The Live Action Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon series is returning to Japanese TV July 4th … probably … maybe

Posted on June 3, 2025 by Adam

For a few hours yesterday the Toei Channel Japanese TV station web site confirmed that it was going to be airing reruns of the 2003 Live Action Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon TV series. I saw these posts and pages with my own eyes, did not think it necessary to take screenshots, and now they have all been scrubbed from the Internet. How fun. Does this mean the show will actually be airing on July 4th as was originally announced? Who knows.

I first saw about this from a post on the blu-ray.com forums by user Gowho which linked to a Tweet by the official Toei channel Twitter account (now deleted), a list of next month’s upcoming shows on the TOEI channel web site (still up with no mention of the Live Action Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon series), and a link to the page for the show on the Toei channel web site (now an error 404 page not found). So Twitter has a few people quote Tweeting a now delete Tweet expressing joy that the show is coming back. Fantastic.

The Toei Channel schedule for July 4th does not list the show as playing at 5pm (17:00) but it also doesn’t list any show as playing at 5pm. The length of the shows is included in the table and the show playing at 4pm (16:00) is 60 minutes long and followed by a show at 6pm (18:00). So what happened to Sailor Moon? While the schedule is currently empty it wasn’t earlier! Twitter user Fred Francis was able to grab and share screenshots of the show’s page and schedule for the first 8 Acts, through to the end of July. It listed the first two episodes airing on July 4th with another two episodes airing every week after that along with rerun times for each episode.

What does all this mean? The original idea was pretty straightforward. The show was fairly on brand to have on the Toei Channel and this was clear confirmation that it would air. Did something happen between yesterday and today that made airing it impossible? I really can’t speculate. We will have to keep an eye out on the Toei Channel web site and schedule to see if they get updated. It would certainly be great if the show as indeed airing again. This could lead to a rerelease of the show on home video in Japan and perhaps the international rights could become available once again. When Discotek Media was asked about the rights for the series on a stream on October 16th 2023 they simply said that it wasn’t available from the licenser. Could this have changed?

It’s no secret that I love the live action series! I hope this leads to something! What do you think? Do you have any insight or leads with info on this? I’ll be sure to post updated information if and when we get it.

Update: After thinking about this a bit I think the reason for this change may be that they were waiting to announce this through other channels. If they planned to post it to the official Sailor Moon site or through an event before updating the channel’s web site, this would explain why they deleted all details about the announcement from the site.

Sailor Moon The Super Live tickets are now available through presale

Posted on January 27, 2025 by Adam

Fans looking to get tickets to the Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon The Super Live North American Tour can now get them through presale. Though general sales for these shows starts January 31st there is a special presale taking place now! Fans were invited to leave their name and e-mail address through the English language The Super Live web site. The idea was that this would result in them sending you a special code to participate in the presale from January 27th to the 29th. In reality I did this and I didn’t get any code. That said, the codes are out there so if you’re looking to get tickets you can check out the details on the Sailor Moon Fan Network page for the North American Tour which includes the codes needed for reserving tickets in your closest city. I picked up tickets to a showing in New York City through this method. The codes are usually something like “SAILOR”, “MOON”, “GUARDIAN” or “LUNA”. Also “JULIAN” whatever that’s about…

There have also been two new cities, Hartford, Connecticut and Columbus Ohio, which were recently added to the North American Tour. Will more dates be added to this? It certainly would have been nice to have showings in Toronto or Montreal but now that my tickets have been purchased, it’s a bit late for that!

The cast for the North American Tour has also been announced. The last time there were shows in the US they referred to them as “Team America” though I haven’t seen that term used yet. This may simply be because there has already been a Team America so they would need a different name to distinguish them so we can instead call them Team North American, even though none of the cities where the show is playing are outside of the United States of America.

The main cast are returning actors who were in the Princess Kaguya’s Lover musical in 2021 as well as the 30th Anniversary Music Festival Chronicle from 2022. Reprising their roles are Riko Tanaka as Sailor Moon, Kanon Maekawa as Sailor Mercury, Rei Kobayashi as Sailor Mars, Kisara Matsumura as Sailor Jupiter and Marin Makino as Sailor Venus.

Sayako Okamura will be playing Queen Beryl. She previously played Princess Snow Kaguya in the last two musicals, as Queen Beryl wasn’t in those stories.

Riona Tatemichi will play Tuxedo Mask, reprising her role from previous performances of The Super Live and the 30th Anniversary Musical Festival Chronicle. She’s played many roles in past musicals including Rubeus in Petite Étrangère, Hawk’s Eye in Amour Eternal and Taiki, Sailor Star Maker, in Le Mouvement Final.

