Yesterday there was a special live event to celebrate Usagi’s birthday, June 30th. The main news pertaining to new Sailor Moon Crystal, which is what everyone has been waiting for, was that the upcoming 4th story arc or 4th season will not be presented as episodes but as two theatrical films. These will be played in theatres in Japan but it isn’t clear at this time what that means for international fans. Will we get the films in theatres ourselves? Will it be streamed online at a later date, perhaps split into individual episodes? A free simulcast seems a bit unlikely as there wouldn’t be much of an incentive to get people into theatres if the movies were available online on the first day. We will have to wait and see for more details as we still don’t have any timeline of when this might happen. After the event this information was posted to the official site.
We’ve also learned that these two movies will be directed by Chiaki Kon, who was the director for the Infinity Arc of Sailor Moon Crystal. I really dug the animation style of the latest season so I’m happy to see her return, but it doesn’t look like all fans share that sentiment.
The rest of the live event wasn’t all that compelling. Since it was Usagi’s birthday there was a cake and Happy Birthday to You was sung, which it seems is now public domain and not subject to copyright.
There was also a new trailer shown for the upcoming Sailor Moon Le Mouvement Final. This included another look at the new characters from this musical. This trailer can be seen embedded below.
There was also a message from Naoko Takeuchi which was read by Sailor Moon’s voice actor Kotono Mitsuishi. No new information was included but it was about looking back at her time with the manga and thanking fans. This letter was also shared on the official site. This letter mentions that in 1992 she was 26 years old. This doesn’t match with many sources stating that she was born on March 15th 1967. If she was indeed 26 in 1992 this would put her year of birth at 1966. According to the Naoko Takeuchi Wikipedia talk page there are sources which indicate that she was born in 1966. It would seem plausible that this is in fact the case. This would mean that my most viral Tweet where I wished Naoko Takeuchi a happy 50th birthday in March of this year was in fact wrong as she would have turned 51 this year. Without confirmation of her year of birth we can’t be sure one way or another.
The most annoying part of the event was when they screened the intro and ending themes from the last story arc. This would have been a great time to see something new instead of something we’ve seen well over a year ago!
For now we must continue to wait for more details about these two movies and what they mean for North American fans or the possibility of a Stars story arc. Sailor Moon fans have certainly learned to be patient with Sailor Moon Crystal!
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I find this exciting news! And I’m glad we’re getting anything at all.
BTW, someone told me at work yesterday, “Happy Usagi Day” after finding out that I’m a fan of anime. I was like, “HELL YEAH!”
Well, to this day, Sailor Moon Crystal it’s:
* 4 seasons,
* 3 different formats,
* And a new original soundtrack for the movies next to come: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5sQL7q_IOI .
They are also changing the animation style!
http://www.genvid.com/mspaint/sailormoonpaint.gif
Fantastic!
The same, fantastic!
Very funny and very true.
Heh! I chortled.
I hear that they will make up the money from this new budget by re-re-releasing the Japanese DVDs and selling Sailor Moon brand adult diapers, “The one on whom you can Depend” TM.
I’m not sure how I feel about this… Two movies? I hope nothing is cut from the manga. I am, however, glad that we are finally getting something.
Oh, things will be cut from the manga. Films can only be up to a bit over 2 hours at most. Unless they make both films over 3 hours long and have the movies on 2 discs each then things will be cut out so they can fit it in the time frame. That’s why I’m so angry about the Dream arc being films.
Well technically by reducing the excessive trqnsformation scenes and rearanging some plot points would fit in two movies, but only if they are about 2 hours long. I spend my whole day reading the arc and imagining how could thinks be rearranged and it would work out pretty well, as long as the movies are about 120 minutes each. The movie format can actually adapt the manga and shake up the repetitivnes. But they should have startedwith movies from the begining for the sake of reconsistency. Now it is late to change things and people will complain which is normal. We will see. My only concern now is not the story, because Chiaki Kon is a very capable director. My problem is the time it will take for the movies to be produced and released for people outside Japan. We will be waiting for years, unless they started to work on it since at least January. Chiaki Kon produced a whole beautifully adapted season in less than a year so I hope the movie might premier in Japanon January 2018 and to be available for us through streaming. Toei knows it is a huge international property and so far they have always managed to release it in multiple countries simultaniously.
I hope the Guardians will be wearing bikinis in the movies.
Perv
I AM NOT A PERV!
Well what else should i call it when a middle aged man wants to watch young 15 year old girls in bikini.
Nothing.
