A Sailor Moon Cosmos official visual book will be released on July 4th

Sailor Moon Cosmos Official Visual Book

Yet another Sailor Moon Crystal book is coming in soon! The book will be released on July 4th which is shortly after the June 30th release of Sailor Moon Cosmos Part 2. It will cover both films and will include an overview of the films’ story, character bios, interviews with cast and crew, artwork and merchandise related to the film. The book will be sold at stores and online retailers, though I have not yet seen it listed anywhere.

MSRP for the book is 3300 yen which is about $24 US. Not too expensive, but books are expensive to ship from Japan. Will you be picking this one up?

Source: The Sailor Moon Official Site

The Sailor Moon Complete First Season Blu-ray set is now available for purchase

Sailor Moon Complete First Season Blu-ray

The new release of the first season of Sailor Moon is out on Blu-ray today, June 14th. We have learned from fans that have received the set that these Blu-rays discs have new and improved video quality as well as features not on the releases from 2014. I got my copy today but have not have a chance to watch any of it yet. I did get myself a new Blu-ray drive and plan on doing a proper review as time permits. The release should be available in stores that sell this kind of thing as well as through online retailers. You can support the site by buying it through the link below.

This is a North American English language release by Viz which includes the original Japanese audio with optional English subtitles as well as the new English dub which was done by Viz using the same voice cast that appears in Sailor Moon Crystal.

Have you gotten your set yet? What do you think?

Vans is releasing a line of Sailor Moon shoes and accessories which hit store shelves June 3rd

Vans Sailor Moon shoe box

After some seemingly genuine leaks earlier this months it’s been confirmed that a Sailor Moon/Vans collaboration is coming in June of this year. A listing for a pair of Vans shoes is now up on the Foot Locker web site. Many images of shoes and t-shirts were posted to the Vans subreddit because of course there’s a Vans subreddit. This shows a t-shirt of Sailor Moon with her Moon Stick and one of Luna as well as a couple of shoe designs both in black and white and in colour. The boxes indicate that they will be for sale on June 3rd, next Friday. Sailor Moon Fan Network also has some additional images of the shoes as well as a price list of all of the items.

Vans Sailor Moon product list

It’s impossible to say for sure how much supply there will be and how quickly these will sell out but it’s quite likely they will be hard to get your hands on. If you’re looking to get some of these items you can keep an eye on the Vans web site or visit a Vans store if you happen to live near one. I was surprised to see that there are two Vans stores in my area. I suspect that if I went into such a store I may be asked if I was looking for my children! As an item is also listed on the Foot Locket web site these shoes will also likely be available wherever else these kind of things are sold. As of the time of this article’s posting there are no Sailor Moon products listed on the Vans web site, but I suspect they will be added some time soon. Check out all of the currently revealed items below.

Vans Sailor Moon t-shirt

This t-shirt shows Sailor Moon with her Moon Stick after it was upgraded to include the Silver Crystal. This is likely one of the $45 t-shirts.

Vans Luna t-shirt

This t-shirt features Luna. As the shirt is white it may be the less expensive $35 shirt but it may also be one of the many $45 ones.

Vans Sailor Jupiter and Sailor Mars shoes

These are the shoes currently listed on the Foot Locker web site. It seems this is a pair of shoes with different images on each. The right shoe has Sailor Jupiter on the right side and Tuxedo Mask on the front. The left shoe has Sailor Mars on the right side and Sailor Moon on the front. Perhaps other Sailor Guardians feature on the other sides of the shoes. If so that would likely be Sailor Mercury and Venus. These are likely one of the many “Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Multi” designs. Foot Locker lists them at $80 though that isn’t one of the prices on the leaked price list so it could be an item that isn’t visible in the photo of the list.

Vans Sailor Moon black and white shoes

This black and white shoe is nice enough looking but it may have looked nicer with black and white manga art.

Vans Sailor Team shoe

This shoe shows the entire Sailor Team in full colour. The shoe seems very small so I will assume it is a children’s size.