Luna will once again be a puppet who will be controlled by puppeteer Misato Matsumoto who portrayed her in a number of the Nogizaka46 musicals.

The cast will include dancers who portray monsters including Ayano Nagasawa and Ayumi Sagisaka who were in the Amour Eternal, Le Movement Final, Princess Kaguya’s Lover and 30th Anniversary Music Festival Chronicle, Minami Watanabe who was in the Nogizaka46 musical and newcomer Kana Yanagihara.

Have you gotten tickets to any shows yet?

The Sailor Moon The Super Live Musical is coming to 18 American cites in March and April

Posted on January 15, 2025 by Adam

Great news for North American Sailor Moon fans! The Sailor Moon Official Site has posted dates for North American shows of the Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon The Super Live musical. This follows a recent announcement of performances of the same musical in London, England from February 4th to March 19th. There are shows on 19 days in 18 cities in the United States of America. Specific dates and cities are listed below:

March 12th	Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania	Byham Theatre
March 15th	Austin, Texas	Bass Concert Hall
March 18th	San Antonio, Texas	Majestic Theatre
March 19th	Sugar Land, Texas	Smart Financial Centre
March 25th	Seattle, Washington	Paramount Theatre
March 27th	Spokane, Washington	First Interstate Center
March 29th	Portland, Oregon	Keller Auditorium
April 1st	Dallas, Texas	Winspear Opera House
April 3rd	Midland, Texas	Wagner Noel Performing Arts Center
April 6th	Minneapolis, Minnesota	Orpheum Theatre
April 8th	St. Louis, Missouri	The Fabulous Fox
April 11th	Dayton, Ohio	Schuster Center
April 13th	Louisville, Kentucky	The Kentucky Center
April 15th	Chicago, Illinois	Chicago Theatre
April 16th	Milwaukee, Wisconsin	Riverside Theatre
April 18th	Newark, New Jersey	NJPAC
April 22nd	Philadelphia, Pennsylvania	Miller Theater
April 25th and 26th	New York City, New York	Palladium Times Square

Fans who are interested in purchasing tickets can go to the English language Sailor Moon The Super Live web site to leave their contact information and to visit the sites of individual venues hosting showings. It seems at this point that most tickets will be going on sale January 31st.

Though this is being advertised as a “North American” tour the cities which have been announced are all in the United States. Still, many Canadians are likely closer to some of these major cities than some Americans are. I’d be looking at an 8 to 9 hour drive to get to some of these.

The Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon The Super Live musical has been around for years. It first played in Japan back in 2018 and even had a few showings in North America in early 2019. It is the only one of the newer musicals which was never released on home video and so it’s the only one to come out in the past 12 years that I haven’t seen yet. Let’s hope that changes soon!

Do you plan on attending any of these showings? What’s the closest city to you where that you could go to?

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Posted on December 25, 2024 by Adam

A new Blu-ray set collecting all three Sailor Moon movies, possibly in a Full Screen 4:3 aspect ratio, is coming in February

Posted on December 13, 2024 by Adam

A special set including all three of the Sailor Moon films is coming to Blu-ray on February 11th for with an MSRP of $29.98. A listing on the Crunchyroll store shows us the box art featuring the Sailor Moon R Movie poster. The set will include the three films Sailor Moon R The Movie, Sailor Moon S The Movie and Sailor Moon SuperS: The Nine Sailor Guardians Unite! Miracle of the Black Dream Hole. Is this release actually 4:3 full screen?

All three films had been previously released on Blu-ray as individual releases in 2018. These were high quality releases which were a high definition transfer from film source, like the same one used for the theatrical exhibitions of the film which took place in North America in 2017. It isn’t clear at this point if this release will be those same disks packaged together or if it will be a new version. While the newer releases of the TV series on Blu-ray were from new higher quality video sources, this same thing isn’t necessary for these films as they weren’t upscaled from standard definition video like the TV series is. Both the original and new releases will include the new English dubbed version from Viz and a Japanese version with English subtitles.

Oddly enough the box art shown in the Crunchyroll store shows the aspect ratio of the films is 4:3. Could this be accurate? The Sailor Moon films were indeed animated in a “Full Screen” 4:3 open matte format however the matted widescreen 16:9 version is what was shown in theatres, on LaserDisc and on the Japanese DVD and Blu-ray releases. While the recent Blu-ray versions of the films released in North America in 2018 were indeed 16:9 widescreen, the VHS and DVD versions released in the 1990s were 4:3. This paradoxically meant that the lower quality North American versions of the film included more of the image than the Japanese releases which were meant to duplicate the Japanese theatrical experience, as you can see from the screenshots included in this post which are from the old DVDs. It would certainly be an odd choice to have these releases be full frame in 2024, as this would require getting new masters from the film source separate from those used in the Japanese release.

