After more than 20 years off the air, Sailor Moon will return to Cartoon Network under Adult Swim.
Adult Swim is launching a new Friday block of programming called Toonami Rewind this month, per an announcement on their Facebook page. The two-hour block will feature classic shōnen anime shows, including Dragon Ball Z Kai and Naruto.
However, the real highlight of the announcement is the grand return of Sailor Moon and, for the first time, being aired uncensored with its new English dub from Viz Media.
As explained by Popverse, the original English dub of Sailor Moon, which was produced by the now-defunct DiC Entertainment and then Cloverway for later seasons, was heavily censored and edited objectionable content to be more suitable for children back when it aired on Cartoon Network’s original Toonami after-school programming block between 1998 to 2002.
Sailor Moon’s original English dub altered character names, removed cultural Japanese references, and cut entire episodes. The 90’s dub also altered LGBTQ+ storylines with Sailor Neptune and Uranus, originally written as lovers, to be depicted as cousins.
Which was weird because there’s so much sexual tension between them, it felt like incest lmao
8 yr old me mostly watched for the magical girl transformations/monologues. Mostly for Tuxedo Mask tho NGL. 🥹.
But yes, watching cousins cuddle as much definitely set off my 🤔 alarms back then even. Before I knew what censorship was.