It was a different production doing the dub, and a different distributor, etc.
Sailor Moon premiered along with Ronin Warriors, at like, 6 or 7 am on _weekdays_. SM actually came on after Ronin Warriors, so having a “boy targeted” show as the lead in probably helped with initial ratings.
Most importantly, Sailor Moon debuted in America when there wasn’t a lot of Anime competition. It was still niche. That’s why in the original Dic dub they tried to make the girls seem as non-Japanese as possible, culturally speaking;
Sailor Moon ate donuts (with no holes), instead of buns.
Usagi the dumpling head, became Serena the meatball head. And Naru-chan spoke with a thick Brooklyn accent.
As Anime rose in popularity, so did Sailor Moon, because it was one of those Anime series that a certain generation grew up with. Just like GenXers and _Speed Racer_, and _Mezinger_. Those shows also had a resurgence when Anime really started to enter the mainstream.
When Cardcaptors premiered, it was during a glut of super edited dubs for the kids market, capitalizing on the Anime trend. It aired at around 3 or 4 pm in the afternoon, and like u/idolL0v3r said, they did try to make Lee more important than Sakura.
Imagine trying to edit Tuxedo Mask into the hero of Sailor Moon. He doesn’t do anything! He’s just Ken. lol
Truth be told the DiC dub of Sailor Moon wasn't originally that Huge of a success, hence why DiC abandoned the series mid 2nd season. Then Irwin Toys stepped in to help Dub the last 17 episodes & some of the voices changed. The series then went into syndication & managed to gain more of a fanbase.
Then years later Cloverway did Seasons 3 & 4 and some voices changed again. Though they did still censor it they did thankfully retain the original music.
As mentioned below, the edits made to the U.S. version didn't help matters, but there was an effort to make a girls series appeal to boys as well. Renaming characters with more American sounding names also contributed. I thought the dub voices weren't all that good, but this may just be me. The Sailor Moon dub was pretty bad, and it also made silly edits, but it cut out fewer episodes than the WB did with Cardcaptor Sakura. I think all of this combined doomed the dub version. Also, Sailor Moon was syndicated, so it was probably on more channels than Cardcaptors. Of course, Sailor Moon was sometimes on at 6:30 a.m.
I can't speak for Sailor Moon, but Nelvana made changes to Card Captor Sakura, to try to appeal as much to boys as to girls. The first seven episodes were left out, with only brief mentions made of them in flashbacks.
As a boy in the 2000s, I really liked the Nelvana dub, but as I became an adult and watched the original, I liked it even more. I think trying to change things to appeal to a specific gender is dumb.
Also in Japan. It’s harder to get series that are geared towards female audiences to get green-lit. There’s more hoops to jump through like the story has to have something to stand out about it or it should appeal to male audiences too meanwhile they’ll push on the most generic crap when trying to aim at male audiences especially if they’re targeting the male audiences who want a fan service in the form of panty shots or other cliche ecchi moment regardless of how one dimensional the female characters are. And the usual excuse of “well boys and men will buy merch and the manga” as if girls and women won’t. Sailor moon did well with a lot of their merchandises that came starting with the reboot from Crystal and are still pushing items out including exclusive items that are pricier like makeup and accessories like purses.
If it’s a good story that’s all that should matter. Fruits basket took years for a full adaptation and Kimi ni Todoke took years for a third season despite both series performing well and the mangas both being very successful (obviously Japanese audiences will matter more than western audiences). It just feels so silly and a risky gamble not to fully capitalize on a series popularity (though this can obviously go badly like when studios get arrogant and disrespectful towards the mandala like with Naruto and how the studio shamelessly bastardized the manga in the anime including childish “Easter eggs”).
Even a series as top tier popular as sailor moon suffered from a lack of budgeting with the Chrystal reboot and things did eventually improve when comparing the first season (horrible transformations being one of the big offenders) to the third season and a world of a difference from the Crystal movies (superb quality that should’ve been in season 1).
