By: Sailor Silentstar
There have been several rants on SOS these days, all with fantastic points. I, too, decided to jump on the band wagon...
Ah yes... the infamous SOS (Save our Sailors) group. Most every Sailormoon fan has heard of this group, from which much debate, hatred, and death-threats sprung out. Their attempts at 'popularizing' the North American version of Bishoujo Senshi Sailormoon, a beautiful Japanese Anime series, have been known mostly all over Canada and the US.
Now, to the average person, I'm sure that it seems like a farily decent idea. To the average moonie, it's a great idea. To people who've actually visited the site, it's horse manure. There is a difference between raising popularity for a show, and then using every snot-eyed trick in the book to brainwash the show's fans who don't know any better.
In the beginning, the SOS group was okay, collecting signatures from people who want to show the english adaption's producers, DiC specifically and other major groups and individuals, that there existed a multitude of fans who wanted to see the series continued in English. You'll even find my signature somewhere in their archives, much to my deep regret. I was stupid then, I'll admit. But the concept was fine.
In any event, from then on, SOS began its descent from a group that had good concepts, fairly good principles, and good ideas (if you can call them good ideas...) to a cheating, lying, 'take credit for everything' organization that seeks to brainwash its visitors.
Proof, you ask? Two words: Prince Uranus. Should you have missed this mind-boggling, homophobic article, SOS once had on their "What are we missing?" page that, according to an article someone remembered seeing somewhere, Sailor Uranus was a guy during the Silver Millennium, reincaranted as the wrong sex, but still had strong feelings for his lover, Sailor Neptune (not worded in this fashion, but you get the basic idea). About 95% of the Sailormoon Community immediately accused SOS (with reason) that the whole story was a down-right lie (which it was). Some newcomers to the show, however, took this as biblic scripture, and some even posted this hideous information on their own pages. Takeuchi Naoko, the series creator in Japan, has since stated that Uranus has been, is now, and will be forever female. Plus, she also stated that Uranus and Neptune were lesbian lovers. Even after this, SOS continues to state that their relationship is subject to the viewers' perception. Bullshit. They're lesbians, period.
Then we have the little scorecard that looks at all the different campaigns SOS has been implicated with and whether or not they had anything to do with the series' success. Now, a newcomer to show might be taken aback by all this and think "I love this group, they saved Sailor Moon!". Basically, no, they had nothing to do with most of what they claim. Yes, perhaps they succeeded in creating awareness of the series, and so on, but they can't take credit for reporting Katie Griffin and Toby Proctor were leaving the show. That's reporting, not a campaign. I for one got annoyed by the repetitious use of 'by sheer coincidence. Well by sheer coincidence no one believes them. Mostly, they just annoyed the hell out of producers and companies with their constant campaigns and letters. Can you say Bandai? I knew you could. But now, the one little phrase that sticks with me is in the March 1997 block. SOS claims that DiC made 'fewer' changes to the series during production of the last 17 episodes of R.
~_~? Did DiC make two separate versions of the show? From what I've seen and couldn't stand, the last 17 were WORSE than the original 65! I was sick to my stomach watching them. The only 'fewer changes' was the inconsistant use of the term Sailor Soldiers, the switching of Luna Ball to Luna-P, and the sudden, unexplained change in Sailor Mercury's attack from "Mercury Ice Storm Blast" to "Shine Aqua Illusion", but leaving all the other attacks unchanged. These changes, friends, are proof that the final 17 episodes were done very sloppily, perhaps to get them over with so that the ever-so insistant group called SOS can stop annoying them. I've seen most of the last episodes, and I was totally turned off. The voice acting is TERRIBLE. The background music is HORRIBLE. Everything was POORLY done. What's the point in changing Black Lady to Wicked Lady? Death Phantom to Doom Phantom? Last time I checked, Death and Doom practically meant the same thing. And has anyone noticed that the transformations were 'tastefully' switched? The scenes used were glued together using the transformations from the first season because DiC was too lazy to rub out the breast and pubic lines in the new ones. As I recall, they did rub them out for Mercury's new transformation in the early Negamoon episodes, but decided against it later on and continued to use stock footage from episode 5.
* side-tracking a bit here... *
In the original, while the sequences were in essence the same, there were slight shade changes in the colors to give a little variety. I've seen two versions of Venus' Star Make-up: one has smooth movement and a clear star ribbon, while another had more quick moves and the banner was glowing yellow. Mars and Mercury had similar effects. I couldn't find any difference in Jupiter's Star Make-ups. For their Crystal Make-ups, I haven't seen the end half of SuperS and I've only seen one Make-up for each in Stars.
* back to the subject at hand... *
AND NOW, the people behind SOS would like all visitors to write letters to three individuals that have little or no connection to Sailor Moon whatsoever. They say that the younger you are, the better. Here's my viewpoint: a small child of 5 years will move on to another show in the flash of an eye. Children of that age do not watch a show because of its storyline or character depth, most of time they don't have a clue what's going on. I know I was like that at that age, the only reason to watch it was because it was something to do. Perhaps this is why the story of Sailor Moon was crushed into pieces because the companies knew that little kids wouldn't know the difference. However, the problem was that older people got into the show, got in touch with the original, and saw the differences. If more young kids write than older generations, it'll promote even more censoring and butchering to the series. SOS claims that if enough people write to these three, it will maybe cause enough interest for these companies to sponsor the dubbing of the Sailormoon S series. If you ask me, it will never happen and it should not happen. The S season is way too spectacular for it to be slashed to bits thanks to the pushy group called SOS.
In conclusion, to the people at SOS: Stop everything. Look at what you're doing. Make sense of what you undertake. Uranus and Neptune are lovers. Besides, most people do NOT want the S season to be dubbed, and I hardly think DiC is actually interested in undertaking it. As I said before, the last R eps were done poorly and hastily. Further more, VKLL has completed subbing the final four volumes of S, and will soon complete the final Stars episodes. I haven't seen one link to VKLL's site on your site, SOS, and yet you want to promote the original. If DiC was SO interested in dubbing the whole series, something would have been done against fansubbers such as VKLL. Give me a break, SOS. Rather, give us ALL a break and disappear.
Comments on this article can be sent to:
Sailor Silentstar.
