A Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Cafe is currently open in Japan. This special cafe will only be open for the months of November and December and will feature some Sailor Moon art. This includes some new art made by Sailor Moon’s creator Naoko Takeuchi. This image features Mamoru holding Usagi who’s wearing a Princess Serenity style dress while holding her Moon Stick and a heart shaped jewel. The Moon Stick she’s holding is unlike the one in the manga or 90s anime. It somewhat resembles the Moon Stick from the live action series in that the Moon itself is a large gem, but it isn’t identical with the spherical gem between the handle and crescent.

There will be other art featured at this cafe including colour versions of some manga pages which will be on display. You can check out samples of that art at the official Sailor Moon site. File folders featuring this art will be available for purchase at the cafe.

Shall we use this image as the launching point for rampant speculation that a new season of the live action Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon series is in the works? Why not?

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

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

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

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

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

A new Art Book titled “Sailormoon Raisonné Art Works 1991~2023″ will be released in less than a month on April 12th! Yesterday Sailor Moon editor Fumio Osano teased that some announcements would be made today, and this seems to be the big one! What does the French word for “reasoned” have to do with Sailor Moon? I really have no idea but it is certainly following in the tradition of using random non Japanese or English words in the last decade’s Sailor Moon musical titles. This one doesn’t seem to be overtly incorrectly spelled but the phrase doesn’t really make sense. What is “Sailormoon Reasoned?”

Update: It seems the term “raisonné” in this context refers to a “Catalogue raisonné” which is a catalogue listing all known works by an artist. This suggests that this work would reference everything that Naoko Takeuchi did related to Sailor Moon during the years 1991 to 2023. I’ve been speaking French for 45 years and this term is new to me!

By starting in 1991, the year in which Sailor Moon first appeared in the pages of Nakayoshi and that Codename: Sailor V appeared in Run Run, we will be covering the entire history of the manga. This “ultimate” colour illustration collection gathers a whopping 745 illustrations in its 200 pages.

The front cover features Sailor Moon, Mars, Venus, Mercury and Jupiter while the back shows Sailor Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, Chibi Moon and Saturn. A “B5″ sized file folder featuring one of these images will be available for those ordering it through the Fan Club or purchasing it at the Sailor Moon Store in Japan. B5 size is roughly but not exactly 7×10″. With an MSRP of 5980 yen, the book will cost about $40 US though expect to pay a bit for shipping or a mint for shipping if you’re still ordering from Amazon Japan, something I have stopped down due to exponential increases in their shipping costs.

This announcement has lead some to wonder if this is the same art book which was announced by Kodansha at New York Comiccon back in October of 2012. At the time the new art book was said to be released in seven countries including the United States. This announcement was made by Kodansha in Japan and doesn’t mention an international release, but such an announcement may still be coming. It’s also possible that after so much time this is a totally different project which might not actually come out here. I’m trying to figure out how long I want to wait before pre-ordering this.

Will you be getting it?

Source: Sailor Moon Official Site

The fourth complete season set of the original Sailor Moon anime is now out on Blu-ray! Sailor Moon SuperS The Complete Fourth Season was released on January 30th in stores and online. You can buy the set from Amazon to support the site. Previously the season had been split up into two instalments but we now have it all together as one set. These newer releases have generally been of better quality than the older sets. That said as the seasons went on the quality of the original sets improved, so the difference between this release and the earlier one is likely to be less noticeable than other seasons.

If you’ve been following The Discourse these sets also have a pinkish hue which you may never have noticed until people started to make a deal about it. It’s something that’s visible with side by side screenshots but nothing I ever made much notice of while watching the series.

Sailor Moon SuperS mainly focuses on Chibiusa as she befriends Pegasus and the girls face off against the Dead Moon Circus. This is an adaptation of the Dream arc of the Sailor Moon manga. It isn’t the strongest or most popular season but it does have some solid episodes and redeeming qualities such as the humourous monster designs. I’m looking forward to rewatching these episodes.