Vans Dark Kingdom and Sailor Guardian shoes

This last pair shows the Dark Kingdom on the right show and the Sailor Team on the right shoe and the Sailor Team on the left shoe. Again there seems to be a different design on each shoe which may be the case for many of the other designs.

Vans Dark Kingdom and Sailor Guardian shoes

Do you plan on getting any of these items? If so will you wear them or keep them in mint condition? I’m usually a fan of opening and using your products but a shoe is certainly something which will get dirty and worn after not too long. I can’t say I’m in the target demographic of Vans but perhaps I’d get some of these shirts or some shoes for my kids if they’re the right size. What’s your plan to beat the rush and secure some of these?

Source: Sailor Moon Fan Network

Update! Shortly after posting this images of all of the products showed up on the Vans Japan web site and Official Sailor Moon site. This is what’s coming out in Japan and we see a lot of the same items I mentioned above however there may be some minor differences. The Luna shirt and black and white shoe aren’t here. Check out those images below.

Vans x Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon shoes

This shows a couple of pairs of shoes we already saw and a few more.

Vans x Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon shoes

Here are more shoes and slippers including some interesting looking Luna slippers.

Vans x Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon merchandise

Other merchandise including a bag, toque and socks.

Vans x Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon merchandise

Shirts, including the t-shirt we saw from the reddit post, and another bag.

A new cheaper Blu-Ray set for Sailor Moon season 1 is coming from Viz in June

Sailor Moon Complete First Season Blu-ray

Good news for fans of the original Sailor Moon anime who for some reason didn’t actually buy the Blu-Ray sets that came out eight years ago. Viz has a cheap season 1 set which collects all 46 episodes in Japanese and in English on six discs coming June 14th 2022. Previously Viz had released half season sets for the entire Sailor Moon series. This meant five seasons across ten sets. This new set has a more affordable price tag of $49.99, less than even half a season used to cost! Amazon has the set listed for that full MSRP while Right Stuf has it for $44.99. You can support this site by pre-ordering the set from Amazon using the links in this post.

Viz’s Blu-Ray sets aren’t the best but they’re the best we’ve got. All Sailor Moon TV series Blu-Ray discs released anywhere in the world are basically upconverted to high definition from a standard definition source using software. This means the show will never look like something which is actually an HD remaster from the film source, as many anime series have done. Viz’s release, mostly in the early seasons, didn’t look that good. I compared Viz’s Blu-Ray release to the Japanese Blu-Rays and DVDs in my review of the first Japanese Blu-Ray set. The Japanese set isn’t perfect either, but it’s nicer than Viz’s set. As the years went on the quality of Viz’s Blu-Ray sets got marginally better until the Stars set which was actually pretty good. This was probably due to a number of factors including the quality of the video masters they had available and the techniques they used in order to clear up the video. This of course raises the question of what, exactly, this set will look like.

Sailor Moon Complete First Season Blu-ray

My prediction is that this set will just be exact copies of the Blu-Ray discs which were including in Viz’s first season Part 1 and Part 2 sets. Same menus. Same special features. Same marginal video quality. If that’s the case it’s a decent deal if you don’t have these already. It’s evidently a great series and this is your best way to watch it in English or in Japanese with English subtitles. When I watch my Star Trek The Next Generation or Deep Space Nine full series sets whenever I pop in the first disc of a season I get ads for the previous season set, which was included with the set I already bought. This happens because they didn’t author new Blu-Ray discs. They just reproduced more of the discs they had already authored and put them in a bigger box. We don’t know for sure that this is the approach that will be taken here, but that would be my guess. That’s common for rereleased movies and series. There is one bit of evidence which suggests that we may actually be getting reauthored discs. The Right Stuf listing mentions an interview with Katsuyuki Sumisawa as a special feature. As this wasn’t on the original release this would mean at least one disc, potentially all of them, is potentially going to be new.

