Sailor Moon Crystal Season III volume 2 Japanese Blu-Ray review

Sailor Moon Crystal Season III Blu-Ray - Vol. 2 - Contents

The latest Blu-Ray release for Sailor Moon Crystal’s Infinity Arc was released on July 27th in Japan. This is the second of three releases covering this story arc and includes episodes 30 through 33. The set also includes a 24 page booklet with episode descriptions, interviews and character art. This is a Japanese only release with no English subtitles. You can order it from online retailers such as Amazon Japan for 6516 yen, about $65 US.

Sailor Moon Crystal Season III Blu-Ray - Vol. 2 - Front

The packaging for this release highlights Sailor Uranus and Neptune with a great cover image on the Blu-Ray itself. The colours on the box match Sailor Uranus’s Sailor Fuku with a yellow bow.

Sailor Moon Crystal Season III Blu-Ray - Vol. 2 - Disc

Episodes included in this release are Act 30, Infinity 4 – Sailor Uranus – Haruka Tenoh – Sailor Neptune – Michiru Kaioh, Act 31 – Sailor Pluto – Setsuna Meioh, Act 32 – Infinity 6 – Three Guardians, and Act 33 – Infinity 7 – Transformation – Super Sailor Moon. These cover the Witches 5’s Viluy, Tellu, Cyprine and Ptitlol, the appearance of Setsuna Meioh and Sailor Pluto as well as the origins of the Holy Grail and Sailor Moon’s transformation into Super Sailor Moon. Also included is the first appearance of Sailor Saturn, but only in flashback form, and a brief appearance by Mistress 9.

I watched all four episodes and didn’t notice any changes in animation from the original streaming release as had been done with the first 26 episodes. As there were no changes to the last release either I suspect we won’t be seeing any changes to the episodes of this story arc.

Sailor Moon Crystal Season III Blu-Ray - Vol. 2 - Special Booklet 2 - Pages 12 and 13 - Interview with Yukiyo Fujii, the voice of Sailor Saturn

The packaging advertises a 28 page booklet. Funny I only counted 24. I suppose we could be really creative and count the cover page and back cover as “pages”? Like with other booklets this includes episode summaries, interviews and character art. This one includes interviews with five voice actors Misato Fukuen, Sailor Chibi Moon, Junko Minagawa, Sailor Uranus, Sayaka Ohara, Sailor Neptune, Yukiyo Fujii, Sailor Saturn and Ai Maeda, Sailor Pluto.

Some audio commentaries are also included with the episodes themselves. The same voice actors appear for all four of the commentaries. This includes Hisako Kanemoto, Ami, Rina Sato, Rei, Misato Fukuen, Chibiusa and Yukiyo Fujii, Hotaru. I don’t speak Japanese so I don’t know what they talk about.

Sailor Moon Crystal Season III Blu-Ray - Vol. 2 - Blu-Ray

It’s a bit hard to justify buying this Japanese only release at this price which is close to what you’d pay for the entire 14 episode Dark Kingdom story arc in Japanese and English. Surely the four episodes per disc is a better deal than with earlier releases but since there are no changes to the animation this time around you can still watch the streaming version for free instead of buying this.

The third volume, including the final five episodes of this story arc, will be released on Blu-Ray on August 31st. You can preorder it online from sites like Amazon Japan. It costs a bit more, with an MSRP of 10,584 yen, about $105 US dollars. This post on the Sailor Moon official site indicates that the version will include a box to store all three volumes in, which seems to justify this roughly 50% increase from the previous volumes.

Keep reading for more images of the packaging including photos of all pages of the included special booklet.

Sailor Moon Crystal Season III Blu-Ray - Vol. 2

Sailor Moon Crystal Season III Blu-Ray - Vol. 2 - Back

Sailor Moon Crystal Season III Blu-Ray - Vol. 2 - Front

Sailor Moon Crystal Season III Blu-Ray - Vol. 2 - Back

Sailor Moon Crystal Season III Blu-Ray - Vol. 2 - Blu-Ray

Sailor Moon Crystal Season III Blu-Ray - Vol. 2 - Blu-Ray box back

Sailor Moon Crystal Season III Blu-Ray - Vol. 2 - Spine

Sailor Moon Crystal Season III Blu-Ray - Vol. 2 - Special Booklet 2 - Cover

Sailor Moon Crystal Season III Blu-Ray - Vol. 2 - Special Booklet 2 - Title page

Sailor Moon Crystal Season III Blu-Ray - Vol. 2 - Special Booklet 2 - Pages 2 and 3 - Act 30 and 31

