I saw the crescent, you saw the whole of the moon
Pointless trivia about Bishōjo Senshi Sailor Moon.
An early promo for the DiC dub featured different names for the characters. Usagi was called Victoria, Ami was called Blue (very original name there, guys), Rei was called Dana, Makoto was called Sara and Minako was called Carrie. An early Kodansha website for the series had another set of dub names - Celeste for Usagi, Maggie for Makoto, Monica for Minako and Mark for Mamoru (Ami and Rei became Amy and Rae, later spelled Raye, the same as their actual dub names). Naru and Motoki were initially given the dub names Nadine and Michael. Their actual dub names ended up being Serena, Amy, Raye, Lita, Mina, Darien (for Mamoru), Molly (for Naru) and Andrew (for Motoki).
Before DiC lost the rights to the show to Cloverway (full details below), toys of the upcoming characters Haruka, Michiru and Setsuna (Sailors Uranus, Neptune and Pluto) were released with different English names, indicating these may have been the names DiC would have used for them had they continued the series. Haruka was named Corrinn, Michiru was named Nerissa and Setsuna was named Celia. Ultimately, Cloverway renamed them to Amara, Michelle and Trista respectively.
Before DiC received the rights, another company called Toon Makers attempted to acquire the rights to dub the series, and planned to make a completely original story featuring a mix of live-action and animated footage (this is often referred to as "Saban Moon", due to the similarity to how Saban adapted the Japanese Super Sentai into the American Power Rangers). Due to the overwhelmingly negative reaction an audience had after being shown the promo for what the show would have been, it's probably a good thing they didn't get the rights.
However, that's not to say the DiC dub was perfect. It had many flaws, most of which can be blamed for having a very troubled production. For starters, when DiC obtained the rights after a bidding war with Toon Makers, they mistakenly thought they would only be distributing it in North America, and that an English dub had already been made. When they realised they actually had to dub it too, they hired Ontario-based dubbing company Optimum Productions to record the dub, but there were problems right from the start. Sailor Moon's original voice actor, Tracey Moore (who was also the ADR director) left after episode 13 due to creative differences, being replaced by Roland Parliament (voice of Umino/Melvin) as ADR director and Terri Hawkes as voice of Sailor Moon. All this resulted in production being so far behind schedule that Parliament often worked long hours into the night and slept at the studio, which caused him to become ill.
Another delay in production came from the fact that Toei had to approve all the changes made to the dub before an episode could be aired (often without consulting original mangaka Takeuchi Naoko), which would take a while. 65 episodes were dubbed in three months, with dubbed episodes airing only a few weeks after being recorded.
After episode 65, the series was cancelled on a cliffhanger due to lack of budget, only to be renewed in 1997 when YTV and Irwin Toys paid to fund more episodes just to give the series some closure, with Pioneer funding dubs for the movies. However, DiC declined to license more episodes after that, so Cloverway (Toei's American branch) stepped in to license S and SuperS. Cloverway gave Optimum almost complete creative freedom, as long as they recorded 77 episodes in four months. Many voice actors (including Terri Hawkes, who went on maternity leave) did not return due to the extremely tight and demanding production schedule, and were replaced with poor substitutes. Production was so rushed that as many as 11 episodes were recorded in four hours, with the actors recording each line twice and the better take being used. As if that wasn't bad enough, the new ADR director, Nicole Thuault, only spoke French and had to rely on an interpreter to communicate with the rest of the staff. The writers at Optimum also had no kind of "bible" on what attack names and such should be, resulting in attacks having a different name almost every episode. All this combined with the lack of funds meant that a dub of the final season, Sailor Stars, never happened until Viz Media decided to completely redub the entire series starting in 2014, with a more accurate dub to the original and keeping the Japanese names.
In development, Sailor Mercury began as a character named Sorano Hikaru, who was Usagi's best friend and already quite resembled Ami. When her name was changed to Ami, Naoko originally wanted to make her a cyborg girl with an accelerator, who would eventually die from losing one of her body parts. However, her editor objected, so Ami was made a full human with near-superhuman intellect instead. The cyborg idea would be later revisited with Hotaru.
The term for the girls in Japanese is Sailor Senshi, which can be translated as Sailor Warriors or Sailor Soldiers (the English term "Sailor Soldiers" is also used occasionally in the Japanese anime). The dub used the term Sailor Scouts, possibly because their schoolgirl uniforms made them look like Girl Scouts.
