Sailor Moon season 1
The first season of the Sailor Moon anime television series was produced by Toei Animation and directed by Junichi Sato. It contains a single story arc called "Dark Kingdom", which adapts the first 13 chapters of Naoko Takeuchi's Sailor Moon manga over 46 episodes, following the adventures of Usagi Tsukino and the Sailor Guardians. After the magical cat Luna reveals Usagi's true identity as the titular character, Usagi fights to protect the Earth from the Dark Kingdom, an entity which previously destroyed the ancient Moon Kingdom and has returned to steal the mythical Silver Crystal and life energy from humankind to resurrect their entity and supreme ruler Queen Metalia.
The season first ran from 7 March 1992, to 27 February 1993, on TV Asahi in Japan. Eight DVD compilations were released in Japan between 21 May and 21 July 2002, and the series was later released in a remastered edition in two box-sets from 11 December 2009 to 21 January 2010. In the English language adaptation of the series by former licensee DIC Entertainment, the season's 46 episodes were cut down to 40. The episodes were first broadcast on YTV in Canada from 28 August – 24 October 1995, and later had its first-run syndication in the United States from 11 September – 3 November 1995. The first season was later released by ADV Films in a subtitle-only DVD box set in 2003. Eventually, Viz Media re-released the season's episodes on two uncut DVD and Blu-ray compilations on 11 November 2014 and 10 February 2015.
The season uses four pieces of theme music: one opening theme and two closing themes. The opening theme for the whole season is "Moonlight Densetsu" performed by the idol group Dali. "Heart Moving", performed by Misae Takamatsu of Sakura Sakura, is used as the ending theme for the first 26 episodes, and "Princess Moon", performed by Ushio Hashimoto, is used for the remainder of the season. DIC Entertainment made an English-language version of the Japanese opening theme for its adaptation.
Several video games were released to promote the first season of the original Sailor Moon. On 18 December 1992, Angel, published Sailor Moon for Game Boy, and on 27 August 1993, published Sailor Moon for Super Nintendo Entertainment System. A port for the Sega Mega Drive developed by Arc System Works was released a year later. Also in 1993, Black HCS developed and published a beat 'em up video game called Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon: Kessen Dark Kingdom for Sharp X68000. In 1995, Gazelle developed the arcade game Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon, which was published by Banpresto.