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Thursday, July 14, 2011

In the Name of the Moon, I will Re-License You!?

Things have been astir in the anime and manga world lately regarding an old classic: Sailor Moon. Last March, Kodansha USA announced that it would be releasing the original Sailor Moon manga in North America, and now, earlier this week, Great Eastern Entertainment (the merchandising company which handles almost all licensed anime merchandise in North America) has announced several pieces of Sailor Moon merchandise.
The merchandising company Great Eastern Entertainment lists four Sailor Moon products on its website as "coming soon" — a set of playing cards, a wall scroll, a notebook, and a binder [...]. The new products have a Toei Animation logo printed on them but also have "No Price Yet." Great Eastern Entertainment has produced Sailor Moon merchandise in the past.
Original Article at Anime News Network 



These new developments with the old series are big news. In North America, Sailor Moon held a similar standing as Dragon Ball Z, but for girls (and most boys, but they won't admit that). The English adaption, however, was altered and much of the dialog was changed, in order to make it appropriate for younger audiences, and the final two seasons were never licensed for release. Fans have been begging for a re-release of Sailor Moon for ages, and its looking like that wish is finally starting to come true. There has been an "international revival" of the series happening globally, with the licenses being renewed in countries outside of Japan. However, as of yet, there has been no mention of the series being licensed in North America, but at this stage it seems only a matter of time.

Sailor Moon is such a big deal in the anime world, that whichever company gets the rights to release it in North America will be making lots of money. Several years ago, before the dissolution of ADV Films, David Williams (now working for Sentai Filmworks) once commented on how much he wished that Toei would let them license and re-dub Sailor Moon. Just this last April, at Anime Boston, Justin Rojas, the Social Media Manager at Funimation, said that the show is something that Funimation is definitely interested in.

It will be interesting to see who manages to acquire Sailor Moon, though I personally have my money on Funimation.

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