Sailor Moon Complete First Season Blu-ray

It’s possible that Viz will go back to their source material and redo the video in better quality. It’s also possible that they’ll use other masters like the higher quality Japanese Blu-Ray releases or some of the other Blu-Ray releases which have been coming out around the world since 2014. They might also take some high quality masters and use newer technology like AstroRes to get the best possible HD version software algorithms can give! This is possible. I think it’s somewhat unlikely. If this were the case then there would be good reason for a fan to want to repurchase these sets in better quality. Personally I’ll be waiting until confirmation of what these sets are like before I decide whether or not to purchase the series again. Getting the same discs in different boxes isn’t enough of an incentive to me, if that’s what this set is. Getting new discs with similar video quality would also not be a terribly enticing release.

Sailor Moon Complete First Season Blu-ray

Here are some details about this release from the Right Stuf web site:

About Sailor Moon Season 1 Blu-Ray
Sailor Moon Season 1 contains episodes 1-46 of the anime directed by Junichi Sato and Kunihiko Ikuhara.

Usagi Tsukino is a cheerful schoolgirl who often finds herself in unwanted trouble. One day, she saves a talking cat named Luna who gives Usagi a brooch that transforms her into Sailor Moon, guardian of love and justice!

Special Features: Clean Opening and Ending, Trailers, Art Gallery, Announcement Panel & Fan Reactions, Dub Recording Behind the Scenes, Official Announcement, Trailer Moonlight Memories Pt. 1, AX Sailor Moon Panel, Official Cosplay Team Interview, Sailor Moon Day Highlights, An Interview with Katsuyuki Sumisawa

See More
Details
Publisher: VIZ
Media: Blu-ray
Spoken Language: English, Japanese
Subtitle Language: English
Genre: Fantasy, Romance
Themes: Battles, Magical Girl
Age Rating: 14+
Run Time: 1060
Year Created: 1992
Release Date: 6/14/2022
Dimensional Weight: 1
Region Code: A

The special features listed are more consistent with what we got in the older sets except for the Katsuyuki Sumisawa interview.

Will you be picking up this set?

Celebrate Sailor Moon’s 30th Anniversary with a five minute slideshow of ads for upcoming merchandise

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon 30th Anniversary Logo

As we posted about a couple of weeks ago, the Sailor Moon manga is 30 years old, as it was first published on December 28th 1991. The Sailor Moon anime will be 30 years old this year with the first episode airing March 7th 1992. As the Sailor Moon official site and franchise in general made a big deal about the 20th and 25th anniversaries it was only a matter of time until we started the five year long celebration of the 30th anniversary, and that time is now! The 30th Anniversary Logo is here! It’s pretty. Full of colours. It features Eternal Sailor Moon!

What big announcement came with this new logo? New Sailor Moon Crystal? A new musical? Merchandise that people will buy? Not really but they released a “movie” and by movie I mean a slideshow showing merchandise announcements for five minutes which you can watch embedded above. Most of this isn’t that special it just seems like they saved up a few weeks worth of normal stuff they post to the official site and then just dropped them all at once on the day they released the new logo and some intern made this little video about it. I think the only one of these things which is worth even mentioning is that a Sailor Moon museum will be opening for a short time. There aren’t really any details but it’s likely similar to what took place in 2016. Come look at some interesting Sailor Moon things and please buy this exclusive merchandise!

Are you excited about anything that was announced as part of this 30th Anniversary?

A new board game, Sailor Moon Imposterous, is coming from Dyskami Publishing in January

Sailor Moon Imposterous board gameSailor Moon Imposterous board game

Update 2021-12-15: Dyskami Publishing has mentioned via Twitter that the game has been delayed a few months due to supply chain issues so we should not expect it by January 31st. They have also mentioned that the game play is similar to that of Hive Mind by Calliope Games.

A new Sailor Moon Crystal board game is coming from Dyskami Publishing. The game, called Sailor Moon Imposterous, is listed on the Right Stuf web site with a release date of January 31st 2022. Despite this listing which includes box art the game has not yet been announced on the Dyskami web site or any of their social media pages.