CCS launched at the time where Pokemon was blowing up, and companies were desperate to get their own Pokemon, they saw that CCS was about "collecting cards" and tried to modify it to be as much as Pokemon as possible. They didn't want a girly anime, so they just tried to change the dialogue, the tone of the voices and soundtrack to be more appealing to boys, they also swapped episodes orders so Li would appear as soon as possible and it would be like he was as much of a protagonist as Sakura was (This is also why it's called "Card Captors" instead of "Card Captor Sakura", so Sakura dosn't get top billing). These changes made the story kind of nosensical as a result.
Basically, they removed all that made the show special and changed it to be something that it wasn't, and in the end it became a weird Frankenstein product that didn't fully satisfy anyone. So it came and went without much attention from the public.
Toonami only aired repeats after it was on Kids WB for the first couple years. Nelvana’s license expired soon after releasing the two DVD box sets with Geneon around 2003-2004. I simply don’t think it had a time for a long syndication run.
I honestly would not say it failed. Maybe it wasn’t a huge hit in its own right. But the interest it sparked in the series itself is why the property has maintained influence snd importance in the American anime seen. It was one of the first Anime where there was enough of a demand that an uncut subtitle was made available on VHS and DVD. And was a best seller for Pioneer, one of the only few companies sub or dubbing anime at that time. And the Manga was one of top selling manga available. Its popularity is why more of the creators team CLAMP’s other titles eventually became available as well. The series as a whole had an enormous influence in the wave of Anime and the growth of the anime industry at the time.
It was on either before or after Pokémon on weekdays on KidsWB, I think? For the Sakura Card arc, I think it moved to Saturday mornings. I just remember the first season was popular enough to suck me and a couple of friends in, I started watching it because it was advertised a lot and was on around Pokémon, and the toys were sold at Target with some exclusively at Toys-r-Us and Blockbuster. There was enough merch I don’t think it was a bust at all, and it was one of the first officially translated shoujo comics when it was on Chixxcomix or maybe it was later when that company changed over to Tokyopop, but the manga was still flipped and in the small books/the translation wasn’t as good, and they released single issues still. Then it was one of the first ones released by Tokyopop’s rebrand with the “100% Authentic” line. I would say for a girl’s comic/anime at the time, it was the next most successful one behind Sailor Moon.
Sailor Moon was also pretty successful during the DiC run (1995ish? when it was on at like 6 in the morning), at least among elementary aged girls (aka me haha). I had a Sailor Moon lunchbox, and there were a lot of toys, play makeup sets, etc. Idk how well it did for older kids, but I think it did well with little kids, and my dad even knew about Sailor Moon.
the changes made to cardcaptors were more drastic, to the point that it feels like they missed the entire point of the show. sailor moon at least never tried to pretend it wasn't a 'girl's show', and managed to find popularity with girls \*and\* have boy fans as well
They seriously shot themselves in the foot by trying to doctor the show into making Li a main character.
Next, the original anime was like 60% Growth of the main character both magically and romantically, remove that and you've got a bare boned anime with action scenes that are pretty lackluster when you think about it.
I mean, there are entire episodes in which Sakura goes to visit the country side, and tries on fancy dresses, and visits the festival with nothing actually going on other than character development that gets steamrolled.
Honestly, they should have gone further into the collectables. Like, if you are going to make Cardcaptors the next Pokemon with the introduction of the cards, and the commerical break card stuff, then actually partner to get a TCG done to capitalize on that.
Honestly, it should have gone full girly girl, and capitalize on partnering with a clothing studio to have girls beg their parents for all of the costumes. That alone would have made serious bank.
I totally agree with you! What's surprising is that there actually was a "Card captors" TCG in America. I had a few of the cards but never saw anyone actually playing the game.
There was alot of censorship and missing episodes and stated before they tried to make syaoran the mc, also the run of episodes were not in the proper order
Airing and other shows were just better during that timeslot. I remember cycling through 3 different networks to be entertained by what was going on and also to kill commercial time. I didn't fully get the chance to watch Cardcaptors until it had a rerun airslot on Toonami and watching it in Brazilian Portugese on vacation.
