Category Archives: Actors

Actors from the live action Sailor Moon series.

The Live Action Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon series premiered 10 years ago today

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Miyuu Sawai as Sailor Moon and Jouji Shibue as Tuxedo Mask from the live action Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon series

October 4th 2003, 10 years ago, the first episode of the live action Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon TV series premiered in Japan. The show didn’t achieve much success with a North American audience but many fans did have a fondness for it. With a total of 49 episodes the series ran for about a year and also had two direct to video specials and a live stage show, along with a lot of merchandise.

Keiko Kitagawa as Sailor Mars

The story of this series was a retelling of the Dark Kingdom storyline from the manga and anime. While at the beginning there were many similarities, the series quickly defied expectations and did it’s own thing going so far as to introduce new variations of classic characters like Sailor Luna, Dark Mercury, Mio Kuroki and Princess Sailor Moon. The effects were a bit cheap and Luna was a plush most of the time but the show still had a certain quality to it that made it very much Sailor Moon.

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Keiko Kitagawa, live action Sailor Mars, has a new promo for her photo book

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Keiko Kitagawa and a baby goat, see?

Keiko Kitagawa, the actress who played Sailor Mars in the live action Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon series, has a new promo out for her upcoming photo book. The book, titled “27”, will be released on her 27th birthday on August 22nd. Photos were taken in Japan and in Paris where people are known for eating ice cream and looking at baby goats. Check out this short promo for an idea of what some of these photos will look like.

The promotional material keeps referring to this as her first photo book though this isn’t really the case. I’m sure this is true using some arbitrary criteria. You can preorder the book from Amazon Japan for about $29 US. They will ship internationally though it won’t be cheap to do so. The book is in Japanese but it’s a photo book so who cares if you can’t read it? Keiko is pretty in any language. Check her out swearing in English for an example of this!

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Keiko Kitagawa, live action Sailor Mars, to star in Judge and an Akumu-chan movie

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Keiko Kitagawa's new series Akumu chan starts October 13th

Keiko Kitagawa, Sailor Mars from the live action Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon TV series, has a couple of new movies in the works! She will star in a movie “Judge” and a movie sequel to the “Akumu-chan” TV series.

Keiko Kitagawa in The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift

In “Judge” Keiko Kitagawa will star alongside Satoshi Tsumabuki who also appeared in Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift as the guy from the trailer who says “Go” to start the race. Although Keiko Kitagawa also starred in Tokyo Drift they did not share any scenes together until now. The movie is a comedy who’s plot has them pretending to be a couple. Filming will take place in August and September. The film is currently slated for a January release.

The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift - Satoshi Tsumabuki - "Go"

The Akumu-chan movie is a follow up to the 11 episode TV series which aired at the end of last year in Japan. This movie will have many actors reprising their roles as a new student joins Ayami’s (Keiko Kitagawa) class as her students all know him from their dreams while Yukio knows him from her nightmares! Filming is already underway though no release date has been announced.

Source: Tokyo Hive and Tokyo Hive.

Trailer for Keiko Kitagawa’s new movie Roommate

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Keiko Kitagawa in Roommate

Here’s a trailer for a new movie Roommate, starring Keiko Kitagawa, Sailor Mars from the live action Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon series.

The movie will be released on November 9th in Japan. The trailer doesn’t really tell us much but the story it would seem has Keiko’s character, Harumi, getting into an accident and befriending a nurse, Reiko (Mars Reiko?), played by Kyoko Fukada. The two decide to be roommates and high jinx ensues!

You can check out the official site for the trailer or check out the movie’s Facebook and Twitter pages.

Source: JPop Asia

Keiko Kitagawa’s new photo book will celebrate her first 10 years in the industry

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Keiko Kitagawa in France in front of the Eiffel Tower

Keiko Kitagawa, the actress who played Sailor Mars in the live action Sailor Moon show, will be releasing a new photo book to celebrate her first 10 years in the fashion industry. The book is set to be released on her 27th birthday, August 22nd of this year. She was recently in Paris to get photos for her book and has now returned to Japan to finish up with more photos.

Keiko Kitagawa sitting on steps in Paris

Keiko Kitagawa now has an official Facebook page where you can see many photos she took while in Paris working on her photo book. She also recorded a video which is talking about the new book. It’s in Japanese but well worth watching if like me you’d watch her read the phone book.