:-/ http://i1294.photobucket.com/albums/b620/pkmndeanna/DisapprovingOprah_zps17ebdb24.gif
Shut up, both of you!
http://www.caps.media/199/7-hercules-br/full/hercules-br-disneyscreencaps.com-4932.jpg
We have to hope that the budget will be as good as DBZ – Battle of The God, that they adapt really the story arc of the manga (the best what a shame :'()…
Really worried as well about the timing… it sounds that they didn’t even start and just decide to make a movie yesterday… so what 2019? 2020?!
From the sound of it, that might be likely. It’s like Marvel announcing their next six films before the first two have even hit the script-writing/casting phase.
I’m just waiting for Sailor Moon Crystal: YET Another Story, a retro Super Famicom RPG. Don’t you DARE disappoint me!
We’re all waiting for it! https://www.facebook.com/Pretty-Soldier-Sailor-Moon-The-RPG-104002269649490/
This went from a throwaway joke to a happy decision, all thanks to you! Haha!
This is how they string fans along. They provide absolute minimal information, nothing solid for months after, while they keep fans interested enough to sell merchandise until the final product is ready.
hey guys does any one know if there is a possiblity someone will broadcast it like what they did with digimon tri?
We know nothing, except it will be a 2 parter, it will civer the Dream Arc and it will be directed by Chiaki Kon. We have no release date, cast, nothing, but I really hope we won’t wait til the end of time to watch it.
Oh crap !, but I hope it’s at least as with Digimon Tri and the movies are 5 chapters of 24 -25 minutes. Or else, they would have internationally distributed the first 2 seasons of the anime of the 90 + first film with chapter 89 as extra of DVD/BD.
We wont get anything new till the next Usagi’Birthday party I presume. Maybe they will announce it as a parody chibi 3d movie that will be released for the 30th anniversary but then they will delay it for no reason …
I’ve been wondering too. If they’re animating all the manga will they animate the Sailor V manga as well?
I am always shocked that somebody still hopes for Sailor V to be animated, considering the poor support Sailor Moon Crystal is getting from Toei as it is a huge international brand
Omg I’ll be so disappointed if Stars doesn’t happen!
I can’t believe this. *Lying to myself* I really hope they change their decision or that this is a huge translation error.
I’m also surprised we didn’t hear anything about arc 3 being dubbed. Wouldn’t Viz do something for Usagi’s birthday? Guess they don’t care.
This is both great and bad news. It’s great we actually get something although they did say they will continue so I thought we would get some sort of continuation anyway. The movies would not be a bad idea if we had like 6 movies or something because we do not know how long each movie would be, but based on realistic expectations we would need 3 hour movies to really not cut out any important details since it is only going to be 2 movies. I do not think this will happen though unfortunately which means things will be cut. This is why I prefer them to make another season and the annoying part is it is only going to be 13 episodes for the season anyway. It’s not even a 52 episode per season thing so the budget is already as low.
I do not think just because it’s a movie the animation or quality will be higher. It would be nice if it was, but realistically that’s probably not happening. It already seems obvious they want crystal to end as soon as possible. It should have been a tv series with a decent amount of episodes to begin with, expanding on the characters and stories of the manga. I do not think they want to cancel it, but it seems they want the series to end as fast as they can make it happen.
Yes! Let’s take what should be a 6-6½ hour season of ½ hour 12-13 episodes and condense it into a couple of (I’m guessing) 1½ hour (or barely 1½ hour) movies. -_-
A lot of effort and detail is being put into merchandise (do we really anymore figures and figurines for the 5,000th time?). But they can’t do the same for the series.
Very disappointing news…. Very disappointing, indeed….
I find it so unfathomably bizarre that in spite of how beloved the franchise is, how notorious it is worldwide, and how the characters are referenced constantly in all facets of pop culture…the people who own the IP continue to do ABSOLUTELY F*****NG NOTHING WITH IT.
The demand is there for TV, film, video games, comics… and we get F*****NG NOTHING.
It’s unreal. If an American company owned Sailor Moon, it would have been crammed down our throats to the point of exhaustion by now.
*facepalms internally*
They’re cramming the entire thing into just two movies?? Here I was actually looking forward to this season, since the manga story is a lot better compared to season 4 of the original anime, and now they go and pull this.
Why do the people in charge of Crystal seem to have no respect for the series whatsoever?
Manga Dream Arc and the Anime Neherenia arc are identical, this would be basically Stars Neherenia Arc condensed as a movie, the Amazones Trio get treated like Mirror Parodies in the movie like in Neherenia Arc.
Ok here’s the thing. The manga Dream Arc is The shortest of the arcs (11 Chapters) and the chapters usually continue one another, so it would be easier to condense the storyline into 4 hours. I would still much prefer an anime, but if this is what we’re getting, oh well.