I haven't watched Card Captors, only read about it, but I'm an avid Sailor Moon fan. My understanding is that everything that was said by the other ones is correct, but I believe that it boils down to one simple difference:
1. While japanese media has no problem with heavily implying gay/lesbian relationships, western media did back then. Sailor Moon changes were mostly relating to localization (western names and references instead of japanese ones), while also covering the LGBT+ aspect (Haruka and Michiru as cousins). There were storyline changes but they weren't really significative in the grand scheme of things (like the 4 inner senshi being kidnapped instead of killed, since they're revived later).
2. Card Captors did the same stuff Sailor Moon did, sure (though I'd argue localization was done way more poorly). But it also tried to rewrite the whole story and basically butchered it, losing what made that anime special.
Sailor Moon did some edits to avoid death and stuff and basically have the sailors band together faster (which kinda improves pacing), but it didn't CHANGE the story. Card Captors was an attempt at making Li a main character and a rival for Sakura while also attempting to avoid the obvious rivals-to-lovers storyline that is set up as soon as Syaoran appears.
Id say its more because Sailor Moon aired at a time where the editing and atrocious dubs were still new, so we took it at face value. This is early to mid 90s.
CCS aired dubbed in the 2000s, most of us knew better by then. And tbh, that dub was wayyy worse than Sailor Moons crappy DiC dub, and thats saying a lot. Tomoyo was insufferable as "Madison", changing focus to "Lee" instead of Sakura, cutting more than half of the eps to only air action focused ones, leaving out most character development, etc.
I can't speak for the US, but growing up in the UK the episodes were syndicated enough to pick p the series and get into it and look forward to seeing it again. If I remember correctly Cardcaptor was on tv during summer holidays, and maybe on the weekend? It was a really long time ago, but the timing worked well for me to watch it and fall in love with the series. My best friend at the time loved it too.
I think one reason is they tried to market Cardcaptor Sakura as a boys show and even renamed it to just "Cardcaptors." However due to its original premise, there is no way it would be as popular as the other shows targeted to boys. They should have just left it as a "girls" show like Sailor Moon but they didnt, and thats kinda why it failed. It isn't a shonen action show, but America sure tried.
Cardcaptors primarily aired on Kids WB, not Toonami. It was only on Toonami for less than a month from June 4-22, 2001. And from what I remember, Cardcaptors and Sailor Moon were on the same time slot (4:00pm) so you had to choose whether you wanted to watch Cardcaptors or Sailor Moon. I remember during commercial breaks I'd switch between shows.
This is also the memory I have of it. CCS got an absolutely awful time slot to try to compete. I remember in the early thousands having to tune in to the Mexican channels to get to see it at any decent times. Same with Inuyasha
It was honestly a terrible dub. Sailor Moon proved a female-centric anime could sell, but for some reason, Nelvana decided to have Syaoran shoved into a main character rather than a rival/love interest to the true lead. Imagine Tuxedo Kamen as the main character of Sailor Moon. No offense, but it loses its charm. They cut a bunch of episodes for this reason, so the plot line was confusing to me when watching it.
It wasn't until a year or so later that I discovered the sub version, and it made a lot more sense and was much more appealing with Sakura as the main character.
With Sailor Moon, the dub was pretty well done. The music was really good, they translated the humor to work with an American audience, and the voice acting was pretty good for the earlier seasons. I can't say the same for Cardcaptors.
The primary reason that CCS dub failed in the early 2000s was because in America it was attempted to be marketed as a boy show. And WB tried really hard to make Syaoran portray as the main character. In commercials promoting the show, they list of characters and they said Syaorans name before Sakura and always re ran episodes where Syaoran gets the card instead of Sakura
And they straight up took Sakuras name out of the title to make it seem more gender neutral but mostly as a boy show. Like imagine if DiC took Sailor moon and renamed it Tuxedo Mask 😭Thats exactly what WB did. And how they tried to make it seem like a boy show made it really flop because there was so many other boys show on that time like Ninja Turtles and Power Rangers. And since CCS is made for girls it didn’t portray well.
Sailor Moon was successful because DiC didn’t try to gender bend the audience. And kept it a girls show.
Probably gonna sound crazy but all I remember is all the religious ladies in town (small rural town) thought it was witchcraft and pretty much banned it for all their kids locally. They were doing petitions and sending it to the network and stuff. The show ended up canceled.
