Sailor Moon Sailor Stars Part 2 is coming November 12th. Check out the box art!

Posted on September 12, 2019 by Adam

We now have confirmation that Sailor Moon Sailor Stars Part 2 is coming on November 12th. This was originally listed on the Deals Are Us web site and today was posted to the RightStuf web site. Both list a release date of November 12th.

September 14th update: The link to RightStuf’s web site I originally posted did not include the “Gift With Purchase”. Fans looking to get a set of Sailor Stars cards which comes with the purchase from RightStuf should instead check out this product listing.

After only seeing the Deals Are Us listing I wrote a lengthy post where I looked at the feasibility of a November 12th release date based on the time between all previous seasons’ Parts 1 and 2 finally determined it was plausible for a ton of reasons but now that RightStuf has it listed as well I’d say it’s all but certain that November 12th is the legit release date and all of that analysis is a bit pointless.

The box art which is included with the RightStuf listing is nice but a bit busy. It seems like these characters were all sort of pasted on top of one another. Why is Chibi Moon even there? The back features Sailor Chibi Chibi and some pretty standard text. My only real concern is what Neo Crystal Tokyo is. Neo Queen Serenity is the Queen of Crystal Tokyo and while I’ve seen other anime and manga, such as Akira, refer to future Tokyo as Neo Tokyo, I don’t believe the term has ever been used in Sailor Moon.

The episodes included in Sailor Stars Part 1 were released digitally two weeks before the physical media release, which is common for mainstream movies. Should this occur again for Part 2 we should be getting those digital versions on October 29th.

Sailor Stars Part 2 isn’t up for pre-order on Amazon yet but you can pick up Sailor Stars Part 1 or any previous sets using the Amazon links below.

A two day concert, Akiko Kosaka 45th Anniversary Sailor Moon Music History Supported by Pretty Guardians, is coming to Tokyo November 9th and 10th

Posted on September 1, 2019 by Adam

A two day concert named “Akiko Kosaka’s 45th Anniversary Sailor Moon Music History Supported by Pretty Guardians” will be taking place in Tokyo on November 9th and 10th. This two days concert will actually include two different performances with completely different artists on each day. November 9th will be a relaxed piano concert with some conversations and the 10th will have a band performance. So what exactly is this? Akiko Kosaka is well known for having written many songs for the original Sailor Moon anime as well as Sailor Moon Crystal but in this case it is likely her involvement writing many songs for the Sailor Moon musicals which is the basis for this concert. We can tell from the other artists appearing at this event that this will almost certainly involve performances of a number of Sailor Moon musical songs as this will involve performers from the musicals. Across the two days actresses who portrayed almost all of the Sailor Guardians in the musicals, that being everyone but Sailor Pluto, as well as others will be performing. Sailor Pluto is likely only absent because Yuuko Hosaka, who originally played Sailor Pluto in some musicals, was originally scheduled to be involved with the event but had to cancel.

With this year’s Sailor Moon musical being delayed until 2020 this concert may serve as a nice alternative for some fans. I can only speculate as to the specific format but with there being performers to represent each characters with no duplicates it seems likely that some effort to have someone take the part of the Sailor Guardian they previously portrayed is likely. Will they wear some sort of costume or just sing some classic songs? Who knows! Here’s a breakdown of who’s going to be involved and when.

Not everyone is going to be involved with both days, but here’s a list of the actors which are going to be there for both November 9th and 10th. Akiko Kosaka, who’s career is being celebrated with this concert, will evidently be there for both days. Anza, the first actress to play Sailor Moon in a musical from 1993 to 1998, will likely be performing as Sailor Moon. Hisano Akamine, the third actress to play Sailor Mercury from 1999 to 2000, will likely be performing as Sailor Mercury. Misako Kotani, the second actress to play Sailor Mars from 1994 to 1997, will likely be performing as Sailor Mars. Emi Kuriyama, the seventh actress to play Sailor Jupiter from 1999 to 2000, will likely be performing as Sailor Jupiter. Akiko Miyazawa, the fourth actress to play Sailor Venus also played Queen Beryl and musical exclusive characters Bilhah Emerald and Elizabeth Bathory, a vampire. She will likely be performing as Sailor Venus. Sanae Kimura, the first actress to play Sailor Uranus from 1994 to 1997, will likely be performing as Sailor Uranus.

