Sailor Moon S 90s Dub

I've been rewatching online lately the old Dub of Sailor Moon S.  As I said before I'm very nostalgic for the classic Dub (which we default to calling DiC even though DiC wasn't doing it anymore by the S season) in-spite of it's many problems, and S was the best season in my opinion.  And with the Viz Dub starting S soon, I figured it'd be good to freshen up on it to compare.

Besides censorship issues the biggest issue with the old Dub for S is that Amarra(Haruka)'s voice sounds very robotic.  I generally think the old Dub voice actors did pretty well, so this one really stands out like a sore thumb.

On the censorship issue.  It's interesting because S has the single most notorious change of them all, making Haruka and Michiru into Cousins as Amarra and Michelle (that was the easiest name to westernize since it is just how the Japanese spell Michelle).  But outside that it does not seem very censored at all.

In the first season anytime the Scouts costumes got ripped up revealing even more skin the Dub wouldn't show it.  All that leg is fine, but anymore skin is too much to handle it seemed.  But at the end of S Uranus and Neptune get theirs tore up and it's unaltered in the Dub.  Meanwhile it leaves the suggestive game of Twister the villains played.  But most shocking of all is Hotaru on a Cross, that is some pretty edgy stuff for a kids show.

The Dub of R felt the need to censor Serena falling to her knees in episode 80.  Some, not even all, but some adults will read that as suggestive of something.  But the idea that it's something you need to censor from kids is ridiculous.  With S plenty of things more suggestive got past them just fine.

Sailor Moon S is the darkest season and all that darkness seemed to get past the Dubbers just fine.  But something that could have sent a positive message they had to censor. I assure you anyone who'd object to Amarra and Michelle being Gay on religious grounds would have eventually turned the show off anyway once Hotaru was on the Cross.

I also suspect the voice actors didn't much care that their supposed to be hiding that they're in a relationship.  Well Amarra sounded so emotionless that there is no way to tell, but whoever voiced Michelle was definitely thinking of herself as playing a Lover.  The dialogue may have told us they're cousins almost every episode, but the performance didn't seem to care.

I remember back when I had no idea about any of these dub change controversies.  First time I went on a Sailor Moon website I thought "who the heck is this Usagi they keep talking about".  But strangely I have no memory of ever NOT knowing Uranus and Neptune are Lesbians.

Maybe the fact that I've never agreed with there being anything wrong with relationships between cousins effected my perspective.

At any rate, let's hope the new Dub does justice to how awesome S is.