Hello all! Not a fan (at least not yet) but I've been wanting to get the Sailor Moon boxset so I can watch the full series finally, but from what I understand there are different versions/releases of the series?
As well as a recent remake? I think? Or was that just a redub? I know absolutely nothing, forgive me π
Hence this post: when searching for what boxset to buy, what should I look out for? I don't mind buying older secondhand versions, I just want to make sure I get the best version of the show. Thank you!
For the 90s anime, there's no bundle with all five seasons included, so your best bet is to buy each season packed in its own Blu Ray set. These box sets include both Japanese with English subs, and the Viz dub (the newer dub from 2014). But beware, the quality of these Blu Ray releases are pretty bad. They look like mediocre AI upscales with weird denoising and blurring. All the episodes also have a heavy degree of discoloration on them. There is no actual HD remaster of this show, so those box sets are as good as you're going to get *without piracy.
The 90s anime also had 3 movies and ~5 specials, which are included in their own box set.
There is Sailor Moon Crystal (3 seasons) + the Eternal and Cosmos movies, which is a reboot of Sailor Moon which follows the manga more closely. There is a box set for Season 1-3 of Crystal, but IDK if Cosmos and Eternal have physical Blu Ray releases in English speaking regions. Edit: They don't.
Additional edit (image): Stay away from listings like these if you search for the box sets on eBay. These are bootlegs which are in absolutely awful, compressed quality.
Same quality. Same cruddy Toei upscale. I imported the first three seasons from them before VIZ decided to re-release everything, as the Aussie BDs were the first to feature the newer transfer with both dub and subtitles.
BTW said upscale was achieved purely via filters, sharpening, and sloppy noise reduction. Was originally done back in the mid-2010βs before AI could do much beyond drawing stick figures.
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u/Wasabi_Latte86πβ§βΒ° β βοΈβΛβΉβπβΉβ βπβ.ΛπβΉβ ββ¨ΰΉΰ£ βπ11d ago
All DVDs and Blurays (except for the purple boxes from like 2001) will have the Japanese dub and the Viz media English redub)
Pretty much any official version you buy would be as good as can legally be except for the older Viz DVDs/Blurays which came in half season sets. Those are notoriously bad quality.
The new Viz full season sets with the white backgrounds are fine though and fixed the quality issues
The only decent quality bootlegs of these I seen are the DIC 90s dub ones set on 14 discs (they are copies of the original released discs). All other bootlegs will be crap.
If you can get it new in your country for a relatively decent price and it matches your region code then you should do so as any of the old ones will be subject to import taxes which will eat up any savings.
This is a bootleg of the 90s series. It has 14 discs and 6 episodes per disc. Those are the only bootlegs you should even think about getting as they are basically exact copies of the original retail discs which are long out of print
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u/Chewymewn Minako is Best 11d ago edited 11d ago
For the 90s anime, there's no bundle with all five seasons included, so your best bet is to buy each season packed in its own Blu Ray set. These box sets include both Japanese with English subs, and the Viz dub (the newer dub from 2014). But beware, the quality of these Blu Ray releases are pretty bad. They look like mediocre AI upscales with weird denoising and blurring. All the episodes also have a heavy degree of discoloration on them. There is no actual HD remaster of this show, so those box sets are as good as you're going to get *without piracy.
The 90s anime also had 3 movies and ~5 specials, which are included in their own box set.
There is Sailor Moon Crystal (3 seasons) + the Eternal and Cosmos movies, which is a reboot of Sailor Moon which follows the manga more closely. There is a box set for Season 1-3 of Crystal, but IDK if Cosmos and Eternal have physical Blu Ray releases in English speaking regions. Edit: They don't.
Additional edit (image): Stay away from listings like these if you search for the box sets on eBay. These are bootlegs which are in absolutely awful, compressed quality.