When is Sailor Moon anime coming back to the USA?

[Rippy The Nekomatta]

I don't how long people will wait GimmeAnime, that's the problem, people get impatient...we want Sailor Moon so soon, we are happy with the manga being released, but people are still mad about what DiC and Cartoon Network did to it. Many people are clamering for a noncensored Sailor Moon, and also believe that DiC was terrible.

I wish somehow we didn't have all these politics involved in some conglomerate companies, I spent so much time watching from one group yelling at the other, it gets boring and annoying.

[Teca]

A lot of it is just Japanese business culture, which while frustrating, is not something that can be begged, pressured or negotiated to change. We all have to be patient and understand that there's no reason all the companies aren't doing everything they possibly can to get it over to us in the states.

[sailormoonstars]

Well if Sailor Moon dvd box sets are out of print in japan they can let the USA have rights to Sailor Moon anime on dvd them it will be a long time before japan get's more Sailor Moon dvd box sets right?

[Masurao Tsukino]

Unfortunately it is not that simple.
Yes it would take out the issue of backwards importing but if that was all we had to worry about then we probably would have gotten the title before the 20th anniversary.  There is a decent correlation between whether something get's licensed or not and how soon it comes out in Japan, but there are many other technical aspects to it that we can only speculate on.

[GimmeAnime]

Well if Sailor Moon dvd box sets are out of print in japan they can let the USA have rights to Sailor Moon anime on dvd them it will be a long time before japan get's more Sailor Moon dvd box sets right?

If they are out of print in Japan, they will *definitely* not let the USA issue DVDs. This is because they keep them out of print in order to try to get people to purchase them at the prices they want to ask for when they do release it (Ever notice that Disney doesn't have their movies in print all the time? That's why. They are trying to create a demand). Letting another country, especially the US, release the DVDs will lead to Japanese people reverse-importing them in order to get their Sailor Moon fix and that is a sale that Bandai could have made much more money on.

 You will probably see a release in Japan, probably on Blu-Ray, maybe with the show being remastered for HD, at a premium price. We're talking several hundred if not over $1000 for the entire run. Then, after a few years, you'll see an American release. And that's if it follows the standard pattern. They may surprise us, who knows.

[Masurao Tsukino]

Just to be clear: The individual DVDs are NOT out of print just the 20th anniversary collectors boxsets are out of print.  So Bandai is still making Sailor Moon DVDs. 

And to go off of what Gimme Anime said: following the pattern of the Sailor Moon series media items, I highly doubt we will see a Sailor Moon Blu-ray for a while.  The box sets were what Japan got for 20 years, and DVDs were what Japan got for 10 years.  Following this pattern I would say that it is expected to be 10 more years before we see a blu-ray release for Sailor Moon, and yes the price would be absolutely astronomical (especially to U.S. consumers), the running price on the 20th anniversary boxsets are $120-$150 a piece *Please note this price is relatively low for Japanese consumers.  (Just to put that into perspective for any readers out there who dont know the price)

[Rippy The Nekomatta]

I was looking into getting a PAL player so I can get some DVDs from Europe, and I think that Sailor Moon will be released in PAL in England and so forth, I was going to order the copies through England and Germany. At least that was the thought when I was thinking about the releases, because I know people in those countries that do have the idea that its coming out sometime in April or May. English Subs or German Subs, so I'm kind of going should i just get a PAL player so I can have it? Is that a good plan for the Sailor Moon, if it isn't coming to the US anytime soon, I'm going to actually just do that...it might be easier and plus it could be useful.

[Masurao Tsukino]

Sailor Moon from England is the same as Sailor Moon from the U.S (since they mainly repackage what American companies produce), so there is really not too much that has changed content wise.  As for German releases, I have only ever seen VHS releases on the Amazon store, and as far as I can tell the manga is the only thing that has been re-released there.  The only European country that currently has anime rights to the series is Italy, which has dual audio Italian and Japanese, with Italian subtitles.  Purchasing a DVD player from Europe or Japan is essential though if you wish to play these DVDs due to region coding, NTSC and PAL are more for broadcasting purposes. 

[rini]

rippy: i'm not sure how HDTVs handle the difference between PAL and NTSC as compared to standard TVs, but you can't get PAL on standard TVs in the US.

[Rippy The Nekomatta]

I have an older TV, and I think it will work, though there are some new Zero region DVD/Blu-rays coming to the states through Amazon, so I'm doing my research before purchasing.

[rini]

no, PAL doesn't play on standard TVs in the US, even if you have a PAL player. they're completely incompatible. the best analogy i can give is if you tried to run an old mac program (pre OSX) on windows. it wouldn't know what to do with it.

[sailormoonstars]

Will i hope it will come back soon Sailor Moon & anime fans.

[sailormoonstars]

So i hear that NEWS corp want to buy Sailor Moon rights so what do you Sailor Moon and anime fans think?

[sailormoonstars]

So i see now that Sailor Moon dvd's selling higher and more on amazon, ebay becase the manga is selling great these days that are new or used dvds.

[The Ronin]

Per Guideline #3 Please stop bumping the thread.