March 6th was the sneak preview of the first episode of the upcoming Infinity Arc of Sailor Moon Crystal, which will be aired on Japanese TV on April 4th. This was, we are supposing, Act 27, Infinity 1 – Premonition. Every episode to date has lined up with the chapter titles from the manga but it seems this trend will not continue. Two people who attended the premiere episode have confirmed that it only covered half of the manga equivalent of Act 27. Twitter user @uiyoe16 first mentioned that this only covered part of the story but later a user Andy added a comment to one of our posts with a lot of details.
According to her the episode concluded after Sailor Jupiter and Venus defeated the Daimon which had come from the Infinity Academy Students’ backs. This means that the first episode would only include appearances by Haruka and Michiru, but not their Sailor Guardian counterparts Sailor Uranus and Neptune or Hotaru, all of whom show up towards the end of Act 27. By my count this means the episode covers pages 4 to 43 of the manga chapter, which goes up to page 73. This is a bit more than half, but close enough that the next episode would likely conclude Act 27.
Many users have also wondered if this could mean that, unlike the first two seasons, we could be having more extra scenes and character development not in the manga. Part of what set the original Sailor Moon anime apart from the manga was that, over a longer period of time, we got extra content exclusive to that series. Andy goes on to say that they did not change anything or add new scenes not present in the manga. This would mean that, even though we may not be doing the 1:1 ratio of manga chapters to Sailor Moon Crystal episodes, we might not necessarily be adding anything completely new. This just gives us the same story animated at a different pace. Many comments have pointed out that the stories in the Infinity arc are often longer, so this kind of approach makes sense rather than trying to cram more story into a short episode. How this will factor in throughout the season is not clear at this point, and we will only get an idea as the story goes on, though we can imagine longer stories may have more than one episode while shorter ones may keep the 1:1 ratio.
Here’s the complete Tweet from user @uiyoe16:
@NickGreeley the ep only contained half of act 24 from the manga but the new transformations and attacks were much better.
— Black_Ear (@ukiyoe16) March 6, 2016
Here’s the full comment left by Andy on our post about the Sailor Moon/Pokémon crossover:
greetings to all Sailor Moon Crystal fans! I was one of the fans who had a chance to see the limited premiere of the third season and I want to share some news with you, although I know some news have already leaked out. So first at all – at that time there were no new opening and ending credits, they said they are still working on it, same with the new soundtrack – what we could hear were just unfinished samples. The transformations and attacks have brand new animation – and it is stunning, much more better than in the first two seasons, Guardians also have new Planet Power make-up pens! The episode was simply a half of “Act 27 – Infinity 1, Premonition”, they did not change anything and there was not any new scene which is not in manga, it was 100% faithful to the manga and ended after Jupiter and Venus destroyed on the street the monster which emerged from one of the Infinity Academy student’s back. There were not present Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune (their civilian form Michiru and Haruka were present of course), Professor Tomoe, Hotaru, nor Witches 5 and only a brief appearance of Kaolinite and Pharaoh 90.
How many episodes will we have? There are actually different numberings for Manga chapters in different editions. Sailor Moon Crystal had broken up episodes according to the new version of the manga which were reprinted in 2003. These are the chapters used in the latest English release of the manga. According to this numbering the first two arcs spanned 26 episodes and there are 11 chapters in the Infinity arc. It looks like the Infinity arc would at least cover 12 chapters if they only broke up the first Act but more likely would be closer to 20 or 26 for this story arc alone if they kept up this pace throughout the Infinity story arc. While it was originally expected that another batch of 26 episodes could cover both the Infinity and Dream arcs of the manga, this may no longer be the case. At this point I’m considering that the next Act will be Act 27, Infinity 1 – Premonition, but what will Act 28 be called if it doesn’t span Act 28, Infinity 2 – Ripples, of the Manga? We may not have specifics until April 4th when the episode airs, or some short time after that as we still have no details about international streaming options.
