Keiko Kitagawa and Kotono Mitsuishi star in the upcoming series Rikokatsu

Kotono Mitsuishi and Keiko Kitagawa

It’s a multi series Sailor Moon crossover event as Keiko Kitagawa, who played Sailor Mars in the live action Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon series, and Kotono Mitsuishi, the voice of Sailor Moon from the original Sailor Moon anime and Sailor Moon Crystal, play mother and daughter in the upcoming TV series Rikokatsu! The series will air on TBS Television starting this Friday, April 16th.

Update – April 14th: I mistakenly referred to this as a movie in my original post. This is in fact a TV series which will air starting this Friday on Japanese television. Perhaps a fan subbed version will make its way online in the coming weeks!

Shiro Sano, Keiko Kitagawa and Kotono Mitsuishi in Rikokatsu

The plot of the show has Keiko Kitagawa’s character of Saki Mizuguchi falling in love with and marrying Koichi Obara, played by Japanese actor Eita. As they have conflicting personalities they intend to get a divorce and, to serve the high jynx plot of the series, do not tell their family about this. Kotono Mitsuishi plays Midori Mizuguchi, Saki’s mother.

Kotono Mitsuishi and Keiko Kitagawa in the Rikokatshu relationship chart

Watch the trailer for the series embedded below:

Asian Drama series have a dedicated following outside of Japan. Do you any of you plan on following this series?

Live Action Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Act 14 - Rei

Source: Kotono Mitsuishi on Twitter, Rikokatsu official site, Rikokatsu Twitter account

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56 thoughts on “Keiko Kitagawa and Kotono Mitsuishi star in the upcoming series Rikokatsu

  1. CORRECTION: Rikokatsu is actually a TV series and not a movie. It’ll air on Fridays in the 10 PM slot in Japan on TBS, and in Taiwan the following day on KKTV.

    https://www.tbs.co.jp/rikokatsu_tbs/

    Keiko Kitagawa’s on-screen career has really been blowing up lately. Her last major film, “First Love” was released around the same time as Eternal, and she had a smaller role in another movie called さんかく窓の外側は夜 earlier this year. The fact that she’s doing a TV show means she’s settled down into a longer-term project, but I imagine she’ll still be showing up in other things this year.

    I’ve never seen Mitsuishi in an on-camera film role before, so that alone piques my interest.

    • +1

      It’s definitely a TV drama and not a movie. Even the title of the YT video says it: “shin kinyoo drama” means “new Friday drama”. I guess at some point you really need to know nihongo because google translate won’t translate everything.

      But if I were an entitled princess, I would demand that this show “be dubbed into teenage-friendly emojis and streamed directly to my microwave because I ain’t gonna fly to Japan to watch no movie in a foreign language”. Realistically, all TV shows end up on streaming aggregation sites eventually whether they’re meant for international release or not, so I’d say there’s a good chance it’ll be on YT

    • I was going to write that I didn’t know that Kotono Mitsuishi was an on-screen actress as well, until I read your comment. And so her new career path piques my interest too! Also the scenario seems interesting… shall we expect a comedy show for this reason? Judging by the second part of the trailer, it seems so but I might be wrong.

      Anyway it’s nice for us Sailor Moon fans to see Kotono Mitsuichi and Keiko Kitagawa be together on-screen!

    • Oh wow. Big mistake on my part!! Thank you.

      Actually since it’s on TV there might be a subbed version floating around. Those Asian drama fans are a dedicated group. I’ve seen a few episodes of other Keiko Kitagawa series that way.

    • Keiko Kitagawa and Kotono Mitsuishi have both been playing a huge part in the Sailor Moon universe, and now they are co-starring in a TV series. And since there are not always “direct” Sailor Moon related news, it’s nice that Adam wrote something about it, because in a way, yes, it’s related to Sailor Moon. From afar. But still related to it in a way.

        • Best worst dub attack would have to be “Mars Celestial Fire Surround”, which was Cloverway’s attempt at westernizing “Burning Mandala”.

          Cringey runner-ups include Jupiter Thunderclap Zap (Sparkling Wide Pressure), Venus Love Chain Encircle, Moon Scepter Elimination, and Mercury Ice Storm Blast.

          • What’s funny is how many of these would have sounded great if they didn’t add the little extra at the end.
            Mars Celestial Fire sounds pretty awesome, but tacking on “Surround” at the end is just an odd choice.

          • We had those same “little extras” in the French original dub of the classic anime also. I don’t know however if they were reproduced in the French dub of Crystal since I watched Crystal in French one time and for a few seconds only, because it was so bad that it almost made my ears bleed. It was terrible, you could say that the voice actors did not give a damn and didn’t know anything about Sailor Moon. A very good example is how they butchered the pronunciation of Zoisite, ignoring that it was the name of a gemstone, so, a common name, that we write “zoïsite” and pronounce “zo-ee-zeet” in French. And what did they do? They pronounced it “Soissite” – “swa-ceet”.
            It was very funny, but also very exasperating and cringy to hear Zoisite excitedly introducing himself as “Soissite”, instead of “Zoïsite”.

