

Was _Sailor Moon_ edited for the English version, to show less in the
transformation when they are naked? Was it originally meant for children?


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anime-production sailor-moon censorship
Was Sailor Moon edited in the English version?


No, the transformation sequence hasn't been censored. The visuals in the
original are the same.

Sailor Moon is Shoujo, so it would have been originally intended for teen and
preteen girls.


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In general, Sailor Moon was heavily edited for the US release as detailed by
fans for example [here](http://www.smuncensored.com/season.php?season=1). In
particular nudity was avoided as exemplified below.

[![Sailor Moon bathtub
censorship](https://i.stack.imgur.com/jMN6D.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/jMN6D.png)

[![Sailor Moon bathtub
censorship](https://i.stack.imgur.com/nLxM5.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/nLxM5.png)

The source of these images is [this](http://www.movie-
censorship.com/report.php?ID=1489254) comparison between the US and the German
version. While the German version is not completely uncensored (see the linked
site for details) it is almost equal to the Japanese original and does not
have censorship of nudity.

Regarding the **transformation scenes** in particular: Many sites claim the US
censorship manifested itself in removal of the breast outlines, however all
examples I find on youtube look the same to me. The two sites mentioned above
also say that the only change is a speed-up of the transformation - likely to
fit the overall episode runtime due to other edits.

Other changes include the removal of violence in particular against children
and gender changes as not to display homosexuality. This all pertains to the
original US release, while subsequent ones
[apparently](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailor_Moon_%28anime%29#Localization)
stayed more true to the Japanese original.

To address the second question, as [Skullclutter already
mentioned](https://anime.stackexchange.com/a/28304/34) Sailor Moon is
considered a _shōjo_ series and therefore aimed at young women.


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Though I watched the original English dub when it first aired on TV in the
U.S., I do not follow any of the details about it, so I will not attempt to
answer the first half of your question, but I can answer the second half.

## Was it originally meant for children?

**Yes.**

Both **the manga and the classic 90s anime were primarily aimed at elementary
school-aged girls** (whereas the reboot [_Sailor Moon Crystal_ was not aimed
at children](https://anime.stackexchange.com/a/13849/8134)). The easiest
evidence for this is the kind of commercials that aired during the broadcast,
which were very child-targeted. Thanks to the efforts of _Sailor Moon_ otaku,
you can watch many of these TV commercials in YouTube, such as [these
ads](https://youtu.be/e_33Vt0OGN8?list=PLJTWaTjHPoEYsRVLFfyB25pOy8i9zeqwO) for
kids' shoes, eye drops for red eyes after swimming, and toys. You can clearly
see from **the age of the child actors** in the commercials that the target
audience was girls of their ages: **the lower grades of elementary school**.
In other words, if the series had been aimed at pre-teens, teens, or women,
second graders wouldn't be advertising the merchandise (how many high school
students would decide to go out and buy something because a third grader told
them to? Usually, the actors cast are the same age or older than the target
viewer).

_Shoujo_ is largely aimed at elementary schoolers, not at teens or women. The
magazine that _Sailor Moon_ was published in, _Nakayoshi_ , is specifically
aimed at **one of the youngest age brackets** amongst _shoujo_ manga magazines
(the only main _shoujo_ magazine with a younger target audience than
_Nakayoshi_ is _Ciao_ , and they largely overlap in target demographic).

