The big news from the 30th Anniversary Streaming Event was the announcement of Sailor Moon Cosmos! The two films, Part 1 and Part 2 as was the case with Sailor Moon Eternal, will continue to Sailor Moon Crystal series and cover the Stars arc of the Sailor Moon manga. The current plan is to have these films come out in the summer of 2023 though delays are not completely uncommon with Sailor Moon Crystal. A trailer for the films was shown at the event and then posted on the Sailor Moon Official YouTube Channel. You can watch it embedded below.
The Stars arc is the fifth and final story arc of the Sailor Moon manga so this is likely the end of Sailor Moon Crystal. There’s a lot going on in this trailer! The Stars arc has Usagi meeting the Three Lights and fighting Galaxia. Though it seems that revealing the Sailor Starlights is something that is being kept for a later date we do get a quick look at a poster of The Three Lights in the background in Usagi’s room and an arm seen in the trailer likely belongs to Seiya who is wearing his school uniform. Sailor Galaxia is shown, with her face somewhat obscured. We also got a quick look at Chibi Chibi arriving at the end of the trailer. The final shot has three shooting stars crossing the sky, which would be the Sailor Starlights who are arriving from outside of the solar system.
The film’s title, Sailor Moon Cosmos, is a reference to Sailor Cosmos who is a future incarnation of Sailor Moon who we sort of see in the trailer but sort of don’t.
Mamoru, Tuxedo Mask, is seen briefly in this trailer. Will we see much more of him in the films? What a nice looking golden crystal in that one shot.
Now the speculation can begin about this film! It looks like the art style is fairly similar to what we saw in Sailor Moon Eternal. Does this mean that Kazuko Tadano is returning? The official movie site lists her as the character designer but not the animation director for the films. Since I can’t read Japanese I’m not able to translate anything else.
We haven’t seen much of the Three Lights and Sailor Starlights yet. The songs they performed were a big part of the music for the Sailor Stars season of the original Sailor Moon anime. One would think this would be an important part of these new movies. Who might voice these characters? Perhaps some popular Japanese vocalists! In the original Sailor Moon anime the Three Lights were men as civilians and they transformed into women when they became the Sailor Starlights, though they were voiced by women at all times. The Sailor Moon Crystal series follows the manga more faithfully in which case the Sailor Starlights are women and they disguise themselves as men when they are the Three Lights. It seems likely they could get women to do the voices of these characters, though it could go either way. What popular Japanese pop singers would you like to see voicing the Three Lights?
A note on language while discussing these movies. I’ll generally be referring to the Sailor Starlights as women with pronouns to match and the Three Lights as men with the equivalent pronouns. A lot has happened since the 1990s as far mainstream acceptance of transgender, genderfluid and non binary identities. It might not be evident how exactly to classify these characters by modern standards. As the story tends to have the Starlights identifying as women while they’re Sailor Guardians and the Three Lights identifying as men in their civilian identities I’ll be using language which fits that when discussing those characters. Since the Japanese language doesn’t use pronouns in the same way as we do in English I expect this isn’t something that is likely to be addressed in the official canon but am happy to update this practice if there seems to be cause to do so. If any of this seems incorrect or inappropriate feel free to bring it up in the comments.
Are you excited for these films? Do you think they will actually be released in 2023?
Keep reading for many more screenshots from this trailer.
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That’s cool. Cool cool.
P.S. Try using an OCR app or plugin to convert/translate JP text if your browser’s translation plugin won’t do it.
The director’s name is Takahashi Tomoya 高橋知也. It’s a ridiculously common name, so if you don’t narrow your search criteria you’ll end up looking at boxers, football players, random salarymen, or other directors with the same name.
I initially wrote him off as a young nobody, but apparently he’s earned his stripes directing things such as Hajime no Ippo, Gatchaman Crowds, and a metric shit ton of Pokémon.
Looking forward to it. I wonder when we in the West will see it, though.
I like the West. It is my favorite cardinal direction and wicked witch.
It’s probably going to be on Netflix like Eternal, where else can you put the movies at outside of home media?
In English dub, I hope they don’t put Chan or San at the end of each person’s name.
Crunchyroll and Hulu but it will be on Netflix
AWWWW YEAH GIMME SOME OF THAT DEEP SPACE TURBULENCE AND STARLIGHT STRAIGHT ROYAL FLUSH ACTION I CAN’T WAIT TO SEE THE ASTEROID GIRLS AGAIN
I just want everyone to know that this is not the end of the franchise, just the end of Sailor Moon Crystal.
What else is left to do with the franchise once this is out next year?
Well, I hope they do another anime series, and maybe even the manga short stories in anime. Rei and Minako’s High School Battle, and Parallel Sailor Moon.
So you’re saying that the short stories needed to be adapted?
Absolutely.
I just hope Eternal gets a blu ray release soon or around the time Cosmos is released cause it bugs me not having it
cant wait, wonder if its safe to assume that the english dub if we get it will have the season 5 cast plus the amazon quartet cast as that is 1 of the few differences from the 90s and the manga, that and idk if its a suprise yet or not but how the ending really turns out… at least were almost half way through 2022 lol
I have to say I am both shocked and happy. I am shocked since if I will be honest I thought this would take another 5 years. I am happy we will finally see the ending. This arc is kind of bad to me. I don’t understand what was the point of all the sailors getting powerups and they could not even finish off any villians. To top it off most people did not get new attacks. However, I just really wish they made this and the previous arc into a TV series. I just miss listening to opening and ending themes, watching title cards, and commercial breaks. That was part of the enjoyment of watching the TV series as bad as crystal can be at times. Also what I have to say although it is not always going to be the case is that similar to season 3 I feel it could have expanded a bit on things for this last arc just a little. I hope it does get released on time because it looks this time they actually have some work done. Kind of sad that this is the end and hopefully there will be another anime reboot that expands on all the stories or adds more unique stories, but that is wishful thinking.
How exactly do you know it will be two films? I couldn’t really extract that from the trailer and I am scared it will just be a very rushed one.
It’s only been mentioned in every press release and livestream having to do with Cosmos. The official twitter accounts have mentioned it as well.
Yikes! Let’s talk nicely. We’re all fans here. They just didn’t know.
Can we please discuss how there is a very cleat “shadow image” of Galaxia hidden in the poster for the films?
I’m not really seeing it. Do you mean the faint jack ‘o lantern type smiley face in the sky?
All I care about is Mamoru and Usagi’s wedding at the end.
Hopefully usagi and 4 rookie friends enter Michiru and seiya kou and he’s two boys concert and hopefully these 4 rookie girls won’t fail for usagi
Like last time in a 90s season 5 are bad