Sailor Moon Eternal Edition Volume 1 Comparison (Kodansha vs Kodansha?)

Salutations everyone and thank you for being here. What else can I say, but here we are again after just a few years. Today, I'll be taking a look at the newly released "eternal edition" by Kodansha USA and comparing it to their previous Sailor Moon release from 2011. This new release is based on the Japanese kanzenban release or "perfect edition" so it has a lot to live up to. Boasting a larger size and updated translation, as well, as being delayed twice, it's time to find out if it was worth all the blood, sweat and tears.

My Thoughts on Kodansha USA's Sailor Moon release

Sailor Moon has been with me for a very long time and is very dear to my heart as a result. When I first saw the DIC English dub on Fox Kids during the early 2000's, I found myself swept up in its dramatic story about a princess seeking to defeat an ancient evil from her past and reunite with her one true love. A truly powerful tale of love and devotion accompanied with cheesy music and talking cats. I should point out that the episode in which I entered the show was "Bad Hair Day" where Serena had already been revealed as the Moon Princess, way past the halfway point of the first season. Sailor Moon disappeared off Fox kids UK after R had finished airing though they did tease the S season at one point, though sadly nothing came of it. This is where my childhood nostalgia ends as I never read Tokyopop's initial release of the original manga and didn't watch the S/Super S seasons until finding them on YouTube several years later. This quickly rekindled my love of the series despite hating how Cloverway had translated it. Unfortunately, by this time Tokyopop's release was long out of print so I was long out of luck.

The announcement of Kodansha's re-release left me, like many others, giddy with excitement though I didn't find out about it until after the first volume had already been released. Flash forward over 2 years, all the books are out and what do I have to say?

Well...they were OK. Sadly that's my opinion. OK, not great. Now before you reach for your crossbow, I'm guessing you want the answer to one more question. I should point most of my problems were with Kodansha's handling of the translation. Having said that I don't think this release is all doom and gloom and would like talk about some things I do like about the series re-release.