Watch Sailor Moon S episodes 122 and 123 on Hulu

Sailor Moon S episode 122 - Yui Bidou, Viluy of the Witches 5

We’re getting that much closer to the end of Sailor Moon S with the two latest episodes added to Hulu and Neon Alley. This week with episodes 122 and 123 we get introduced to three more members of the Witches 5!

Sailor Moon S episode 122 - Pure Hearts extracted by software

Episode 122, Believe in Love: Ami, the Kindhearted Guardian, is a total Sailor Mercury episode. In fact it’s very reminiscent of her first episode in which the Dark Kingdom uses computers to try to drain Crystal Seminar students’ energy to feed to Metalia. This week the Death Busters are using computers to steal Mugen Academy students’ Pure Hearts to feed to Hotaru. As we are getting close to the end of the season we need to go through more of the Witches 5 and so we are introduced to Viluy. Viluy poses as a student at Mugen Academy, Yui Bidou, and in doing so she crosses Ami who is investigating the school. She is very intelligent and we learn that the research done at Mugen Academy is not only cutting edge for the mid 90s but actually quite ahead of anything we’ve done by 2015. She has an army of nano robots. Nano robots or nanobots are miniscule robots which, when working as a team, are capable of great feats such as turning the world into grey goo. We have nothing close to what is portrayed in this episode in existence today as nanotechnology is still in its early stages. Viluy uses these robots to attack the Sailor Guardians but when her bracelet is damaged they end up turning on her which kills her. This episode continues to ask us moral questions as Ami defends Hotaru from Haruka and Michiru who want to kill her in order to save the world from destruction.

Sailor Moon S episode 122 - Viluy getting killed by nanobots

Sailor Moon S episode 123 - Ptilol and Cyprine

Episode 123, Shadow of Destruction: the Messiah of Silence Awakens, introduces us to the final two members of the Witches 5. Cyrpine and Ptilol are considered to be a single member of the Witches 5 because of reasons I don’t pretend to understand. Do we refer to twins as a single entity? Then why are we calling a six member team the Witches 5? I think it’s nonsense personally, but that is what they are called. How much can they be considered to be a single person when they end up attacking each other? Things get pretty serious in this episode as Kaolinite kidnaps Sailor Chibi Moon. Her Pure Heart is so great that when it’s fed to Hotaru she transforms into Mistress 9. This leaves Chibiusa near death as Mamoru needs to use his own body’s energy to sustain her life. The gang is now ready to confront Mistress 9 and the Death Busters in the next handful of episodes. They missed their chance to kill Hotaru while she was young and defenseless. We’ll see what kind of destruction she will bring now. A funny scene in this episode shows Professor Tomoe adjusting his glasses with his middle finger, making it seem like he’s making a rude gesture.

Sailor Moon S episode 123 - Professor Tomoe showing the finger

Sailor Moon S episode 123 - Mistress 9

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Sailor Moon S episode 123 - Mamoru keeping Chibiusa alive

Sailor Moon Crystal Blu-Ray vol. 9 review

Sailor Moon Crystal Blu-Ray vol. 9  - Packaging

I’m a little late with this review but the latest volume of Sailor Moon Crystal, volume 9, was released on Blu-Ray on June 10th. Like with other releases this only includes two episodes, in this case Act 17 and 18. These stories, part of the Black Moon story arc, focus on Sailor Jupiter and Sailor Venus. The cover for this release features all of the Sailor Guardians together in their civilian school uniforms. The volume 10 box art will feature the often neglected Sailor Pluto. You can buy volume 9 from Amazon Japan for 5194 yen, about $42 US, plus shipping. Pre-orders for volume 10 will be shipped out tomorrow.

Sailor Moon Crystal Blu-Ray vol. 9 - Charm - Sailor Mars's Star Power Stick

The charm included with this release is Sailor Mars’s Star Power Stick. We will likely be seeing Sailor Jupiter and Venus’s Star Power Sticks as the next two charms.

Sailor Moon Crystal Blu-Ray vol. 9 - Cover art

The contents of the disk are pretty standard. Two episodes are included. Act 17, Secret – Sailor Jupiter and Act 18 – Invasion – Sailor Venus. Video quality is great, as always. There are animation changes from the original streaming versions which are mostly minor and cosmetic. Crystal Comparisons is a great site to check out to compare the two versions. A frame which had Chibiusa incorrectly wearing a short sleeved blue uniform has been corrected to have her with the white uniform she wears in the rest of the scene. A scene in Act 17 had Usagi using the Moon Stick instead of the Cutie Moon Rod to use Moon Princess Halation. This has not been corrected for the Blu-Ray version.

