Sailor Moon Delayed in Italy Till February (But, This is GOOD News)!

Sailor Moon Delayed in Italy Till February (But, This is GOOD News)!

This is a bit late, and we at Moon Chase apologize for this. When this news broke, it was very close to the Holidays (and we really needed the break)!

As we reported last summer, Italian media giant Mediaset announced that after a long time of careful negotiations, that they were going to bring Sailor Moon back to Italy in January of 2010 on their premium anime channel, Hiro. Fans have since been campaigning for an uncensored version and a complete re-dub. It appears, that they scored a half-victory, as the series is currently undergoing some video editing! When the series first aired, many video edits were made (such as a frozen screen during scenes that were deemed too violent or offensive, or blocks over Japanese text), and these are currently being fixed up. In an email to a fan, Fabrizio Margaria (programming director at Mediaset) said "Non prima di febbraio marzo in quanto i materiali rigenerati non sono ancora pronti." In English, this means that the show will not return until late February or March because the show is not ready for broadcast, hinting that there are at least some edits being amended. The show will come back to the air in late February 2010 according to this release, and all 200 episodes and 3 movies (the article is incorrect in reporting that there are 6 movies) will be broadcast on the non-premium broadcast channel Italia1 in the Fall of 2010. Gianpietro Peia, a Licensing Manager with Italy’s Backstage Licensing Agency, commented that they are proud to once again be handling these negotiations with Toei Animation. He said further that it was not easy to gain the trust of companies in the Land of the Rising Sun, but that it was a little easier for them to get this trust given the incredible work they did with DragonBall. All around there are high and ambitious expectations for the success of Sailor Moon. Stefan Perletto, a Licensing Director with Backstage elaborated, saying that research that they have conducted shows that it is popular with adult women who are now mothers (that discovered the show when it was first broadcast), and that it is also still popular with younger age groups. Hey, our Operation Moonrise Results showed almost the same results! They are still in the process of building a good marketing strategy, but the response of all the companies involved is that they are very open towards this character.

The news out of Italy isn’t all boring and full of optimistic quotes - it seems that Naoko Takeuchi is also going to be involved! Italian artists are currently creating a style guide with the approval of the creator herself! Italian companies will have an entire catalogue of new images and poses for the development of new products. Who knows what sorts of new toys we will see? On Thursday, February 11th, the first of many focus meetings will take place with a presentation of this catalogue at Backstage Licensing. These meetings aim to bring companies together to work on an effective marketing strategy, and this will serve as a launch event for Sailor Moon.

So, you are all probably wondering what this means for Sailor Moon in North America? It doesn't look too likely that Toei will allow a re-dub for North America given this situation in Italy, however perhaps there is some hope for some minor video edits to be fixed in the English version (such as the body lines being erased in the transformation sequences). Irwin Toys line of Sailor Moon dolls, playsets, and other toys were hugely popular, but in North America there's another issue. For the last few years, kids haven't been playing with many toys as of late in favor of video games (unless they are really wowed). New Sailor Moon toys could be successful in North America among all us collectors but it will be difficult to try to market new products to a younger generation.