MSRP for the game appears to be $39.95 US. From the description and box we can see that this game is based on Sailor Moon Crystal Season III, even though the Sailor Moon Eternal films have been released since Dyskami last released a Sailor Moon game. The following details are available from the manufacturer:

About Sailor Moon Imposterous Game
Sailor Moon Imposterous is a game for 3-12 players with approximately 30-60 minutes of game play per round.

The Deathbusters have captured someone from the Sailor Guardians team and replaced them with a Daimon imposter! Fortunately, Luna and Artemis discovered their evil plot and now everyone must work together to identify the pretender. By asking the characters a series of questions and then comparing the answers for ones that don’t align with the rest of the group, the cats can unmask the imposter and direct the rescue of the captured team-mate before it’s too late.

Details
Publisher: JAPANIME GAMES
Media: RPG/Board Games
Genre: Fantasy, Romance
Themes: Battles, Magical Girl
Age Rating: 10+
Release Date: 1/31/2022
Dimensional Weight: 4

It’s hard to tell any specifics about the gameplay from that summary. Let’s hope that Dyskami Publishing releases more details about this game prior to its release.

Dyskami previously released the Sailor Moon Crystal Dice Challenge game in 2018 and the Sailor Moon Crystal Truth or Bluff game in 2019. I was quite happy with both of those releases from the company and look forward to getting this new game. As the company is based in Canada I hope to be able to order directly from them as was an option in the past.

Do you plan on picking this game up? What did you think of the other Sailor Moon Crystal games by Dyskami?

Source: Right Stuf via Sailor Moon Fan Network

A Sailor Moon Eternal magazine is being released in Japan on December 24th

Sailor Moon Eternal Magazine - In store variant

A Sailor Moon Eternal magazine is coming out in Japan tomorrow which is actually soon because tomorrow in Japan is actually a bit later today! This 32 page full colour magazine will be sold in stores in Japan and online. The catch? There’s a different cover for the in store version and the online version! The magazine is fairly inexpensive, costing only 550 yen which is a bit over $5 US however ordering it online and shipping it outside of Japan will likely cost significantly more than that in shipping! I went ahead and ordered two copies from Amazon Japan because I was a bit annoyed at the prospect of spending almost three times more on shipping than on the cost of the item itself!

Sailor Moon Eternal Magazine - Online variant

The in store cover features Super Sailor Moon on the front and Super Sailor Venus, Jupiter, Mercury and Mars on the back. The online exclusive cover features Super Sailor Saturn, Pluto, Uranus and Neptune on the front and Super Sailor Chibi Moon on the back.

Sailor Moon Eternal Magazine - Index

We can see from the index what is included. I can’t really read any of that, but here’s a decent estimate at what it says.

Pages 2 to 5 – Special interview with Nanasho & Naomi Watanabe
Pages 6 to 8 – Character introductions
Page 9 – Theatrical version story
Pages 10 and 11 – Interview with Kotono Mitsuishi & Momoiro & production staff
Pages 12 and 13 – Usa-ko and Mamo-Chan’s Miracle Romance
Pages 15 and 18 – Side story: Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon’s history
Pages 20 and 21 – I’ll show you all! The new manga cover collection
Page 23 – Solved on behalf of the Moon (?) Q&A
Page 25 – The Four Choice King special Sailor Moon quiz
Page 28 – Present
Page 30 – Coloring book for adults

Thanks to saintfighteraqua from the comments for providing more detail on some of these!

Sailor Moon Eternal Magazine - In store variant

Sailor Moon Eternal Part 1 will be released in theatres in Japan on January 8th with Part 2 following shortly afterwards on February 11th. Though there has been no confirmation of a release outside of Japan there is evidence which suggests the movies will be streaming on Netflix at an undetermined date.