Did you pick up this set? What do you think of it?

Because magazines come out in the future fans are now getting their hands on the January 2024 issue of Vogue Japan which features and interview with Sailor Moon creator Naoko Takeuchi as well as her latest illustration of Sailor Moon! That illustration, found on page 94, is included above. Here’s an image of the interview with Naoko Takeuchi which is found on page 93.

If your Japanese is as bad as mine, you probably wonder what it says! Luckily Twitter user @leticia_cosmos has shared this translation video.

Translation of Naoko Takeuchi's interview for Vogue Japan.
This is the important part of the teaser that Vogue published on their website on Nov 21st. It has a wider context from the bit that was previously translated by CR. pic.twitter.com/7JvzQkJNgk

— Letícia⭐Cosmos¹² (@leticia_cosmos) November 29, 2023

I’ve transcribed this translation below for reference. I’m not actually sure if that’s the entire interview or not. The text box on the top left doesn’t seem to be included.

Looking back, Takeuchi says that the women who appeared in the films and manga she liked were “lively and always on the move. I learned that standing still was not good.” When she began drawing “Sailor Moon,” she once again asked herself, “What kind of strength does a woman have?” She introduces by saying that “There are individual differences and there is no one answer that fits all”, she then shares her insight into the book Onna Daigaku Hyoron, a Neo-Confucian values manual to teach subordination to newly married women of the 18th century, written by Yukichi Fukuzawa, which she recently read because of her daughter’s school report. “In Japan and the rest of the world, women still have the same low status and lack of freedom that they had 200 years ago. When I watch the news every day, I think about how difficult it is to live as a woman on this planet. Society is so rigid that women are forced to become strong. If we ever put the complexities and superfluities of society into an equation, we would get a simple answer like a formula: Strength = Motherhood = Kindness.”, she suggests.

In the universe of the work that embodies Takeuchi’s wishes, the Sailor Guardians come together in solidarity and demonstrate their strength. “Women are at a disadvantage when they have to physically fight men or aliens. It would be better if they didn’t even have to fight, of course. I believe that women have some kind of magical power within them. To manifest this power you need spells and items. And the strength of prayer. Prayer extinguishes evil, I think that is ideal. I want to continue praying strongly. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately.”

A short passage of this interview was shared by Crunchyroll which upset some fans in the way it characterized women and girls as being weaker than men. In the context of the rest of the interview to me the quote doesn’t seem negative. Sailor Moon and her friends are powerful, but that doesn’t always mean kicking and punching their way to victory. By prefacing that “There are individual differences” a statement like women being, in this case on average, at a disadvantage when fighting men or aliens isn’t much different than saying something like men are taller than women, even though individual variation of course exists. We of course don’t yet know quite how strong aliens are but they are portrayed as being pretty powerful in the series. Its likely there are species of aliens that are both stronger and weaker than humans, much like the various animals on Earth. What do you think of the interview?

I had a bit of trouble tracking down a copy of the issue. I wanted to get myself a physical copy, which is for sale on sites like Amazon Japan, but I was not able to get a copy to ship to Canada when I tried. Opting instead for an eBook copy of the magazine, which wouldn’t need to be flown across the Pacific Ocean, I turned to the Rakuten Kobo store thanks to a tip from Twitter user @itsmoonrevenge. There is a Japanese listing for the issue. This magazine is not listed on the English Kobo store. Fear not! Fans outside of Japan can still buy e-books which are only available in Japan. I did something similar when I bought eBook versions of the colour versions of the Sailor Moon manga. At the time I used PayPal though this time I was able to use my own credit card. It took some messing around on the site and using a fake Japanese address but I was able to use my own credit card details to purchase the January issue of Vogue Japan and load it onto an app on my phone, which is where the screenshot of the interview comes from.

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 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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Other merchandise including a bag, toque and socks.

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

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.

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.

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.

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?

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?