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While Sailor Moon and Dragon Ball anime are quite old, with both airing decades ago, both anime are considered quite iconic. The majority of anime fans might even consider them the beacons of Shoujo and Shonen anime, respectively. However, they have one major similarity, i.e., they were both produced by Toei Animation.
On this day, if one were to watch either anime, Dragon Ball's green-hued skies and Sailor Moon's reddish hue might lead one to believe that color grading for anime was different from what it is now. However, the premise is seemingly entirely wrong, as the hues were not the result of the animation studio's work but rather a consequence of general degradation over time.
Sailor Moon's official master colors remind fans of Dragon Ball's green-sky debacle
On January 9, a professional translator on X @nappasan shared a comparison video between the Sailor Moon anime that fans had been watching and what it should have officially looked like.
According to the creator of the post, when considering the white balance and color of the cel animation image, the colors of the anime should be much whiter. Meanwhile, the official master for the same had degraded and become too red.
This deviation was far from what the original creators had intended to portray. Nevertheless, fans like it, believing that it fits the overall vibe of the anime.
What is color grading and what happened with Dragon Ball?
Color grading is the process of creating a color tone for an image, for example, giving a reddish or bluish tone to an image. The process is commonly used in the post-production process of films and video editing to alter the appearance of an image to present different environments.
When Dragon Ball was first made available for home releases, fans noticed that the skies in the anime often appeared to be green. This led fans to believe that Toei Animation had color-graded the official master to give it a certain look.
However, in reality, the scans for the film colors had faded over time. Despite this, Toei Animation shipped the home releases as it is and never corrected them. The same issue was also observed in several other Toei anime, especially Goldfish Warning! anime.
Now, as evident from the post by @nappasan, this was also the case for Sailor Moon anime.
How fans reacted to Sailor Moon's intended color revelation
The majority of anime fans were in favor of the color grading as they had grown up watching it and were led to believe that the reddish hue matched the vibe. As per many fans, the reddish hue romanticized the anime, making it more "girlier" to match the Shoujo genre.
On the other hand, some fans were too attached to the versions they had watched. Hence, they did not want to be given further reality checks about their favorite anime.
However, some fans agreed with the original creator of the post. As per them, the colors were, at times, too atrocious. Hence, they wished that Toei Animation would fix it. Nevertheless, they too liked a light pastel tone to the anime if it was controlled properly.
