Fighting evil by moonlight, winning love by daylight, Sailor Moon took the world by storm when it arrived on TV in 1992. Bridging the gap between Japanese and western culture at the time, alongside shows like Dragonball Z and Pokémon, Naoko Takeuchi’s anime franchise about a group of interplanetary superheroines (and school girls) was a staple of 90s pop culture, loved so much that when US distributors dropped the show in 1997, loyal fans, or ‘Moonies’, launched an online petition to bring the series back to the airwaves. 

By 2004, Moonie-mania had reached feverish heights, with over three million dedicated fan websites – that’s a lot by early internet standards. As for the show’s Sailor Guardians, their impact on fashion can still be felt today, with countless videos on TikTok and Instagram referencing their effortlessly chic wardrobes.

A lesser-known fact about the franchise, however, was that an American live-action adaptation of Sailor Moon was conceived, and ultimately scrapped, in 1993. Saban Moon, colloquially nicknamed by fans after Haim Saban, the producer who brought the Power Rangers to the US, was never finished and remained unaired, bar a brief music video shown at an anime convention in the 90s – until now. 

Unearthed by Youtuber Ray Mona, who documents her efforts to find lost media (also see: the never-released Mean Girls game), the never-before-seen pilot holds a cult status among American fans. At 17 minutes, the clip takes a wholly different approach to the original anime, with an all-American cast that merges live-action and western-style animation, with an ethnically diverse cast of sailor scouts – now renamed ‘princess warriors’ – forming an alliance after the solar system is besieged by the wicked queen Beryl. 

With its ultra camp sequences and clumsy CGI trickery, to say the show is different to the original would be… an understatement. The pilot opens with a bimbofied Sailor Moon entering battle against a legion of what appears to be giant furries alongside her newly-chadded beau, Darien (AKA Tuxedo Mask). The scene quickly changes to the show’s heroes planning giddishly for their high school prom and gossiping about boys. A dance number quickly ensues, with the catchphrase: “Sometimes she’s a fun-loving 16-year-old girl. Other times she’s a superhero for the world.” OK it’s pretty bad, but watching the footage is a hilarious 90s time capsule that’s worth a watch nonetheless.

Watch the pilot above and take a look at Ray Mona’s two-part video essay here.