Sailor Moon in 90s Australia
- kamikarmiya
- Apr 20, 2024
- 3 min read
Updated: May 5, 2024
This is a post which I originally put on my old tumblr, but since no one reads that, I figured I'd add it here. I find it interesting that, despite what a worldwide phenomena Sailor Moon was in the 90s, and what a huge part of getting many girls into anime it was, we don't often seem to discuss our different experiences of watching it around the world!
Since the news about Saban Moon broke again with the new documentary about it (here’s a post about it with youtube link: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/luna-whiskers/693308308231159808?source=share) I got interested in my own ‘lost’ Sailor Moon experience.
I lived in Australia until I was nine, and the first tv show (not just anime) which I ever watched was Sailor Moon. I vaguely remembered that it was part of a long tv segment which included actors who would sometimes cosplay as Sailor Moon characters, and wanted to find some more information about it. It is not as obscure as Saban Moon, fortunately, and I did! For anyone else who is interested in the Aussie history of Sailor Moon, here’s what I’ve found so far.
Moon Kitty has a page about Sailor Moon in Australia, though their air date of 1994 is not accurate; the DiC dub of season 1 was only recorded in 1995:
This screenshot is taken from a 1996 episode of Agro’s Cartoon Connection, which is where Sailor Moon ran in Australia in the 90s. You can see this episode here on The Internet Archive, many thanks to the person who uploaded it:
There’s no date beyond ‘96 listed, but the Sailor Moon episode which airs is episode 18 by the DiC dub count: ‘Worth a Princess’s Ransom’. This episode first aired September 22, 1995 in the US during Sailor Moon’s first run, according to Wikipedia. I’ve never been able to find a definitive date for when Sailor Moon first started airing in Australia, but based on this it must have either been early ‘96 or late ‘95. As the screencap before shows, it’s not possible for Moon Kitty’s date of ‘94 to be possible, since DiC only dubbed season 1 in ‘95.
This Agro’s episode features an entire Sailor Moon episode, as said, starting at 31:06. Another neat tidbit can be found a few times in this segment, an ad for Sailor Moon dolls! One repeat of the ad is at 22:10. I actually had some of these dolls as a kid!
Finally, I found some of the cosplay segments from Agro’s Cartoon Connection on Youtube:
These are from a ‘Sailor Moon Week’ they did in ‘97, but I do recall that this was not the only time the cast cosplayed as Sailor Moon characters.
I can’t say for sure when I first started watching Sailor Moon, but now I know that it could have been as early as when I was five (my age during ‘96). It’s pretty incredible to get confirmation of just how long I’ve been into Sailor Moon; pretty much my whole life!
Actually, in the middle of writing this my parents called and I asked my mum about it, and got a bit more dating done. My school had a Halloween party in year 1, 1996 (I did not remember which year it was, only that it happened) and I was desperate to dress up as Sailor Moon for it. My poor mum drove all over Melbourne trying to find a costume for me and finally managed it (thanks and sorry, Mum!). So by that point I had already been obsessed with Sailor Moon for ages, ergo I did in fact start watching Sailor Moon at the age of 5 (I also still have my year 1 Japanese schoolbooks from back then, yes, my school taught Japanese back in the 90s). Incredible!
Sailor Moon ran pretty consistently in Oz all the way up until we moved to Canada in 2000, as far as I recall. I’ve heard that it had a much more bumpy road in the US, though? I never saw it airing in Canada (though I only watched Teletoon and YTV, so if it wasn’t on them I would have missed it), and when we moved to the US I never saw it airing at all. What was your experience with Sailor Moon as a kid? I'd love to know!
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