The "Sailor" in the name comes from the sailor fuku (Japanese term for a girl's school uniform) that they wear when transformed. However, originally the girls all had unique outfits when transformed.
Usagi originally had pink hair. Prototype sketches also depicted her with a cloak and a handgun when transformed. It was also originally planned for her hair to turn silver when she transformed, but Naoko decided to keep it blond instead to make it stand out more (though she has silver hair in her Princess Serenity form).
Naoko also considered having the girls' eyes change colour when they transformed. Ami's would have changed from dark blue to light blue, Rei's from purple to red, Makoto's from grey-blue to green and Minako's from blue to gold. Final artwork depicts Makoto with green eyes in both forms and the rest of the Senshi just have their normal eye colours.
Makoto was conceptualised as a delinquent chain-smoker named Chino Mamoru who was the leader of a gang. In the final version, she's a normal girl whom everyone just thinks is a delinquent because she's tall and strong.
Early plans for a Codename wa Sailor V spinoff (which later evolved into Bishōjo Senshi Sailor Moon) starred Sailor V as the team leader (with no Usagi present at all), with Sorano Hikaru filling the Sailor Mercury role and the Chino Mamoru version of Makoto as Sailor Jupiter. Sailor Mars was the same character as she is now, but she was called Yoruno Miyabi. The plot would have involved the girls searching for a mysterious princess called Artemis (whether she would have been related to the cat Artemis from the final version is unknown). There were plans to produce this as an OVA, but they fell through.
The Senshi's elemental affinities (except Sailor Moon) are based on the literal translation of their planets' names in Japanese - for instance, "Mars" in Japanese is "Kasei", literally "Fire Star", so Sailor Mars uses fire. The exception is Jupiter - Jupiter is "Mokusei", which means "Wood Star" in Japanese, but Sailor Jupiter uses lightning as a reference to Jupiter, the god of thunder in Roman mythology (though she does have some wood/plant-based attacks in the manga and in Sailor Moon Crystal). Sailor Venus's "Venus Love-Me Chain" attack is a dual pun, both on Venus being the Roman goddess of love and her planet's name being Kinsei (literally "Gold (as in the metal) Star").
All the characters' names are actually Japanese phrases as well, which also reference their respective planets' Japanese names. Tsukino Usagi means "moon rabbit" or "rabbit of the moon" - in Japan, the man in the moon is a rabbit pounding mochi. Mizuno Ami means "Asian beauty of water", Hino Rei means "spirit of fire" (which is also where the name of her first attack, Fire Soul, comes from) and Kino Makoto means "sincerity of wood". Minako Aino was created first, so she doesn't have the element pun, but her name can be read as "beautiful child of love" (referencing the fact that Venus is the goddess of love in Roman mythology). The Outer Senshi are directly named after their planets (Tenou Haruka = Tenousei, Japanese for Uranus, etc.). Setsuna (Sailor Pluto) is similar to "setsunai", meaning "bittersweet". Tomoe Hotaru (Sailor Saturn) means "firefly sprouting from the earth", a reference to how fireflies are said to carry the souls of the dead in Japanese folklore. Chiba Mamoru means "protector of the Earth".
Naoko has said that there is no Sailor Earth, because Mamoru holds Earth's crystal inside him and only girls can be Sailor Senshi. "Sailor Earth" is an extremely common fan character in Sailor Moon fandom, to the point that there's a trope named after it.
Despite his name, Tuxedo Kamen actually wears full evening dress, of which a tuxedo is only one part (though "tuxedo" is often used to refer to the entire outfit anyway).
The melody for "Moonlight Densetsu", the first opening of the Japanese '90s anime, is taken from an earlier '60s song called "Sayonara wa Dance no Ato ni" by Baishou Chieko.
In the manga, Sailor Saturn uses an attack named Death Reborn Revolution. A lot of fans thought it was supposed to be Death Ribbon Revolution, given that ribbons appear during the attack, until someone checked the accompanying furigana and confirmed it was "reborn". It's also not the attack she uses to split the Earth in half, despite what some people think - that attack comes a few pages after Death Reborn Revolution, and has no given name.
In some foreign translations, Sailor Saturn is mistakenly referred to as Sailor Satan, due to the two words having an identical pronunciation when written in katakana.