Yuuta Mochizuki, the second actor to play Tuxedo Mask, also played Kunzite in the very first musical and later the musical exclusive character Count Dracul. He is also well known for playing the Red Power Ranger in Zyuurangers, the series which was adapted in North America as the original Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers. He will likely be performing as Tuxedo Mask. Hikari Ono has played Hawk’s Eye, Sailor Star Maker, Loof Merrow, a musical exclusive pirate, Bloody Dracul Vampir, a musical exclusive vampire who is Dracula’s daughter, and Prince Demande. It isn’t clear who she would be portraying in this concert as there doesn’t seem to be an actress to represent each of the Sailor Starlights.

The only person who will only be at the first day performance is Sakoto Yoshioka who played Princess Kakyuu in a musical in 1997. While it’s possible that she could be reprising her role as Princess Kakyuu, there is currently only one Sailor Starlight scheduled to be present on the first day so it doesn’t really add up.

There are a more performers who will only be there on the second day. This is when the full cast was originally planned to be together all at once. Yuuka Asami, the sixth actress to play Sailor Neptune from 1999 to 2002, later returned to play Jadeite in 2003. She will likely be performing as Sailor Neptune. Mao Mita, the fourth actress to play Sailor Saturn from 1999 to 2000, will likely be performing as Sailor Saturn. Tamaki Dia Shirai, the third actress to play Chibiusa from 1995 to 1996, will likely be performing as Sailor Chibi Moon. Ryuuji Kasahara played a number of characters including Kunzite, Death Ra, a musical exclusive member of the Death Busters, Tiger’s Eye, MC Fly, a musical exclusive minion of Galaxia, Chaos, Professor Tomoe, Baron Gilles de Rais, a musical exclusive vampire, and Dark Nibiru, a musical exclusive character. It’s not clear who he will be portraying. Momoko Okuyama, the first actress to play Sailor Star Healer in musicals from 1996 to 1998, may be reprising her role but once again as there is no Sailor Star Fighter actress involved we can’t be sure what role she will be playing.

With this event only taking place on a single day it may prove more difficult to get tickets than other musicals. Do any of you hope to be able to make it to this concert? I’m certainly hoping a CD or video release will be made available for fans who aren’t likely to attend.

Source: Sailor Moon official site Original Story with an Update.

Sailor Moon Sailor Stars Part 1 Limited Edition Blu-Ray review

Posted on August 25, 2019 by Adam

Sailor Moon Sailor Stars Part 1 was released on Blu-Ray and DVD a couple of months ago, on June 18th. Fans who haven’t already picked it up can get from stores locally or from online retailers such as Amazon. Since it’s been out a while I’ve had the time to watch the entire set and so I wanted to give some general impressions about it. Though the video quality of these releases has generally not been great, this series looks better than sets in the past have. The new English dub is pretty good, as it has been for the rest of the series, and the script remains mostly unchanged.

Viz Blu-Ray

Sailor Moon Sailor Stars episode 173 - Seiya Kou

Japanese DVD

First let’s look at the video. The quality certainly does not compare with that of the Japanese Blu-Ray sets which have been released more recently, but it’s fairly good. To be sure this won’t look like a newer anime series such as Sailor Moon Crystal does on Blu-Ray. This Blu-Ray was mastered from older standard definition video which was put through software to upscale it to high definition. What that gives is something that I wouldn’t really say looks any better than the Japanese DVD releases which came out well over a decade ago. That said I’m not sure that comparison really matters. We’ve never gotten Sailor Stars in North America before. The subbed version was out on Hulu a few years ago but there was no dub and that release used similar source material as this. When it comes to comparisons, we don’t have an old North American release to compare it to. This release certainly looks better than nothing, which is the baseline!

Viz Blu-Ray

Sailor Moon Sailor Stars episode 167 - Professor Tomoe and Hotaru

Japanese DVD

In this post I have provided comparisons to the Japanese DVD release. Since the Japanese Blu-Ray releases have not gotten to Sailor Stars yet I don’t have that for comparison. It’s pretty difficult to conclusively say if one is better than the other. The Viz Blu-Ray is certainly HD, in that it is 1080p, but that HD image lacks detail that would be there if it had been mastered from a film source. Anime of the time was drawn on cels and shot onto a film intermediate which was then transferred to video before broadcast. We have been told that this higher quality film version of Sailor Moon is lost. It is fairly evident from close examination of screenshots, or even upon viewing the video itself, that this is an upscaled version of standard definition video. There has also been some amount of post processing done in order to clean up the image. This means the colours will look more solid and have less noise on them, but potentially at the cost of detail, but is it detail that matters? Sailor Moon, like most traditional animation, is largely chunks of solid colour separated by solid black lines. The filters used seem to be optimized to this, giving a consistent colour and clear lines. Had this been a live action series with actors with pores and hair as well as other textured things, a different type of upscaling filter would likely have been used. While we shouldn’t necessarily mourn the loss of some grain there is a loss of detail in the backgrounds which aren’t as much just solid colours as we can see from the example of the cherry blossom tree behind Professor Tomoe in the above pictured image. Had we gone back to the film source for these, something which we’ve been told is impossible, then the image would likely look much better. If you check out my review of the Japanese Blu-Ray sets and look at the samples of the Make Up! Sailor Guardians on Blu-Ray you’ll see what that could have looked like.

