“Moonlight Densetsu” (lit. “Moonlight Legend”) is a song that served as an opening theme for the anime series, Sailor Moon. The song’s original version was released in Japan on March 21, 1992, on a split single by Dali and Misae Takamatsu titled “Moonlight Densetsu / Heart Moving“. The Dali recording of “Moonlight Densetsu” served as the opening theme for the first two seasons of Sailor Moon‘s anime adaptation. Another version of “Moonlight Densetsu” by Moon Lips was the opening theme of the next two Sailor Moon anime seasons. The English dubbed Sailor Moon broadcast in North America adopted an English cover version with rewritten lyrics.
The song “Moonlight Densetsu” was a big hit in Japan.[2] In 1995, the original 1992 single by Dali et al. was certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of Japan. An online survey conducted in 2008 by Goo recognised it as the most popular song from an anime series for karaoke from 1991 to 2000. “Moonlight Densetsu” won first place in the Song category in Animage’s 15th and 16th Anime Grand Prix.
It came seventh in the 17th Grand Prix. According to a poll conducted by Japanese music magazine CD&DL Data in 2016 about the most representative songs associated with the moon, the original version by Dali was ranked 4th by 6203 respondents aging from teens to thirties. In 2019, the original Dali version won the Performance Award of the Heisei Anisong Grand Prize among the anime theme songs from 1989 to 1999. “Moonlight Densetsu” was ranked 12th in Onegai! Ranking Series’ derivative variety show “130,000 People Vote! Anime Song General Election” broadcast by TV Asahi on September 6, 2020.
Due to the high similarity of its melody to the song “Sayonara wa dansu no ato ni” (lit. “Goodbye After the Dance”, composed by Hirooki Ogawa, lyrics by Hiroshi Yokoi), the composer, Ogawa, negotiated through JASRAC and reached a settlement under the condition that he would receive a certain amount of money.