The villains' names tended to get misspelled a lot in translations, both fan and official, due to being occasionally named after some rather obscure things and then being written in katakana to boot. It doesn't help that actual official spellings have never been revealed for most of them. Prince Demand (named after an old German surname which literally means "diamond"), for instance, gets called Demande in the ADV subs and Diamond in the English dub. One particularly unfortunate case was Queen Metaria, the main villain of the first season. While Naoko confirmed that Metaria (a Latin word roughly meaning "trapped" or "sealed", which Metaria was) was the correct spelling, many translations thought her name was a pun on "metal" (which it was, kind of, since "L" and "R" are the same sound in Japanese), given that all the villains were named after minerals, and named her Metalia or Metallia. The dub also changed Jadeite, Zoisite and Nephrite to Jedite, Zoycite and Neflyte, and changed Kunzite's name completely to Malachite (most likely because his name sounds kind of similar to "cunt", a very vulgar word).
The problems continued in R. Berthier (named after berthierite, which is itself named after its discoverer, Pierre Berthier) was initially translated as Beruche before the translators finally realised what it was supposed to be. Calaveras (named after calaverite, which is named after Calaveras County, California) was called Caraveras or Karaberas. Petz (named after petzite and its discoverer, W. Petz) and Koan (named after koanko, the Japanese name for kermesite) usually have their names translated correctly. Esmeraude (a combination of émeraude, French for emerald, and the name Esmerelda) just got called Esmerelda in translations. Rubeus (named after the Latin word for "red" which is the root of the English word "ruby") and Saphir (a combination of Sapphire and Safir, one of the Knights of the Round Table) usually escaped unscathed, though the dub occasionally added an extra B to Rubeus's name and couldn't decide if Petz's dub name should be Prisma or Prizma.
Berthier's dub name also caused some confusion - originally, it was supposed to be Bertie, but dialogue indicates that the actors thought it was Birdy and the script further confused things by making several bird references and puns concerning her.
Moving on to S, poor Ptilol (named after clinoptilolite) got the worst of it, mainly because of the very obscure origin of her name and the unusual way it's pronounced in Japanese, leading to guesses like Puchirol and Pikurol, and Tokyopop managed to mangle her name into Petite Roll. The others didn't fare much better, though: Eudial (from eudialyte) became Eugeal or Yujial, Mimet (from mimetite) became Mimete, Tellu (from tellurite) became Telulu and Wilui (from Wiluite) became Viluy or Byruit.In SuperS, while Hawk's Eye, Tiger's Eye and Fisheye usually have their names rendered correctly, the four girls aren't so lucky. First of all, there's the name of the group itself. Literally spelled "Amazonesu Karutetto" in katakana, the most common reading is the English name "Amazoness Quartet". However, "Amazones" (one s) is also the Greek plural of the word "Amazon", and "Quartetto" is the Italian word for "quartet", both of which also fit the katakana. As for the girls themselves, they're all named after asteroids which are in turn named after Roman goddesses - CereCere after Ceres, VesVes after Vesta, PallaPalla after Pallas and JunJun after Juno. Unfortunately, the translators didn't seem to realise this - CereCere became CeleCele (pronounced "se-LAY-se-lay"), VesVes became BesuBesu in the dub (pronounced "be-SOO-be-soo") and BethBeth in the subtitles and PallaPalla became ParaPara (pronounced "pa-RAH-pa-rah").
Queen Nehellenia (sometimes spelled Nehelenia) is a reference to the goddess Nehalennia (spelled variously), but many translators called her Neherenia or mistook her name as a reference to the mineral nepheline and rendered her name as Nephelenia.
And there are some extremely crazy people who insist on calling Usagi's ancestor Queen Selenity, despite the fact that Serenity is an actual English word and also a reference to the Sea of Serenity, a lunar landmark.
In the SuperS movie, Bishōjo Senshi Sailor Moon SuperS: Sailor 9 Senshi Shūketsu! Black Dream Hole no Kiseki, the characters have French names based on confectioneries - Perle, Poupelin, Banane, Orangeat, Badiane, the Bonbon Babies, and the villain's fortress was named the Marzipan Castle. Pretty much none of the translations got the names right.
And that's just the character names. Believe me, if we got into the item names, we'd be here all day.