Viz Blu-Ray

Sailor Moon Sailor Stars episode 172 - Young Nehelenia

Japanese DVD

With earlier releases by Viz we had more ghosting, which means a double image or shadow near some lines, as well as some interlacing artifacts. I didn’t notice any such problems in this set. No doubt the quality has improved likely due to the fact that these episodes were made four years after the first season so the quality of the masters available get a little better with each year. This is likely also why the ADV releases of Sailor Moon seasons 1 and R were the worst while the Pioneer releases of Sailor Moon S and SuperS looked much better. Don’t take my word for it though! Check out the many comparison images here and later in the post to judge for yourself. There’s no objectively correct answer to how much post processing looks best, sometimes it’s just a matter of personal preference. While there has been some change in quality with these screenshots due to jpg compression it should give a good idea of what each looks like.

Viz Blu-Ray

Sailor Moon Sailor Stars episode 173 - Mamoru sees something on the wing

Japanese DVD

Moving on from the video quality to the content. This is the first time we’re getting an English dub of Sailor Stars which is quite a treat. For years people considered this season to be impossible to market to the North American public, though I never really understood why. Is it really all that scandalous to have men who transform into women and vice versa? Sure, the Sailor Starlights’ outfits are fairly revealing but as far as anime goes this isn’t terribly shocking. It’s a joy to finally hear Sailor Stars in English. This is a cast we’ve heard for the past four seasons and three films as well as for Sailor Moon Crystal so even though it’s a departure from the DiC/Cloverway dub of most of our youth, for me there was still enough familiarity with the cast that it feels like Sailor Moon. The new actors for the Sailor Starlights do a great job. Having women play them as both men and women works well. This was the same approach which was used for the Japanese dub many years ago. The alternatives, either having two actors per character or having men do the voices would likely not have worked as well. For those who don’t appreciate the English version they also have the option of listening in Japanese with English subtitles.

Viz Blu-Ray

Sailor Moon Sailor Stars episode 172 - Sailor Saturn

Japanese DVD

The episodes included are the first half of Sailor Stars. This includes the amazing six episode Nehelenia arc in which she is given a very different ending as she got in Sailor Moon SuperS. The rest of the episodes are about Usagi getting to know The Three Lights, more specifically Seiya, as she grows further and further out of touch with Mamoru who is away and somehow completely out of touch. This parallels the Sailor Starlights who have appeared and who fight Sailor Galaxia’s Sailor Animamates. My feelings on Sailor Stars have changed over the years. I originally found Seiya sort of annoying as he was just a distraction from Usagi’s true relationship which she never waivers from. This is generally true but I find the story much more appealing. She is hurting and though there is no infidelity he fills a need she has for companionship. His interests in her are not reciprocated which is more tragic than anything. I’ve given more thoughts on all of the episodes in my individual reviews which you can find by searching the episode numbers in the search field on the site if you are interested. So much to say it is a very good half season and I’m glad that everyone can see it now, assuming some fans haven’t already seen it some other way!

There aren’t a ton of special features included. Each disc has an Art Gallery which doesn’t seem to be Japanese concept art but more likely something by Italian artist Marco Albiero who does a remarkable job of duplicating the original anime style. For whatever reason the Blu-Ray viewing software I use to take screenshots couldn’t load the Art Galleries so you can take my word for that.

Also included are three voice actor interviews. The first is with Laura Post, the voice of Nehelenia. Having also been in SuperS it’s a bit odd to see this interview here but she mostly talks about her appearance in those first 6 episodes which fits.