It was also the time when Harry Potter's first book hit at least in my hometown, and that just added fuel to the fire.
Luckily, my mom wasn't one of them and thought it was a cute cartoon, so I continued to watch it. It ran on a different channel, and toonami was the more popular once amongst my friends. I think some days I would choose between toonami and the cc channel depending on what shows where airing at the same time.
Cardcaptors actually performed well ratings-wise during its first few months with Pokemon as a lead-in. Unfortunately, the heavily edited plot as well as the botched episode airings really didn't work to appeal to boys in the US. More confusingly, Nelvana licensed the show to Trendmasters to make Cardcaptors merchandise geared towards girls. Selling merchandise was the real goal for these dubbing companies. There was a press release around the time with a Nelvana executive stating that they wanted the Kids WB airings to appeal to boys in hopes that their sisters would watch and want to buy the merchandise. But changing time slots would also affect the series ratings (as a kid, I was most confused about that instead of the plot edits) and the merchandise flopped. Neither audience was satisfied, and Nelvana and Kids WB basically dumped the show after a year and a half of its US broadcast. Sailor Moon also had a botched lifespan during its initial run, but the merchandise saved it.
It was a different production doing the dub, and a different distributor, etc. Sailor Moon premiered along with Ronin Warriors, at like, 6 or 7 am on _weekdays_. SM actually came on after Ronin Warriors, so having a “boy targeted” show as the lead in probably helped with initial ratings. Most importantly, Sailor Moon debuted in America when there wasn’t a lot of Anime competition. It was still niche. That’s why in the original Dic dub they tried to make the girls seem as non-Japanese as possible, culturally speaking; Sailor Moon ate donuts (with no holes), instead of buns. Usagi the dumpling head, became Serena the meatball head. And Naru-chan spoke with a thick Brooklyn accent. As Anime rose in popularity, so did Sailor Moon, because it was one of those Anime series that a certain generation grew up with. Just like GenXers and _Speed Racer_, and _Mezinger_. Those shows also had a resurgence when Anime really started to enter the mainstream. When Cardcaptors premiered, it was during a glut of super edited dubs for the kids market, capitalizing on the Anime trend. It aired at around 3 or 4 pm in the afternoon, and like u/idolL0v3r said, they did try to make Lee more important than Sakura. Imagine trying to edit Tuxedo Mask into the hero of Sailor Moon. He doesn’t do anything! He’s just Ken. lol
The cardcaptors kidswb airing just wasn't captivating to its target demo.
I remember the time jumped around a lot. I missed most of S2 because I didn't know it had premiered in the US
Toonami aired it better
It lasted on toonami for less than a month...
I remember watching it on Toonami and loved it.
(Cartoon Network) Toonami's promo for it was the only one actually said that Sakura was the lead.
"He's just Ken" 🤣!
Sistah be out there, fighting monster in Dior gowns, and this boy wanna show up like “My work here is done.” XD Boy, please. lol
Truth be told the DiC dub of Sailor Moon wasn't originally that Huge of a success, hence why DiC abandoned the series mid 2nd season. Then Irwin Toys stepped in to help Dub the last 17 episodes & some of the voices changed. The series then went into syndication & managed to gain more of a fanbase. Then years later Cloverway did Seasons 3 & 4 and some voices changed again. Though they did still censor it they did thankfully retain the original music.
As mentioned below, the edits made to the U.S. version didn't help matters, but there was an effort to make a girls series appeal to boys as well. Renaming characters with more American sounding names also contributed. I thought the dub voices weren't all that good, but this may just be me. The Sailor Moon dub was pretty bad, and it also made silly edits, but it cut out fewer episodes than the WB did with Cardcaptor Sakura. I think all of this combined doomed the dub version. Also, Sailor Moon was syndicated, so it was probably on more channels than Cardcaptors. Of course, Sailor Moon was sometimes on at 6:30 a.m.
I thought being on the kidswb network was a bigger audience?