The villain duo from the Makaiju filler arc deserve special mention due to the particular way they confounded the translators. Their names in Japanese, "Eiru" and "An", are based on the Japanese reading of the word "alien" ("eirian"), but translators couldn't think of a way to translate their names in a way that kept the pun. ADV's official subs tried their best and used "Ali" and "En", which fits the origin but not the pronunciation, and other translations gave up and just called them Ail and Ann. The dub changed their names to Alan and Ann. The closest English approximation would actually be Al and En, because the "i" is dropped from the Japanese pronunciation.
While Hotaru usually keeps her Japanese name in all translations, one single issue of the Tokyopop/Mixx manga referred to Haruka and Hotaru as "Alex" and "Jenny". The translator admitted it was a mistake, and all subsequent issues used their original Japanese names.
Sailor Neptune's "Deep Submerge" attack is occasionally mistranslated as "Deep Submerging", due to the way she pronounces it ("sabumaaji").
Sailor Uranus's power is sky-based, despite many thinking that it's earth-based. In her "World Shaking" attack, she's actually taking energy from the sky and throwing it at the ground, though it can appear as an earth-based attack due to the name and the cracking of the ground as it happens.
Despite having English names originally, the attack names were often changed in the English dub, sometimes inconsistently. One of these even made it into ADV's official subtitles, where Usagi's Moon Princess Halation attack was subtitled as Moon Princess Elimination, which was one of the dub names for the attack. One that was changed in all translations (even those that kept the original names usually) was Sailor Star Maker's "Star Gentle Uterus" attack, which became "Star Gentle Creator" for... obvious reasons.
In the aforementioned Makaiju filler arc, Mamoru's subconscious desire to protect Usagi manifests in physical form as Tsukikage no Knight (Moonlight Knight), dressed in white Arabian robes and a turban. While seeming rather out of place, this is actually a reference to Gekkō Kamen (Moonlight Mask), the very first live-action Japanese superhero.
In one scene in the anime, Ami shows Usagi a printed letter written in English. The letter is only visible on-screen for half a second, but pausing to examine it reveals that the words are actually the lyrics to "Danger Zone" by Kenny Loggins.
In episodes 9 and 13, the view from the inside of Sailor Mercury's visor is seen, which also includes some English text. Again, pausing reveals that the text originates from the movie RoboCop, though with a few errors. The text reads:
"Prime Directives:
1. Serve the public trust
2. Protect the innolent (sic)
3. Uphold the law"
An early promo for the DiC dub featured different names for the characters. Usagi was called Victoria, Ami was called Blue (very original name there, guys), Rei was called Dana, Makoto was called Sara and Minako was called Carrie. An early Kodansha website for the series had another set of dub names - Celeste for Usagi, Maggie for Makoto, Monica for Minako and Mark for Mamoru (Ami and Rei became Amy and Rae, later spelled Raye, the same as their actual dub names). Naru and Motoki were initially given the dub names Nadine and Michael. Their actual dub names ended up being Serena, Amy, Raye, Lita, Mina, Darien (for Mamoru), Molly (for Naru) and Andrew (for Motoki).
Before DiC lost the rights to the show to Cloverway (full details below), toys of the upcoming characters Haruka, Michiru and Setsuna (Sailors Uranus, Neptune and Pluto) were released with different English names, indicating these may have been the names DiC would have used for them had they continued the series. Haruka was named Corrinn, Michiru was named Nerissa and Setsuna was named Celia. Ultimately, Cloverway renamed them to Amara, Michelle and Trista respectively.
Before DiC received the rights, another company called Toon Makers attempted to acquire the rights to dub the series, and planned to make a completely original story featuring a mix of live-action and animated footage (this is often referred to as "Saban Moon", due to the similarity to how Saban adapted the Japanese Super Sentai into the American Power Rangers). Due to the overwhelmingly negative reaction an audience had after being shown the promo for what the show would have been, it's probably a good thing they didn't get the rights.
However, that's not to say the DiC dub was perfect. It had many flaws, most of which can be blamed for having a very troubled production. For starters, when DiC obtained the rights after a bidding war with Toon Makers, they mistakenly thought they would only be distributing it in North America, and that an English dub had already been made. When they realised they actually had to dub it too, they hired Ontario-based dubbing company Optimum Productions to record the dub, but there were problems right from the start. Sailor Moon's original voice actor, Tracey Moore (who was also the ADR director) left after episode 13 due to creative differences, being replaced by Roland Parliament (voice of Umino/Melvin) as ADR director and Terri Hawkes as voice of Sailor Moon. All this resulted in production being so far behind schedule that Parliament often worked long hours into the night and slept at the studio, which caused him to become ill.
