Why Were The American Sailor Moon Dolls So Ugly?

if you ask a bunch of different people what their favorite anime is chances are you're going to hear the answer sailor moon quite a few times since the debut of the manga in 1991 and the anime in 1992 it's become nothing short of a worldwide phenomenon that of course is still going pretty strong today a lot and i mean a lot of people grew up with the sailor soldiers or sealer scouts as they were known here for a while in america myself included i also count sailor moon among my all-time favorite anime and that's why i wanted to make this video today focusing on the dolls that spawned from the franchise specifically the american ones that are pretty infamous for looking like that there's two big answers for why the first run of sailor moon dolls here in america are so unfortunate looking the first is that they just simply are they were a poor attempt at translating an anime style face and our products of just a very different time the second answer is a little more complex and involves delving into the history of sailor moon's import to america the way anime in general was perceived here in the 90s and even a discussion of sexism in the toy and animation industries so yeah let's get into it so america was not the first country to import and dub sailor moon spain and france were the first in 1993 and after them nine more countries would follow suit before america i obviously grew up with the american dub and that's the perspective i'm going to be speaking of but if you grew up with sailor moon in another country i'm definitely interested in hearing your perspective and how she was marketed there compared to here but anyways it wasn't until 1995 that american production companies began to see the potential of bringing sailor moon here following the success of several other ensemble superhero team franchises such as the x-men animated series batman the animated series teenage mutant ninja turtles etc but most specifically the massive success of mighty morphin power rangers but there was a small problem all those shows were ostensibly aimed at boys there were prominent female characters of course as well as a pretty significant young female audience that enjoyed these shows as well but the marketing was almost always primarily focused on young boys an action-adventure series made specifically with young girls in mind was something that frankly made these production companies pretty uncomfortable now sometimes these companies did take notice of their female fans as well as seen with for example bandai's short-lived mind of power rangers fashion dolls ever so subtly named power rangers for girls but that topic is definitely its own beast we're talking about sailor moon today a female-led action series was not necessarily new territory per se as seen with franchises such as she-ra and jim in the holograms in the 80s than later carmen san diego but the 90s wasn't exactly drowning in girl power so to say another obstacle was that sailor moon was an anime and believe it or not there was a time when american companies weren't at all very receptive to japanese properties by this time manga and anime did already have a pretty strong and dedicated following here in america but it hadn't yet reached a very strong mainstream prevalence dubbing anime was considered a relatively inexpensive venture but not a popular one so a little bit of a bidding war broke out between companies who all had their own ideas of how to make sailor moon more palatable for an american audience yes i promise this is all relevant and we'll be getting to the dolls here in a minute a good example of just how hostile american production companies were to anime at the time can be seen through renaissance atlantic's bid for the rights to sailor moon which included them using the name to create an entirely new show half animated and half live action a short promo was made and pitched to saab and entertainment which has now become something of a laughing stock in the fandom which funny as it is looking back it does really represent the attitude towards anime at the time especially when it comes to children's entertainment ultimately it was deke entertainment who got the rights to sailor moon and while they didn't want to make as drastic of a change as renaissance they definitely took their own liberties starting of course with giving the characters americanized names and erasing as many references to japan as possible but also some changes on a deeper level as well see in japan sailor moon is what is known as a shoujo and seasoned anime and manga fans will immediately know what that implies but for those that don't shoujo is simply a demographic category defined by girls and young women this covers a wide variety of genres but even within the more action-focused or superhero properties like the magical girl sub-genre that sailor moon falls into there is far less emphasis on action and more so on romance friendships and emotional melodrama sailor moon of course was no exception there are obviously fight scenes in action and even some fairly heavy violence at times but not to the extent one would assume when they think of a superhero show the show was far more about the main character's relationships both platonic and especially romantic as well as her growth as a character which was a pretty far cry from the usual confident wisecracking trigger-happy male protagonist that dominated 90's action-adventure animation deke originally didn't seem to think that sort of thing would be very popular with american audiences a show for girls featuring girls being girly and doing girly things no way would anyone watch that after all girls don't like superheroes and they certainly don't buy toys so early on in the production process deke decided to rebrand sailor moon so to speak they couldn't heavily alter the content of the show not for lack of trying anyways but they could control the marketing early promotional materials for sailor moon made sure to liberally mention that it could be watched by either boys or girls and that it was action-packed full of fighting and excitement and all those things young boys really love right ratings and shares sailor moon is the biggest sales