Next we have an interview with Stephanie Sheh, the voice of Usagi. This is the longer of the interviews. She does the whole thing with her dog! A few things stood out to me. First she mentions that the season was pretty long. This is objectively untrue as Sailor Stars is the shortest Sailor Moon season with only 34 episodes. One can hardly blame her for thinking this though as Usagi and Sailor Moon dominate this season like no other. It would be difficult to count but it seems likely that Usagi had more lines in Sailor Stars than any other seasons except perhaps the first one. There was much less focus on other Sailor Guardians. Chibiusa who dominated SuperS is gone, along with her father, for most of the season. Stephanie Sheh also makes a joke that it was lucky that Usagi didn’t have a cell phone because if Mamoru didn’t respond to a few texts this would be a sign of trouble. More generally she is lucky that this occurred at the dawn of the Internet age where it would be believable that Usagi would not have access to e-mail or chat software. I consider myself an early adopter of the Internet and I had no Internet access at home while Sailor Stars was airing. Ami is shown to communicate with some people through the Internet, but she is clearly an outlier amongst her friends. She also mentions that she ships Usagi and Mamoru and thinks her relationship with Seiya is inappropriate. This is probably best as such a view reflects her character’s! There’s also a funny bit where she wonders what’s up with the Starlights, asking similar questions that many fans have like if they’re men who turn into women, women who turn into men, women dressing as men or what? All around I found the interview very humourous. It’s obvious that Stephanie Sheh has spent a lot of time with the Sailor Moon character throughout the years and has many thoughts about the series.

Finally we have “A Chibi Interview with Stephanie Sheh”, the voice of Chibi Chibi. It’s a short interview where she talks about that character. She mentions being happy to play Chibi Chibi and points out that in the Japanese version the voice of Usagi played Chibi Chibi as well, but it wasn’t clear why. This is funny because in the manga there is a clear connection between the characters which doesn’t actually exist in the anime. It might make more sense for Chibi Chibi to share voice actors with another character, but I’ll avoid the specifics for now. Fans who are familiar with the end of the series will understand why.

Beyond the interviews we have a “Clean Opening” and “Clean Ending” which basically means the intro and ending without Japanese credits overlayed. These are of a very poor quality! The Japanese releases humourously refer to these as being “Non Super” meaning they aren’t HD. While they are technically HD in that they are encoded on the disk as 1080p, they are clearly taken from something of roughly the same quality as a VHS tape. A nice extra to have though one we’ve seen on every Japanese release ever.

As for the packaging this set continues to look quite nice, as have other released to date. This is all new art, whereas the Japanese releases have continued to reuse the original laserdisc box art for decades. The special booklet that is included with the Limited Edition is quite nice, including episode summaries and art of a number of characters. I believe all of this art is once again done by Italian artist Marco Albiero. The booklet also includes a relationship chart which has been the source of some controversy which I posted about closer to it’s release as well as an ad which refers to the first three seasons of Sailor Moon Crystal as the entire series.

Since this booklet is meant to cover the entire series it has cast information and summaries for the entire season. It also includes a nice goodbye message to the fans which I will quote below.

To all the longtime fans and those who joined us during this journey: This previously unreleased season is here because of you. Your support makes the stars twinkle brighter and we couldn’t have done this without you!

Starlight Honeymoon… THERAPY KISS!

All considered I think this set it worth getting. The video quality is not the best possible but it is quite good. While the Japanese Blu-Ray which is coming in November will probably look marginally better, it won’t even have English subtitles, let alone English audio, so it’s of little use to most fans. If you’re only looking to watch the Japanese series with subtitles you can of course always stream these episodes, but buying this set or digital downloads of the episodes is the only way to get Viz’s English dub. I look forward to seeing part two of Sailor Stars and rewatching the final episodes. For those of you who are interested in this set but have not gotten it yet, you can support the site but buying it using the Amazon links below.

Keep reading for more images of the box art and comparisons of the video quality between this Blu-Ray and the Japanese DVD release.

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A miniature version of Sailor Moon’s Tokyo and Crystal Tokyo will be displayed at Small Worlds Tokyo next Spring

Posted on August 10, 2019 by Adam

Big news about something very small! Have you ever wanted to see a real life version of the world of Sailor Moon? Fans in Tokyo will have a chance in Spring 2020 as Sailor Moon comes to the Small Worlds Tokyo miniature theme park. What is this about? Small Worlds Tokyo will feature miniaturized versions of various places. How small? A 1/80th scale meaning one inch of the exhibit will represent some 80 inches or 6′ 8″ of the real world. Sailor Moon and her friends would be less than an inch height!