Commentary are included as always. On these episodes we have Munehisa Sakai, the director for the series, as well as Ami Koshimizu, the voice of Sailor Jupiter, and Shizuka Ito, the voice of Sailor Venus. As always I do not speak Japanese so I can’t really comment on the quality of the commentary itself.

Sailor Moon Crystal Blu-Ray vol. 9 - Special Booklet - Pages 6 & 7 - Act 18 summary

Once again a 20 page full colour special booklet is included. This book includes episode summaries and art for the included episodes 17 and 18. The first interview is with Revo, the composer for Sailor Moon Crystal’s opening theme Moon Pride. The other interview is with Ryo Hirohashi, the voice of Luna, and Yohei Obayashi, the voice of Artemis. Character art included shows Luna, Calaveras, Petz, Asanuma and a bunch of items.

Sailor Moon Crystal Blu-Ray vol. 9 - Special Booklet - Pages 8 and 9 - Screenshots

It’s hard to recommend buying this. Episodes are still available to stream for free online. This is a Japanese only release with no subtitles. It’s probably worth the wait to get the English version which Viz will be released at some undetermined time in the future. But you don’t need me to tell you whether or not to buy something.

Keep reading for more images from this set including photos of all pages of the included special book.

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Sailor Moon S episodes 120 and 121 are now available on Hulu

Sailor Moon S episode 120 - Professor Tomoe mourns for Hotaru

The two latest episodes of Sailor Moon S have been added to Hulu and Neon Alley. This week we have a bunch of the Witches 5 dying as we explore the mysterious Mugen Academy and get some backstory on Hotaru and Professor Tomoe’s tragic past. Why does so much happen in such a short time? Well there are not many episodes of Sailor Moon S left and there’s a lot of story related to the Infinity Arc which we haven’t touched on at this rate so the solution is just to go through characters and plot points at neck break speed. A bit of a change from the first season where each of the Shitennou were given roughly equal billing and now we have a very uneven distribution of episodes for each of the Witches 5.

Sailor Moon S episode 120 - Mugen Academy

Episode 120, An Invasion from Another Dimension: Mystery of Mugen Academy, goes into Hotaru and Professor Tomoe’s history a bit. Now that Sailor Uranus, Neptune and Pluto are sort of trying to kill Hotaru, her and her family have skipped town. Chibiusa tries to see her but is unable to. A little research into Professor Tomoe shows that he has a tragic past. In a flashback scene we see him in a lab accident which seems to kill Hotaru. An entity from another dimension, Pharaon 90, appears to offer to save her life but in exchange he enters Professor Tomoe’s eye, essentially taking over his body. While Professor Tomoe is this season’s villain, he actually cares a lot for his family and is powerless to stop the enemy. We learn that Professor Tomoe owns Mugen Academy, the school that Hotaru, Haruka and Michiru attend. Mugen is the Japanese word for Infinity. When this manga arc is referred to as the Infinity Arc, the word is Mugen, which is also the name of the school. At Mugen Academy Mimete uploads herself into a monitor, which seems like a great plan until Tellu shows up. In the style of all of the Witches 5, she pulls the plug and Mimete dies! We are tempted to cry for Mimete as she begs for her life with her cutesy little voice, but let’s not forget that she killed Eudial in cold blood not long ago.

Sailor Moon S episode 120 - Mimete dying

Sailor Moon S episode 120 - Tellu pulls the plug on Mimete

Episode 121, A Bewitching Flower That Steals Hearts: Tellu, the Third Witch, further develops the very short lived Tellu. When at episodes 120 you’ve only shown two of the six Witches 5 you have a problem which can only be solved by killing a bunch of them in short time. Last episode Tellu killed Mimete and we need to off her too if we want to move on! Tellu’s short lived single episode plan involves using evil plants to steal people’s Pure Hearts. This all goes decently but not really well for her and she ends up getting killed by her own plant monster. Oops! Now we only have three more of the Witches 5 to get through with 6 episodes left in the season. Also Kaolinite is still around and being the villain so we’ll have to take care of her at some point. With Tellu defeated she leaves behind a student ID from Mugen Academy. That place again, two episodes in a row? Well we didn’t talk about it for the rest of the season but something definitely seems up with it now!

