Sailor Starlights - Censorship

Censorship

In the Italian dub, instead of changing sex, there were six people - the Starlights were always men, and simply summoned their twin sisters instead of transforming, as the original depiction was very controversial in Italy. Similarly in the Russian dub, the Sailor Starlights were consistently referred to as men, even in their Senshi forms (despite the visible breasts). However, they had different voice actors in their civilian and senshi forms. Some countries implied that they were still men, even when transformed, or were women in civilian form. The North American, French, Swedish, Dutch, and Hungarian dubs did not get the rights to this season, so they never appeared. In the Korean dub, the Sailor Starlights were female in both their civilian and senshi forms. This change was made to make them become straight women, but this made Usagi's and Seiya's relationship more like a homosexual relationship than a heterosexual relationship. Surprisingly, the Latin American dubs, specifically those from Mexico and Brazil kept the nature of the Starlights gender intact, though gave the characters separate voice actors for their male and female selves. Similarly, the same was done in the Hebrew dub, except for them keeping male voice actors for the both civilian and senshi forms.

In fact, the anime made them transsexuals instead of cross-dressers to avoid the controversy caused by Uranus and Neptune's relationship. This made Seiya and Usagi's relationship heterosexual in the anime. In the manga, Yaten was a heterosexual woman and Taiki was an asexual woman. The anime implies that Yaten has feelings for Minako Aino and Taiki for Ami Mizuno and Makoto Kino, although nothing clear comes from either.

The Starlights are usually falsely attributed to the fifth season not being dubbed into English. Despite popular belief, this is really because Toei would not sell the rights to it. However, it has been reported that an independent British company attempted to produce a dub, but later backed down claiming they were dressed provocatively for a children's program. The French dub reportedly did not dub the series viewing the idea of transsexuals too risque for children, however.