Sailor Moon and Lost Media
Lost media - media that is considered missing or completely lost. It fascinates people because it is something that you will never see, and there is a large community that has made it its mission to find lost or missing media. One medium that is particularly affected is silent films. Estimates suggest that 75 to 90% of all silent films are now considered lost.
But earlier films were made of unstable material. During a major fire at Fox Studios in 1937, many films were burned. Some were lost in transport or were intentionally destroyed due to financial failure or to free up space. Previously, there were no archives, and films were simply disposed of or were to be destroyed due to legal disputes.
The topic of lost films is very present in Brian Selnick's book and the later film adaption "Hugo Cabret." The film is about the fictional young boy Hugo Cabret who find Georges Méliès's 1902 silent film "Le voyage dans la lune." Many of Méliès's films are lost today because, due to a lack of money, he sold the raw footage of 1,200 films to the shoe industry.
Unimaginable for today's mindset. Then came the invention of sound film and the era of silent films was over.
Nowadays, hardly any silent films are produced anymore. An example would be the film The Red Turtle from 2016. It is a French-Belgian-Japanese production. The film is particularly well-known in the anime community because the Japanese Studio Ghibli is involved. Known for films such as Castle in the Sky, My Neighbor Totoro, Princess Mononoke, and Spirited Away.
On this blog I mainly talk about Sailor Moon. Unfortunately, Sailor Moon wasn't spared either. Several elements from the franchise were never filmed and are therefore considered missing or lost.
One example would be the 4D films. Of course, they were intended for an amusement park attraction. But not everyone has the opportunity to fly to Japan and watch them.
Or the Sailor V anime which was planned twice and scrapped both times.
But the Sailor Moon musicals are also greatly affected. I've talked about this many times before, how many of the first musicals were never recorded.
The affected musicals are:
the revised version of the first musical Gaiden Dark Kingdom Fukkatsu Hen and an short version from 1994.
Henshin Super Senshi e no Michi and Kaiteiban (1995). It's for the third season. It's also the first musical with Super Sailor Moon and Sailor Pluto. Therefore, there are no recordings of the first Sailor Pluto actress or the second Neptune actress. It's especially unfortunate that a very short excerpt was discovered: a short solo by Miwa Hosoki from the first Pluto. I would like a full version, as I really like her voice in that short excerpt.
The last Bandai musical affected was the Special Musical Show from 1996. It is the most frequently performed musical and is an short version of Yume Senshi Ai Eien ni. However, there are fan recordings of it that have survived to this day. However, they are not of good quality and lack subtitles. But at least some of it still exists.
But newer shows are also affected. The original version of Sailor Moon The Super Live. Similar to silent films, emotions were portrayed through facial expressions, gestures and dance. The 2025 version was released on YouTube for a few days. But only short excerpts of the original version can be found clips or short fan recordings. Even the songtrack was only released in instrumental form.
A 40-minute show was also performed at the Sailor Moon show restaurant, Shining Moon Tokyo. Spectators were only allowed to film the curtain call. The restaurant operated from 2019 to 2020. In 2020, the restaurant had to close due to the pandemic and never reopened. It is unknown whether an official recording of the show was planned and never happened because of the closure.
A new Sailor Moon cafe will open in winter 2025. Whether it will have a similar show is still unclear.
But you shouldn't lose hope. For example, YouTuber Ray Mona found the Toonmakers or Saban Moon Pilot episode. The was an American Sailor Moon series that's half live-action and half animated. In 2022, Ray Mona managed to find the episode and was allowed to publish it.
Maybe there are still fan recordings of the material somewhere in some creepy basement, dusty attic or in the far corner of a PC hard drive.