For reference this would be slightly smaller than the 1/60th scale used by Dungeons and Dragons miniatures and many Gundam models as well as the 1/64th scale which is your standard Hot Wheels and Matchbox car size. So imagine a recreated city in which the cars are a bit smaller than Hot Wheels!

The announcement on the official Sailor Moon site specifies that the exhibit will include a recreation of Tokyo from the Sailor Moon series as well as 30th century Crystal Tokyo, the future which Chibiusa comes from which is featured heavily in the Black Moon arc of the manga which is Sailor Moon R in the original Sailor Moon anime. A preview image shows the front of Game Center Crown and a tiny Tuxedo Mask. Though only “Crown” is seen on the building the arcade machines inside suggest this is the arcade and not Fruits Parlor Crown or Karaoke Crown.

It’s difficult to tell without seeing more of the exhibit just how accurate this will be. The show’s location was heavily based on the real Azuba Juban district of Tokyo, though only certain places were featured in the series. Crown, like many other locations in the series, was a real place in Tokyo. Comparison photos from Serenitatis show us that both the real and manga version look quite a bit like this model. Will the exhibit feature only those highlights or fill in the 1990s real locations which weren’t shown in the series as well? We will see in the Spring when Small Worlds Tokyo opens to the public! I look forward to seeing more!

Are any of you hoping to be able to check this out in person? Doesn’t anyone have a “Honey I Shrunk The Kids” style shrink ray I can borrow?

The Nogizaka46 x Sailor Moon musical is returning with a new cast in October

Posted on August 9, 2019 by Adam

Last year’s Nogizaka46 x Sailor Moon musical will be returning to Tokyo later this year! In October the musical will be returning with a new main cast, still composed of members of the Nogizaka46 group, but different from the Team Star and Team Moon casts which performed the musical last year. This is likely as a result of this year’s Sailor Moon musical being delayed until 2020. We’ve learned that the musical we were originally going to get this year will be an adaptation of the Princess Kaguya’s Lover manga story.

Aside from the cast change it seems like this musical will likely have the same story as what we’ve already seen. This time around the cast will include Shiori Kubo as Sailor Moon, Hazuki Mukai as Sailor Mercury, Seira Hayakawa as Sailor Mars, Junna Ito as Sailor Jupiter and Mayu Tamura as Sailor Venus. The rest of the cast, which was originally not composed of members of the Nogizaka46 group, will remain the same.

Do any of you plan on being in Japan in time to see this musical? Having already seen this musical on the Blu-Ray set, which includes two versions, one for Team Moon and one for Team Star, I wonder if they will bother releasing another version of the DVD or Blu-Ray with this new cast. If they do it would be tough to justify such a purchase.

Source: Sailor Moon official site and Anime News Network

Sailor Moon Sailor Stars will be released on Japanese Blu-Ray starting in November

Posted on August 4, 2019 by Adam

Great news for Sailor Moon fans who are really picky about video quality and don’t like having money! The final season of the original Sailor Moon anime, Sailor Moon Sailor Stars, will be released on Blu-Ray in Japan with volume 1 coming November 13th and volume 2 coming January 8th 2020. This follows decent but expensive releases for the first four seasons of the original Sailor Moon anime. While the quality of these has generally been better than what was released by Viz, these are still HD upscaled versions of standard definition source material. By this I mean to say that TOEI did not go back to the film source to get these HD versions but has done post processing on the same masters used for their DVD releases many years ago.

The cost of these is certainly not cheap! MSRP for each volume is 14,800 yen, about $136 US. You can already pre-order the standard or vendor exclusive versions of volume 1 from Amazon Japan. Having just watched the first Sailor Stars set released by Viz and been fairly happy with the video quality it gets harder and harder to justify getting these sets, which only include Japanese audio and no subtitles! Certainly the video quality of the earlier seasons is the worst of the Viz releases and every season the sets look a little better. It’s easy to assume this is due to Viz doing a better job, which is certainly part of what’s going on, but I also think it’s just a matter of the masters for the series looking better for the later seasons. The ADV DVD releases of Sailor Moon’s first season and Sailor Moon R were horrendous but the Pioneer DVD releases of Sailor Moon S and SuperS were much better looking for the same reasons.

The art which we’ve seen looks quite good. As with previous releases this is box art which was originally used for the initial VHS and laserdisc releases. This art is done by Katsumi Tamegai who was an animation director for many episodes throughout the Sailor Moon series, including the final episode. This art was also used for the Japanese DVD release. Volume 1 has an image of Eternal Sailor Moon on the outside and Usagi with Chibi Chibi on the inside, though she’ll only show up for the last two episodes of the set. I’ve included images of the laserdiscs for reference throughout this post.