New art showing the Sailor Moon Eternal designs for all Sailor Guardians is included in a product ad for Ichiban Kuji

Sailor Moon Eternal -  Let's Party - Usagi and Chibiusa

The Sailor Moon official site has been updated with an ad for some upcoming products from the Ichiban Kuji line which includes some new art! The images used in the advertisement include a look at all of the Sailor Guardians using the art style of the upcoming Sailor Moon Eternal films, which is the two part movie adaptation of Sailor Moon’s Dream Arc, the continuation of the Sailor Moon Crystal series. The theme is “Let’s Party” so we mostly see the characters in party dresses.

Sailor Moon Eternal -  Let's Party - Makoto, Rei, Usagi, Minako, Ami, Chibiusa, Michiru, Haruka, Setsuna and Hotaru

The main banner shows us Usagi and Chibiusa, though we’ve seen those two before in this art style so it’s nothing too shocking. What’s more interesting are the first official depictions of Michiru, Haruka, Setsuna and Hotaru. Though we don’t know exactly at what point in the story the first Sailor Moon Eternal film will end it is unlikely these characters will have a prominent part in the film as their roles are mostly contained in the later half of the manga’s Dream arc. I suspect we could be ending the movie with a brief appearance by them, but we shall see in September, assuming the film is released as it was originally anticipated.

Sailor Moon Eternal -  Let's Party - Products

We also see everyone in their Sailor Guardian forms which all appear to be their Super outfits, though it’s a bit hard to see from the photos! You’ll need to look closely to try to make out details. For the above image just click on the thumbnail and then the image size (670×1030) to view it in full size.

Sailor Moon Eternal -  Let's Party - Usagi and Chibiusa

What do you think of these designs? Do you think we’ll be getting Sailor Moon Eternal by September 11th 2020 are it is currently planned?

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

Sailor Moon Sailor Stars Part 1 Blu-Ray - Contents

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.

Sailor Moon Sailor Stars Viz Blu-Ray - Seiya

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!

Sailor Moon Sailor Stars Viz Blu-Ray - Professor Tomoe and Baby Hotaru

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.

Sailor Moon Sailor Stars Viz Blu-Ray - Young Queen Nehelenia

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.

Sailor Moon Sailor Stars Viz Blu-Ray - Mamoru sees something on the wing

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.

Sailor Moon Sailor Stars Viz Blu-Ray - Sailor Saturn

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!

Sailor Moon Sailor Stars Viz Blu-Ray - Special features

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.

Sailor Moon Sailor Stars Viz Blu-Ray - Interview with Lauren post, the voice of Nehelenia

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.

Sailor Moon Sailor Stars Viz Blu-Ray - Interview with Stephanie Sheh, the voice of Usagi

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.

Sailor Moon Sailor Stars Viz Blu-Ray - Interview with Stephanie Sheh, the voice of Chibi Chibi

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.

Sailor Moon Sailor Stars Viz Blu-Ray - The non super credit less opening

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.

Sailor Moon Sailor Stars Part 1 Blu-Ray - Blu-Ray opened

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.

Sailor Moon Sailor Stars Part 1 Blu-Ray - Booklet - Final message

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!

Sailor Moon Sailor Stars Viz Blu-Ray - Eternal Sailor Moon

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

Sailor Moon Sailor Stars Japanese Blu-Ray - Volume 1

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.

Sailor Moon Sailor Stars Japanese Blu-Ray - Volume 2

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.

Sailor Moon Sailor Stars Laserdisc - Volume 1 - Eternal Sailor Moon

Sailor Moon Sailor Stars Laserdisc - Volume 6

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.

Sailor Moon Sailor Stars Laserdisc - Volumes 3, 4 and 5 - The Sailor Starlights and the Three Lights

Sailor Moon Sailor Stars Laserdisc - Volume 9

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.

Sailor Moon Sailor Stars Japanese Blu-Ray - Vendor exclusives

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.

Sailor Moon Sailor Stars Japanese Blu-Ray - Amazon exclusive box

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.

Sailor Moon Sailor Stars Laserdisc - Box

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.

Sailor Moon Sailor Stars Laserdisc - Box back

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″.

Sailor Moon Sailor Stars Laserdisc - Volume 2 - Sailor Chibi Moon and Sailor Saturn

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?