"How's it goin', sis?"
Last updated: 03/24/05
Concerning the Sailor Stars dub, there is still no official announcements concerning it's release in North America. While during the summer of 2001, an e-mail supposedly originating from the Toonami Mailing List circulated details concerning a dub to air "July 27th", this e-mail was actually an April Fool's joke modified to remove any hints that it was only a gag instead of a real press release. I should know-it was my joke. I thought it would die, and because of the Cloverway e-mails, it's presence has been fading, but I typed in "Sasha Lights" in a search engine and found several pages still proclaiming it as reality.
Since I've gotten a few more angry responses to this joke since this site was put up, I'd better explain yet again-I never wrote this joke with the intention of misleading fans. When it originally ran on April 1st 2001, I ended it with an April Fool's disclaimer to make absolutely sure nobody would think it was a genuine press release and simply laugh at it as a joke about bad English dubbing. Since then, the April Fools portions were removed, along with any indication of where it originally came from. I discovered that many people passing it along were actually claiming they had personally received it from the Toonami Mailing List that I made up for this joke. The deliberate twisting of facts did not come from my end. I debunked it most of the summer of 2001, and generally got flamed for trying to help. They were entertaining flames, yes, but flames none the less.
For the benefit of anyone who is STILL receiving the e-mail, here's the original, for your amusement.
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Dear Toonami Fans:
Ever since we began airing Sailor Moon S and Super S during our Toonami block of programming, we have been receiving anxious letters from Sailor Moon fans wondering just one thing-Will Sailor Moon Stars be dubbed?
We've repeatedly stated that we can't actually dub the episodes ourselves, but we've promised Cloverway, the company that is currently in charge of the dubbing, that once they give Stars to us, we will air it. Well, we've finally received all 34 episodes of the Sailor Moon Stars series. We have plans to begin airing them on July 27th! For those of you who aren't familiar with the Stars season, we'd like to sum it up for you: *The evil Neherenia makes one last go at the Scouts, and almost succeeds! This first section of Sailor Moon Stars resolves the ending of the previous arc of episodes and propels us straight into the exciting ending series of Sailor Moon! Plus, the new scouts from S finally return! Yes, it's your friends Amara, Michelle, Trista, and Hotaru! Plus, Sailor Moon becomes Eternal Sailor Moon, and gets the Eternal Moon Scepter. *After the Neherenia scandal is taken care of, Serena and her friends discover that their favorite girl group, the Three Lights, are touring in their hometown! And of course, they're the biggest fans of this spicy trio of female superstars! There's Kyra Lights, a black haired woman who eventually becomes like a sister to Serena. There's Jessica Lights, a very tall brunette who likes books even more than Amy. Then there's the feisty Sasha Lights, with a temper even meaner than Raye's! *At the same time, a mysterious group of NEW Scouts shows up-The Starlight Scouts! There's Sailor Star Fighter, who attacks with "Star Serious Laser," Sailor Star Maker, who attacks with "Star Gentle Raindrop," and finally, there's Sailor Star Healer, who attacks with "Star Sensitive Inferno." These mysterious Scouts are searching for their princess, Princess Fireball. But just who is Fireball? *Serena comes home one day to find out that she suddenly has a three-year old SISTER! Shades of Rini? This little girl, named Little Rini, also becomes Sailor Mini Mini Moon! Wow! *Plus, there's the new villains lurking around - Galaxia, who seeks the power of the Star Crystals. She sends out her minions, Iron Mouse, Lead Crow, Aluminum Siren, and Tin Kitty, who keep turning people into Star Stealers when they get their Star Crystals. Looks like the Scouts have their work cut out for them! Thank you so much for your support of Toonami. We're also nearing a deal to expand our Toonami line-up this summer with Escaflowne, Cowboy Beebop, and Ursula's Kiss. Stay tooned! Sincerely, D. Leugner, Director of Programming at Cartoon Network |
None of this controversy has stopped me from my yearly prank, however. I followed up this joke in 2002 with a Sailor Moon Live Action Movie press release, which included a black Sailor Mercury and Britney Spears being cast as Sailor Jupiter. It didn't catch on. This too was labeled with the April Fool's disclaimer, though this one was so wild that apparently nobody needed the disclaimer to discern fact from fiction. In 2003, I wrote one where the vague announcement on Sailormoon Channel came true and Naoko delivered the news about the "new series," which featured Sailors Earth and Sun and also revealed Haruka's true past as the Prince of Uranus. Again, the fact that I praised SOS and had Naoko make many comments about silly foreigners was a dead giveaway before the disclaimer.
In 2004, I posted the yearly prank to the usual Indiana Sailor Moon Mailing List, the Sailormoon Soapbox Forums (where the evil mods stickied it for the day), and even the SMULC index page. While nobody was seriously fooled, it was well-received - by this point, it's just tradition. Oh, and April Fool's jokes involving turtles are always good fun. Of course, should anyone fall for it (the Stars joke took a few months to gather steam), just point them over here.