Back in 2018 Cecilia published an in-depth article on a doomed attempt to remake a classic anime Sailor Moon for American audiences. It was a fantastic story but his search for unseen footage of the never-aired show sadly ended in disappointment.
The project, known among fans as Sabanmond through the involvement of children’s television producer Haim Saban, has been a topic of great interest since the 1990s, not only because of its bizarre overall premise (lots of anime like macros was heavily localized for western audiences and we all know about it Power Rangersbut seldom had anything been complete made new), but because the program had never been shown. As Cecilia wrote in 2018:
Sailor Moon The fan base is indescribably huge. Its most extreme ending was obsessed with live American action Sailor Moon have been ingrained for decades dusk Fans might hate reading the entirety fifty shades of gray. on scattered Sailor Moon Fan sites have real connoisseurs collecting the junk from the never-aired show. It’s blasphemous. And it’s hard to look away.
For Decades All Fans Had To Go On, was a blurry trailer shown at Anime Expo 1995 and released at the same time the original Japanese anime made its US debut. Now, four years after Cecilia’s report, YouTuber Ray Mona has hit the jackpot.
As part of their documentary Finding Saban Moon: The Western World of Sailor MoonMona — with the help of Cecilia, who can be seen in the video — actually manages to get the show’s pilot episode (from the Library Of Congress, no less) and includes it in her film for us all to finally see it.
It’s… look, it sure is something.
I think everyone would agree that it’s better for everyone around the world that this was never released. It’s far better that it existed, a buried relic for us to marvel at as a piece of alternate history, one we’ve happily avoided.
The video above is just the pilot episode, but like Cecilia’s reportthe whole story is worth catching up on (especially for a much higher quality version of the opening credits/promo), So you should start the story here with its first chapter.
