The newest installment in the Sailormoon series is "Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon," a live-action series based on the original manga season. PGSM debuted in Japan on October 4, 2003 and ended on September 25, 2004. The show released 49 Acts, 1 "Making of" special, and 4 DVD releases including a "Special-Act" and an "Act Zero" which showed the future of the cast and the beginnings of SailorV respectively.[1] PGSM basically follows the flow of the original manga with the fight against the "Dark Kingdom," but it does offer some twists which enhance the original storyline.
The storyline is the same: Tsukino Usagi is an average teenage girl who finds a talking cat that gives her the power to transform into Sailor Moon to fight against a revived enemy. Usagi is joined by four other soldiers who discover their mystical pasts. Now the differences:
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The "Sailor Guardians." "Sailor Soldiers" is now translated as "Sailor Guardians." |
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Luna and Artemis are plush toys/CG animates. Yes, yes, it's true. It seems real talking cats aren't as available as they used to be so the producers went on to the next "best" thing. The plush toys are used for no-action/little-action scenes like in the bedroom, on a character's shoulder, or on the street. CG Animation makes the cats jump, flip, and walk during "fight" scenes (and no, it's not used for talking sequences). To talk, the cats just bob their heads up and down and don't move their lips. However, the plush toys do have different faces to show expressions when Luna and Artemis are sad/happy/mad/aggravated/whatever. (Note: Luna's voice actress [Han Keiko] has returned to voice the plushie, but Artemis's is different.) Speaking of Luna ... |
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There is a new guardian: "Sailor Luna." In Act 26, Luna reveals that she can transform into a human girl named Luna Nekono (she kinda looks like Chibi-usa except with long, black Usagi-like hair and cat ears). Luna become Sailor Luna through "Luna Prism Power, Make Up!" and wields her own Moon Stick (like the one SMoon uses for "Moon Healing Escalation"), the Luna Moonlight stick. Nevertheless, Luna can change from cat-human involuntarily when she sneezes and at will. |
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The guardians' hair changes color Finally! They have some kind of secret identities now! The guardians in "human" form have regular hair colors (brown, black, etc.). When they transform, their hair changes to blue, yellow, or light-brown colors; the color change is actually an animated part of their transformations. I really like this idea because it stops the question: "How come nobody can figure out that the only girl with blue hair is Mercury?". |
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The guardians transform using their communicators A good low-budget idea. Instead of having the hassle of carrying around those pens, the guardians use their communicators to transform. It does make more sense to me and I kinda like that idea. These communicators function in the same way the wristwatch ones from the anime do. However, there is no picture. |
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Aino Minako is a singing idol. Aino Minako is very popular in the PGSM world. Minako is an idol singer who Usagi still imitates and admires. I think they wanted to take Minako's dream of becoming an idol a little further and just made her one. I do like this new change because it makes Minako a bit more mysterious and serious - more like the "leader" of the guardians. This also helps to explain something that happens in the series .... |
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Crown Karaoke Bar. The new "hot-spot" is a karaoke bar that is the guardian's home base. It's still run by Motoki (Andrew) but there are no games, just singing. I guess they wanted to support the whole "Idol Minako" idea by having Usagi and the other sing her songs. Motoki, himself, is very different from the Motoki we know now. He's silly, immature, nervous around women, SINGLE, and just plain silly. But he's still cute and Mamoru's best friend. |
You can imagine there would be many problems when making a live-action series based on a fantasy world with many magic powers, and PGSM really shows how hard it can be. First off, the transformation sequences have very little to them and include very little character movement and a lot of animation and "flash, flash!" And yes, many times the attacks looks very corny and badly executed, but that's a little understandable. Action scenes also have their problems; most of the unnecessary flips and jumps by the guardians are done by professionals and some animation sequences. I mean, you can really tell when they had to stop production and change the actresses. The acting is very different from what we would expect so it's generally considered "poor" or "bad" by most people. However, PGSM does make up its mistakes with a nice script, some interesting twists, and a good take on the BSSM series. It truly is an enjoyable show and a definite look for all Moon-fanatics!
Interested? Find out more about PGSM at:
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1 PGSM General Show Information. Sailor Dream.