Sky Coloured Oceans

Censorship in North America

The censoring of Haruka & Michiru's relationship in English.

As homosexuality was not altogether an accepted lifestyle in the 1990's (and remains unaccepted in many places today), many countries decided to censor Haruka and Michiru's relationship.

In the English dub released by Cloverway, Haruka and Michiru are renamed to Amara and Michelle and they become cousins rather than lovers. Cloverway further attempts to remove any evidence of homosexuality between the two women by making Michelle drool over "hunky" guys, specifically Darien (Mamoru). There are also several painful scenes where they go at great lengths to attempt to explain why Amara and Michelle are "really close friends," usually revolving around them having grown up together. Cloverway even goes as far as making Kaolinite somehow know that Uranus and Neptune are cousins, even though there's no possible way she would know that information.

I'm not sure if Cloverway made the "cousin" decision willingly or if they were simply afraid of a negative backlash from disapproving, homophobic parents. Either way, they failed to remove or edit many scenes where Haruka and Michiru flirt, which imply that Amara and Michelle aren't just "close friends." It inevitably leads the viewer to conclude that they are "kissing cousins" and have an incestuous relationship instead of just a homosexual one.

Furthermore, the Save Our Sailors (S.O.S) group published a number of misleading and incorrect information about Haruka and her relationship with Michiru, the most well known one being the infamous "Prince Uranus" story. Along with this story, they try to explain that because girls in Japan sometimes form very close bonds with each other, implying that Haruka and Michiru follow this trend and aren't actually a lesbian couple.

Censorship Across the Globe

The censoring of Haruka & Michiru's relationship in foreign languages.

As for the rest of the world, most countries seem to leave Haruka and Michiru's relationship intact or toned down slightly by editing out or changing some dialogue. In Germany, Croatia, Mexico, Brazil, Spain and Thailand, their relationship remains wholly intact.

In France, the French dub censors Haruka and Michiru's relationship by saying it was a ruse in order to protect their civilian identities from the enemy; Haruka was disguised as a man and Michiru was pretending to be "his" girlfriend. The same situation exists for the French manga, where they are later referred to as "best friends" instead of lovers. This also applies to the Hungarian dub, as it was based off of the French one.

In Italy, any and all references to Haruka and Michiru's relationship are removed completely and they are considered to be no more than close friends.

In Greece, Haruka and Michiru's relationship remains intact but Hotaru never refers to them as papa and mama respectively. Setsuna is the only one she calls mama.

The Polish dub tones Haruka and Michiru's relationship down slightly by making their dialogue less sexual than it is in the original. Hotaru never calls them papa and mama in this version either.