Saban Moon (Sailor Moon American Series)

Saban_Moon_Music_Video — Saban Moon Music Video

The only thing released of this series

Concept[]

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.

Story[]

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.