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Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon: Basic Manga Information
The Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon is a mahou shoujo manga which made its debut in the February 1992 issue of Kodansha's popular shoujo manga magazine Nakayoshi. Its origins were a bit more complicated than one might assume, however.
It all began when Naoko Takeuchi penned a special one-shot story for the launch of the magazine Run Run. Inspired by a suggestion of "sailor-suited allies of justice" from her editor Osa-P, she created the masked heroine Sailor V, and entitled her story Codename wa Sailor V. TV Asahi quickly took notice of the unique story and approached Naoko about turning her manga into an anime for television. As a tool for maximum cross-market exposure, Naoko's story would be relaunched as a regular series for Nakayoshi as the anime ran on TV Asahi.
As the story began to be expanded for a full-length series, Sailor V was slated to be the main protagonist as in the original Codename wa Sailor V. The series was to be called Bishoujo Senshi Sailor V, and was advertised as such in the January 1992 Nakayoshi, just one month prior to the series' debut! Eventually, however, Naoko created Sailor Moon and her team of pretty soldiers and the rest is history.
The Sailor Moon manga made its debut in the February 1992 issue of Nakayoshi, and the anime first aired one month later on March 7th. The manga continued to appear monthly in the magazine for five years, and the last chapter was published in the March 1997 issue. It spanned 52 acts in total, and several special side stories were released. These included Casablanca, the Lover of Princess Kaguya, four installments of "Chibi-Usa's Picture Diary" and three chapters of the "Exam Battles" stories. Later, another special story called Parallel Sailor Moon appeared in the Materials Collection Artbook. Only Casablanca and the Lover of Princess Kaguya were collected into the original tankoubon.
The Sailor Moon manga was originally published in 18 tankoubon, but was re-issued (along with the Codename: Sailor V manga) starting in October 2003 into 14 Shinzouban volumes. Two side story volumes were released as well, which included all the side stories, including the Picture Diary, Exam Battles, and Parallel Sailor Moon chapters. These re-issued volumes contain touched-up artwork, rewritten dialogue, brand new covers, and feature a new "official" English title, Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, to correspond with the live action series, which ran on TV as the "Renewal" volumes were released.
In addition to these tankoubon, several illustration collections were also released. There are seven total; one for each of the five series as well as the Materials Collection and the ultra-rare Infinity Volume.
Like the Sailor Moon anime, the manga consists of five story arcs, or series: Sailor Moon, Black Moon, Infinity, Dream, and Stars. The manga does not contain a story arc which includes the Aliens who appear in the first part of Sailor Moon R. Takeuchi had not yet concluded the first series so Toei Animation was forced to create a short story so Takeuchi could catch up.
The manga has been translated into many other languages and exported to countries all around the world. However, the English version is no longer available, as it went out of print in 2005. This has prompted North American fans to re-introduce Sailor Moon on the internet in the form of scanlations, which are scans of the manga with the text replaced with translations. It's come full circle, as the series was available in this format prior to being officially released in English. Although these scanlations are without question an easy way to read the manga for those who otherwise would be unable to, always remember to support the series by purchasing it.
Although it is not as well-known as its anime counterpart, the manga is a beautiful and interesting story, and arguably most importantly, the original version, presented as intended by the series' creator. Please see below on ways to purchase the manga.
Purchasing the Manga
There are several resources available to Sailor Moon fans to get their own copies of the manga. We have divided said resources into categories, depending on how you wish to buy yours!
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Supplemental Images
We have provided some supplemental images for this page. Enjoy!
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January 1992 Nakayoshi Ad for "Takeuchi-sensei's New Series, Bishoujo Senshi Sailor V" The ad depicts all the characters flashing the "V" sign, as a celebration of the new series' debut! Click image for full version! |