Sailor Moon R The Movie - Upskirt - Full Frame

Sailor Moon R The Movie - Upskirt - Widescreen

The features shown include the Make Up! Sailor Guardians and Ami’s First Love featurettes which I’ve never seen full screen before, though I believe it’s possible that the Japanese VHS releases would have been 4:3. These days the term full screen is a bit of a misnomer as most modern TVs and displays are 16:9 or some sort of widescreen resolution, unlike the many 4:3 CRT displays people had in the 1990s.

Sailor Moon R The Movie - Young Mamoru - Full Frame

Sailor Moon R The Movie - Young Mamoru - Widescreen

Do you plan on picking up this set, or did you already buy these movies years ago? I would certainly buy them again if these were indeed 4:3 versions, but I suspect this may be an error on the packaging. Since the original releases of the Sailor Moon R, S and SuperS films had special features which aren’t mentioned on this box art, that could indicate that there are new discs and might in fact be 4:3 full screen. What do you think?

Emi Shinohara, the voice of Sailor Jupiter, has died at age 61

Posted on September 11, 2024 by Adam

It is a sad day for Sailor Moon fans as we learn that Emi Shinohara, who provided the voice of Makoto Kino, Sailor Jupiter, in the original Sailor Moon anime, has died. She was undergoing treatment for an illness when she passed away.

Besides playing Sailor Jupiter Emi Shinohara also voiced two monsters in the first seasons, Kyurene in episode 6 and Jumeau in episode 18. As an experienced voice actor she also appeared in many other anime series such as B-ko in Project A-ko and Kushina Uzumaki, Naruto’s mother from Naruto.

She will be missed profoundly by Sailor Moon fans around the world.

Sailor Moon Cosmos Part 1 and 2 are now available on Netflix

Posted on August 22, 2024 by Adam

Today, August 22nd 2024, Sailor Moon Cosmos Parts 1 and 2 were released on Netflix. This marks the end of the long running Sailor Moon Crystal series being released in North America. This is the first time fans outside of Japan are able to watch the films without importing it and the premiere of the English dub, as well as dubs in many other languages.

I’m reminded about how we saw the first episode of Sailor Moon Crystal released simultaneously to stream worldwide around the globe! How far we’d come back in 2014 to be able to do so when way back in 2024 we would have to wait over a year for a film that came out in theatres in Japan to be released domestically. No wait… I have that backwards. Indeed Sailor Moon Cosmos Part 1 was out in theatres in Japan on June 9th 2023, over a year ago. Surely things are a bit different with films than with a series but 2021’s Sailor Moon Eternal came out a mere five months after it first dropped in theatres in Japan. Why the delay? I don’t really know. Let’s just be happy we’ve finally gotten it.

Will any of you actually be watching these films for the first time? I watched my imported Japanese Blu-ray in the year 2023 but I am looking forward to checking out the Viz dub of the films.

Source: Netflix

Luna’s full name is officially Luna Kuroneko according to the Viz dub airing on Toonami Rewind

Posted on June 10, 2024 by Adam

Does Luna have a last name? I would never have thought so but it seems that now she does! Luna’s full name is listed as Luna Kuroneko in the broadcast credits for the first season of the original Sailor Moon anime! While the “new” dub by Viz has been out for many years and these episodes have been available to stream and on home video, they were not broadcast on TV until recently as part of the Toonami Rewind block. While the new dub isn’t the same one as aired during the 90s Toonami is able to air Sailor Moon thanks to Viz’s new dub. Those ending credits show only the English voice credits for the episode and amongst many other first season credits, many of whom aren’t actually in the first two episodes, we have Luna Kuroneko voiced by Michelle Ruff. Michelle Ruff is indeed the voice of Luna in the new Viz English dub. I saw the photo above on the Moon Sisters Facebook Page. It can also be seen on the Codename Sailor Earth Twitter page. Definitely worth checking out both pages if you like funny videos and wild ships.

What’s this name about and where is it from? Well “Kuroneko” simply means “black cat” in Japanese. Usagi refers to Luna as “Kuro neko Luna” in the opening narration starting with episode 2 and for the first half of the first season in of the original Sailor Moon anime. I believe she stops referring to her as such after Makoto shows up. I never assumed this was meant to be a name but rather a description of Luna’s colour and species. It seems like someone may have taken this literally and considers it to be Luna’s full name which, as is the standard in Japan, is stated with the family name first and the given name second. The order of names in the credits is given in the western style of given name first and family name second, as it’s done with the other names in the credits.

