The
Saban Moon
was an attempt to do an Americanized version of Sailor moon that was a
combination of Live action and animated. It sounds as bad as a concept
for it, not the actors the people behind the camera get the blame.
It
should be an American cartoon series, but for some reasons was
canceled, and only a 2 minutes music video can be seen of this. Saban
Moon is the name chosen by the majority of fans who have seen this
video.
When Sailor Moon was up for bids by Toei to be
produced in North America, Renaissance-Atlantic Entertainment, who
worked closely with Bandai and Toon Makers, Inc., conceptualized their
own version of the property, which was half live-action and half
Western-style animation. Toon Makers produced a 17-minute proof of
concept presentation video, as well as a two-minute music video, for
this concept, which Renaissance-Atlantic presented to Toei. Toei
ultimately rejected Renaissance-Atlantic's bid because the series as
Renaissance-Atlantic and Toon Makers envisioned it would have cost
significantly more than simply exporting and dubbing the original anime.
The music video was exhibited at a panel at Anime Expo 1998 by
Allen Hastings, then with NewTek, Inc., and met with scorn, ridicule,
and derision. A convention attendee taped the music video off the screen
and uploaded the footage, which includes an introduction by Hastings
and brief comments by other convention attendees afterwards, to the
Internet. The clip has since been copied numerous times and can
currently be viewed on many streaming video sites. Because of the
relatively poor quality of the source video and circulated footage, many
anime fans believed that the music video was actually a leaked trailer
for the now-inactive project instead of an exhibition of a promotion
piece. Additional copies of the footage, with Hastings' intro excised,
have since been uploaded to the Internet and served only to bolster the
mistaken belief.
Because Renaissance-Atlantic had previously been
instrumental in Saban Entertainment's acquisition of Toei's Super
Sentai series for reimagining as Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, people
who viewed the music video mistakenly believed that Saban had actually
created it and began to call it "Saban Moon." The Toon Makers music
video has been called a worst-case scenario with regards to how Sailor
Moon would have been presented in North America, in comparison to the
original anime episodes that were eventually dubbed by DIC Entertainment
and Cloverway Inc. and aired. Rocky Solotoff, Toon Makers' president
and founder, wrote, directed, and produced the pilot episode of
Renaissance-Atlantic's version of Sailor Moon, which to this day, has
not been exhibited publicly.
All five Guardian Senshi are
depicted in the music video. Though Solotoff is legally prohibited from
divulging much information regarding the Renaissance-Atlantic/Toon
Makers version of Sailor Moon, he does reveal, in an interview with
Animefringe magazine, the origin of the concept and music video,
debunking many of the stories and speculations that had been connected
to both. Details revealed in the interview include confirmation that
both a white and black cat were planned to be in the series, although
only a fluffy white cat is seen in the music video (according to the
lyrics, this cat was meant to be Luna), and that each Senshi was written
to be of a different nationality.
Two curious remnants of Toon
Makers' involvement with Sailor Moon remained after Renaissance-Atlantic
shelved the project. The Renaissance-Atlantic series featured vehicles
which did not appear in the original metaseries. One of these was the
Moon Cycle, which Bandai manufactured a toy version of as part of the
North American line of Sailor Moon toys. The Moon Cycle toy remains one
of the more curious pieces of Sailor Moon merchandise produced for the
North American market. More prominently, the Sailor Moon logo featured
at the end of the music video was retained as the official North
American Sailor Moon logo for the metaseries and all related programs
and merchandising.