            As for the extra words, the Inner Senshi used to add “Agis tout de suite !” or “Agissez tout de suite !” (“Act now!”) after shouting the names of their attacks.

            For instance Sailor Mars’ attack was “Âme du feu, agis tout de suite !” (Fire soul, act now!”). And it was worse when there was more than one elemental weapon comprised in the attack, like Sailor Mercury’s “paillettes d’argent” (the French version of her “bubbles”, literally “silver glitter”), because the verbe “agir” then had to be conjugated in the plural: “Paillettes d’argent, agissez tout de suite !”, which would unnecessarily lengthen the sentence and thus break the rythm of her incantation.

            About the Outer Senshi, Neptune’s “Deep submerge” was “Cercle de glace, gèle !” (“Ice circle, freeze!”), Uranus’ “World Shaking” was “Cercle de feu, brûle !” (“Fire circle, burn!”) and Pluto’s “Dead Scream” was “Globe de Pluton, roule !” (“Globe of Pluto, roll!”). Poor girls… Uranus’ power is not related to fire, Neptune’s is flowing water and not ice (which belongs to Mercury) and “Dead scream” was completely slaughtered…

          • Oh wow, some of those are pretty funny!
            Poor Pluto! Poor all of the Outers.
            Silver glitter is kind of pretty, but an odd choice.

            We had:
            Mercury Bubbles Blast/Mercury Ice Storm Blast (which was quickly amended to Shine Aqau Illusion)
            Mars Fire Ignite/Mars Celestial Fire Surround/Mars Flame Shooter
            Jupiter Thunder Crash/Jupiter Thunder Clap Zap (both eventually fixed to Supreme Thunder and Sparkling Wide Pressure with no real consitency)
            Venus Crescent Beam Smash/Venus Love Chain Encircle.
            Thankfully the rest of their attacks were left unchanged (excepting the ones during the Makai Tree Arc).

            Sailor Moon had a varying level of butchery, but most were similar to the Japanese or identical.
            The outers had their planet named before their attack, eg: Uranus World Shaking.
            But Pluto’s was changed to “Pluto Deadly Scream” and she screamed it instead of a whisper.

          • Oh God… Writing this comment made me nostalgic and I went on YouTube to watch some bits of the old anime in French. It’s how I stumbled upon the moment where Mercury is revealed as a Senshi. Of course when I was a kid I could not tell the difference, but now I can say that it’s worst than in my memory. For instance, Luna says, upon discovering that Amy (Molly here… a name that doesn’t exist in French!) is Sailor Mercury: “Ah, now I know why I felt such a very strong energy, she’s a warrior of sailor (“guerrière de sailor”) !” And not simply a “sailor warrior” as she should have said (“guerrière sailor”)… Also, after Amy’s transformation, Luna asks her to attack by repeating the words “Smoke, disperse!” (“Fumée, disperse-toi !”), which later became “Silver glitter, act now!” (“Paillettes d’argent, agissez tout de suite !”). Silver glitter are sure better than smoke, but they still have nothing to see with water bubbles…

            And we could talk about Sailor Moon’s “Moon Tiara”, which became “Frisbee lunaire, agis tout de suite !” Yeah… lunar frisbee guys! LOL.

            Also, the voice of the monster of the day was awful, very typical of the way French voice actors used to dub anime villains in the 90s: exaggerated, if not totally parodical.

          • @ Saint: haha, I have the feeling that English viewers were more lucky than us!

            We only had few attack names for each of the Senshi:

            – Mercury: Silver glitter (paillettes d’argent), silver wave (vague d’argent) and aqua rhapsody (rhapsodie de l’eau – oh, an accurate translation for once!). And let’s forget the smoke…

            – Mars: Fire soul(s) (âme(s) du feu, singular or plural), fire circles (cercles de feu) and fire arrow (flèche de feu).

            – Jupiter: Supreme thunder (éclair suprême), silver disc (disque d’argent), crown of Jupiter (couronne de Jupiter).

            – Venus: crescent(s) of love (croissant(s)** d’amour, both singular and plural were used here as well), heart of love (cœur d’amour).

            – For Neptune and Uranus, see my 1st comment above :( .

            – Pluto’s Dead Scream became “Globe of Pluto” (globe de Pluton) but also “Power of Pluto” (pouvoir de Pluton).

            – As for Moon and Chibi Moon, the French dub gave them more names for their attacks, of course. We had that famous “lunar frisbee” (frisbee lunaire), Moon Princess Halation became “lunar cicatrization” (cicatrisation lunaire), Moon Gorgeous Meditation was translated into a “kaléidoscope lunaire”, and Moon Spiral Heart Attack was turned into a “lunar heart stick” (baguette** du coeur lunaire).

            ** Please don’t laugh guys, a baguette is a stick, a rod or a wand. Just like a croissant is a crescent. It’s their respective shapes that gave their names to our culinary specialities.

          • “But Pluto’s was changed to “Pluto Deadly Scream” and she screamed it instead of a whisper.”