Luna does not otherwise have a family name which is mentioned in the manga, the original anime or Sailor Moon Crystal. She is an alien cat from another planet who as far as we can tell doesn’t have a family name. The human version of Luna who appears in the second half of the live action Sailor Moon series goes by the name Luna Tsukino as she is a part of the Tsukino family when not transformed into Sailor Luna. Human and cat Luna are the same character but cat Luna doesn’t use that full name in the series and even when Human Luna shows up in the manga, anime and Sailor Moon Crystal, she does not pretend to be part of the Tsukino family so the name simply does not apply to those series. That being said if Luna was ever brought to the vet she might be tracked in their system as having the family name Tsukino, if that’s how things are done in Japan. Somehow the idea of Luna getting prodded by a vet seems perverse and we know she doesn’t get spayed so perhaps she’s never been.

How official is this name? It’s in the credits so that’s something. It isn’t stated anywhere in the English version of the show and while it is said repeatedly in the Japanese version, that’s hardly what was likely intended with those scenes. I’d say the name is more or less as official as original dub names like Darien Shields or Amy Anderson.

This of course raises another interesting question. What is Artemis’s name? Is he Shironeko Artemis, meaning “White cat Artemis”? Does that mean Diana would take her father’s family name, Shironeko, even though she’s grey? Calling her “Haiironeko Diana” or “Grey cat Diana” would fit with the trend but not with how family names work.

Have you been watching Sailor Moon on Toonami Rewind? I’m Canadian so I don’t get Cartoon Network. Sailor Moon airing on Toonami is not a part of my own history of watching Sailor Moon so I have no nostalgia for it. The show played on Global and YTV throughout the week and also on US stations UPN 38 and WPix in the early hours of the morning back in 1995, years before the show reached a broad audience in the US through Toonami.

Sailor Moon Cosmos Part 1 and 2 are coming to Netflix August 22nd

Posted on June 6, 2024 by Adam

At long last, over a year after their release in theatres in Japan, the Sailor Moon Cosmos films will be coming to Netflix on August 22nd! The poster, which was posted to Twitter, refers to the movie as “Sailor Moon Cosmos The Movie”. No mention of a Part 1 or 2, so I wonder if this will be released as a single film or not. Sailor Moon Eternal, which was previously released on Netflix, is listed as two “episodes” with Part 1 and Part 2 being separate.

This will conclude the English release of Sailor Moon Crystal with the fifth and final story arc covering Sailor Moon and the Sailor Starlights’ fight against Sailor Galaxia and her minions. This version of the films should have a dub and subs in English and many other languages. I watched the films long ago when the Japanese Blu-ray release came out though I will gladly watch it again in English. I wonder how many people have really been holding out for the film to come out on Netflix?

Fans may also be wondering if a home video release is planned. It’s been over three years since Sailor Moon Eternal was released on Netflix and we still haven’t gotten a DVD or Blu-ray release of those films. The poster mentions that Sailor Moon Cosmos is “Only on Netflix” so a home video release seems unlikely in the short term. Since the Japanese releases don’t have subs I’d certainly want to get a domestic release of Sailor Moon Eternal and Sailor Moon Cosmos. Watching them on Netflix is all well and good but I don’t think I can count on them being around forever.

Have you seen Sailor Moon Cosmos yet? Will you be watching it on Netflix when it finally drops?

Sailor Moon Sailor Stars: Complete Fifth Season is now available on Blu-ray

Posted on May 28, 2024 by Adam

Once again the entire original Sailor Moon anime is available on home video. The fifth and final season has been released on Blu-ray in a single set which includes all 34 episode with Japanese and English audio as well as subtitles. You can buy the set in stores or online on sites like Amazon. These episodes were previously released in two parts back in 2019. The newer releases, which include all of a season’s episodes in a single set, have generally had better video quality than the originals. That said as the seasons went on the quality of the original releases was quite a bit better so one might not notice as big a difference in quality with Sailor Stars as they did with the first couple of seasons.

Sailor Stars was the elusive fifth season which was not dubbed back in the 90s. The new dub by Viz let fans hear this show in English for the first time a few years ago. It follows the Stars arc of the manga which was recently adapted as the Sailor Moon Cosmos films which have still not received a domestic release. This is the story of the Sailor Starlights, who disguise themselves as the idol group The Three Lights, while they fight Sailor Galaxia and her minions.

Do you plan on picking up this set?

Sailor Moon News

Bringing you the latest news about the new anime series Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Crystal and all things Sailor Moon.

Author Archives: Adam