Source: @ukiyoe16 and the comments at Sailor Moon News
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Act 27 is equal to two manga chapters in terms of pages. My guess is that they chose to split it into two episodes for the anime and that this may also be the case for the last act of infinity which is also longer. I cant imagine that the other acts will be split up as they are more episodic and follow the same template as previous arcs (eg one villain/act). This will most likely mean that were still getting the infinity and dream arc.
not sure i get it im new to anime and sailor moon soi m not sure what there talking about so is it good or bad???? cant wait for season 3 to start and finish so the english dubs will start [lz english dub it
Hi Wayne. For the first two story arcs every episode of Sailor Moon Crystal was based on a chapter of the manga. For every manga chapter there was a single episode. In this case we only covered half of a chapter with this episode. Good or bad is a subjective question. I’m happy to see more episodes dedicated to tell the story. As many have mentioned, it probably just comes down to page count.
oh ok thanks for the info i also want more episodes but thanks
Awesome.
I’m glad to hear that the animation is so much better than the last time around. That was a major criticism of the first two seasons, so it’s good to know that even if there are some changes in animation style, the animation is cleaned up and looks good.
as I have already wrote, it is very simple – some manga chapters of Infinity Arc are wider and fuller than the others, for example the first chapter which is something like introduction to the whole new plot – it is clearly logical that they just split this manga chapter in two episodes to provide enough time to animate everything important for the fans… also for example last two chapters of Infinity Arc could by animated this way, on the other hand the chapters in which Sailor Guardians are dealing with Witches 5 for the first time are typical “monster of the week” chapters with a bit more simple plot and can be animated the “old way”: 1 manga chapter = 1 anime episode… I think there is pretty unnecessary discussion about what the episode count will be… it does not matter, dont you think? but everybody should realize, that there will not be any new scenes and plots make especially for SMC, they are not trying to add anything new to the plot, they are just trying to animate the Infinity Arc with all respect to the manga which sometimes just needs to split one manga chapter to at least two episodes to make fans satisfied and animate all manga content without hurrying
You talk on and on and on and have yet to provide a source. Reply to my message with a url to the source of your information or stfu. Your bs is tedious.
There’s a site called missdream that carries scans of the manga (hence i dont want to add a link but its easy enough for anyone to find that would like to check out the facts) where you can see that act 27 among with a few others towards the end of the infinity arc is longer than the rest of the chapters.
Pls note im not posting this to support Alex, just trying to provide some actual facts about the manga into this discussion and then everyone can draw their own conclussions. I guess we wont truly know until April or whenever we get some news about the episode breakdown
Thanks for the info Erik, we have all the facts on how the manga is set up, what is in question is how this new season of Crystal will be set up and why. Alex is a blowhard fool who spews lies and tries to pass them off as fact, insisting that these are things everyone knows without ever sourcing them,
yes, fans who know manga to the details and, which is the most important, know what what means to think logically, are clever enough to figure out why creators are splitting few chapters in two episodes… and then there are those like you – rude and naive, blindly believing in their own unrealistic wishes, forcing everyone to believe in them… luckily, real world does not work like that
I really dont understand why there are still some people who are denying facts… the first and the last chapter of Infinity Arc are clearly longer than the other ones, so how it could be possible to animate them in 20 minutes? logically, IT IS NOT, you just cant animate double amount of pages into the same footage as is needed for the shorter chapters if you want to be faithful to the manga and dont want to omit something!
Aaaaand you continue to rant on and on without providing a source for confirmation. Alex you are, as usual, talking out of your ass.
im wondering what the new Planet Power make-up pens look like for the inners.
In the manga they don’t have pens anymore, they use their hands, but for merchandise purposes they might add new pens
Maybe they’ll go with something similar to the Outers’ Lip Rods?
I’m so excited to know more!
I’m still thinking we will get Infinity/Dream in a 26 episode block, but if it ends up with some new story elements…maybe a couple of episodes for each witch, I’d be okay with that too!
