| Sailor Moon? Manga? Anime? What Is All This? Bishoujo Senshi Sailormoon, also known as Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon or just Sailor Moon, is a Japanese animated television show (anime) and also a Japanese comic book (manga). Sailormoon chronicles the adventures of Usagi, a rather ditzy, cheerful junior high girl who finds out she has magical powers, an incredible past, and an even more incredible future. Sailormoon has been dubbed into many languages, the most familiar to me being the English dub. For fans of the English version, here's a quick name translation table, with Japanese names given in the Last Name, First Name form: English Name Japanese Name Sailor? Serena Tsukino Usagi Sailor Moon Amy Mizuno Ami Sailor Mercury Mina Aino Minako Sailor Venus Raye Hino Rei Sailor Mars Lita Kino Makoto Sailor Jupiter Hotaru Tomoe Hotaru Sailor Saturn Amara Tenoh Haruka Sailor Uranus Michelle Kaioh Michiru Sailor Neptune Trista Meioh Setsuna Sailor Pluto Rini Chibi-Usa Sailor Chibi-Moon (aka Mini-Moon) Darien Chiba Mamoru Tuxedo Kamen (Tuxedo Mask) So there's the group! The main group, anyway. If you're wondering why I put their last names first in Japanese, it's because the last name is generally said first when introducing yourself in Japan. Anyway, on with Sailor Moon. A lot of times, people associated with Sailor Moon will talk about the dub versus the original. The dub is the English version, the original is the Japanese. Many things were changed in the dub, not all of which I will print here, but including names, character genders, events, clothing, even the elimination of entire episodes. Most of the changes in the dub were made to make the show more suitable for young children, the target audience of the English version. The two versions of Sailor Moon, the anime and the manga, are also quite different. The anime includes many filler episodes in order to turn an 18 volume manga into the a 200 episode series, and even an extra season, the one with Ail (Alan) and Ann. The manga is also much more adult, and not recommended for children who like the English series especially, because of violence, plotlines and images that could be frightening for kids. The TV series is divided into 5 seasons: Sailor Moon, Sailor Moon R, Sailor Moon S, Sailor Moon Super S, and Sailor Moon Stars. So far, all the seasons except for Stars have been dubbed. The first two were handled by DiC, the second two by Cloverway. The anime can be found on Cartoon Network, weekdays at 4:30 ET. The manga is produced by Mixx, also known as Tokyopop. You can probably find manga at a local comic book store, or order it off several sources on the Net, including Amazon.com. The manga can also be found in Smile magazine, also produced by Mixx/Tokyopop. What's a fanfiction? A fanfic (there's several on my site, check 'em out!) is written about a premade subject by someone else. In this case, I, who definitely did not create Sailor Moon, used the characters and settings to write original stories about it. Fanfictions are fun and allow a writer to get into the action of the story without much character development because, hopefully, the reader already knows about the characters! Here's a couple Japanese words you might want to know to understand general talk about the series: Senshi: soldiers or warriors. Sailor Moon and the rest are the Sailor Senshi. The word Scouts is used in the English version. Hai: Yes Konnichi wa: Hello Ja ne: See you later Daijobu: Are you all right? Also used as an affirmative, I'm ok. And then the suffixes and nicknames. Suffixes are attached onto the end of a person's name, the lack of a suffix indicates that you know a person extremely well. -chan As in Usagi-chan, used for a girl you know well, shows affection. When used on a guy, it's sort of like calling them honey or a pet name. -kun Used for guys that are friends, as in Mamoru-kun. -san Used to show respect. Toward someone older than you, someone you don't know very well, etc. -sama Used for extreme respect, as in the CEO of your company, royalty, divinity. Usako Mamoru's pet name for Usagi Mamo-chan Usagi's pet name for Mamoru odango atama Literally, dumpling head, what Mamoru and others occasionally call Usagi, meatball head in the dub A lot of fanfiction writers will use various Japanese words in their fanfictions, I use Japanese names but not suffixes or much vocab. And one last tidbit...why is the series sometimes called Sailormoon and sometimes Sailor Moon? In Japanese lettering, there are no real spaces, so technically, it's Sailormoon. It can really be either way, I interchange them. I like the way Sailormoon looks, but Sailormercury and the rest of them don't look as fluid for some reason, so I tend to use the spaced version sometimes and the non-spaced version other times. Well, there's a little intro to the series we all know and love, Sailor Moon. |