The search for the lost dub of this classic anime

Key takeaways

  • The American release of Full Moon o Sagashite failed with a canceled dub after only 28 episodes.
  • CEO Sevakis acquired the BluRay re-release rights but confirmed the loss of the missing dubbed episodes.
  • Despite the mystery of the dub, the BluRay will include the 28 dubbed episodes and preserve some of the lost content.



The growing concern about lost anime has been a topic we've covered on this site several times. Contrary to what some may think, not all lost anime is obscure stuff that only aired once and never again.

There is an increasing number of anime titles that were very popular for years that find their assets (or entire shows) being lost or outright destroyed. Such is also the case with this classic anime, which despite its popularity had a rough American release, resulting in a mystery as to what exactly happened to its dub.

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What is Full Moon or Sagashite?

Best Ribon Manga- Full Moon wo Sagashite


Full Moon or Sagashite (which translates to Searching for the full moon) is a Japanese shoujo anime and manga series created by Arina Tanemura. It was serialized in Ribon magazine from 2002 to 2004, with the anime adaptation airing shortly thereafter from 2002 to 2003. The story follows Mitsuki Koyama, a 12-year-old girl with a deep passion for singing, who dreams of becoming a professional singer to fulfill a promise she made to her childhood friend and love interest, Eichi.

But Mitsuki has throat cancer, which makes it difficult for her to sing and ensures that her dreams of becoming a singer will almost certainly not come true. One day, two shinigami (spirits of death) appear – Takuto and Meroko – and tell her that she has only one year left to live. However, with Takuto's help, she is able to temporarily achieve her dream before time runs out, transforming into the 16-year-old teen idol Full Moon, giving her the ability to sing despite her illness.


Who originally licensed it?

In America, both the manga and anime were licensed by Viz Media. Viz Media is actually used Full Moon or Sagashite as one of their flagship titles for their Shojo Beat line (albeit in a very confusing way, which we'll discuss later), and they kept the license for many years. At one point the license expired and both the manga and anime went out of print. It was just as well, though, because the release wasn't the hit Viz Media hoped it would be.

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The failed US release

Shojo Beat

While the manga was a minor hit for Viz Media, many fans felt the release was botched. By the time Viz picked up the series, the title had already gained a following in online circles, and a proper release would give the series another big boost. Viz had previously had success launching an American version of Weekly Shounen Jump (retitled Shonen Jump), and the line was so successful that they wanted to replicate the success with a shoujo magazine.


This would result in the creation of the Shojo Beat line, a mgazine that would focus exclusively on shoujo titles aimed primarily at a female audience. The magazine's flagship series would be Ai Yazawa's NANA (which would become one of the line's best-selling titles), but many fans were surprised to see it Full Moon or Sagashite was not part of the paper.

Despite being a much more famous title compared to titles that made the cut (Baby & Me and Kaze Hikaru for example), Full Moon or Sagashite was sold in book form with the Shojo Beat label on the book. The anime was even more of a mess, with the DVD series coming out with about 4 episodes per disc. However, these records did not sell well, and after 7 releases (with the last two becoming huge collectibles by this point), the release was canceled and the rest of the dub was never released. Despite this, Viz Media got the series on some streaming services near the end of their contract, but the streaming options did not provide the option to watch the dub. This would cause much speculation about the status of it years later.


The series gets a second chance

At an Otakon Con panel for AnimEigo, CEO Justin Sevakis announced that his company had picked up the franchise for a BluRay re-release sometime next year. The set will have all 52 episodes of the anime. It will be a BluRay release with the best elements the company has available, and this is a personal victory for Sevakis as it is one of the company's first major acquisitions since he bought the company. But as predicted, when the acquisition was announced, fans had one question: will BluRay retain the long-lost dub of Full Moon or Sagashite?

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The lost dubbed episodes

Full Moon or Sagashite


Viz Media was allowed to release 28 episodes of Full Moon or Sagashite on DVD before the series was discontinued. These dubbed episodes were never legally streamed on any site and there were conflicting reports as to whether the entire series had been dubbed or not. Some actors claimed that the entire series was dubbed, while others cited the dubbing as the cost of canceling the DVD releases in the first place. Now came the questions:

  • What happened to the dub?
  • Are all episodes dubbed?
  • Are the sound meters still available?

Since Sevakis is a very hands-on CEO (more so than most CEOs of American anime companies) with a history in journalism (he also co-founded the Anime News Network), he put on his detective hat and started making phone calls to see what that happened to the dub of Full Moon or Sagashite. After months of calls, emails and conversations with friends of friends, he went on X and revealed the results of his investigation.


The thing was, this wasn't actually the end. Since lost media reader has become this explosive hobby on the internet, fans started reaching out to these companies in their spare time, which meant that someone very close to the production caught wind of these quotes and reached out to Sevakis to give him a little more information about where it was lost the dub exists. The follow-up information was not much more promising.


So there you have it. If the dub existed, it was destroyed a long time ago. It's frustrating not to get a straight answer, but the good news is Full Moon or Sagashite WILL be coming back to BluRay, so for those of you who missed out on this (surprisingly heartbreaking) anime back in the day, you'll be able to own it within the next year.

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