Another delay in production came from the fact that Toei had to approve all the changes made to the dub before an episode could be aired (often without consulting original mangaka Takeuchi Naoko), which would take a while. 65 episodes were dubbed in three months, with dubbed episodes airing only a few weeks after being recorded.
After episode 65, the series was cancelled on a cliffhanger due to lack of budget, only to be renewed in 1997 when YTV and Irwin Toys paid to fund more episodes just to give the series some closure, with Pioneer funding dubs for the movies. However, DiC declined to license more episodes after that, so Cloverway (Toei's American branch) stepped in to license S and SuperS. Cloverway gave Optimum almost complete creative freedom, as long as they recorded 77 episodes in four months. Many voice actors (including Terri Hawkes, who went on maternity leave) did not return due to the extremely tight and demanding production schedule, and were replaced with poor substitutes. Production was so rushed that as many as 11 episodes were recorded in four hours, with the actors recording each line twice and the better take being used. As if that wasn't bad enough, the new ADR director, Nicole Thuault, only spoke French and had to rely on an interpreter to communicate with the rest of the staff. The writers at Optimum also had no kind of "bible" on what attack names and such should be, resulting in attacks having a different name almost every episode. All this combined with the lack of funds meant that a dub of the final season, Sailor Stars, never happened until Viz Media decided to completely redub the entire series starting in 2014, with a more accurate dub to the original and keeping the Japanese names.
In development, Sailor Mercury began as a character named Sorano Hikaru, who was Usagi's best friend and already quite resembled Ami. When her name was changed to Ami, Naoko originally wanted to make her a cyborg girl with an accelerator, who would eventually die from losing one of her body parts. However, her editor objected, so Ami was made a full human with near-superhuman intellect instead. The cyborg idea would be later revisited with Hotaru.
The term for the girls in Japanese is Sailor Senshi, which can be translated as Sailor Warriors or Sailor Soldiers (the English term "Sailor Soldiers" is also used occasionally in the Japanese anime). The dub used the term Sailor Scouts, possibly because their schoolgirl uniforms made them look like Girl Scouts.
The "Sailor" in the name comes from the sailor fuku (Japanese term for a girl's school uniform) that they wear when transformed. However, originally the girls all had unique outfits when transformed.
Usagi originally had pink hair. Prototype sketches also depicted her with a cloak and a handgun when transformed. It was also originally planned for her hair to turn silver when she transformed, but Naoko decided to keep it blond instead to make it stand out more (though she has silver hair in her Princess Serenity form).
Naoko also considered having the girls' eyes change colour when they transformed. Ami's would have changed from dark blue to light blue, Rei's from purple to red, Makoto's from grey-blue to green and Minako's from blue to gold. Final artwork depicts Makoto with green eyes in both forms and the rest of the Senshi just have their normal eye colours.
Makoto was conceptualised as a delinquent chain-smoker named Chino Mamoru who was the leader of a gang. In the final version, she's a normal girl whom everyone just thinks is a delinquent because she's tall and strong.
Early plans for a Codename wa Sailor V spinoff (which later evolved into Bishōjo Senshi Sailor Moon) starred Sailor V as the team leader (with no Usagi present at all), with Sorano Hikaru filling the Sailor Mercury role and the Chino Mamoru version of Makoto as Sailor Jupiter. Sailor Mars was the same character as she is now, but she was called Yoruno Miyabi. The plot would have involved the girls searching for a mysterious princess called Artemis (whether she would have been related to the cat Artemis from the final version is unknown). There were plans to produce this as an OVA, but they fell through.
The Senshi's elemental affinities (except Sailor Moon) are based on the literal translation of their planets' names in Japanese - for instance, "Mars" in Japanese is "Kasei", literally "Fire Star", so Sailor Mars uses fire. The exception is Jupiter - Jupiter is "Mokusei", which means "Wood Star" in Japanese, but Sailor Jupiter uses lightning as a reference to Jupiter, the god of thunder in Roman mythology (though she does have some wood/plant-based attacks in the manga and in Sailor Moon Crystal). Sailor Venus's "Venus Love-Me Chain" attack is a dual pun, both on Venus being the Roman goddess of love and her planet's name being Kinsei (literally "Gold (as in the metal) Star").