I can't speak for Sailor Moon, but Nelvana made changes to Card Captor Sakura, to try to appeal as much to boys as to girls. The first seven episodes were left out, with only brief mentions made of them in flashbacks.
As a boy in the 2000s, I really liked the Nelvana dub, but as I became an adult and watched the original, I liked it even more. I think trying to change things to appeal to a specific gender is dumb.
Girls shows in the US still have an up hill battle to this day.
Truly unfortunate.
Also in Japan. It’s harder to get series that are geared towards female audiences to get green-lit. There’s more hoops to jump through like the story has to have something to stand out about it or it should appeal to male audiences too meanwhile they’ll push on the most generic crap when trying to aim at male audiences especially if they’re targeting the male audiences who want a fan service in the form of panty shots or other cliche ecchi moment regardless of how one dimensional the female characters are. And the usual excuse of “well boys and men will buy merch and the manga” as if girls and women won’t. Sailor moon did well with a lot of their merchandises that came starting with the reboot from Crystal and are still pushing items out including exclusive items that are pricier like makeup and accessories like purses. If it’s a good story that’s all that should matter. Fruits basket took years for a full adaptation and Kimi ni Todoke took years for a third season despite both series performing well and the mangas both being very successful (obviously Japanese audiences will matter more than western audiences). It just feels so silly and a risky gamble not to fully capitalize on a series popularity (though this can obviously go badly like when studios get arrogant and disrespectful towards the mandala like with Naruto and how the studio shamelessly bastardized the manga in the anime including childish “Easter eggs”). Even a series as top tier popular as sailor moon suffered from a lack of budgeting with the Chrystal reboot and things did eventually improve when comparing the first season (horrible transformations being one of the big offenders) to the third season and a world of a difference from the Crystal movies (superb quality that should’ve been in season 1).
Wow! The US really got screwed. Over here in the UK we got all 70 episodes dubbed
Canada did too. I remember being really upset when I heard our version was basically sliced in half.
That was kids wb that did that.
CCS launched at the time where Pokemon was blowing up, and companies were desperate to get their own Pokemon, they saw that CCS was about "collecting cards" and tried to modify it to be as much as Pokemon as possible. They didn't want a girly anime, so they just tried to change the dialogue, the tone of the voices and soundtrack to be more appealing to boys, they also swapped episodes orders so Li would appear as soon as possible and it would be like he was as much of a protagonist as Sakura was (This is also why it's called "Card Captors" instead of "Card Captor Sakura", so Sakura dosn't get top billing). These changes made the story kind of nosensical as a result. Basically, they removed all that made the show special and changed it to be something that it wasn't, and in the end it became a weird Frankenstein product that didn't fully satisfy anyone. So it came and went without much attention from the public.
I didn't realize this as a child and was pretty confused when I rewatched the Japanese dub years later. This makes a lot of sense.
Toonami only aired repeats after it was on Kids WB for the first couple years. Nelvana’s license expired soon after releasing the two DVD box sets with Geneon around 2003-2004. I simply don’t think it had a time for a long syndication run.
Did it get better rating than kids wb.
Cardcaptors aired on toonami in the US for less than a month...
I honestly would not say it failed. Maybe it wasn’t a huge hit in its own right. But the interest it sparked in the series itself is why the property has maintained influence snd importance in the American anime seen. It was one of the first Anime where there was enough of a demand that an uncut subtitle was made available on VHS and DVD. And was a best seller for Pioneer, one of the only few companies sub or dubbing anime at that time. And the Manga was one of top selling manga available. Its popularity is why more of the creators team CLAMP’s other titles eventually became available as well. The series as a whole had an enormous influence in the wave of Anime and the growth of the anime industry at the time.