The outer cover for volume 2 is an amalgamation of three different laserdisc covers showing each of the Sailor Starlights and their civilian Three Lights counterparts. The inside shows Princess Serenity and a less evil Galaxia which I suppose is a bit of a spoiler!

Included in volume 1 are episodes 167 to 183 while volume 2 will have episodes 184 to 200. This is the same breakdown Viz used with their release as it splits the season evenly with 17 episodes per set. The special features are much like what we’ve gotten with other releases. This includes low quality (non super) creditless versions of the opening and ending credits and 15 second commercials for each episode. A booklet with episode descriptions will also be included.

As always we have vendor exclusives for a number of retailers. You can see them shown in the image above. It isn’t always obvious what these are! Members of the official Sailor Moon fan club who order the set through the club will get A4 sized sticker sheets with each volume as well as a laserdisc jacket sized poster for buying both volumes. We don’t know what images those will include at this time. A4 size is roughly equivalent to a standard 8.5×11″ letter piece of paper. A laserdisc jacket is roughly the size of a vinyl record jacket.

The Amazon exclusive which is available to customers buying both volumes is a box to house both sets which has art similar to the laserdisc box which housed all of Sailor Stars.

The Animate exclusive, which is available only to those ordering both volumes, is a set of three acrylic key rings. Each features an image of one of the Sailor Starlights with their Three Lights alter ego from the box art.

The Seven Net exclusive for volume 1 is an acrylic plate, which I believe is what is sometimes called a pencil board, showing an image of Eternal Sailor Moon and the Sailor Guardians. The exclusive for volume 2 is a B2 sized tapestry featuring an image of Sailor Uranus, Neptune, Pluto and Saturn which was originally on the back of the Sailor Stars laserdisc box. B2 size is about 20″x28″.

Finally the Neo Wing exclusives are a separate A2 sized cloth poster which comes with each volume. These are images of the first two laserdisc covers, that being Eternal Sailor Moon for volume 1 and Sailor Saturn and Sailor Chibi Moon for volume 2. A2 size is about 16.5″x22″.

Have any of you been buying these sets?

50 years ago today humans walked on the Moon for the first time since Queen Beryl destroyed the Moon Kingdom

Posted on July 21, 2019 by Adam

50 years ago today, on July 21st 1969, was the pinnacle of the Apollo 11 mission in which Neil Armstrong became the first person to walk on the Moon since the fall of the Moon Kingdom, Silver Millennium. Though we don’t know who the first person to ever walk on the Moon was, we know of course that Neil Armstrong was the first to do it in a very long time as there was no one on the Moon when the Apollo Lunar Module made it’s landing on July 20th, except of course if we count the consciousness of Queen Serenity which was uploaded into an advanced Moon Kingdom supercomputer following her death.

One may of course quibble as to whether or not the inhabitants of the Moon Kingdom were in fact human or aliens, with some of them being born on the Moon or other planets. The plaque left by the Apollo 11 crew in 1969 stated quite clearly “Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the Moon July 1969, A. D. We came in peace for all mankind.” While the inhabitants of the Moon Kingdom itself did not come from the Earth, others did. Endymion traveled to the Moon from the Earth to see Princess Serenity and of course Queen Beryl, the Shitennou and the army which accompanied them were all natives from the Earth who set foot and eventually died on the Moon.

Though no women walked on the Moon throughout the time of the Apollo missions, we know that a few have been there since. Sailor Moon and the Sailor Guardians, as well as a couple of cats, all went in the 90s. The specifics vary depending on the canon of course. In the original anime the cats got in a fight with Kunzite while the rest of the girls were in a time warp which somehow landed them on the Moon in the present day, but the manga and Sailor Moon Crystal clearly show them all going to the Moon. Though they may all have been aliens in their previous lives they were reborn to human families as humans on the Earth.

Naturally most biased news coverage of the Apollo 11 mission fails to dwell on the specifics, that they weren’t actually the first people on the Moon. Just like Christopher Columbus was not technically the first person in the Americas we use these kind of simplified versions of history to highlight the great achievements of those involved. Nothing but respect for the hardworking men and women at Nasa who managed to make it from the Earth to the Moon without using some kind of teleportation. That might actually have been a first. Some aliens have been shown to be able to travel interstellar distances in bubbles generated by plants but it isn’t clear if this was ever used to go to the Moon.