All the characters' names are actually Japanese phrases as well, which also reference their respective planets' Japanese names. Tsukino Usagi means "moon rabbit" or "rabbit of the moon" - in Japan, the man in the moon is a rabbit pounding mochi. Mizuno Ami means "Asian beauty of water", Hino Rei means "spirit of fire" (which is also where the name of her first attack, Fire Soul, comes from) and Kino Makoto means "sincerity of wood". Minako Aino was created first, so she doesn't have the element pun, but her name can be read as "beautiful child of love" (referencing the fact that Venus is the goddess of love in Roman mythology). The Outer Senshi are directly named after their planets (Tenou Haruka = Tenousei, Japanese for Uranus, etc.). Setsuna (Sailor Pluto) is similar to "setsunai", meaning "bittersweet". Tomoe Hotaru (Sailor Saturn) means "firefly sprouting from the earth", a reference to how fireflies are said to carry the souls of the dead in Japanese folklore. Chiba Mamoru means "protector of the Earth".
Naoko has said that there is no Sailor Earth, because Mamoru holds Earth's crystal inside him and only girls can be Sailor Senshi. "Sailor Earth" is an extremely common fan character in Sailor Moon fandom, to the point that there's a trope named after it.
Despite his name, Tuxedo Kamen actually wears full evening dress, of which a tuxedo is only one part (though "tuxedo" is often used to refer to the entire outfit anyway).
The melody for "Moonlight Densetsu", the first opening of the Japanese '90s anime, is taken from an earlier '60s song called "Sayonara wa Dance no Ato ni" by Baishou Chieko.
In the manga, Sailor Saturn uses an attack named Death Reborn Revolution. A lot of fans thought it was supposed to be Death Ribbon Revolution, given that ribbons appear during the attack, until someone checked the accompanying furigana and confirmed it was "reborn". It's also not the attack she uses to split the Earth in half, despite what some people think - that attack comes a few pages after Death Reborn Revolution, and has no given name.
In some foreign translations, Sailor Saturn is mistakenly referred to as Sailor Satan, due to the two words having an identical pronunciation when written in katakana.
The villains' names tended to get misspelled a lot in translations, both fan and official, due to being occasionally named after some rather obscure things and then being written in katakana to boot. It doesn't help that actual official spellings have never been revealed for most of them. Prince Demand (named after an old German surname which literally means "diamond"), for instance, gets called Demande in the ADV subs and Diamond in the English dub. One particularly unfortunate case was Queen Metaria, the main villain of the first season. While Naoko confirmed that Metaria (a Latin word roughly meaning "trapped" or "sealed", which Metaria was) was the correct spelling, many translations thought her name was a pun on "metal" (which it was, kind of, since "L" and "R" are the same sound in Japanese), given that all the villains were named after minerals, and named her Metalia or Metallia. The dub also changed Jadeite, Zoisite and Nephrite to Jedite, Zoycite and Neflyte, and changed Kunzite's name completely to Malachite (most likely because his name sounds kind of similar to "cunt", a very vulgar word).
The problems continued in R. Berthier (named after berthierite, which is itself named after its discoverer, Pierre Berthier) was initially translated as Beruche before the translators finally realised what it was supposed to be. Calaveras (named after calaverite, which is named after Calaveras County, California) was called Caraveras or Karaberas. Petz (named after petzite and its discoverer, W. Petz) and Koan (named after koanko, the Japanese name for kermesite) usually have their names translated correctly. Esmeraude (a combination of émeraude, French for emerald, and the name Esmerelda) just got called Esmerelda in translations. Rubeus (named after the Latin word for "red" which is the root of the English word "ruby") and Saphir (a combination of Sapphire and Safir, one of the Knights of the Round Table) usually escaped unscathed, though the dub occasionally added an extra B to Rubeus's name and couldn't decide if Petz's dub name should be Prisma or Prizma.
Berthier's dub name also caused some confusion - originally, it was supposed to be Bertie, but dialogue indicates that the actors thought it was Birdy and the script further confused things by making several bird references and puns concerning her.