            So many bad thing were done to my Pluto! Screaming “Dead Scream” is the ultimate crime. I will not tolerate that. My lunar baguette will avenge her and knead the dough out of their brains until they can no longer scream, nor even whisper!

          • In fairness, the English dub had very few excuses since most of the attack names are in English, to begin with!

            It’s strange that Amy was Molly, since, in the English dub, Naru was called Molly (and had a thick Brooklyn accent. Most characters from Osaka ended up with that fate in dubs of the 1990s-2000s.)

            Our girls were called:
            Usagi: Serena Tsukino aka “Bunny”
            Ami: Amy Anderson (later Mizuno)
            Rei: Raye Hino
            Makoto: Lita Kino
            Minako: Mina Aino
            Haruka: Amara Tenoh
            Michiru: Michelle Kaioh
            Setsuna: Trista Meioh
            Hotaru: Hotaru Tomoh (yes, promounced as Toh-moh and not Toh-moh-ay)

            Mamoru became Darien Shields

            Most villains had the same or similar names with some odd exceptions:
            The Dark Kingdom became “The Nega Verse” (as in negative)
            Beryl: Beryl
            Metalia: The Negaforce
            Jadeite: Jedite (This made no sense, since Jadeite is a word we use)
            Nephrite: Nephlite (pointless change)
            Zoisite: Zoysite (again…why?! also, Zoysite was a woman)
            Kunzite: Malachite (no idea why… I think it was something to do with the name being copyrighted? Also heard it was because the word can sound naughty in English)

            The English name for the Black Moon was Nega Moon.
            The main members were left mostly unchanged or translated, which was fine.

            Rubeus: Rubeus
            Esmeraude: Emerald
            Saphir: Sapphire
            Demande: Diamond
            But the sisters on the other hand:
            Koan: Catzi
            Beruche: Bertie
            Calaveras: Avery
            Petz: Prizma

            The villains in S and SuperS were kind of weird direct adaptations without any research:
            Eudial: Eugeal
            Mimette: Mimette
            Tellu: Tellullu (it’s because in Japan it sounds like Ter-ruru)
            Viluy: Byruit or Byrui
            Kaolinite: Kaori Night

            VesVes: Besubesu
            JunJun: JunJun
            PallaPalla: ParahParah
            CereCere: SelaySelay

          • Mars Flame Sniper was also changed to “Mars Flame Shooter” in the North American dub because “snipers” and “shooters” are COMPLETELY different things.

    • I’ll admit that I often share news about Keiko Kitagawa’s upcoming projects and consider it only tangentially related to Sailor Moon but since this includes two actors from the franchise it seemed more relevant.

  2. So what type of show this is? Typical Japanese drama or something that also comes with comedy elements? I’m not familiar with Japanese tv shows – it kinda look like it has half-serious half-slapstick style of idk, Ugly Betty

    • It’s a standard rom-com with dramatic elements. So far, there’s more melodrama than actual drama though. The premise of the story is a couple who starts falling in love after their divorce. Not entirely original but people will watch it just because the Keiko Kitagawa is in it.

  3. Gee, the dub of Eternal is really lazy about giving us info. Even if they have no progress to report at least let us know either they’re still working on it or it’ll still be made if there’s no progress.

    • That’s not how the business works. Studios are under no obligation to disclose their release schedules in advance.

      So far, you’ve done nothing but troll on this site about how the Sailor Moon franchise is not catered specifically to your English-speaking needs. Your act is stale. This isn’t YouTube or Reddit.

    • I’d love to see some progress reports too! I want to see it in both Japanese and English. At this point, I’d settle for it raw!
      But as frustrating as it is now, it will be all the sweeter when we get it!

      • I’m sure if a raw version was released a fansub would be out within a week. While I’m hoping for it to be streaming on Netflix soon I quick some less reputable sites at least once a week.

        • Well, if you do find one leaked, I won’t be mad at all if you find a sneaky way to share it.
          Either way, I will support the official release. :)

          • It’s a fine line I try to be reasonable on and I will always support any official release for Sailor Moon products even when streaming options remain available.

          • I totally agree. If it’s something I love I prefer to show support to let them know I want more!
            Except for Funko Pops…please, please Funko, don’t make any more of those!

  4. Pretty sure not a single person here is interested, but episode 4 of Rikokatsu was a doozy:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ns4Vtmb4d0k

    To summarize, Mitsuishi Kotono’s character (Keiko Kitagawa’s mother) hires Keiko’s lawyer ex-boyfriend to handle her daughter’s divorce before announcing at her birthday party (held at her daughter’s house) that she herself plans to get divorced. There are also at least two love triangles which I don’t care much about. There’s a bit of overacting, but all the tropes are there.

  5. It’s only taken six episodes for the guy the finally move out. There’s some actor-y running and sobbing followed by a tearful goodbye (until the next episode anyway).

    In episode 7, all the men in the show who have been divorced try to win back their wives, and Sailor Moon has been swindled out of 20,000,000 ¥.

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