The Nogizaka46 x Sailor Moon musical will air on Japanese television September 29th and 30th which may lead to a fan subbed version being produced

Nogizaka46 x Sailor Moon musical - The entire cast

News has been posted to the Official Sailor Moon Site stating that at the end of September the Nogizaka x Sailor Moon musical will be airing on Japanese TV. The showings, on TBS channel 2 in Japan, will be held on two days to showcase both Team Star, September 29th, and Team Moon, September 30th. Each showing is at 5pm Japan Standard Time. What does this mean for us fans out here on the other side of the globe far from being basked in the radio waves of Tokyo Tower? In the past when a streaming version of the musical was made available this meant that some fan would record the broadcast and eventually create an English fan subbed version of the musical. I have been watching the releases from Miss Dream for the past many years but a takedown notice by King Records has lead to them removing their hosted files for the Petite Étrangère, Un Nouveau Voyage, Amour Eternal and Le Mouvement Final musicals. What does this mean for the new musical? I can’t say for sure.

Last week Miss Dream content manager Sailor Busters posted to her Twitter account stating her intention to record and upload the musical for the site.


It seems like the fan subbing group intends to share the musical. They may of course decide not to rather than risk another takedown notice after all the hard work that goes into translating and subtitling a musical. If it does get subbed and King Records sends another takedown notice they would likely comply and remove the content. I can’t predict the future but it seems like a subbed version of the musical is a possibility.

Nogizaka46 x Sailor Moon musical - Team Star

I’m always hesitant to advocate flat out piracy on this site. In this case fan subs are thought to occupy a grey area where they aren’t legal but in cases such as this they seem to do little or nothing to negatively affect any legal product sales in Japan. Because of this most fan sub groups will be removed once there is a legal release of that content. I always encourage fans to support the official releases when possible. In this case the musicals have generally been released on video in Japan only. These releases are region coded with DVD region 2 which will not play in North America. These have not included any English audio or subtitles. Further the digital versions are usually restricted to users in Japan. That said things are getting more complicated as we have started to see performances and even theatrical showings of recent musicals here in North America.

Nogizaka46 x Sailor Moon musical - Team Moon

Could the takedown notices by King Records be an indication of plans for a North American release of the musicals? I can only speculate as to what this means. It may simply be the case that they are trying to avoid having Japanese fans, who might otherwise pay for their legal releases, from downloading these English fan subbed releases and disabling the soft subtitles to watch them without any English text. The Internet, after all, has no borders. These sort of things didn’t happen back in the days of tape swapping and were less relevant with hard subbed videos which would be that much less appealing to a Japanese viewer. Similarly North American releases of Japanese anime on DVD and Blu-Ray could be imported by Japanese viewers often at a fraction of the cost of expensive Japanese releases. In the case of Sailor Moon this hasn’t been much of an issue with the massive difference in quality between Japanese and domestic releases.

Nogizaka46 x Sailor Moon musical - Sayuri Inoue and Mizuki Yamashita as Sailor Moon and Sailor Moon in Weekly Shonen Magazine

What do you think? Have you been watching the Miss Dream subs of the musicals like many others in the fan community? Are you hoping to have a chance to watch the Nogizaka46 x Sailor Moon musical as well? What do you think about the morality of sharing fan subs of releases not legally available in a country?

Sailor Moon S The Movie is coming to DVD and Blu-Ray October 2nd

Sailor Moon S The Movie Blu-Ray/DVD Combo Pack

Following its recent theatrical release Sailor Moon S The Movie is coming to home video on October 2nd! Listings for the Blu-Ray/DVD Combo pack as well as just the DVD have shown up on the Viz web site, Right Stuf (Blu-Ray, DVD) and Amazon (Blu-Ray, DVD). MSRP for the combo set is a reasonable $29.99 with some sites selling it for a few dollars less. This is a good price for anyone who remembers spending more than twice that for coloured VHS tapes back in the day! The DVD is quite a bit cheaper but given the quality of the Blu-Ray this seems like it would be a poor choice for fans. Even if you don’t have a Blu-Ray player it’s worth the extra $10 to get the combo pack and have it for the future. If you’re planning on buying the set on Amazon you can support the site by using the links below.

Sailor Moon S The Movie Blu-Ray/DVD Combo Pack - Back

With the back of the packaging we get details of what’s included in this release though there isn’t much that’s surprising here. The technical specs say it’s 1080p and 16×9 aspect ratio which is the standard as Blu-Ray and what we saw with Sailor Moon R The Movie. This is also likely the same quality video for what fans saw in theatres. Though I didn’t get a chance to see Sailor Moon S The Movie theatrically I would say it’s likely the video quality was high. The master used for the Japanese movie release was of a very high quality and the Sailor Moon R The Movie Blu-Ray we got was comparable in quality. These are mastered from the original film source, not upscaled using software like the TV series releases, which means a very high level of detail in the image. Also mentioned are the English and Japanese audio for those wanting to see it in English or to experience the original film with subtitles. This is Viz’s new dub of the Sailor Moon S movie including the cast we previously reported on. This includes Chris Hackeny as Kakeru, the human Luna falls in love with, Claudia Lenz as Himeko, his love interest, and Melissa Fahn as Princess Snow Kaguya, the alien who’s trying to kill them and everyone else on Earth. Also included are interviews with that English cast, trailers and more. The statement “Remastered for the first time in high definite!~” conveniently ignores the recent Japanese release.