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Check out the rap song “Sailor Moon” by lilbootycall

Posted on July 17, 2019 by Adam

This rap song is a few years old but I first heard it earlier today. It’s “Sailor Moon” by lilbootycall. The artist refers to the subject of the song as his “lil’ Salor Moon”. You can listen to the song’s music video on YouTube below. Just a heads up that there are drug references and explicit language in the video, if this is something you care to avoid.

The video has 4.5 millions view and the song has been listened to nearly 5 million times on Soundcloud, where it originally appeared. Learn more about lilbootycall and hear more of his music by checking out his official web site.

The instrumental music which is looped throughout the song is background music from the original Sailor Moon anime. The song is referenced as “A Girl’s Feelings” or more accurately “Feelings of a Girl in Love”. This music is heard often throughout the first season when Usagi is enamoured with one boy or another.

Besides using the name Sailor Moon and music from the series the song doesn’t have much to do with the series. Check out the lyrics to the song below.

[Chorus]
She gon’ pop it open, she gon’ make it pour
Even though I drive a foreign, damn, I still feel poor
Sushi on my dinner plate, eating crème brûlée
Icing on that chocolate cake, that sound like the perfect date
She gon’ pop it open, she gon’ make it pour
Even though I drive a foreign, damn, I still feel poor
Sushi on my dinner plate, eating crème brûlée
Icing on that chocolate cake, that sound like the perfect date

[Verse]
You my lil’ sailor moon, come and visit me
Come and kick it at the crib or you can keep on dissing me
I don’t really care, ’cause I’m getting to the money, but
Don’t you come back crawling when you seeing all these hunnids, yeah
You my lil’ sailor moon, come and visit me
Come and kick it at the crib or you can keep on dissing me
I don’t really care, ’cause I’m getting to the money, but
Don’t you come back crawling when you seeing all these hunnids, yeah

[Chorus]
She gon’ pop it open, she gon’ make it pour
Even though I drive a foreign, damn, I still feel poor
Sushi on my dinner plate, eating crème brûlée
Icing on that chocolate cake, that sound like the perfect date
She gon’ pop it open, she gon’ make it pour
Even though I drive a foreign, damn, I still feel poor
Sushi on my dinner plate, eating crème brûlée
Icing on that chocolate cake, that sound like the perfect date

[Outro]
Damn
Like the perfect date
Yeah, damn
Like the perfect date
Perfect date
Yeah
Fuck, fucking perfect date bullshit. This is why I hate… love. Fuck

What do you think of the song?

The Sailor Moon manga is now available digitally through a number of retailers in many languages

Posted on July 16, 2019 by Adam

Great news for Sailor Moon fans who hate paper, or don’t have a lot of paper in the form of money, the Sailor Moon Eternal Edition manga is now available digitally through a large number of ebook retailers in English and in nine other languages. This was announced as part of Usagi’s Birthday event on June 30th and the digital versions have been available since July 1st. Details can be found on the Japanese site, which includes 30 page previews in all languages, or the Kodansha site which includes links to all US distributors. Options for English fans in the US include Amazon Kindle (which includes comiXology) for $7.67 per book (all prices in US dollars), comiXology for $13.77 per book, Book Walker for $12.47 per book, Google Play for $9.99 per book, Apple Books for $9.99 per book and Kobo for $11.19 per book.

Using the links above you can order the Amazon Kindle version. The adds show the price as $13.99 but after clicking on them it shows up as $7.67 for now. The page mentions that this also includes a comiXology version, though I’m not familiar with how that service works. This does seems to be the best price of all of the versions. Since both Kindle and comiXology have apps which run on modern phones and tablets, this should be a good option for many fans, though those who have libraries on other services may find it’s worth an extra few dollars to purchase it from another retailer. Whatever option one might chose, this digital version is a fraction of the price of the fairly expensive print versions of the large size Eternal Edition of the manga.

Sailor Moon Eternal Edition - Act 1 - Usagi: Sailor Moon

One advantage of the digital version is that without the crease of a physical book you’ll be able to see all details of two page spreads! What are the differences and advantages of one platform over another? I can’t say I’m familiar enough with either to have a preference. While I have a functional and recent iPhone I only have a very old hand me down iPad which doesn’t run newer versions of apps so I don’t think this is something I will be getting, what with the countless paper versions of the manga I own. I’d be curious to see what this site’s users are deciding to use, if any. Let us know in the comments!

