Sailor Moon manga

How about a character dying? They pretty much all die a few times (but they get better...)

What stands out to me is that at one point Mamoru (who is Tuxedo Mask, Darien in the English translation) went off to college in America and Usagi / Sailor Moon ("Bunny" in the original English manga, but only someone whose only exposure to Sailor Moon comes from that translation would call her that) is depressed because he broke his promise to write and she thinks he's forgotten about her. Turns out he'd been killed offscreen pretty much right after he left, months ago if I remember correctly. (That poor guy is mistreated horribly by the universe.)

Someone who's read it more recently than I have could fill in more details and smooth out anything I'm misremembering... which is possible, because sometimes that manga gets confusing.

The solution to this is simple, read the series yourself.

Lythande said:

How about a character dying? They pretty much all die a few times (but they get better...)

What stands out to me is that at one point Mamoru (who is Tuxedo Mask, Darien in the English translation) went off to college in America and Usagi / Sailor Moon ("Bunny" in the original English manga, but only someone whose only exposure to Sailor Moon comes from that translation would call her that) is depressed because he broke his promise to write and she thinks he's forgotten about her. Turns out he'd been killed offscreen pretty much right after he left, months ago if I remember correctly. (That poor guy is mistreated horribly by the universe.)

Someone who's read it more recently than I have could fill in more details and smooth out anything I'm misremembering... which is possible, because sometimes that manga gets confusing.

Click to expand...

They killed Tuxedo Mask??! But . . . but, he was one of the primary characters!

I never read the manga, but was a big fan of the animated series as a teen. Their on-again/off-again romance was one of the big draws of the series.

That would do it, Ken. Fans would be outraged and heartbroken.

ETA: Went and did some searching on this issue. Turns out Sailor Moon later goes and retrieves his heart from the evil Emperor and brings him back to life. But without the hindsight of later issues, it would be a huge thing for a fan.

I used to watch Sailor Moon when I was little, and I watched about half of it again a couple years ago. Here's the gist of what I remember:

There's about 160 episodes in the anime, and 18 volumes of the original manga. I'll assume you know the basic premise so I won't bore you with that, but there is also a sequel series about Usagi/Serena's daughter, Chibiusa/Rini, which features the original cast as well as several new Sailor Scouts. I've never seen/read it, so you'll have to research that one on your own. Also, just like with any other anime, a lot of stuff was cut from the series when it was localized for America, so keep that in mind. For example, even tough it's never openly stated in the series, the original author did confirm that two of the Scouts, Neptune and Uranus, are lesbians; this was cut from the English adaptation, and they instead just called them "cousins".
Anything else you can just find on Wikipedia or the Sailor Moon Wikia. Or you can just watch/read the series yourself (laughs). Sit yourself down for an twelve hour Magical Girl marathon, aye?

I honestly couldn't even tell you which arc it's in ^^; I have the vague idea that the manga has 5 arcs and it's the beginning of the 4th, after a time jump, but don't actually own it so I can't look it up and I can't really remember anything else.

I've been a Sailor Moon fan since 2000. I got into it with the "Lunarock" album, the second English soundtrack album. Yes, my introduction to this massive franchise was an album of songs for which I had no context. I simply saw it at Wal-Mart, thought "I vaguely remember reading about this 'Sailor Moon' thing on the Internet, and, hey, hot girls", and I bought it.

I also got the English dub of the first movie on VHS at Toys 'R' Us. That was my first story introduction to the franchise, and it provided essential information such as Serena being an ordinary girl "who just happens to own the world's most powerful compact". Yeah, the English dub is stupid, but I love it so.

I also got a VHS tape of the first two episodes, started watching the series early on weekday mornings, got the first English soundtrack album, got the second and third movies in English on VHS, got the first and second movies in Japanese on VHS, got the third season (the "S" series) on VHS from Wal-Mart, etc. Eventually, I started getting Sailor Moon on DVD, and I happen to own every Sailor Moon DVD released in North America, although some (mostly the English dub discs but also one of the Japanese R discs) have bad spots that make some episodes unplayable, and I shudder to think of what the replacement costs for these long-out-of-print DVDs would be.

(And, yes, I love the 2003-2004 live-action series. I left my computer on all night to download those episodes on dial-up soon after they aired in Japan.)

Anyway, manga. I got the entire original run in English as put out by Tokyopop. I've gotten into the fourth arc (the covers are branded "Sailor Moon Super S") and the equivalent spot in the anime. Yeah, after all of these years, I find it incredibly hard to slog through Super S. Way too much filler and focus on Chibi-Usa. I might just skip ahead to Stars for now.

The entire manga series has recently been re-released - along with the precursor series, "Codename: Sailor V". I have yet to get these, but here are some bits of info that might be useful:

This is an English translation of an updated version of the manga that was released to tie in with the live-action series. Technology was updated (CDs instead of floppy disks, etc.). I'm not sure of any other changes.

The original English translation called Sailor Moon "Bunny" and Tuxedo Mask "Darien". I believe the other Senshi (Scouts) were given their English dub names as well. (Sailor Moon is named "Serena" in the English dub.) I believe the new translation retains the Japanese names.