and merchandising phenomenon ever in japan girls will love sailor moon's transformation from everyday school girl to glamorous superhero boys will love the non-stop action this is an action adventure series that will blow your mind and you can tell even this early on they were struggling with this tactic somewhat like in the trailer for example where they had to resort to using clips of the villain zoecite disguise the sailor moon fighting rather than shots of the actual main character and that brings us finally to the dolls bandai was to be responsible for bringing sailor moon toys to america and at this point bandai had already been manufacturing sailor moon dolls in japan since 1992 they already looked pretty nice so bringing them to america should be as simple as giving them new packaging and distributing them here right unfortunately no it wouldn't be that simple mostly because american bandai employees didn't really think the japanese dolls fit the image they wanted to give to sailor moon in america we looked at the dolls and decided that the dolls that are sold in japan are certainly beautiful dolls but they're not what american girls are used to we looked at the japanese dolls and to us their faces looked very childlike the eyes were sad we thought that the sailor moon character should be a strong character a happy character heroic character and that this doll look from japan would not convey that to american girl they use words like sad and childlike but i really think it boils down to the fact that the faces were too soft and too feminine for what they wanted to present sailor moon as they kept the anime style eyes for the sake of character recognition but attempted to make the faces appear older and gave them slightly more intense expressions and it goes without saying that it just did not work not even in the way they wanted i don't think so we ended up with what is widely known today as the ugly face mold seen in early american sailor moon fashion dolls bandai only made two complete lines of dolls one 11.5 inch tall assortment and one six inches tall these were called adventure dolls which again seems like a very intentional attempt at distancing themselves from the overtly feminine connotations of the label of fashion doll the first assortment also incorrectly featured every character wearing knee-high boots which apparently was due to bandai believing american parents would find healed pumps too sexually provocative i don't know the 90s were a weird time after this however they passed the baton to canadian-based company irwin who began by distributing bandai's original dolls in different packaging then different clothes fixing the boot issue some taller dolls with different slightly improved faces then making the switch to the new face mold in the year 2000 with varying results so yeah all that to say that the reason sailor moon dolls in america looked so unfortunate is because american companies were so afraid of the show being seen as too feminine as a girls show for girls that it wouldn't succeed unless it appealed also to what in their minds young boys wanted to see just one small largely unsuccessful effort in a much broader even more unsuccessful plan even naoko takaouchi the author of the original sailor moon manga was not very fond of the american sailor moon dolls on a trip to america after seeing them in a shop she lamented that they weren't very cute and had inaccuracies in their accessories she did seem to think that the american bandai face mold at least suited the queen barrel doll pretty well though which that is one interesting thing about the american run of sailor moon dolls for all their faults they were one of the only ones to expand the line very far outside of the sailor soldiers going so far as to include villains like professor tomoe kaori and the negemoon family as for the show itself the final product of geek sailor moon dub actually ended up removing or censoring most instances of violence within the show and intentionally aging down the intended audience among other now infamous instances of censorship where is it where did it go hey that's mine sorry i don't see your name on it anywhere loser once it actually started airing sailor moon more or less retained its reputation as a quote unquote girls show with deep later on really leaning into more of an overall girl power message as well and yet despite this this show still managed to garner a very significant male fan base huh go figure and it was sailor moon's success that led to future female-led action adventure properties such as winx club which totally spies among others which yeah these shows they have their own fair criticisms as far as gendered marketing goes but i just have a soft spot in my heart for franchises that are unapologetically well girly sailor moon's history is really just an anecdote and a longer history of toy and animation companies not believing that young girls are a legitimate audience for more context paul deeney was once quoted in 2013 recalling the experiences of executives telling him very specifically did not focus on the female characters in his shows to make them less intelligent and less interesting than the males they wanted to actively alienate the female audience because they believed having an entirely male audience was more profitable and sustainable he essentially implied that during this time superhero shows ran the risk of being cancelled if they gained too large of a female following children's media has certainly come a long way since 2013 though thankfully but this mindset really hasn't gone away entirely and yet sailor moon persists 30 years later in all of its girly romantic sparkly and glittery glory as always thank you guys so much for watching if you were one of us lucky ones that grew up with sailor moon let me know down below your best memories of her if you owned any of these dolls and what you thought of them etc and if you haven't already be sure to like and subscribe and follow my other socials for any future fashion doll content

Channel: Darling Dollz

Views: 235,860

Keywords: sailor moon, fashion dolls, anime, dolls

Id: 29hJU2On208

Length: 13min 32sec (812 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 15 2021