Toei Animation has announced that the new reboot of popular anime series ‘Sailor Moon’ will air in Japan in July.
Producer Atsutoshi Umezawa has stated that the new series will not be a remake or continuation of the original, but rather a faithful adaptation of author Naoko Takeuchi’s original manga, and that it will be “starting from scratch again”.
In the original animated series, the English dub modified various characters’ sexual and gender identities, including Sailors Uranus and Neptune being changed from a lesbian couple to “cousins”. The first season also featured a same sex male couple in the form of villains Zoisite and Kunzite (Malachite in the English dub). In the U.S. broadcast Zoisite was changed to a woman. The fifth series ‘Sailor Starlights’ which revolved around three women from a destroyed planet who disguise as male pop stars as they search for their lost princess, never got an English dub.
The new adaptation is reportedly going to be aimed at an older audience and is intended to be more faithful to the original manga, which was darker than its first cartoon counterpart. Consequently, there is much hope that the reboot will keep the identities of the LGBT characters intact.
Sophie Joske