Sailor Moon S The Movie - Luna kisses Kakeru

No mention at this time of when Sailor Moon SuperS: The Nine Sailor Guardians Unite! Miracle of the Black Dream Hole will be released on Blu-Ray along with the Ami’s First Love special though, given both were released in theatres within a week, it shouldn’t be too long. Do you plan on picking up this release?

An Ojibway fan is creating a Sailor Moon fan dub in Anishinaabemowin

Sailor Moon Episode 1 - Japanese Blu-Ray - Usagi and Luna

Westin Sutherland, an 18 year old Ojibway Sailor Moon fan from Winnipeg, has been working on creating a fan dubbed version of Sailor Moon in Anishinaabemowin, one of the many Indigenous languages which is spoken in Canada. A news story on the CBC web site covering this has been getting a lot of attention this week. Westin shared a clip of the first episode on Facebook a few weeks ago. This includes Luna telling Usagi that she is Sailor Moon and her first transformation sequence. You can watch it embedded below.

Westin Sutherland, who is from the Peguis First Nation, decided to dub Sailor Moon and other cartoons because he loved the sound of Anishinaabemowin and felt that his people didn’t have a lot of programming and books in their language. He’s also working on dubbing The Proud Family and other shows. There doesn’t seem to be any particular web site where these episodes are to be shared. The clips in question have only been posted on Westin Sutherland’s private Facebook account. I’ll be keeping an eye out to see if a full episodes shows up somewhere.

Sailor Moon episode 1 - Usagi removing a bandage from Luna's head

You might notice that the sample clip is a mirror image of what was seen in the original episode. This was likely an attempt to avoid having the video flagged for copyright violation.

Luna waking Usagi

What do you think of the clip? Can any First Nation Canadian readers understand the dialogue?

Check out images of the cast of the Sailor Moon The Super Live musical

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon The Super Live musical cast

Last weekend the Sailor Moon Official Site was updated with images of the entire cast of the upcoming Sailor Moon The Super Live musical. We had previously gotten a complete cast listing and some partially obscured images of the cast. Here we have the Pink Heart, Yellow Diamond and Blue Musical Note casts. I had previously made an attempt to translate most of the cast names and was missing only a few. I’ve been able to fill in the blanks with details from a post on Anime News Network. The image on the official site and those posted to Twitter were a bit confusing with a number of repeated images for Queen Beryl, Kunzite and Tuxedo Mask who’s actors span multiple teams. I attempted to simplify them in the amalgamated image above. The Super Live Musical web site also gives a decent matrix showing them all. Check out the updated cast listings, with separate images, below.

Sailor Moon The Super Live Musical - Pink Heart Cast

Pink Heart Cast:

Sailor Moon/Usagi Tsukino: Kanae Yumemiya
Sailor Mercury/Ami Mizuno: Cocona
Sailor Mars/Rei Hino: Kitomi Hirai (2)
Sailor Jupiter/Makoto Kino: Kie Obana
Sailor Venus/Minako Aino: Sena Hooper

Sailor Moon The Super Live Musical - Yellow Diamond Cast

Yellow Diamond Cast:

Sailor Moon/Usagi Tsukino: Natsuki Koga (2)
Sailor Mercury/Ami Mizuno: Umino Kawamura (2)
Sailor Mars/Rei Hino: Kyoko Ninomiya
Sailor Jupiter/Makoto Kino: Kanna Matsuzaki
Sailor Venus/Minako Aino: Yu Nakanishi

Sailor Moon The Super Live Musical - Blue Musical Note Cast

Blue Musical Note Cast:

Sailor Moon/Usagi Tsukino: Kasai Tomomi (2)
Sailor Mercury/Ami Mizuno: Momoko Kaechi
Sailor Mars/Rei Hino: Yui Hasegawa
Sailor Jupiter/Makoto Kino: Shio Yamazaki (2)
Sailor Venus/Minako Aino: Saaya Goto (2)

Confusingly, there are two Queen Beryls over the three teams.

Sailor Moon The Super Live Musical - Pink Heart and Yellow Diamond Queen Beryl

Pink Heart and Yellow Diamond Cast:

Queen Beryl: Kyoka

Sailor Moon The Super Live Musical - Blue Musical Note Queen Beryl

Blue Musical Note Cast:

Queen Beryl: Makoto Aikawa

Kunzite and Tuxedo Mask are the same amongst all three teams, as was reported last time.

Sailor Moon The Super Live Musical - Kunzite and Tuxedo Mask

Pink Heart, Yellow Diamond and Blue Musical Note Cast:

Kunzite: Sanada Reo
Tuxedo Mask/Mamoru Chiba: Riona Tatemichi

What do you think of the look of the latest Sailor Teams? Casting for Tuxedo Mask is always important. Do you think Riona Tatemichi who played Taiki in the Le Mouvement Final musical fits the part? The musical starts at the end of the month on August 31st and will run until September 9th in Tokyo. It will also be held at the Japonismes event in Paris November 3rd and 4th. With so many showings there are often multiple teams doing shows on the same day. Good news for the cast members who get to relax between showings but a lot of work for Sanada Reo and Riona Tatemichi was are present for every performance! Are any of you planning on seeing this one?