor Moon was still relevant 10 years ago. S and SuperS were just beginning to air. Movies were coming out. DVDs were being released of the original Japanese show left and right. It was an exciting time. Now? Sailor Moon is all but dead to America. Pioneer is gone. ADV is gone. The Manga is gone. Ultimately, the demand for Sailor Moon in America also dried up and seemingly disappeared. Without the demand, my intensity and desire to continue to maintain the site dwindled. The whole point of this site was to expose the TRUTH about Sailor Moon to North American audiences. To show the deception and lies. With the TV show pulled from the air, there was just no need anymore.
With that said, I apologize for never finishing the Classic and R series. Although kudos to Dan for picking up the slack. He really deserves a pat on the back for never giving up on this site. I'm glad that even after 10 years, we still have a loyal fanbase. It's fun browsing the old comparisons now and then and running through memory lane. Although it's hard to say if I'll have any impact on the site in the next 10 years, I'm hoping it's still here for people to enjoy our work, and to remember fondly with us those times way back in 2000 when the Sailor Moon world was being thrown upside down.
I'll leave it at that. I want to say thank you to our mods on the forums, both current and former. We have made some great friends, and I'm grateful for each one. To Dan and Tiff, I love you guys! The fact that we've been friends for over 10 years now is.....well.....sick. It's just sick. Do you know what's really sick? Remember the site we all met each other!? *DIES* Oh God....That's a whole other story. But the biggest thank you goes out to one specific person:
You.
Thank you so much for making this site a success. Thank you for being a part of the movement for truth in anime. Thank you for being a part of a movement to get our favorite shows to come to America in an unaltered form. Look at how different the anime world is from 1995 to 2000 to 2005 to 2010. The "Uncensored" movement in anime is not our success, it's yours. It's because of you we (generally) don't have watered down and edited shows anymore. Thank you, and congratulations to you for YOUR success.
Happy 10th SMU. Here's to another great 10 years.
Dan Bednarski - MarioKnight
It's hard to believe, but today marks 10 years that Sailor Moon Uncensored has offically been on the map. I remember months prior when Bob started talking with myself and Tiff about possibly putting the site together, if for nothing else but fun for us if it didn't take off. 10 years and well over a million hits later, we clearly did the right thing in going about to make and maintain the site. It's a staple of the Sailor Moon online community even during the slow shift the past few years, as my inbox can tell you. It's been a resource not only for fans, but used as a reference in many articles regarding the anime industry and even censorship in general. The fan response when we first opened the forums a few years later was overwhelming, alongside with the e-mails and messages we've gotten throughout.
This site has meant a lot to me on many personal levels. First and absolute foremost, all the friendships and people I've been able to meet over the years has been amazing. I've been blessed to be able to have met so many people through the community, some (including Tiff, hopefully someday Bob) even in person. It truly has been a pleasure and an honor for me. SMU also indirectly helped me get some direction in my life, as things I would do for the site I found I enjoyed and eventually would decide a path for myself. Due to frustrations of webhosts at the time, I built, configured, and maintained my own personal server to run the site on. As I was doing this, various ideas I had for years making the site more efficient than manually editing and creating static HTML pages, I felt motivated to study code and databases. Both of these things were enjoyable to me, and I would soon begin to steer into the path of IT as a career. Time will tell to see how well this will work for me as I just finally got a college degree. I can say that without working on this site to serve all of you, I wouldn't have made such strides in my life both socially and professionally. Thank you everyone for that.
As Bob mentioned above, the purpose of the site was to expose everything that didn't make it over here with regards to the anime. And yes, with it being off the air for so long combined with the now widespread ability to see the show in its full, uncut glory, today there is really no need for such a site. The anime market has changed drastically between when we opened the site and now. Even so, there is still demand for the completion of this site, which is a pleasant surprise. I had been wanting to finish it in any case, if for nothing else but my disdain for leaving a project unfinished, and seeing that you all still have interest in this warms my heart and give me more motivation to continue. The response that the last batch of Classic comparisons was more than I had expected given the few years that had gone by between those and the last batch. I am very much looking forward to continue to bring comparisons online for your pleasure. Yes they are long overdue, but in a strange way I'm happy since this gives us more to look forward to.
Another surprising thing to see is just how strong the Sailor Moon fanbase not only stays, but also grows. For a show that outside of Japan has been officially dead for many years (and not just the US, worldwide), seeing a fanbase that we see with Sailor Moon has got to be one of the most amazing things to witness and be a part of. Very few shows have such a good fanbase almost 20 years after they started, and the majority of that small list never officially ceased to exist. It looks like the powers that be have finally figured this out, and have been rolling out an international revival to start the 20th anniversary celebration. Countries like Italy and Brazil have already started things off, and you can bet that it's only a matter of time for us. Though nothing official as of yet, in my view it is only a matter of time, and you will see news here as it breaks. It feels good to be excited for new Sailor Moon news here after many years.
It looks like I'm starting to get off on a tangent so I'll try to wrap this up quickly. Thank you Bob and Tiff, for all the time we've spent working here on SMU and especially our friendships outside of this site. I am honored to have you as close friends, even as life has drifted us apart over the years we can still go to each other whenever we need to. I would also like to thank each and every one of you who has come and supported SMU all of these years. Without all of you, this place would have been short lived and easily forgotten. Instead, you all showed interest and gave us a reason to keep it running the best we could. It's been a pleasure serving you these past 10 years, and I hope we can still do so for another 10 years if not more.
Thank you.
Tiffany Wood Gould - SerenityMoon
Ten years ago today, my two dear friends and I started Sailor Moon Uncensored with the hope of informing fans of the differences between the original, Japanese show and the dubbed, American version. It became a widespread success and a joy all in one. I never imagined I'd have people emailing and messaging me, exciting to be talking to "Tiff of SMU!", or people coming up to friends of mine at anime conventions and becoming excited to learn that they were friends with "Tiff of SMU!" And while I received a lot of praise and compliments, I also receive a large amount of hate mail for my opinions and blunt thoughts. There were angry letters, insults, and even death threats, all over a television show.
But that television show helped me to meet some of the best people I'll ever know. My husband, for one. Were it not for SMU, I wouldn't be the happiest woman on earth with the best man in the world, for we originally met via the SMU online forums. Countless friends, including the forums' moderators, who I have since met in person and developed long-lasting relationships with. Many fans, both rookies to the series or those there from the beginning.
Yes, SMU has been a lot to me. There was a time when I was super dedicated, making lovely graphics to improve the look of the site and working on opinions essays to entertain readers. There was a time when our forums were booming with new member after new member, with discussion after discussion developing left and right. I was a busy administrator, and our mods were constantly helping keep our message boards in order. But life gets in the way. You grow older, you develop new interests, and in my case, you get married and have children. Sailor Moon will always be an old love interest of mine, but even my 28 year old self has to admit to my eager teenage self that it has been placed on a back burner. And I'm okay with that. Maybe someday soon, I'll break out those old DVDs and amuse myself with cheesy villains and predictable plots.
Can I continue to consistently contribute to SMU? No, I can't. But would I do it all over again if I could?
You bet your ass I would.
Happy 10th, SMU.
August 6th, 2010
SMU Staff - Happy 10th Anniversay SMU
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