I do mean stuff like removed scenes from international airings, replacing objects like cigarettes or vine with any other objects.
I do mean stuff like removed scenes from international airings, replacing objects like cigarettes or vine with any other objects.
::: I spoiler tagged this long ass post in order to hide it from folks who don’t care.
I’m not that person but I had the exact same thing happen to me! And let me tell you, when I was first watching it as a middle schooler, I knew they were in love! I didn’t know that women-who-like-women had a word (lesbian), so I thought, “Well, if you’re in love with someone, they’re probably your friend. Probably your best friend, so that makes sense. But you can’t just call them your girlfriend, because-”
I grew up in rural Oklahoma (and now live in Tennessee). A woman, who has a friend, and that friend is a woman, makes her a girlfriend. I still call women who are my friends, ‘girlfriends,’ even though it obviously could mean something romantic. So Uranus and Neptune probably couldn’t just say ‘girlfriend,’ because all the girls who were their friends were their girlfriends, so ‘best’ friend is probably a friend who is such a good friend, that you’re also in love with them. (This was the logic of a sixth grader.)
It’s one of the reasons that Sailor Moon fans have always been so inclusive, have always stood up for other presentations or orientations. Why on earth would we support people trying to hide this stuff from children, when a not-so-small number of us knew what we were looking at when we were children?
To add to that, I might have had a very unique interpretation of the situation, because I would later learn that I was a demi bisexual (we didn’t even have the word ‘demisexual’ when I was a girl) and what that means is… For me, I usually only want a relationship with the person who is such my best friend, that I also am in love with them!
:::
I watched Sailor Moon on German TV in the 90s (RTL 2 gang unite!). And whenever this topic of changes in the dubs comes up I struggle to remember how they put it in the German translation exactly because of what you said. It doesn’t matter how they translated it. It was so obvious. I haven’t known anyone who didn’t know exactly what was going on (but to be fair, it was common knowledge what lesbians were).
(Also 90s German dubs in general sometimes turned out weird - looking at you, first three seasons of FRIENDS - so I kinda didn’t over interpret the exact wording because I was so used to strange ways of putting things.)
Now you must tell me about the first three seasons of FRIENDS. (Please?)
Oh they just didn’t translate idiomatically. Alot of times they translated it literally and very badly. So a lot of puns just don’t work at all. Not the worst example but one that I remember out of my head is when Rachel and Ross have their fight in the cafe right before their first kiss. I think they say that the shop has long sailed (which is a saying and works with relationship) but they also talk about ships in German. Which isn’t too bad but it’s not a saying in German, you would say the train has left. The German word for relationship also has no “ship” so them talking about ships was really random. You can take it as a metaphor still, so it was ok-ish, but why would two New Yorkers use ships as a metaphor out of the blue.
A lot of sexual innuendo that is more or less obvious in English just absolutely doesn’t work in German. Like the dude with the watch who claims he has a dry spell (Monica’s date) - when he starts talking about having no ink in his pen it just sounds super off. Not like in a well designed metaphor but just like “???” you get it but it’s just not something that works.
There is also a scene that is so random that I can’t even pinpoint it down right now. Monica asks Joey (or Chandler?) whether he will be good to some specific girl and he doesn’t get the question. In English (and with context) it makes sense and it’s funny why he doesn’t get it, in German it is so random, you absolutely are on Joey’s side because you do not understand wtf is going on and what he is supposed to answer and why Monica would ask that. As I said, I’ve watched the show a lot and I can’t even tell you the context because it is so unfitting in the moment. I’ve watched the whole show like 15 times in German and about 5 times in English and I only got it when I watched it in English. If I remember what episode that was I’ll let you know.
I wish I could provide you with more and better examples but it’s been at least 6 years since my last rerun :(
As a side note, the Russian dub is so much worse quality wise, but they end up just summarizing more or less idiomatically what happens. Jokes are lost this way, but at least there is no confusion about what is happening.
And now we are friends!
That’s the other cool thing about the Sailor Moon fandom. I’ve never once met a Sailor Moon fan who was a racist, or a bigot, or… anything. It comes with the ‘love and justice’ thing.