The Dream arc of the manga was so much better than it’s 90’s anime counterpart, so I’m excited for them to animate that too.
I second this. We will see how all the soldiers upgrade to their super and eternal forms. I am super excited for Saturn’s transformation sequence. OMG I can’t contain my excitement!
I am under the impression notary didn’t transform into Saturn until the stars arc in the manga, please correct me if I am wrong!
hotaru* (auto-correct)
I’m personally guessing we’ll get 3 two-parter episodes. In the manga, Infinity is 12 chapters and Dream is 11. Combined that only makes 23 episodes, but 3 two-parters would round it up to 26 episodes.
Did they say the next season is going to be 26 episodes? Or did they never mention the actual production order? Are we just speculating it’s going to be 26 episodes and how they will split the third and fourth arc? In my opinion I think if each chapter was split into two episodes that would be best. Why do I say this? It gives the writer to expand and add some ideas that either the creator Naoko couldn’t and wanted to expand on due to rushing to finish the manga( if rumors are true about her wanting to explore different plots/storylines/characters and if she is involved at all with the new series). After all they did add that general and sailor soldier storyline and that wasn’t in the manga, they have changed a few things too which is sad. I don’t know who decided to add it but that shows that crystal doesn’t follow the manga exactly. It’s good if the follow the manga exactly but it leaves many things feel underdeveloped such as the generals in the manga they appear and die which is fine but then we get no character background or development.
What I feel they should do if they ever redo the series again at some point or even right now going forward is give each manga chapter 2 episodes to really give each chapter the time it needs. So say it’s 13 chapters for one arc then the season should be at least 26 episodes just for one arc. The. Add 13 or so more episodes so that the writers and perhaps creator Naoko assuming she is involved gets to expand or change a few things that she finds she didn’t like from her original version. (These are not tacked on the end but rather part of the production order for the amount of episodes so each season would total around 30 something to 40 episodes so that the storylines and characters can be developed) I personally think a scene by scene manga adaption is perfect for big fans of the manga and so there is that aspect they might be trying to cater to. From what I have seen in the manga and even original anime is certain storylines or characters are underdeveloped. I hope if they ever redo the series they take a more development of storylines and characters approach. This is why I hope this story arc and the rest of the series will be 26 episodes at the very least if not more per story arc.
They could do the episodes like this if they are following convention infinity – premonition part 1 or something. I really hope if they redo the series again they do not develop and force just one episode as a adaption of one chapter of the manga but also develop each character and storyline or background. If they ever did a new series they should drop the chapter naming convention or bad changes like instead of Venus killing Queen Beryl it was moon and instead of stabbing her cutting off her necklace.
No comments on episode counts at this point. My number of 26 was pure speculation based on the previous season. We have had no indication one way or another. We don’t even know how many episodes we are getting.
They didn’t say Infinity is no longer a 1 manga chapter per episode adaptation, only that some of the longer chapters will be two-parters. They also promised to be even more faithful to the manga than they were the first time around, so I’m not getting my hopes up for new content sadly. ^_^;
Everyone’s speculations on the episode numbers is absurd, honestly.
Also, I guess the inner guardians are not getting transformation pens because they were not shown at all when Neo Queen Serenity gave them new powers in Act 26.
I’m personally mad hyped about the music, that was always a 10/10 for me. Yes the animation, art, and character development could use work, but the music was always a pleasure and the fact that it’s the same composers again, makes me extremely happy.
It’s been stated several times from people who attended the event that they do have new transformation pens.
Cool so I guess it is for promotional purposes…for merchandise. Did they have pens in the manga or in the OG series?
No. There were no pens shown in the manga…I don’t know if they had them, they were just never shown. There were also no pens for their Crystal transformations or Eternal upgrades. For those they just used their Sailor Crystals, unlike the original anime where they were given upgraded pens for Crystal Power. (Only the outer senshi had Planet Power in the original anime).