Moving on to S, poor Ptilol (named after clinoptilolite) got the worst of it, mainly because of the very obscure origin of her name and the unusual way it's pronounced in Japanese, leading to guesses like Puchirol and Pikurol, and Tokyopop managed to mangle her name into Petite Roll. The others didn't fare much better, though: Eudial (from eudialyte) became Eugeal or Yujial, Mimet (from mimetite) became Mimete, Tellu (from tellurite) became Telulu and Wilui (from Wiluite) became Viluy or Byruit.In SuperS, while Hawk's Eye, Tiger's Eye and Fisheye usually have their names rendered correctly, the four girls aren't so lucky. First of all, there's the name of the group itself. Literally spelled "Amazonesu Karutetto" in katakana, the most common reading is the English name "Amazoness Quartet". However, "Amazones" (one s) is also the Greek plural of the word "Amazon", and "Quartetto" is the Italian word for "quartet", both of which also fit the katakana. As for the girls themselves, they're all named after asteroids which are in turn named after Roman goddesses - CereCere after Ceres, VesVes after Vesta, PallaPalla after Pallas and JunJun after Juno. Unfortunately, the translators didn't seem to realise this - CereCere became CeleCele (pronounced "se-LAY-se-lay"), VesVes became BesuBesu in the dub (pronounced "be-SOO-be-soo") and BethBeth in the subtitles and PallaPalla became ParaPara (pronounced "pa-RAH-pa-rah").
Queen Nehellenia (sometimes spelled Nehelenia) is a reference to the goddess Nehalennia (spelled variously), but many translators called her Neherenia or mistook her name as a reference to the mineral nepheline and rendered her name as Nephelenia.
And there are some extremely crazy people who insist on calling Usagi's ancestor Queen Selenity, despite the fact that Serenity is an actual English word and also a reference to the Sea of Serenity, a lunar landmark.
In the SuperS movie, Bishōjo Senshi Sailor Moon SuperS: Sailor 9 Senshi Shūketsu! Black Dream Hole no Kiseki, the characters have French names based on confectioneries - Perle, Poupelin, Banane, Orangeat, Badiane, the Bonbon Babies, and the villain's fortress was named the Marzipan Castle. Pretty much none of the translations got the names right.
And that's just the character names. Believe me, if we got into the item names, we'd be here all day.
The villain duo from the Makaiju filler arc deserve special mention due to the particular way they confounded the translators. Their names in Japanese, "Eiru" and "An", are based on the Japanese reading of the word "alien" ("eirian"), but translators couldn't think of a way to translate their names in a way that kept the pun. ADV's official subs tried their best and used "Ali" and "En", which fits the origin but not the pronunciation, and other translations gave up and just called them Ail and Ann. The dub changed their names to Alan and Ann. The closest English approximation would actually be Al and En, because the "i" is dropped from the Japanese pronunciation.
While Hotaru usually keeps her Japanese name in all translations, one single issue of the Tokyopop/Mixx manga referred to Haruka and Hotaru as "Alex" and "Jenny". The translator admitted it was a mistake, and all subsequent issues used their original Japanese names.
Sailor Neptune's "Deep Submerge" attack is occasionally mistranslated as "Deep Submerging", due to the way she pronounces it ("sabumaaji").
Sailor Uranus's power is sky-based, despite many thinking that it's earth-based. In her "World Shaking" attack, she's actually taking energy from the sky and throwing it at the ground, though it can appear as an earth-based attack due to the name and the cracking of the ground as it happens.
Despite having English names originally, the attack names were often changed in the English dub, sometimes inconsistently. One of these even made it into ADV's official subtitles, where Usagi's Moon Princess Halation attack was subtitled as Moon Princess Elimination, which was one of the dub names for the attack. One that was changed in all translations (even those that kept the original names usually) was Sailor Star Maker's "Star Gentle Uterus" attack, which became "Star Gentle Creator" for... obvious reasons.
In the aforementioned Makaiju filler arc, Mamoru's subconscious desire to protect Usagi manifests in physical form as Tsukikage no Knight (Moonlight Knight), dressed in white Arabian robes and a turban. While seeming rather out of place, this is actually a reference to Gekkō Kamen (Moonlight Mask), the very first live-action Japanese superhero.
In one scene in the anime, Ami shows Usagi a printed letter written in English. The letter is only visible on-screen for half a second, but pausing to examine it reveals that the words are actually the lyrics to "Danger Zone" by Kenny Loggins.
In episodes 9 and 13, the view from the inside of Sailor Mercury's visor is seen, which also includes some English text. Again, pausing reveals that the text originates from the movie RoboCop, though with a few errors. The text reads:
"Prime Directives:
1. Serve the public trust
2. Protect the innolent (sic)
3. Uphold the law"
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