Sailor Moon S episode 121 - Tellu dying

Sailor Moon S episode 121 - Tellu's Mugen Academy ID

Sailor Moon S episode 121 - Kaolinite

Sailor Moon Crystal Act 25, Showdown – Death Phantom, Review

Sailor Moon Crystal Act 25 - Sailor Chibi Moon

The latest episode of Sailor Moon Crystal, Act 25, Showdown – Death Phantom, premiered this weekend on July 4th. It is available to stream on Crunchyroll, Hulu and Niconico. As of now it is currently the second last episode of Sailor Moon Crystal, as there are none planned beyond episode 26. This week Chibiusa becomes Sailor Chibi Moon but this happens just moments too late, as tragedy has struck Sailor Pluto!

Sailor Moon Crystal Act 25 - Sailor Pluto stops time

As we left off last time Prince Demande was about to stick two versions of the Silver Crystal together which is a bad idea and likely to destroy the whole world. Sailor Pluto, who sees this as being likely to cause certain death to herself and everyone she cares about, decides to stop time to avoid this catastrophe. Too bad stopping time is the ultimate taboo! Even though Sailor Pluto is totally capable of doing it, she totally never should and that means that she will have to die as a result. The physics of this are a bit odd. Everything is still with nothing moving, but clearly there is still air flowing enough to allow the show’s main characters to breathe. The distinction between who and what are not frozen in time seems to be completely decided by Sailor Pluto, though how this is done is not clear. So Sailor Pluto had 3 taboos not to break and she sort of broke all of them, but everyone would have died otherwise so no fault can really be given in this.

Sailor Moon Crystal Act 25 - Diana floats in a bubble

Sailor Pluto thanks Diana for protecting the Space-Time Door. So does this mean no one is guarding it anyone? I mean, Sailor Pluto spent a life of solitude simply so that she could endlessly protect the door but now that no one is around to do it… maybe let’s just get an alarm system set up?

Sailor Moon Crystal Act 25 - Chibiusa transforms into Sailor Chibi Moon

Black Lady is saddened by seeing Sailor Pluto dying. She is reminded in this that she is not really alone and so Chibiusa is finally able to break free of Nemesis’s control and, thanks to the power of the Silver Crystal from the future, is able to transform into Sailor Chibi Moon. The name Sailor Chibi Moon is not said in this episode, but that is who she becomes. King Endymion mentions that this is the Sailor Guardian who will succeed Sailor Moon. Indeed this is Chibiusa’s destiny, to become the Sailor Guardian to protect to the world once Sailor Moon is retired though we have a younger unretired version of Sailor Moon from the past to do that right now. This wasn’t a huge surprise, as art showing Sailor Chibi Moon surfaced through official sources before we even got a look at Chibiusa, and of course Sailor Chibi Moon has appeared in other continuities for over 20 years.

Sailor Moon Crystal Act 25 - Chibiusa transforms into Sailor Chibi Moon

A transformation sequence accompanies this change. It wasn’t really clear if this would happen at this point. In the original Sailor Moon anime Chibiusa does not transform into Sailor Chibi Moon during Sailor Moon R. She does so only during Sailor Moon S and even then she has no transformation sequence until Sailor Moon SuperS. It is nice to see her actually have one animated, though at this point this may be the final time we see it, as there may not be a next season of Sailor Moon Crystal.

Sailor Moon Crystal Act 25 - Sailor Chibi Moon cries for Pluto

It is unfortunately that the catalyst for Chibiusa’s change was Sailor Pluto’s death, although her changing prior to this may have been enough to have Sailor Pluto avoid that fate. She is naturally heartbroken at the death of her good friend, and just wanted Pluto to see her make her long awaited transformation.

Sailor Moon Crystal Act 25 - Mamoru apologizes for making out with his daughter

Oh wait we still have to fight with Nemesis! Mamoru is now unbrainwashed and apologizes to Sailor Moon, supposedly for making out with their daughter and attacking her, and she says it’s okay as if he was apologizing for leaving his dirty laundry on the floor or something. A funny exchange though in seriousness he had no control over his actions, and this is really why Sailor Moon is so easy to forgive him.

Sailor Moon Crystal Act 25 - Prince Demande fights Nemesis

Prince Demande tries to attack Nemesis. This doesn’t work and he dies. So everyone tries to attack him and this doesn’t really work. We then go into Nemesis and learn that the true identity of Nemesis who was Death Phantom was Wise Man is actually Death Phantom, so we’re back to calling him that for now. This can get a little confusing. He is indeed the criminal that was kicked out of Crystal Tokyo for killing a bunch of people. He slowly made Nemesis full of evil energy and acquired the power he has today. He’ll probably be getting what he deserves… next time.