Sailor Moon Crystal Season III Blu-Ray - Vol. 2 - Special Booklet 2 - Pages 4 and 5 - Act 32 and 33

Sailor Moon Crystal Season III Blu-Ray - Vol. 2 - Special Booklet 2 - Pages 6 and 7 - Interview with Misato Fukuen, the voice of Sailor Chibi Moon

Sailor Moon Crystal Season III Blu-Ray - Vol. 2 - Special Booklet 2 - Pages 8 and 9 - Interview with Junko Minagawa, the voice of Sailor Uranus

Sailor Moon Crystal Season III Blu-Ray - Vol. 2 - Special Booklet 2 - Pages 10 and 11 - Interview with Sailor Neptune

Sailor Moon Crystal Season III Blu-Ray - Vol. 2 - Special Booklet 2 - Pages 12 and 13 - Interview with Yukiyo Fujii, the voice of Sailor Saturn

Sailor Moon Crystal Season III Blu-Ray - Vol. 2 - Special Booklet 2 - Pages 14 and 15 - Interview with Ai Maeda, the voice of Sailor Pluto

Sailor Moon Crystal Season III Blu-Ray - Vol. 2 - Special Booklet 2 - Pages 16 and 17 - Art for Haruka and Michiru

Sailor Moon Crystal Season III Blu-Ray - Vol. 2 - Special Booklet 2 - Pages 18 and 19 - Art for Setsuna and the Witches 5

Sailor Moon Crystal Season III Blu-Ray - Vol. 2 - Special Booklet 2 - Pages 20 and 21 - Art for Professor Tomoe and Talismans

Sailor Moon Crystal Season III Blu-Ray - Vol. 2 - Special Booklet 2 - Pages 22 and 23 - Art for Talismans

Sailor Moon Crystal Season III Blu-Ray - Vol. 2 - Special Booklet 2 - Pages 24 - Credits

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18 thoughts on “Sailor Moon Crystal Season III volume 2 Japanese Blu-Ray review

  1. What did happen to Sailor Neptune’s hair in the picture that Sailor Uranus is hugging Sailor Neptune? Why is her hair so different? Her hair is resembling Ginga Natsumi’s hair to me who is human form of An is from Sailor Moon R season, Makaiju Arc. Sailor Neptune’s own hair is more original and more beautiful than this version in my opinion. Making a little changes like these is unnecessary.

  2. I don’t mind again the fact that these four episodes didn’t get an improvement in animation like previous seasons, for me, the first 8 episodes of Season 3 were good in terms of animation quality, but the first three episode of the final volume (Acts 34, 35 and 36) were the opposite (very bad in general) and they REALLY need this improvement in animation quality. I’m hoping that we see at least in the final volume the changes in animation that these three particular episodes need.

  3. wow… thanks for this fast review… waiting for the next & last for Season 3.

    BTW I need this character pic with HD if you dont mind..

    thanks a lot ^^

    regards

  4. Maybe they aren’t fixing anything because there is just too much to fix?????

    Seasons 1 and 2 had limited frames of animation, so they could easily go in and fix some frames here and there.

    Season 3 has more frames of animation, so they would have to fix so much more. I guess they just don’t want to bother.

    • What do you mean by frames? My understanding was that traditional anime used about 8 frames per second translated to 24 frames per second video source. I’m not sure how much all of that applies with animation that is so heavily assisted by computers. Was there a difference in the process used for the first 26 episodes and the Infinity Arc?

  5. I don’t expect any news regarding to season 4 soon… Now it is all about the musical and Blu-rays, later DVDs and other merchandise… I think maybe there will be some news sometime in November but I still think that we won’t get anything new until January 2017 with broadcasting starting again form April

  6. I cant wait for season 4 especially for Sailor Quartet and Amazon trio (P.S amazon trio were my favorite villians after Galaxya)

    • Amazon trio has much much less significant role in Manga so there is not that much to wait for regarding to amazon trio in Crystal

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