In a shocking turn of events the voice of Sailor Cosmos from Sailor Moon Cosmos Part 2 is Keiko Kitagawa, a popular model and actress who is best known to Sailor Moon fans for portraying Rei Hino, Sailor Mars, in the live action Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon series! This comes as a surprise as many fans likely expected Sailor Cosmos to be voiced by Kotono Mitsuishi who voices Sailor Moon in Sailor Moon Crystal as well as Chibi Chibi. Keiko Kitagawa will also be voicing Guardian Cosmos who is a separate character who protects the Galaxy Cauldron where star seeds are born. Check out some footage of Sailor Cosmos as voiced by Keiko Kitagawa below.
Now it is time to speculate wildly about the true identity of Sailor Cosmos! The Le Mouvement Final musical cast Satomi Okubo as Sailor Cosmos because she’d previously played Sailor Moon which supports the idea that Sailor Cosmos is a future version of Sailor Moon. Since Kotono Mitsuishi voiced Sailor Moon back in the original 90s anime as well there wasn’t another Sailor Moon voice actor to fall back on, unless we consider Kae Araki, the voice of Chibiusa, who filled in for Kotono Mitsuishi when she was off sick at the end of the first season and start of Sailor Moon R. Instead by casting Keiko Kitagawa perhaps this means that Sailor Cosmos in this version is actually a future incarnation of Sailor Mars! Looks like that rivalry finally got settled and Rei got Usagi’s power!
A preview of Sailor Moon Cosmos Part 2 was shown to fans earlier today. Keiko Kitagawa met with Kotono Mitsuishi at a press event to discuss the film. They had previously worked together on Rikokatsu. While some fans were upset that Kotono Mitsuishi didn’t get the role she was quite supportive of Keiko Kitagawa and her performance. Naoko Takeuchi herself was also said to be at the recording of Sailor Cosmos’s lines! Kotono Mitsuishi is Sailor Moon royalty! She’s the star of this movie, the titular character and has been the face of the press of all things Sailor Moon Crystal for the past decade. There’s no need to be upset that she didn’t get to play a third voice in this movie which she’s already all over!
Source: Sailor Moon Official Site
Keep reading for more images from this trailer and the press event.
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Maybe there will be a Cosmos part 3. Usagi’s birthday is in two weeks.
Seems like the story will be wrapped up at the end of part 2. Some fans have already seen it at this point! If there’s a future Sailor Moon animation project it will be something different and I would assume would not be under the name Sailor Moon Crystal, but who knows.
We’ve known for weeks now that Kotono would not voice Cosmos, so that disappointment should have worn off already by now. I’m not sure which disappointed “fans” you’re referring to because Japanese fans are thrilled about this announcement. The role only has a few lines, so it’s not like the actor playing her can make or break the movie, and since most of your readers only watch non-Japanese dub anyway, this casting decision will matter even less to them lolol.
The casting choice was as much of a creative decision as it was a marketing one: in addition to her ties to the franchise from PGSM, Keiko is also massively popular right now in television and film. Megumi and Kotono are already legendary in the voice acting world, but they’re from an older generation, and most of their fanbase is not new to Sailor Moon. Producers hoped that casting Keiko would give the film the same star power that casting Nanao and Watanabe Naomi gave to Eternal (by way of their larger younger social media following), but realistically it’s just a flashy gimmick that won’t make much of a difference in terms of box office sales. (Cosmos 前篇 couldn’t even make top 10 on opening weekend, and 後編 will likely generate even less revenue due to the split format. Meanwhile, the Mario movie will most likely still be in the top 10 by the end of this month.) Nevertheless, I think this was a smart publicity stunt to pull and definitely has people paying attention now.
Keiko herself was quite hesitant when being offered the role citing her own inexperience in voiceover, but she contacted Kotono after she booked the role and Kotono even came to Keiko’s recording session to act as vocal coach for Keiko (since Kotono had already finished recording her lines by then). The real fan service from this would be the footage of them together in the studio, but I doubt we’ll see that in the BR/DVD features.
Keiko Kitagawa apologized in a tweet yesterday indicating there were some fans that were upset but I didn’t see much of it first hand. I did see some English language fans that were disappointed that it wasn’t Kotono Mitsuishi but none of them phrased it as negatively towards Keiko.
The “apology” in that tweet was Keiko being proactive in anticipation of fan backlash, and not in response to any actual pushback from fans. It’s a part of Japanese culture that most Westerners wouldn’t understand. She touched on it when she first came on stage during the press conference two days ago.
There was some backlash, though not a ton. The Japanese comments had people feeling betrayed, for some reason.
Yeah, at most this was just an Easter egg and nothing actually worth getting outraged over.
I can think of more important things in this movie to get upset over, though at this point any fan pushback about this cameo will probably generate more publicity than the movie itself ever could. Some people are showing up to the cinema more for the limited merch than the actual movie itself.
I just don’t see how these 2 voice actresses sound similar at all, despite the characters looking similar, but I’m hoping the movie will tie up any confusion.
Old Queen Serenity and Usagi look similar despite being voiced by different actors, Phobos and Deimos are voiced by different actors despite being twins, etc.
I don’t mind if they’re different actors, which is not what I pointed out. I was saying how their voices just aren’t that similar is all. Maybe the plot will explain why they sound different.
Actresses* technically, lol. J/k no worries.
I just don’t see how your point makes any sense. You know how two random people in real life can look alike but sound totally different? It’s like that.
Your “confusion” is from a preconceived fixation on two people with similar appearances needing to both sound the same even though appearances and voices have nothing to do with one another. That’s called a logical fallacy. Some might also call it a bias.
No, simply put, I thought that they would want Sailor Moon and Sailor Cosmos to sound similar like Chibi-usa sounds like a younger Usagi and, essentially, Sailor Moon. There is no bias. My best guess is that they wanted a stronger voice for the character.
But my initial dispute with the decision is why there are fans calling for concern with the decision, as mentioned by the OP.
I am totally fine with the artistic vision, otherwise. It looks like the ultimate movie we’ve been waiting for, just with some surprises.
In October, the live-action TV series celebrates its 20th Anniversary.
Feel like it was yesterday!
Unbelievable. It seems like only yesterday I was buying my bootle…I mean totally legitimate DVDs of this series in 2005.
what bootie
i mean bootle
I was quite surprised, but happy with this news. It gives Chibi Chibi’s disguise more depth, is nice throw back surprise for Sailor Moon fans, and might get more people in Japan interested in seeing these movies. I think the bigger million dollar question, is who will Netflix / Viz get to play Sailor Cosmos in the English dub of Sailor Moon?! Ideally, I would love it if they could get either Terri Hawkes or Tracy Moore to come back and voice the part!
Considering who they picked for the Japanese cast, I also think Katie Griffin might be a fitting English choice too!!
I don’t mind Kitagawa at all – it’s a nice little thing that connects the animated and live action series. Moreover, Chieko Ochi (nee Kawabe) was Naru in the live action and she was doing Mercury in musicals, so that’s another connection.
Galaxia voiced by Hayashibara on the other hand is a kind of weird choice – it’s a big name no argue about that but also a recognizable voice and because of that… in all the bits of materials presented I heard Lina Inverse talking.
The only thing I’m truly disappointed about is that they never got Hikasawa, Tomizawa, Shinohara and Fukami at any point for this version of anime. And personally I think that all the ladies who took their roles are from generation of VA who are little distinguishable one from another – it’s a bunch of sweet high pitch “modern” voices.
sounds like we’re close to see adaptions of the side stories
i mean short stories
Same with you.
Wow. More empty fanservice to try and carry this train wreck.