Moon Animate Make-Up: 250 Artists Recreate a Single ‘Sailor Moon’ Episode

There has been a lot of exciting news for Sailor Moon fans recently with the premiere of Sailor Moon Crystal earlier this month, and now the fandom is truly getting a chance to shine with the release of Moon Animate Make-Up. When over 200 artists collaborate to recreate one Sailor Moon episode, the result is amazing.

The Fan-Created Project

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orhh6TZ6qCE]

Moon Animate Make-Up is a crowd-sourced group animation project that began in October 2013 and was finally released on the internet nearly ten months later. 250 different fan artists contributed at least one shot in order to reanimate one full, twenty-two minute episode from the original show. The project began on Tumblr and was open to anyone who chose to participate, regardless of skill level, so the range of animation lies anywhere from amateur to professional. The video was made purely for fun, and released for free on YouTube for anyone to watch.

It is fitting that the project started out on Tumblr, as Sailor Moon Screencaps has been a popular activity on the site for some time now. The concept of Screencaps is a similar idea, with fans redrawing screen caps from the show in their own unique style. Moon Animate Make-Up allows an equal amount of creativity, with each shot changing to a different animation style to showcase the artists’ individual techniques. Clearly Sailor Moon fans like to take the show into their own hands, and they’re definitely good at it.

The constant switching of animated shots is a little jarring to watch at first, but it is well worth it to see some of the amazing artists involved in this project. The behind-the-scenes progressions at the beginning of the video are especially cool as they give us a glimpse into the animation process, demonstrating how much work is put into even one second of animation.

The Outcome: A Creative Tribute

The final result is a parody reanimation of “Fractious Friends,” an episode from the original Sailor Moon English dub in which the Sailor Scouts have some friction in their group. They have to resolve their problems and work together to fight their enemies, giving the fan animators some great material to work with. The chosen episode works well as a stand-alone and features all five of the original Sailors, so even if you have little knowledge about the show you can still enjoy the story and appreciate the art.

Some of the animations are ridiculously over-the-top and some are just incredible, and the outcome is a fantastic, if sometimes absurd, tribute to the show. Moon Animate Make-Up demonstrates the creativity that a fandom can inspire, and the amazing things that can come from such a vibrant community when fans work together. After nine months putting this project together, these artists’ hard work has clearly paid off. The video has already reached over 500,000 views on YouTube, and the number is only climbing.

For more information on the Moon Animate Make-Up project, visit their official Tumblr and Facebook pages at moonanimate.tumblr.com and facebook.com/moonanimate.