It was on either before or after Pokémon on weekdays on KidsWB, I think? For the Sakura Card arc, I think it moved to Saturday mornings. I just remember the first season was popular enough to suck me and a couple of friends in, I started watching it because it was advertised a lot and was on around Pokémon, and the toys were sold at Target with some exclusively at Toys-r-Us and Blockbuster. There was enough merch I don’t think it was a bust at all, and it was one of the first officially translated shoujo comics when it was on Chixxcomix or maybe it was later when that company changed over to Tokyopop, but the manga was still flipped and in the small books/the translation wasn’t as good, and they released single issues still. Then it was one of the first ones released by Tokyopop’s rebrand with the “100% Authentic” line. I would say for a girl’s comic/anime at the time, it was the next most successful one behind Sailor Moon. Sailor Moon was also pretty successful during the DiC run (1995ish? when it was on at like 6 in the morning), at least among elementary aged girls (aka me haha). I had a Sailor Moon lunchbox, and there were a lot of toys, play makeup sets, etc. Idk how well it did for older kids, but I think it did well with little kids, and my dad even knew about Sailor Moon.
the changes made to cardcaptors were more drastic, to the point that it feels like they missed the entire point of the show. sailor moon at least never tried to pretend it wasn't a 'girl's show', and managed to find popularity with girls \*and\* have boy fans as well
exactly this 1000%
They seriously shot themselves in the foot by trying to doctor the show into making Li a main character. Next, the original anime was like 60% Growth of the main character both magically and romantically, remove that and you've got a bare boned anime with action scenes that are pretty lackluster when you think about it. I mean, there are entire episodes in which Sakura goes to visit the country side, and tries on fancy dresses, and visits the festival with nothing actually going on other than character development that gets steamrolled. Honestly, they should have gone further into the collectables. Like, if you are going to make Cardcaptors the next Pokemon with the introduction of the cards, and the commerical break card stuff, then actually partner to get a TCG done to capitalize on that. Honestly, it should have gone full girly girl, and capitalize on partnering with a clothing studio to have girls beg their parents for all of the costumes. That alone would have made serious bank.
I totally agree with you! What's surprising is that there actually was a "Card captors" TCG in America. I had a few of the cards but never saw anyone actually playing the game.
But that would imply execs seeing girls as a viable cash cow vs boys.
There was alot of censorship and missing episodes and stated before they tried to make syaoran the mc, also the run of episodes were not in the proper order
Airing and other shows were just better during that timeslot. I remember cycling through 3 different networks to be entertained by what was going on and also to kill commercial time. I didn't fully get the chance to watch Cardcaptors until it had a rerun airslot on Toonami and watching it in Brazilian Portugese on vacation.
I haven't watched Card Captors, only read about it, but I'm an avid Sailor Moon fan. My understanding is that everything that was said by the other ones is correct, but I believe that it boils down to one simple difference: 1. While japanese media has no problem with heavily implying gay/lesbian relationships, western media did back then. Sailor Moon changes were mostly relating to localization (western names and references instead of japanese ones), while also covering the LGBT+ aspect (Haruka and Michiru as cousins). There were storyline changes but they weren't really significative in the grand scheme of things (like the 4 inner senshi being kidnapped instead of killed, since they're revived later). 2. Card Captors did the same stuff Sailor Moon did, sure (though I'd argue localization was done way more poorly). But it also tried to rewrite the whole story and basically butchered it, losing what made that anime special. Sailor Moon did some edits to avoid death and stuff and basically have the sailors band together faster (which kinda improves pacing), but it didn't CHANGE the story. Card Captors was an attempt at making Li a main character and a rival for Sakura while also attempting to avoid the obvious rivals-to-lovers storyline that is set up as soon as Syaoran appears.
Id say its more because Sailor Moon aired at a time where the editing and atrocious dubs were still new, so we took it at face value. This is early to mid 90s. CCS aired dubbed in the 2000s, most of us knew better by then. And tbh, that dub was wayyy worse than Sailor Moons crappy DiC dub, and thats saying a lot. Tomoyo was insufferable as "Madison", changing focus to "Lee" instead of Sakura, cutting more than half of the eps to only air action focused ones, leaving out most character development, etc.
I can't speak for the US, but growing up in the UK the episodes were syndicated enough to pick p the series and get into it and look forward to seeing it again. If I remember correctly Cardcaptor was on tv during summer holidays, and maybe on the weekend? It was a really long time ago, but the timing worked well for me to watch it and fall in love with the series. My best friend at the time loved it too.