Is Sailor Moon Crystal finished? The new Sailor Moon Eternal film is not using the Sailor Moon Crystal name

Posted on July 2, 2019 by Adam

Let me preface this article by saying I absolutely don’t think that Sailor Moon Crystal is done and I think that Sailor Moon Eternal is the first half of what could be considered the fourth season of Sailor Moon Crystal. That said there are a few hints which suggest other and I think it’s only fair to share them with some analysis. As I reported on the other day, a new film called Sailor Moon Eternal is coming in 2020. What I did not notice at the time and didn’t notice until I saw it mentioned on Twitter by Moonkitty, was that “Crystal” isn’t found anywhere in the title. What does this mean? Is Sailor Moon Eternal even technically a Sailor Moon Crystal film? The full title is simply “Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal”. The use of the original anime’s opening theme Moonlight Densetsu in the trailer could similarly be an attempt to distance the film from the Sailor Moon Crystal series, though there has not been a single theme song used throughout all three seasons so this doesn’t tell us much.

Sailor Moon Sailor Stars Part 1 Blu-Ray - Booklet - Sailor Moon Crystal ad referring to seasons 1 to 3 as the entire series

Own The Entire Series Today!

This brings me to something else I noticed in the booklet included with Sailor Moon Sailor Stars Part 1 Limited Edition Blu-Ray. There is an ad for Sailor Moon Crystal seasons 1 to 3 on home video which includes the caption “Own The Entire Series Today!”. When I first saw it I simply laughed a bit, as fans had been waiting nearly three years for new Sailor Moon Crystal and here this ad was referring to everything we had previously gotten as the “Entire Series”. Perhaps “The Entire Series To Date” would have been a more accurate caption! Could it be that Viz had already gotten word that the new film would not be using the Sailor Moon Crystal brand and that the series really was over?

I do still feel that this film is in every sense meant to be a continuation of the Sailor Moon Crystal story, and there hasn’t been much to the contrary. Looking at the Sailor Moon Eternal announcement on the official site the first sentence refers to this as the movie version of Sailor Moon Crystal. The Dream arc was always advertised as a continuation to Sailor Moon Crystal, it was clearly indicated that it would be delivered as movies and that Kazuko Tadano would be working on the project, all of which are consistent with the news of this film. The official web site doesn’t actually have “Sailor Moon Crystal” as one of the buttons in the header anymore. Instead there is one that says “Anime” in Japanese with the English word “Animation” underneath it. This link leads to information about Sailor Moon Crystal. It seems Sailor Moon Crystals seasons 1 to 3 as well as the Eternal film are all considered part of this Anime franchise which may not be as tied to the Crystal title as it was.

Why then are they not using the name Sailor Moon Crystal in the title? I can only speculate but I can think of a few reasons. The title “Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal” works well as is. Calling it something like “Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Crystal Eternal” is not at all the same and keeping the full series titles could result in something very awkward like “Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Crystal Sailor Moon Eternal” or every worse “Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Crystal Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal”. Try jamming all of that into a title! It would make the “Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Sailor Stars” title seem short in comparison!

Another reason for not using the Sailor Moon Crystal name may simple be to reach a broader audience with the film. The original Sailor Moon anime was a massive phenomenon and having the Sailor Moon films attached to that series was just good business sense. I don’t think Sailor Moon Crystal is anywhere near as popular in Japan or internationally. Tying the movie’s branding too much to the Crystal title may attract the fans of the series who are almost guaranteed to see the film anyway, but what about the hordes of other Sailor Moon fans who spend massive amounts of money on merchandise and events but don’t really care much about Sailor Moon Crystal? You tell them there’s a new movie called Sailor Moon Eternal in theatres and they may be more likely to check it out than if it was clearly tied in to the Sailor Moon Crystal series.

Finally there’s the fact that it’s been over three years since we saw any episodes of Sailor Moon Crystal and this could be four by the time this movie is released in theatres. Some fans may be moving on from the franchise with new ones coming in, especially if the goal is to target a younger demographic.

As I said, this is all a lot of speculation on my part. I can’t say for sure why they aren’t using “Sailor Moon Crystal” anymore. I don’t really think the series is over, as my intentionally alarming title might suggest, but this is certainly a conclusion some of you may feel the need to jump to! What do you think?

Buy the entire Sailor Moon Crystal series using the links below! You can also stream Sailor Moon Crystal on Crunchyroll, Hulu or Neon Alley.

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

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The Sailor Moon manga is now available digitally through a number of retailers in many languages

Is Sailor Moon Crystal finished? The new Sailor Moon Eternal film is not using the Sailor Moon Crystal name