I must confess, from the moment I first saw it on tv, I hated Sailor Moon. I hated the hypocritical heroine, the moralistic feel-good message, the coming-of-age-saga rot, and the appalling voice acting. And lots of other things.

Then, a couple of weeks ago, I was trawling Youtube and came across an episode in Japanese. Out of curiosity, I watched... and was amazed. This was nothing like the american version I remembered! The scripting was different! The music was different! The voices suited the characters! It didn't take itself seriously! The heroine was amoral, didn't care about "the mission", and was damn happy about it! etc etc.

I thought this might have been a series-changing-over-time thing, but someone had posted a comparison - The scripting really is way off in the american version, presumably because they wanted to give it "a message" and make it an uplifting moral saga rather than what it really is - a monster-bashing show where sparkles come out of a cat's bum and the heroine has fifty different methods of screaming.

I will always be a devotee of Action and Gothic, but I've started to forgive the appalling awfulness of Sailor Moon. Therefore, I present a basic rundown of the episode formula for the original first few episodes. Enjoy!

Drawn, Inked, Photoshopped, Uploaded.