Sailor Moon Crystal Act 25 - Death Phantom

Sailor Moon Crystal Act 26 - Neo Queen Serenity

Next, on July 17th, is Act 26, Replay – Neverending. This final Black Moon story will wrap up anything related to Crystal Tokyo, the Black Moon Clan, Nemesis and Chibiusa, though Chibiusa continues to be present in the Infinity story arc which follows. This will, as far as we know, be the final episode of Sailor Moon Crystal. There have been no episodes confirmed as following Act 26. This past weekend at Anime Expo at Viz’s official Sailor Moon panel it was stated that Act 26 was the final episode of Sailor Moon Crystal. If there are any plans for additional episodes, not even Viz who is releasing the show domestically has any knowledge of such plans.

Sailor Moon Crystal Act 26 - Replay - Never Ending

Keep reading for more screenshots from this episode and the next episode preview for Act 26.

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Viz’s new English voice actors for Sailor Uranus, Neptune and Saturn and more revealed at the Anime Expo Sailor Moon Panel

Viz's cast of Sailor Moon S announced at Anime Expo 2015

Viz’s Sailor Moon panel took place today at Anime Expo in Los Angeles. You can watch the stream of the event at Ustream. The main announcement that took place was the cast of Viz’s new dub of Sailor Moon S. Though most of the cast appeared in earlier seasons the new characters who’s voices were announced were Sailor Uranus, Sailor Neptune, Sailor Saturn and Professor Tomoe.

The new cast, all of whom were in attendance, are listed below:

Professor Tomoe by Keith Silverstein
Sailor Uranus by Erica Mendez
Sailor Neptune by Lauren Landa
Sailor Saturn by Christine-Marie Cabanos

Keith Silverstein as the voice of Professor Tomoe

Keith Silverstein also voiced Usagi’s father Kenji Tsukino while Erica Mendez also voiced Reika, Motoki’s girlfriend.

We previously mentioned that Erica Mendez would be appearing at Unplugged Expo July 31st to August 2nd in Toronto based on her role as Reika. Now that she’s been cast as the voice of Sailor Uranus fans of Sailor Moon will have another reason to meet her.

Erica Mendez as the voice of Sailor Uranus

There was more announced at this event. We’ve learned that there will be another Moonlight Party on July 17th. This will coincide with the release of the English dub of the second half of Sailor Moon R on Hulu.

Lauren Landa as the voice of Sailor Neptune

It was also announced that the dubbed version of Sailor Moon Crystal will be exclusive to Hulu. We can infer from this that Sailor Moon Crystal will not likely be playing on English television. Though the subtitled version of Sailor Moon Crystal will remain available on Crunchyroll and Niconico, this does not leave any option for viewing Sailor Moon Crystal in Canada, where Hulu is not available. Canadians still have no legal option for viewing the streaming version of the subbed and dubbed versions of the original Sailor Moon Anime. This said there are many proxy.

Christine-Marie Cabanos as Sailor Saturn

A clip of the English dub of Sailor Moon Crystal was shown, and can be seen at the 41 minute mark of the stream. The first two episodes will be premiering at Anime Expo today at 6pm Pacific Time, which is 9pm Eastern Time.

Stephanie Sheh as Usagi in Sailor Moon Crystal

Watch the cast of Sailor Moon Crystal read the “The Melancholy of Makoto”

The cast of Sailor Moon Crystal read the manga short story "The Melancholy of Makoto"

Earlier this week we posted about the live Sailor Moon Crystal event to celebrate Usagi’s birthday. While there wasn’t much to get excited about in this event one cool thing was the cast of Sailor Moon Crystal reading a story from the Sailor Moon Manga. With the manga being in Japanese and the images not being shown this isn’t of much use to English speaking fans but fans SailorGigi and Philip Walker edited together a version where you can read the manga along with the audio! Here is the Sailor Moon Manga short story “The Melancholy of Makoto” read by the cast of Sailor Moon Crystal.

This isn’t much different than an average episode of Sailor Moon Crystal with it’s accurate retelling of the manga storyline. This short story takes place while the girls are preparing for their high school entrance exams, a time period not covered by any main story arc of the anime or manga.

