Hulu streams Sailor Moon with previously censored LGBT content

In partnership with VIZ Media and Toei Animation, subscription service Hulu will today begin to stream the landmark anime series Sailor Moon. The full run of the 200-episode series will air uncut and uncensored.

Sailor Moon follows the adventures of the Sailor Senshi, a group of teenage girls granted magical powers to protect the world from evil. Localized for North American audiences in the 1990s, the series remains wildly popular in its native Japan while maintaining a dedicated stateside cult following.

Sailor Moon’s gay, lesbian, and non-binary storylines, censored when the series first aired in North America, will be presented uncut in Hulu’s release. Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune, an out lesbian couple whose romantic relationship was removed entirely in the English-language dub, will remain intact. Gay male characters Zoisite and Fisheye, who were presented as women in the North American release, will retain their original gender and orientation. The fifth season, which featured the non-binary Sailor Starlights and was never aired stateside, will stream in full.

The Hulu announcement follows plans to reboot Sailor Moon with a new series this July. The producers have previously announced that the new episodes will be a faithful adaptation of Naoko Takeuchi’s original Sailor Moon manga, and will not censor the series’ LGBT storylines.

A DVD and BluRay release of the remastered episodes is forthcoming. The first four episodes of Sailor Moon are currently available for streaming on Hulu, with two with new episodes made available each Monday.