AQ : Rantings and Ravings

I personally don't like either better. Each had it's good/bad points. The Dic dub was good in it introduced a lot of people ot SM. The bad was all the changes. The Cloverway dub is good because it keeps background music and makes less changes. It's bad in it's inconsistencies.
- Ethelene

As far as I see it there are two big things that make Cloverway better. Number one, the music. It might sound silly but the original music makes it a whole lot better than with the crappy stuff DiC made. And two, it's not as childish. It uses stupid slang like "da bomb" but it's less childish than the crap DiC came up with.
- Ashton

I must say, neither company was all that good in dubbing Sailormoon. They each had their faults, but DiC's job was done horrifically. They completely changed attack names, called them "Sailor Scouts" (which makes them sound amateurish), edited many parts of an episode, and a lot of other mistakes on their part. I really can't find one good point about them, except for helping to bring Sailormoon to the United States.
Even so, Cloverway was not perfect either. They are inconsistent with the transformation and attack names, but overall, they stay true to the Japanese version (mostly). They also kept the original japanese music, which is a plus. Whether it was intentional, or just because they were too lazy to change it, all the better for us. The dubbing of the voices wasn't all that good, because the voice actors place no emotion into their acting! Even when they try to, it sounds so fake, but I guess it can't be helped. English dubs are never as good as the Japanese voices, EVER! :) Now, with the subject of Michelle and Amara's relationship, I don't think America will ever be able to face the fact that some people are gay, so they try to hide it from the population. It's kind of pathetic I think, but what can we do?
Overall, I think Cloverway did a better job. I believe if Cloverway had dubbed the first and second series of Sailor Moon, it would not have been as bad as DiC's. Whenever I hear the original background music, I think to myself, "DiC would never have used this music!" I think DiC has some problems, and who in their right mind gave them the rights to the dubbing!
- Sereneness

Dic's changes were, on the whole, worse than Cloverway's. With Cloverway, some of the episodes (or at least parts of them) are translated quite well. The background music was kept for the most part. There were many things left in that Dic never would have allowed, judging on what they cut in the episodes they did.
This is not to say that Cloverway's version is good, or even decent, for that matter. The quality of the dubbing went *way* down (which is saying a lot considering the very poor acting quality in the Dic version), with the minor exceptions of "Rini" (whose new voice is actually quite cute!) and Mars, who got her old VA back. I've always been under the impression that acting required, well, acting, not reading in a completely emotionless monotone voice *coughuranuscough*.
The cuts that they made were "blended in" far worse than Dic's were, the "cousins" bit in particular. Because of the romantic music and the animation, the "cousins" Amara and Michelle still appear to be in love with each other, due to the poor editing. It's very funny to me, actually.
Another thing that was worse was the continuity, or lack of it. I won't go into it because I believe JunJun covered most of it in her last rant.
I would say that both the companies changed the characters as much. The outer soldiers' characters were altered a lot, but probably not any more than say, Venus was in Dic's version.
Lastly is the "kewl speak", as it's commonly called... While it's not done as often as the Dic, it is done quite a bit, and a lot of the lines are just *painful* ("What's up, dog?" comes to mind...).
Basically, there were things that were better and things that were worse. Overall Cloverway is a little better, but it's still horrible.
- Moonbrat

Cloverway and DiC both have their highs and lows. I personally don't prefer one or the other; They're my Sailor Moon sources, period. You don't pick favorites when there's not much to choose from.
At first, I thought Cloverway was doing a service by keeping the Japanese music. Then...we get to this one episode(I forgot which). I hear the music of _Ai_no_Senshi_, but the words...are english. If Cloverway had made a completely new song, like we all know DiC liked to do, I might not have been as bothered by this. But taking a song like _Ai_no_Senshi_ and giving it such an incredibly CHEESY adaptation...is unforgivable!
Cloverway kept, in some cases, original Japanese names. This is all well and good, but...they really needed to be pronounced better. >_< "I want to be saved by by Sailor Pluto, a.k.a. Miss Mayo!" "Me Doctor Tomo,king of jungle!" "Kaori, I Knight you!" "You...jee...uhl, uh...gee, I don't know what to say..."
In other cases, Cloverway gave the characters Americanized names. Michelle is as close to Michiru as you're gonna get, people. It's closer than "Serena" is to "Usagi".
During DiC's dub, I always knew who knew about who's alter egos at what time. In the case of Cloverway, however...Amara calls Serena "moon face" before she even knows about Serena being Sailor Moon. I have no clue where this nickname came from.
"Cloverway is better because they kept the original Japanese attack names." Do you know how DORKY "Moon Tiara Action" sounds? And how about how ODD "Sparkling Wide Pressure" is? Sometimes Americanization is a good thing. Besides, it's not like Cloverway has been very consistant with their attack names. I'm still unclear if the attacks are "World Shaking" and "Deep Submerge" or "URANUS World Shaking" and "NEPTUNE Deep Submerge".
- Xazy

I say it doesn't matter. The only way everyone will be happy with the show is if they did the original with out any changes, even language. But even then, I'm sure some people would have complaints - "I can't understand it", "It's too hard to 'read' what they're saying and watch at the same time!" - Stuff like that.
- Jennifer

Cloverway won a slight victory in my book over DiC for their keeping of the original music. I utterly love the background music, and I know people who watched the show motivated for basically that reason. Both are very bad if you compare them to the original, but in their own right they are still good shows to watch. (It hurts to say this, but it is true, due to the enormous dub fanbase.) The show has improved a little in quality, though the brightening hurts my eyes.
The only way cloverway won is because of the music. Yes it is horribly fuzzy, but my people I know can deal with that. I know someone who started to cry when she heard the music. . .it means a lot to some people. A step in the right direction if you will. It sure is a big improvement over the drunk man with the casio.
- Merin

Whether Cloverway was listening to the fans or not I don't know, but they have left a lot of little details that Dic would've covered or tried to cover to make she show "acceptable" to the US market. The bgm, the talk about sacrificing the carriers of the Talisman, heck, even a panty shot or two -- not that I'm watching for those. =p =) There's still this evasion of the words "kill" and "death," but "die" and "sacrifice" are left there. Also, most of the Christian elements have changed, too.
Like many, my main exposure to the "original" show is through VKLL's fansubs, and taking his translation as a standard, Cloverway has made a more accurate translation. On more than one occasion, I "know" what the next 3 or four lines of dialogue will be. =) Of course, the whole "cousins" issue makes things difficult, and it's pretty much the big noticeable thing about the newer dub. It can make matters horrible, like the Yuichirou/Chad episode. But past that, it's not really that bad.
In many ways, SailorMoon was not a "polically correct/majority pleasing" show, the way these are defined for the US -- this, of course, is no news to anyone. But once one firmly grasps the concept that Cloverway and Dic would've had a much harder time selling the show in America, -- if it were to be left virtually untouched -- the translation is not horrible. I have a lot of fun pointing out the changes and figuring out why they made them. =) Throw in MKT and ECO 101, and the dub is a riot. =)
- "The Masked Hero"