Hello!
My name is Mercurius…but, you can call me by my real name, Fred Francis. I was born on July 13, 1982, with a disorder called Aspergers Syndrome, which is part of the “Austism Spectrum”.
I live in a town of over 6,000 people, Maquoketa, IA (pounced MA-KO-KIT-AH) which is about midway between Davenport and Dubuque.
Besides Sailor Moon, I’m into pro wrestling (WWE, most likely), and play video games like Grand Theft Auto, WWE, and Call of Duty…not very good, but decent player on all those.
How did you get into Sailor Moon?
When I was in my teens, abound 1996, I was a big Sonic the Hedgehog fan. Played the games and such, but this also during the time when my step-father kept telling me that “Sonic Sucks!”, thinking it was a joke to him. After months of his remarks, I thought it’s best to move on, and let him win. So, I was flipping the channels, in the morning, cause I was getting ready for school. Suddenly, I stopped changing channels, cause they’re showing a different sort of cartoons. At first, it blew my mind that these exist, but it’s a new experience. What was the show, in the mornings? Sailor Moon, of course!
At the time, DiC was dubbing it, and I hardly knew the show, for a while. That’s when I started looking on the net, for more info. What I found on there, about more episodes, and how uncut it was, made me a fan even more. I remember, when I was in the waiting room of the hospital, in Dubuque, the TV was showing Sailor Moon on Cartoon Network’s Toonami. That’s when I got hooked, and kept watching every episode, learned every character, etc., etc., etc. It even want me to go to Tokyo, to see the sites, the series is based on.
Who’s your favorite Sailor Guardian/Senshi/Scout?
At first, it was Ami Mizuno/Sailor Mercury, cause she’s got the brains and knowledge to overcome odds. At the same time, she had a very sad childhood, when her father divorced her mother, which is what I dealt with, when I was young. She’s still my favorite, but coming in close 2nd is Makoto Kino/Sailor Jupiter! Not only she’s tall, but she can fight and be a good cook…I’m not good at cooking, though. LOL
What made you decide to start making comparison pics?
Sailor Moon Crystal was criticized for its bad animation, due to Toei’s outsourcing its animation department towards four different studios, and making memes out of it. So, when the BluRay Limited Release editions were coming out, we didn’t know what to expect from Toei. But, when they released a preview clip, it’s much different than what we saw, when it aired. I dug in my wallet to buy them from CDJapan, and thought about making comparison pics, to show how much the animation was changed, so they can feel much better about it. After the first volume came out, and going though each frame, people loved it on both twitter and tumblr! They feel better, as much as I do.
Now, with this site, it’ll be a much better home for posting comparison pics, to share with you all!
I’ll continue to work hard, and make more shots of how much each episode was changed.
Current Equipment Used for Screenshots
- VLC Media Player (for BluRay screencapping)
- Media Player Classic (for ONA screencapping)
- Elgato Game Capture HD60
- ViewHD HDMI Splitter (Strips HDCP, to record/stream)
- Sony BDP-S1200 Region-Free Blu-Ray Player (Sold only at Bombay Electronics of Chicago, IL)
Special Thanks
- Dan Bednarski & Elly Winters of another Sailor Moon site, missdream.org, for helping me start this site up. You guys are the best, and continue to do what you do best!
- “Princess” Naoko Takeuchi, for bringing Sailor Moon to life, in manga, anime, and live action forms. You’re an inspiration to many of us, though this beloved adventure.
- And to you, the fans. Your continuous support helps me buy more volumes of this newly-adapted anime, that we all love.
Hello, Fred! How are you?
My name is Michele and I am one of SOS Sailor Moon’s webmistresses. With over 100.000 likes on our Facebook page, our website is the biggest Latin American website and while its content is all in Portuguese, we do have a huge international fanbase.
I’m writing you this to see if you are interested in affiliating your website with ours.
If you consider this a good idea, can you please reply me?
Thank you for your time!
I’m already affiliated with Miss Dream, as you can see on the bottom of the page.
Maybe someday, down the road. 🙂
A big thanks for your great effort.
Hope you enjoy this remake till the very end. I also hope it was better animation & pacing (It should cover 2/3 chapters per episode IMHO) but anyway, great to see SM back.
My favourite?… Saturn.
Thx again 🙂
Thanks for the pics 🙂
BTW my first & top fave is also Ami / Sailor Mercury (since 1996), because you know… brains before brawn, and I’m also a brainy nerd myself (so that means we have similar experiences/personalities lol) :p
Second will be Minako / Sailor Venus, because of her bubbly & optimistic personality.
I also have the original Japanese manga (only from Vol. 1-8 though because way back on 2005, the other chapters were disappearing until they’re gone in our local comic store (which is now also extinct)). It’s a good thing this “new” incarnation of Sailor Moon is close to the manga. True that the “original” Sailor Moon anime has better animation, but its story isn’t that loyal to the manga however.
I hope SMC will have slightly better animation later on, or will manage to fix some unfixed errors on the existing episodes.
Hey Mercurius, do you have a list or which studios animated which episodes. I’m curious to see the similarities of each respective studio.
I do not, at this time. But, I may do some research sometime, and redo the Episodes page, showing which studio animates the episode, and how many changes total of each ep.
Will you bother doing crystalcomparisons posts of Sailor Moon Crystal episodes 21 to 26 since the series finished the 2nd arc last Sat. Or what?
The Bluray releases are still ongoing, and won’t end until October. I will certainly continue to make comparisons every month until the last volume’s release.
I really love your page!
Since I can’t afford to buy the BluRays, I was thinking about going with the DVDs, do you happen to know if these have the better animations as well? Really hope you could help me! Thanks!
The DVDs are the same version as the BluRays.
Hey Fred, thank you so much for making these crystal comparisons for sailor moon fans, I visit your site all the time and check out all the comparisons carefully and you put so much work into it and it is amazing to see. it helps me to see the comparisons and know to buy the blu ray when it comes out, you really see how different the web airings are to the finished product. Love your work man, thank you so much for doing these.
Thank you for the compliment, and I surely will continue to make comparisons, every month.
Very great work with this site. I found it entertaining, informative, and wanted to say Great work!! Thanks for this.
Dude i love your website, Will you be getting the season 3 blu-rays and making a comparison?
Hope so!
Yep. Already made pre-orders of all 3 Bluray volumes. Expect some in July! 🙂
Hi Fred, you have a wonderful site here, I really enjoyed looking at the comparisons you’ve made, I know having this remake means a lot to all the Sailor Moon fans in the world, please keep it up! 🙂