Source: tumblr

First images of Professor Tomoe, Kaolinite and the Witches 5 from the Sailor Moon Un Nouveau Voyage musical have been revealed

Sailor Moon Un Nouveau Voyage Musical - The Witches 5

A pamphlet for the upcoming Sailor Moon Musical Un Nouveau Voyage or A New Journey has been posted to the official Sailor Moon site. This update includes images of the previously unseen Professor Tomoe and Kaolinite. We also found a picture of 5 of the Witches 5, Mimete, Eudial, Viluy, Tellu and Cyprine. There are actually 6 members in the Witches 5. Did we leave one out on the assumption that Japanese children can count? Ptilol is has not been revealed at this time though since she’s just a mirror image of Cyprene with red instead of blue hair and clothes I’ve put together this approximation of what she might look like. This is absolutely not a real image of Ptilol, just a silly image edit I made.

Sailor Moon Un Nouveau Voyage Musical - Fake image of Ptilol of the Witches 5

The newly revealed cast members are the following:

Yuki Kaon as Professor Tomoe
Kei Ohgi as Kaolinite
Ayaka Ida as Mimete
Saya Chinen as Eudial
Yui Hasegawa as Viluy
Momoko Sadachi as Tellu
Maana as Cyprine

Sailor Moon Un Nouveau Voyage Musical - Pamphlet

Since this musical continues to use an all female cast Professor Tomoe is portrayed by a woman.

Sailor Moon Un Nouveau Voyage Musical - Pamphlet

Image source: Vietnamese Sailor Moon Fan Club

Sailor Moon Un Nouveau Voyage Musical - Professor Tomoe

Sailor Moon Un Nouveau Voyage Musical - Kaolinite

Watch Sailor Moon Crystal Act 25, Showdown – Death Phantom, July 4th at 6am Eastern Time

Sailor Moon Crystal Act 25 - Sailor Pluto hugging Chibiusa

The next episode of Sailor Moon Crystal, Act 25, Showdown – Death Phantom, will be available this coming Saturday, July 4th, at 7pm Japan Standard Time which is 6am Eastern Time, 3am Pacific Time. Since that’s nice and early you’ll have more than enough time to watch it before your mandatory yearly viewing of the hit film Independence Day. As always the episode will be available to stream on Crunchyroll, Hulu and Niconico. This week we say goodbye to a Sailor Guardian and hello to a new one as everything changes.

Sailor Moon Crystal Act 25 - Chibiusa in a tear drop

Where the last episode left off Prince Demande was just about to put the two Silver Crystals together, which is meant to be a disastrous suggestion of the scope of crossing the streams. Sailor Pluto has three rules and she’s broken two so why not just break the third now? Judging from the next episode preview a lot of the episode will show Chibiusa struggling to free herself from Black Lady, though this internal struggle is not something we see a lot of in the Manga. It’s finally time for Chibiusa to come into the role she was born to play, but will she be just a moment too late?

Sailor Moon Crystal Act 25 - Showdown - Death Phantom

The S. H. Figuarts “Impostor Version” of Zoisite dressed as Sailor Moon will be a San Diego Comic-Con exclusive

Zoisite as impostor Sailor Moon - S. H. Figuarts - SDCC Exclusive

A while back we got a look at an odd choice for a Sailor Moon S. H. Figuarts figure with Zoisite dressed as Sailor Moon from episode 33 of the original Sailor Moon anime. This figure, with slightly different colours, a boomerang and a mean looking face, was Zoisite’s trap to lure in Tuxedo Mask. We have now learned, via the Sailor Moon official site, that this figure is a San Diego Comic-con exclusive. The figure is referred to in Japanese as “Nise Sailor Moon” which means a fake or imitation Sailor Moon. Like with other high quality Figuarts figures it comes with a number of replacement pieces and even a custom Luna with weird surprised eyes.

Zoisite as impostor Sailor Moon - S. H. Figuarts - SDCC Exclusive

Pictures of the packaging also surfaced and have been included above. San Diego Comic-con will be held next weekend, July 8th to the 12th, where the figure will sell for $45. A limited number of these figures will be sold via lottery in Japan as well. There has not been any mention of this figure’s availability following the convention. Are any of you attending San Diego Comic-con this year? If so, please drop me a line if you’re able to pick me up a figure and I’ll be sure to compensate you for any costs.

Zoisite as impostor Sailor Moon - S. H. Figuarts - SDCC Exclusive

Sailor Moon episode 33 - Zoisite as evil Sailor Moon

Image source: @donato_denny76 on Twitter (1, 2) and the Sailor Moon Tamashii Nations site

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