A new Sailor Moon Art Book “Sailormoon Raisonné” is coming April 12th!

Sailormoon Raisonné Art Works 1991-2023

A new Art Book titled “Sailormoon Raisonné Art Works 1991~2023″ will be released in less than a month on April 12th! Yesterday Sailor Moon editor Fumio Osano teased that some announcements would be made today, and this seems to be the big one! What does the French word for “reasoned” have to do with Sailor Moon? I really have no idea but it is certainly following in the tradition of using random non Japanese or English words in the last decade’s Sailor Moon musical titles. This one doesn’t seem to be overtly incorrectly spelled but the phrase doesn’t really make sense. What is “Sailormoon Reasoned?”

Update: It seems the term “raisonné” in this context refers to a “Catalogue raisonné” which is a catalogue listing all known works by an artist. This suggests that this work would reference everything that Naoko Takeuchi did related to Sailor Moon during the years 1991 to 2023. I’ve been speaking French for 45 years and this term is new to me!

By starting in 1991, the year in which Sailor Moon first appeared in the pages of Nakayoshi and that Codename: Sailor V appeared in Run Run, we will be covering the entire history of the manga. This “ultimate” colour illustration collection gathers a whopping 745 illustrations in its 200 pages.

The front cover features Sailor Moon, Mars, Venus, Mercury and Jupiter while the back shows Sailor Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, Chibi Moon and Saturn. A “B5″ sized file folder featuring one of these images will be available for those ordering it through the Fan Club or purchasing it at the Sailor Moon Store in Japan. B5 size is roughly but not exactly 7×10″. With an MSRP of 5980 yen, the book will cost about $40 US though expect to pay a bit for shipping or a mint for shipping if you’re still ordering from Amazon Japan, something I have stopped down due to exponential increases in their shipping costs.

This announcement has lead some to wonder if this is the same art book which was announced by Kodansha at New York Comiccon back in October of 2012. At the time the new art book was said to be released in seven countries including the United States. This announcement was made by Kodansha in Japan and doesn’t mention an international release, but such an announcement may still be coming. It’s also possible that after so much time this is a totally different project which might not actually come out here. I’m trying to figure out how long I want to wait before pre-ordering this.

Will you be getting it?

Source: Sailor Moon Official Site

Sailor Moon Sailor Stars, The Complete Fifth season, is coming to Blu-ray May 28th

Sailor Moon Sailor Stars The Complete Fifth Season

It looks like won’t need to wait much longer for the next season set of the original Sailor Moon anime. Last week in a since deleted Tweet Viz announced that Sailor Moon Sailor Stars The Complete Fifth Season would be coming to Blu-ray on May 28th. Why was the Tweet deleted? Who knows! Is May 28th still the official release date? Probably. The set is not listed with any online retailers yet, but should be showing up soon. Along with the announcement we also get our first look at the cover art for this release which features Eternal Sailor Moon.

With the release of the fifth and final season this will complete the rerelease of the series on Blu-ray. While the first few sets included significantly improved video quality the difference becomes less noticeable for the later series which already looked quite good in the sets released a few years ago.

The set will include English audio as well as the original Japanese audio with English subtitles. Will you be picking it up?

The original Sailor Moon anime first aired 32 years ago today

Sailor Moon episode 1 - Crybaby Usagi's Magnificent Transformation

March 7th 1992, 32 years ago, the original Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon anime first aired in Japan. This first episode, The Crybaby: Usagi’s Beautiful Transformation, introduces us to Usagi Tsukino who gets a magical broach from a talking cat and transforms into Sailor Moon! It was three years until that show would be released dubbed into English but throughout the next few years Sailor Moon took the world by storm.

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

What are your first memories of this show? I didn’t watch it until 1995 when it started airing in English in Canada and the US and became almost instantly hooked on it.

Sailor Moon Episode 1 - Silhouette

Will you be doing anything special to celebrate this occasion?

Sailor Moon episode 1 - My job here is done