The Sailor Moon La Reconquista musical was released on DVD July 9th. What’s that? DVD and not Blu-Ray? Indeed, this is a DVD only release for a musical which was recorded in 2013. The quality of the release is not great. It’s 480i interlaced video though it is in a 16×9 wide screen aspect ratio. It appear to either have been shot on low quality video cameras or simply converted to low quality standard definition video. If a higher quality source existed, there does not seem to be any reason to downgrade it to interlaced video. Whatever the reason for this may be, this seems like something that was released in the 90s and is not fit for release in 2014.
The first disc is just the main feature, the Sailor Moon La Reconquista musical which played in Tokyo last fall. A number of screenshots are included at the end of the post to get an idea of the video quality. This is a Japanese only release so don’t expect to be seeing any subtitles. As it’s a region 2 release it will not play in a North American DVD player so be sure you have the proper equipment to play it if you are thinking of purchasing it.
The second disk includes all of the special features. We begin with an interview with Satomi Ookubo, the actress who plays Sailor Moon, and Yuga Yamato, the actress who plays Tuxedo Mask. This is followed by some behind the scenes footage of rehearsals. There are some Q&As including a press event and some questions following one of the performances of the musical. Footage of the girls at Karaoke gives us a look at them singing Moonlight Densetsu, the theme song from the original Sailor Moon anime. We see footage from a live promotional performance. A few clips featuring Momoiro Clover Z are included. They are first seen performing Moonlight Densetsu following one of the musical performances and then there’s this weird skit where they are characters in a cell phone game which is just all around bizarre.
The packaging is fairly standard and also includes a program which I’ve included photos of below. This has a number of images of the cast of the musical, bios and other information.
I wouldn’t necessarily recommend picking up this release since the quality is fairly low, but it is the best legal way you may have to support this musical and watch it legally. I am happy to have paid money for this after having resorted to watching a free fansubbed version of the musical when it was first released. You can order the DVD from Amazon Japan or CD Japan. Keep reading for screenshots of the main feature, behind the scenes featurettes, DVD menus and photos of the packaging, insert and program.
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What exactly was the plot of this musical?
Why not watch it for yourself and see? ^_^
Also if the musical starting next month has any paid Niconico live broadcasts I urge everyone to watch them! It’s a great way of showing support from overseas. It really pissed a lot of people off who were here seeing the musical or who had paid for the tickets that a subbed version was released last year when the musical was still running and had 3 more nico nico streams (of which the staff had made English instructions of how to buy the tickets for)
The quality is probably go as since it was an experiment they weren’t filming with DVD/Bluray release in mind (Yes, should have been bluray but actually DVD are still just as if not more commonly used here in Japan) Strange that they weren’t with it being most likely a one-off thing at the time, but they weren’t. They filmed for the niconico broadcasts and that was it. So this was actually probably footage spliced from the raws of those. Really hoping Petit Etrangere gets both a CD and a professional DVD release. And maybe a CD could be released for Reconquista as well.
The first time around I didn’t pay for the Niconico broadcast since it was convoluted and wasn’t sure of the process or if I could watch it. Now I already have a premium account because of Sailor Moon Crystal so I’ll be sure to check it out.
I was really surprised at the lack of a CD release of this one. Hope they do it all differently for the new musical. A web ripped fan sub is well and good to see it early but it would have been nice to get a nice quality Blu-Ray down the line.
Find me a link with English subtitles and I’ll at least consider it.
Miss Dream has a fansubbed version of Le Reconquista and a number of the other musicals.