Toon Makers’ Sailor Moon / YMMV

Alternative Character Interpretation: What's mentioned below in Angst? What Angst?, alongside how all the Princess Warriors seem far too focused on the idea of school dances and boys while they're all forced into hiding during an intergalactic war might just be an extreme case of having to cope with so much trauma in such little time.
Angst? What Angst?: Just as Sailor Moon/Victoria is reminiscing about the tragic loss of her home, her family and her boyfriend, she suddenly remembers there's a School Dance happening and she all but forgets about it.
Bile Fascination: One can hear the cameraman's reaction throughout the Anime Expo versions of the trailer. As such, many fans petitioned for 25 years in hopes to get the pilot to be released so that they could see just how bad, or at least silly, it really is for themselves. After the pilot was found, it can be confirmed that the animation, voice acting, and script are just as hilariously cheesy as people expected.
Ensemble Dark Horse:
- Venus has received the most attention out of the girls' very brief characterization for her funny line with Jupiter and her dorky makeup, her rather perky and fun acting that's generally considered the most fun to watch, and the sheer vagueness until 2024 surrounding who her actress was. Even the producers in the documentary seem to recall her fondly.
- After that, Mercury's gained a lot of popularity due to being a wheelchair user who, surprisingly for the era the pilot was made in, was not defined by her disability but was instead a gung-ho fighter and "The original party girl."
Fan Nickname: Since they never received any of their own, it's been popular to refer to the girls with the names from the DiC dub pitch video:
- Moon - Victoria (actually confirmed in the pilot itself)
- Mercury - Blue/Bleu
- Mars - Dana
- Jupiter - Sarah
- Venus - Carrie
Fanon: As nothing ever came of this except for the pilot, people have theorized about how the series would have gone if it had actually been created, with some coming up with their own theoretical plotlines. Creating concept art for characters has been also been popular, particularly designs for the Outer Senshi.
Girl-Show Ghetto: A commonly held belief is that this show was meant to be the girl show equivalent to Power Rangers. The pilot's quality was fairly poor, with wooden acting and a great deal of recycled animation from the original anime. Furthermore, compared to the original Sailor Moon, the girls seemed heavily flanderized, with every girl being depicted as a boy crazy party animal (especially Venus) despite the main cast being undercover alien warriors.
Hilarious in Hindsight:
- The idea of making all the Senshi the princesses of their respective planets later turned out to be canon in the original Sailor Moon manga.
- The concept of the "Jewels of Power" is eerily similar to the Sailor Crystals/star seeds from Sailor Moon Stars (introduced in the "Dream" arc of the manga which corresponds to "SuperS", but they don't appear in the anime 'til "Stars").
- It may seem normal now, but the fact that they alluded to "Princess Warriors" from Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto is this. At the time this pilot was made, Sailor Pluto was the only known Outer Senshi in main series, and her introduction had occurred after the pilot had finished production. Sailor Uranus, Sailor Neptune, and Sailor Saturn wouldn't appear until a year or so later.
- The theme song boasts that Sailor Moon "moves like an angel". After Toei rejected this pilot, Bandai and Renaissance Atlantic would again attempt a live-action Magical Girl show with Team Angel.
- In discussions about the uncovered pilot, it was often mentioned that the art style looked very similar to She-Ra. When the pilot was finally found, it was discovered that the voice of She-Ra herself, Melendy Britt, actually voiced-acted in it!
- One of the pilot’s notable traits was its CGI transformation sequence, which would allow for the live-action segments to transition into the animated ones. Around twenty years later, another Sailor Moon series, Sailor Moon Crystal, would heavily feature CGI in the transformations for season 1 and 2.
Inferred Holocaust: During Beryl's invasion, Sailor Moon orders Darian to protect the royal families and to "save as many as [he] can", appointing him as the pilot to the "Galleon". Later, the Sailors, on their sky fliers, try to reach the Galleon in mid-flight, but Beryl shoots a laser beam at the Galleon, destroying it. Sailor Moon can only look at the scene and shed tears.
Memetic Mutation:
- The entire pitch is very infamous amongst both Sailor Moon fans and anime fans in general.
- Netflix's Sailor Moon.^note
Mis-blamed: Due to the live-action elements being very evocative of a certain franchise that was popular at the time and a lack of any info around the pilot for years, it's referred to as "Saban Moon", as many fans assumed Saban had commissioned it. While Renaissance Atlantic, who made this with Toon Makers, did work with Saban on the Power Rangers franchise, Saban itself didn't actually have anything to do with this pilot.
So Bad, It's Good: After it was found in 2022, most people can say it indeed lives up to this description.
Took the Bad Film Seriously: Some of the producers actually believe that Sailor Moon could've been way more successful had this been the official Western version.
Unfortunate Character Design: Sailor Jupiter is African-American in this show. However, she appears to be wearing peach-colored eyeliner and lipstick in the animated segments, making her look more like a white person wearing blackface. Along with being offensive, it's ironically funny: in trying to make her more "Western", they came up with a design you could easily mistake for ganguro!
Unintentional Period Piece:
- The many Pop-Cultural Osmosis Failure in this adaptation, right up to its reinterpretation of why she's "Sailor" Moon, dates it to a time when Japanese culture was still well out of the mainstream in the Western world and also largely misunderstood.
- The format of the show is very drenched in the trends of the early 1990s and was clearly trying to latch onto the success of Power Rangers, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
Values Dissonance: Sailor Mars makes a joke that a bulky Monster of the Week is too fat to dance and could stand to "burn some pounds". This line has aged rather poorly as a line in a show aimed towards young girls today due to an increase in eating disorders and greater public awareness as to what causes them. (To be fair, however, the original anime fell into this a few times itself, though the English dubs tried to counteract this by mentioning the dangers of fad diets.)
Values Resonance: Sailor Mercury is a wheelchair using superhero and, although played by a non-disabled actress, it shows a very respectful and non-stereotypical character - especially when disability representation is still a hot talking point in the industry.
Visual Effects of Awesome: If anything, Sailor Moon's CGI transformation from live-action to cartoon looks positively gorgeous. It's especially impressive considering the technology at the time.
WTH, Costuming Department?: The wig on Sailor Mars looks especially fake, as they had to hide Danny DeLacey's long hair and bangs. Sailor Jupiter's looks marginally better.

YMMV / Toon Makers’ Sailor Moon

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