I have fond memories of waking up at 6 AM to watch syndicated episodes of the first two seasons as I got ready for school, and of racing home later on to watch it on Cartoon Network's Toonami. I even filled up as many VHS tapes as I could with home-taped episodes to rewatch over and over. (This is probably outing what an old lady I am!) This was back when home media releases for anime were hard to find, and hard to afford, in that odd twilight period between the full demise of the VHS and the rise of DVD. Getting legit copies of Sailor Moon on any format was hard--the first two seasons were released on VHS (later on in DVD singles that seemed impossible to track down and had horrible cover art), and the latter two in singles (Ugh, remember those? $25 for a DVD with 4 episodes?). We later got the first two seasons uncut (Japanese language and English subtitles only) from ADV, but with pretty crappy quality, and the latter two with hella hard to find season boxsets. The fifth season never came at all. The movies were surprisingly easy to find, which were all that I had for years and years.
Then earlier this year, in May, Viz announced they'd licensed the whole Sailor Moon anime. Everything, All to be made available on home video! The first of these releases hit the streets on November 11th of this year, which is what I'll be taking a look at today.
The Sailor Moon anime has 5 seasons and 200 episodes. Viz has announced that they will be breaking up each season into half sets, meaning we get 10 sets in total. The first set here is for the first half of Season One. The first season is 46 episodes long, so the half set has 23 episodes. Not bad, considering Viz tends to release 11-13 episodes in one of their average box sets and call it a day.
I pre-ordered the Limited Edition from Right Stuf the instant that the pre-ordering went live. I paid $56.99 for it. Was it worth it, and what did I get? Let's take a look at it.
To begin with, this set offers three DVDs and three Blu-ray discs. Both sets of media feature the same 23 episodes, uncut, with both the original Japanese language track, and a new English dub. Viz was unable to get rights to the DiC/Cloverway English dub that aired on TV, so they simply made an entirely new one. I've given it a listen, and it's not bad. Some voices are very good (fit the characters very well, or are even better than DiC's), some are average, and only a few don't work at all, in my opinion. It's subjective.
The discs offer a wide variety of on-disc extras: an art gallery, clean opening and ending, convention panel videos, behind-the-scenes at Viz, etc. No commentaries, which are what I primarily care about. The whole range of bonus features are only available in the limited edition; the standard DVD and standard DVD/BD sets have only one or two bonus features.
The limited edition comes with a few pack-in extras. The first is a chipboard box that is designed to fit both halves of Season One. The brand manager has been trumping up its "shimmery and glittery" design for months now. What I can tell you firsthand is that is has a semi-holographic-style details on it; when you flex the box, the star designs have a multicolored reflection. I thought the box would be actually glittery or something. the design is SUPER plain. It has a white to pink ombre effect, with Sailor Moon and the logo on one side, and a picture of her transformation locket on the other side. That's it. It's actually the exact same artwork that was on a Sailor Moon sticker album that I bought years ago. I was super disappointed, and expecting more art.
The second extra is an 88-page booklet. with the same cover art as the chipboard box. The vast majority of the book is an episode guide. 46 whole pages are taken up with this. The guide pages have the episode number, title, original Japanese air date, a brief summary, and two small screenshots. (Another 5 pages are devoted to cast and crew credits.) REALLY? Viz, if I want to know basic information, I'll go to Wikipedia or Hitoshi Doi's fan page. So much wasted paper; they could have fit two episodes per page, honestly. The last few pages are worth it, though. There is character art (looking freshly drawn for this release), and the translations of the various songs used in the anime. (You get the lyrics written in Japanese characters, the Romanization of the characters, and the English translation.)
If you ordered the set early enough from Right Stuf, you got a gift with purchase: a collectible coin. Viz has been giving different coins away at the various conventions they've attended this year, so it's sort of like they're a collector's set. I foresee people going nuts stalking eBay and trying to get a full set of these.
Now, I would be remiss if I didn't bring this next part up. There are multiple reports of issues with the video quality. The standalone DVD sets have been pillarboxed (large black bars around the sides of the TV picture), and the Blu-rays have numerous errors, as well. Now, I make absolutely no claims to any knowledge or expertise about audio/video quality. All I can tell you is that I watched the blu-ray discs and did not notice any issues. This could be any number of things: my TV isn't the greatest, I'm not trained to recognize video errors, etc, so it could be that I'm just not noticing them. But if this is an issue that is important to you, here are some threads on the issue that I dug up that go into more detail: Blu-ray.com's review, a discussion on FandomPost, and Viz Media's official response to inquiries. These are just a sampling, of course.
While I'm happy to have Sailor Moon in a legitimate release, I can't help but feel that Viz simply did not do as good of a job as they could have. I'm left looking at the set and thinking, "Is this it?" Maybe my standards for this were too high. Viz has stated that "at this time" they are not planning to fix the video errors and recall/replace the sets, and any plans for a complete release of Sailor Moon would be years down the line. So if you're thinking about getting this, you will essentially be forced to buy a product with issues if you want it now, or wait a few years to possibly get a full season set that possibly has those issues fixed.
It's tough to make a definitive call on this. If you've never seen the show before or are hesitant, check out the streams on Hulu first. Episodes are also available on iTunes for download-to-own, so if you're not picky about format but want an option that isn't pillarboxed, that might be a viable alternative. It ultimately comes down to how particular you are about video quality. You can still find the prior releases from Pioneer, ADV, etc, but you will pay quite a bit for them. It all depends on your tastes and standards, dear reader--whether or not these issues are something that will bother you.
Pros: New English dub (good for those who didn't care for the prior one), uncut video, more faithful translation, lots of extras, lots of different formats and price points to choose from
Cons: Video quality issues (especially bad for videophiles), no assurance from Viz that any issues will be fixed, no option for original dub (for those who liked it)
I'm going to be watching Viz very carefully as the next few sets are released. I want to see how they will proceed, given the multitude of negative feedback about their Blu-ray release. It will be interesting to see what the next sets will look like. Because I can't personally view the video issues (maybe the one time when a not-so-great TV has its advantages?), I'll keep getting the sets. And I will possibly keep getting the limited editions. The standard BD/DVD pack is $52.99 right now; because I pre-ordered the LE BD/DVD, I got a special pre-order price of $56.99. I essentially got the chipboard box and art book for $4, which isn't a bad deal. I would not pay more for that, though.
Miss Scarlett suggests: Investigate the video issues of this release to see if this is something that would bother you...check out the streams, in any case. Miss Scarlett doesn't know what to suggest.