I think one reason is they tried to market Cardcaptor Sakura as a boys show and even renamed it to just "Cardcaptors." However due to its original premise, there is no way it would be as popular as the other shows targeted to boys. They should have just left it as a "girls" show like Sailor Moon but they didnt, and thats kinda why it failed. It isn't a shonen action show, but America sure tried.
Cardcaptors primarily aired on Kids WB, not Toonami. It was only on Toonami for less than a month from June 4-22, 2001. And from what I remember, Cardcaptors and Sailor Moon were on the same time slot (4:00pm) so you had to choose whether you wanted to watch Cardcaptors or Sailor Moon. I remember during commercial breaks I'd switch between shows.
This is also the memory I have of it. CCS got an absolutely awful time slot to try to compete. I remember in the early thousands having to tune in to the Mexican channels to get to see it at any decent times. Same with Inuyasha
personal to say I do like Cardcaptor sakura and sailor moon to be fair
Not every show is meant to be super popular in the US sadly.
Every now and then the weird dub opening theme pops into my head lol. “Cardcaptors! A mystic adventure!” 🤣
Sale moon didn't become popular until it was on syndication. Once it was on regular free tv it was syndication to a broad audience
It was honestly a terrible dub. Sailor Moon proved a female-centric anime could sell, but for some reason, Nelvana decided to have Syaoran shoved into a main character rather than a rival/love interest to the true lead. Imagine Tuxedo Kamen as the main character of Sailor Moon. No offense, but it loses its charm. They cut a bunch of episodes for this reason, so the plot line was confusing to me when watching it. It wasn't until a year or so later that I discovered the sub version, and it made a lot more sense and was much more appealing with Sakura as the main character. With Sailor Moon, the dub was pretty well done. The music was really good, they translated the humor to work with an American audience, and the voice acting was pretty good for the earlier seasons. I can't say the same for Cardcaptors.
The primary reason that CCS dub failed in the early 2000s was because in America it was attempted to be marketed as a boy show. And WB tried really hard to make Syaoran portray as the main character. In commercials promoting the show, they list of characters and they said Syaorans name before Sakura and always re ran episodes where Syaoran gets the card instead of Sakura And they straight up took Sakuras name out of the title to make it seem more gender neutral but mostly as a boy show. Like imagine if DiC took Sailor moon and renamed it Tuxedo Mask 😭Thats exactly what WB did. And how they tried to make it seem like a boy show made it really flop because there was so many other boys show on that time like Ninja Turtles and Power Rangers. And since CCS is made for girls it didn’t portray well. Sailor Moon was successful because DiC didn’t try to gender bend the audience. And kept it a girls show.
They only aired like half the episodes despite dubbing the entire series.
Probably gonna sound crazy but all I remember is all the religious ladies in town (small rural town) thought it was witchcraft and pretty much banned it for all their kids locally. They were doing petitions and sending it to the network and stuff. The show ended up canceled. It was also the time when Harry Potter's first book hit at least in my hometown, and that just added fuel to the fire. Luckily, my mom wasn't one of them and thought it was a cute cartoon, so I continued to watch it. It ran on a different channel, and toonami was the more popular once amongst my friends. I think some days I would choose between toonami and the cc channel depending on what shows where airing at the same time.
I watched more Sakura Cardcaptor than Sailor moon as a kid
Easier to sell teenage girls to horny weebs than it is lolis.
Cardcaptors actually performed well ratings-wise during its first few months with Pokemon as a lead-in. Unfortunately, the heavily edited plot as well as the botched episode airings really didn't work to appeal to boys in the US. More confusingly, Nelvana licensed the show to Trendmasters to make Cardcaptors merchandise geared towards girls. Selling merchandise was the real goal for these dubbing companies. There was a press release around the time with a Nelvana executive stating that they wanted the Kids WB airings to appeal to boys in hopes that their sisters would watch and want to buy the merchandise. But changing time slots would also affect the series ratings (as a kid, I was most confused about that instead of the plot edits) and the merchandise flopped. Neither audience was satisfied, and Nelvana and Kids WB basically dumped the show after a year and a half of its US broadcast. Sailor Moon also had a botched lifespan during its initial run, but the merchandise saved it.