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Rika Izumi, live action Sailor Mercury, to appear in a new drama series

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Rika Izumi in "The Fly Girl in Love" - [恋するハエ女]

Rika Izumi, who was formerly known by her stage name Hama Chisaki when she appeared in the live action Sailor Moon show as Ami Mizuno, has a new drama series coming up. The show, who’s Japanese title 恋するハエ女 translates roughly to “The Fly Girl in Love” or “Worthless Woman in Love”, has Rika starring in a minor role as Arisa Mita (三田有紗).

A character diagram appears at the official site showing Rika’s character to be competing for the affection of the main character’s fiance. This six episode series will be airing on NHK Tuesday nights starting on November 6th.

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Akumu-chan first impressions

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Akumu-chan Keiko Kitagawa as Ayami Mutoi

Akumu-chan, the new show starring Keiko Kitagawa from the live action Sailor Moon show, has now aired it’s first two episodes. If you, like me, don’t live in Japan and don’t understand Japanese, you can download the show and English subtitles from D-Addicts. If you keep an eye out on that site’s torrent page and subtitles forum you’ll be able to get the rest of the episodes as they are released and eventually translated. You can also watch the show on Crunchyroll for a price. New episodes air Saturdays in Japan.

Akumu-chan - Keiko Kitagawa and GACKT in Ayami Mutoi's dream

Since this is a Sailor Moon site I won’t be talking about this show on a weekly basis but wanted to give my thoughts on the first episode and the show in general. Overall I think it’s pretty good and that Keiko does a great job. I’ll likely be checking out the rest of the series, something I haven’t made an effort to do with her shows since Mop Girl.

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Keiko Kitagawa on Japanese talk show “Shabekuri 007″

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Keiko Kitagawa on Shabekuri 007

This past Monday Keiko Kitagawa, Sailor Mars from the live action Sailor Moon series, appeared on the Japanese talk show Shabekuri 007 (しゃべくり007) to promote her new series Akumu-chan. I can’t say I’ve ever seen this show before or really know much about it. In fact I can’t really tell what the title even means. This seems to have a game show type format with a number of Japanese comedians but without any real points or prizes at stake. I’m sure it’s quite hilarious if you know what they’re saying… maybe…

The show has been uploaded to YouTube in six parts. I’ve put those into a playlist and embedded it below for your convenience:

I’d watch Keiko read the phone book so I’m happy to watch this too.

I understand the first episode of Akumu-chan is in the process of being translated. We’ll post more information about that when this is complete.

Keep reading for Keiko’s new Citizen watch commercial …

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More info about Keiko Kitagawa’s new series Akumu-chan

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Keiko Kitagawa's new series Akumu chan starts October 13th

Keiko Kitagawa’s new TV series “Akumu-chan” will begin airing in less than two weeks on October 13th at 9pm (Japan Standard Time). Now that the show is a little closer to air more has been made available including information about the theme song and some footage.

Momoiro Clover Z - 9th Single - AngelsMomoiro Clover Z - 9th Single - Demons

The artists that are performing the theme song should be familiar, they’re none other than Momoiro Clover Z, the all girl group that’s going to be singing the theme song for the 2013 Sailor Moon anime. This is their 9th single which you can read more about on their official site (translation). It will be released on November 21st. Part of the theme song can be heard in the video embedded below which also features clips of the show:

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Keiko Kitagawa’s new show “Akumu-chan” starts in October

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Keiko Kitagawa in Akumu-chan

Keiko Kitagawa, the actress who played Sailor Mars in the 2003 live action version of Sailor Moon, will be starring in yet another Japanese drama series starting in October. The show is called “Akumu-chan” and it will be playing on NTV at 9pm every Saturday. Keiko has undoubtedly had the most success of all her cast mates since the show’s end, which is only fair considering she is by far the most talented and beautiful of the bunch. Besides many drama series Keiko has also starred in a number of Japanese films as well as having a small part in Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift.

In this show Keiko plays a teacher named Ayami Mutoi who has a student, Yuiko, who has nightmares which predict the future! This causes Keiko’s character to fight the future or something of the sort most likely to solve some mystery and right a wrong each week. This doesn’t seem completely unlike another series “Mop Girl” which Keiko also starred in which had her mopping up crime scenes and then going back in time to stop murders from occurring.

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