Proofs from [this answer](https://anime.stackexchange.com/a/22827/8134):

> Evidence that the targeted age range for most shoujo manga is young
> elementary school age can be taken from:
>
>   * the age of the real-life models shown the photos on pages about
> fashion/hair/make-up or modeling next month’s advertised _furoku_. In the
> big three magazines ( _Ribon_ , _Nakayoshi_ , and _Ciao_ ), they are always
> preteens.
>   * the age of the male idol groups featured on pages containing news or
> interviews with idols -- in the big three these are usually the ones
> comprised of younger boys such as Ya-Ya-yah and Sexy Zone.
>   * the type of _furoku_ [freebies] included with magazine issues. In
> _Ribon_ , _Nakayoshi_ , and _Ciao_ , the bulk of _furoku_ can only be used
> by little kids: a Japanese high schooler couldn’t be caught dead wearing
> them. The _furoku_ produced in recent years have increasingly become
> "kiddie" items. . . .
>   * the fact that only 1) young kid characters, 2) very childish characters,
> and 3) hardcore otaku characters in anime/manga are ever shown reading a
> manga magazine. Tsukino Usagi in _Sailor Moon_ and Gouda Takeo in _Ore!!
> Monogatari_ are shown with manga magazines in their bedrooms, because it
> shows that these characters have the mental age of an elementary school kid
> despite being high school freshmen. Manga magazines aren't found in the
> bedrooms of mature and average teen characters, just as most real-life
> Japanese teen girls do not read manga.
>

_Sailor Moon_ was targeted at children, **although the inclusion of short-
skirted sailor uniforms** was a suggestion by the _mangaka_ Takeuchi Naoko's
male editor at the publisher Kodansha, Fumio Osano (known by his nickname of
Osa-P), [**to also pull in some adult male
fans**](http://wikimoon.org/index.php?title=Fumio_Osano).

The content considered [acceptable for kids in Japan differs from that of
other countries](https://anime.stackexchange.com/a/21940/8134). **Nudity is
generally a non-issue** , and there is a long-standing tradition of nude
transformation sequences in _mahou shoujo_ (a sub-genre of _shoujo_ targeted
at elementary school girls) since the 1970s. This was **not originally
intended to be titular** \-- many of the classic 70s magical girls were pre-
pubescent, meaning that no cleavage or curves were present at all during their
nude transformation sequences -- but more so these sequences were to clearly
demonstrate how the transformation magically worked (old clothes disappear,
new clothes appear). **In contrast,** the earliest classic _mahou shoujo_ who
was simultaneously [targeted at young girls while being intentionally
sexy](http://shoujo.tripod.com/megu.html) for adult male viewers, _Majokko
Meg-chan_ , showed off her body with panty shots, various stages of undress,
and coquettish winks throughout the episodes _apart from_ a transformation
sequence.

Also, from [this answer:](https://anime.stackexchange.com/a/22209/8134)

> Not all nudity in manga and anime is considered sensual or sexual. Just as
> the Japanese public baths ( _onsen_ and _sento_ ) do not innately bear any
> association of nudity with sex among the general population, nudity can be
> included in illustrations that are not intending to have any sexual
> connotations. Historically, the Japanese were surprised by the foreigners
> who arrived on their shores and balked at the public baths, since the
> Japanese didn't view them as related to sexual interest. In fact, **nudity
> can in some contexts connote purity, as in the[final
> episode](http://shoujo.tripod.com/megu.html) of _Bishoujo Senshi Sailor
> Moon_** , in which the protagonist fights her final battle in the nude, her
> pure heart able to
>

>> reach and connect to the villain's and set her free from being possessed by
evil.

>
> **Neither the villain, nor any of the onlooking supporting characters,
> particularly pay attention to her nudity** during and after the battle; even
> when she is subsequently hugged by her boyfriend, there is no sensuality
> present in the depiction.

(The reason that transformation sequences increased in length [thereby
extending the number of seconds of nude footage and the number of "camera
angles" during it] was due to the fact that every frame of the anime needed to
be drawn by hand. If the animation company prepared a few sequences that could
be reused in just about every single episode [appearance, attack,
transformation] that cut down on the number of minutes of original animation
needed to produce for each episode. Now that most anime is digitally animated,
this is virtually no longer necessary, but fans came to expect those
transformation sequences in the _mahou shoujo_ genre, so we still see them in
current and recent anime even though they no longer perform that formerly
important practical task.)


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