Article roughdraft
Here's a rough draft of "Sailor Moon dvds" ( <-- not the official title by the way):
Where can I find Official Sailor Moon DVDs? Where can I buy the original English sailor moon on DVD? Where can I buy Sailor Moon DVD box sets?
According to my research, "..As of May 2004, the rest of the metaseries has officially gone off the air in all English-speaking countries due to lapsed and un-renewed licenses..."
"..On February 4, 2010, Toei Animation began negotiations to re-license the entire series globally..."
"...In 2009 Funimation announced that it was considering an entire re-dub of the Sailor Moon series and asked people to take part in a survey on what their next project should be. The re-dub of the Sailor Moon series was included. The results of the survey have not been released to the public..."
You try to find Sailor Moon DVDs on Ebay or Amazon, you'll most likely find bootlegs.
Bootlegs with terrible sound quality and equally bad picture quality. These copies are also notorious for not even playing in your DVD player.
Buying Authentic Sailor moon copies can be even harder to find.
How can you tell a bootleg from a official English (DIC Entertainment, Cloverway Inc.) or Japanese (Toei Animation) Sailor moon dvds?
The real authentic dvd's are Region 1 (United States, Canada, Bermuda), not Region 0 (Informal term meaning "worldwide").
The official Japanese DVDs have been rereleased in special 20th Anniversary DVD Box Sets. However, they have no English subtitles.
But there is hope!
"ADV sent out a press release today announcing the first volume of Sailor Moon on DVD to be released on April 16th. Previously available only on VHS, fans of the worldwide hit series Sailor Moon have been waiting patiently for ADV to release these episodes in the DVD format. As seen on television, these DVD installments from Sailor Moon include the English-language, family-friendly versions of this exciting animated program. Each disc will include six episodes and will retail at $14.98."
And of course now for the bad news: if your well-informed fan of Sailor Moon, you'll know that the English versions have scenes that have been edited for younger viewers.From minor content as "Sailor Soldiers" now being known as "Sailor Scouts". To heavier content, such, the homosexual relationships between Villain's Zoisite and Kunzite, and Sailor's Uranus and Neptune. Zoisite is now featured as a female, and the lesbian relationship of Amara (or Haruka Tenoh) and Michelle (or Michiru Kaioh) are shown as cousins, in an attempt to explain their relationship.
"..Editors cut each of the remaining episodes by several minutes to make room for more commercials, to censor plot points or visuals deemed inappropriate for children, and to allow the insertion of "educational" segments called "Sailor Says" at the end of each episode..."
"..So far, no American company is known to have the rights to release either of the theatrical shorts, the Super S TV special, or the Sailor Stars series.."
The 5th & final season, Sailor Moon Sailor Stars, was never released for English adaptation. Could be because its content; the Sailor Stars controversial transformation from ordinary males to female Sailor Soldiers.
"..The Starlights are usually falsely attributed to the fifth season not being dubbed into English. Despite popular belief, this is really because Toei would not sell the rights to it.."
This is all I have so far. I might edit it more to make it more official. I'm asking for some criticism. Thanks!