Sailor Moon Animax Interviews - The Producers, Part 1 of 3

This is the first in a series of interviews done on an Animax variety show. This first part features an interview with Juinichi Sato, the series director for Sailor Moon and Sailor Moon R.

Translator's Notes:

Sato Junichiro refers to Sailormoon as being "Exactly like Mito Koumon". Mito Koumon is a Japanese period drama that has been running since the 1960s. It is a show that follows a format that is repeated in each episode, and there are over 1000 episodes. Mito Koumon is an extremely well-known and familiar show to all Japanese, therefore the reference to it in this interview does not need any kind of introduction or explanation since it is assumed that any Japanese viewer would instantly know what it is. For more information about this show, you can visit Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mito_K%C... Or the official site: http://www.tbs.co.jp/mito/

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The word "sentai" literally means "fighting group", but in this instance its usage refers to a style of live action television in which there is a task force of five or more super heros that fight evil together. Sailormoon, although not live-action, is similar in format to many popular sentai style shows. We left the word "sentai" untranslated because most fans of Japanese entertainment are already familiar with what it is, but in case you don't know, well, now you do after reading this translator's note. :D

Sailormoon is referred to in Wikipedia's article about sentai: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Se...

While all audiences may not agree that Sailormoon falls under the category of "sentai", many Japanese fans agree that Sailormoon is a "female sentai" show, making it unique in that many other sentai shows feature a male lead character and mostly male team members.

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Animax, the station that aired these interviews featuring important people in the creation of the Sailormoon animated series, is a Japanese satellite TV station, similar to an American cable television network like Cartoon network which is dedicated to showing only animated programming. Animax specializes in showing anime shows, and has been on the air since 1998. While the station airs in many East Asian countries, it has limited involvement in countries in Europe and North America. Despite this, Animax has been known to air dubbed works by Bandai Entertainment, Funimation, and others in foreign (non-Japanese) language on their networks in countries outside of Japan. They are very versatile in using dubs and translations by groups and companies not affiliated with them, which gives them a very large varieties of shows to air.

Although Sailormoon is currently re-airing on Animax and there are several promotions for this in Japan, it is unlikely that rights to Sailormoon will be renewed because of its syndication. Many older popular anime shows are on syndication on Animax, and so Sailormoon being added to the list of what they air is not especially meaningful. That being said, the promotions for Sailormoon are cute and nostalgic for many Animax viewers, so I hope you'll enjoy!

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