Schedule of Sailor Moon related events at Unplugged Expo in Toronto September 27th and 28th

Posted on September 19, 2014 by Adam

Unplugged Expo III is just a week away, September 27th and 28th, in Toronto. Sailor Moon fans will be able to meet Barbara Radecki, the voice of Sailor Neptune and Serena’s Mom, Sabrina Grdevich, the voice of Anne and Sailor Pluto, Roland Parliament, the voice of Melvin and author of the upcoming Sailor Moon Reflections, Ron Rubin, the original voice of Artemis, and Johnny Yong Bosch, the new voice of Artemis. The Unplugged Expo schedule has been posted to their web site. Here’s a run down of what’s going on.

Saturday at noon they’ll be starting off with the Sailor Moon Celebration voice actor panel featuring Barbara Radecki, Sabrina Grdevich, Ron Rubin, Roland Parliament and hosted by Emily from Moon Chase.

Saturday afternoon at 4pm Emily from the Moon Chase Sailor Moon News blog will also be running her Sailor Moon Merchandise panel in which she talks about all kinds of licensed Sailor Moon items from Japan and here in North America.

Saturday evening at 6pm and 8pm and Sunday morning at 11am Roland Parliament, the voice of Melvin and voice director for the first 65 episodes of the dub, will be reading excerpts from his new book Sailor Moon Reflections, The inside story of the original recordings of the English version of Sailor Moon. He will have a limited number of copies of the book for sale at the convention.

Sunday afternoon at 3pm will be the Sailor Moon Now and Then panel featuring both voices of Artemis, Ron Rubin and Johnny Yong Bosch. This panel will discuss how much has changed throughout the series and discuss Sailor Moon Crystal. Emily from Moon Chase will also be hosting this panel.

For autographs and photo ops the Sailor Moon cast, Barbara Radecki, Sabrina Grdevich, Ron Rubin and Roland Parliament, will be available Saturday at 1pm. Johnny Yong Bosch will be available Saturday at 2pm and again Sunday at 1pm. Johnny Yong Bosch and Ron Rubin will be having a joint autograph and photo session Sunday at 4pm.

These are all the Sailor Moon events officially listed but there will be a lot more going on at the con including a lot of Sailor Moon cosplayers! Toronto Sailor Moon fans should be sure not to miss this one!

Watch Act 6 of Sailor Moon Crystal, Tuxedo Mask, staring September 20th at 6am EST

Posted on September 19, 2014 by Adam

The next episode of Sailor Moon Crystal will be available streaming online on Crunchyroll, Hulu and Niconico starting Saturday September 20th at 7pm Japan Standard Time which is 6am Easter Standard Time and 3am Pacific Standard Time. This week’s episode, Act 6, Tuxedo Mask, will show us a more of Mamoru. By more of Mamoru of course I’m talking about perhaps seeing him topless! Yes indeed in act 6 of the manga we see a very shirtless Mamoru. Let’s all hope we have the same in store for tomorrow morning!

Luna is convinced Tuxedo Mask is an enemy when he publicly requests people look for the Silver Crystal. Usagi thinks he’s all right, but is concerned that knows her identity. Will we see Zoisite in drag? Will Tuxedo Mask once again take advantage of an unconscious Usagi? Find out in a few hours!

The cast of the live action Sailor Moon show got together for Keiko Kitagawa’s birthday

Posted on September 19, 2014 by Adam

Here’s a great look at what the cast of the live action Sailor Moon series look like now, 10 years later. The whole recently got together to celebrate the 28th birthday of Keiko Kitagawa, Sailor Mars in the series. From left to right are Rika Izumi, Sailor Merucry, Mew Azama, Sailor Jupiter, Keiko Kitagawa, Sailor Mars, Miyuu Sawai, Sailor Moon and Ayaka Komatsu, Sailor Venus. The photo was posted to Keiko Kitagawa’s official blog and Facebook page.

It’s great to see that these girls are still getting together nearly 10 years after the last episode aired. Just a short while ago they also got together to celebrate Ayaka Komatsu’s birthday.

AKB48’s Haruna Kojima posing in Peach John’s new Sailor Moon lingerie and dresses

Posted on September 18, 2014 by Adam

We recently posted about the new lingerie and dresses from Peach John but all we had to share were boring pictures of the outfits. “What would these look like if they were worn by me”, asked our readers, most of whom are Japanese pop stars. Well good news! You’ll look like this new image which was posted to the official Sailor Moon site.

The model wearing these four items is AKB48 star Haruna Kojima. AKB48 is a Japanese pop band comprised of 48 members. She has been a member since the beginning. The outfits worn in the photos are the Saior Moon lingerie, the Princess Serenity dress, the Black Lady dress and Usagi’s school uniform.

For more about Haruna Kojima follow her in Instagram or Twitter.

Linda Ballantyne, Toby Proctor, Katie Griffin, Susan Roman and Jennifer Cihi to appear at MaltaComics Expo Halloween weekend

Posted on September 17, 2014 by Adam

The cast of Sailor Moon will be in Europe for the first time! This Halloween weekend, October 31st to Novemeber 2nd 2014, Linda Ballantyne, the voice of Sailor Moon, Toby Proctor, the voice of Tuxedo Mask, Katie Griffin, the voice of Sailor Mars, Susan Roman, the voice of Sailor Jupiter, and Jennifer Cihi, singer for many song from the DiC dub, will be appearing at MaltaComics Expo in Valletta, Malta.

Jennifer Cihi is often referred to as the singing voice of Sailor Moon as she is credited as Sailor Moon, Princess Serena and Sailor Mars on tracks of the Sailor Moon: Songs From the Hit TV Series and Lunarock albums. Though Sailor Moon never actually sang in the English dub many of the songs she provided the voice for had a narrative that presented them as the voice of Sailor Moon. During the original 65 dubbed episodes she sang “I Wanna Be A Star!” from the episode “So You Want to Be a Superstar”, “My Only Love” from when Princess Serena is revealed in “A Crystal Clear Destiny”, “Carry On” which plays during the fight with Beryl and “It’s A New Day” which plays when Serena wakes up after that same fight in “Day of Destiny” and “Call My Name” which is sung by Raye at the Autumn festival during “Raye’s Day in the Spotlight”. Jennifer Cihi returned to sing on the second soundtrack, providing the vocals for “The Power of Love” which played during the battle with Wiseman in “Final Battle”, “I Want Someone to Love”, “I Want to Hold Your Hand” and “Who Do You Think You Are?”.

Sailor Moon episodes 37 and 38 are now available on Hulu

Posted on September 15, 2014 by Adam

This morning, September 15th, the two latest episodes of the original Sailor Moon anime were added to Hulu and Neon Alley. Every Monday two new episodes, subbed by Viz, will be added. This week we have episodes 37 and 38 which are all about the Dark Kingdom’s terrible attempts to uncover Sailor Moon’s identity.

In episode 37, Let’s Become a Princess: Usagi’s Bizarre Training, the Dark Kingdom is running a Princess Seminar in the hopes of capturing Sailor Moon. The logic is pretty simple. Sailor Moon is Princess Serenity so by running a seminar that looks for certain Princess like innate abilities, they will be able to find Sailor Moon! The first thing they look for, the ability to throw a discus, is a decent test. Usagi does great at this as it’s nearly identical to her Moon Tiara Action which she used consistently until she got the Moon Stick and didn’t need to any more. Unfortunately the other tests, how to drink soup, how to politely serve tea and how to dance, are things that Usagi was terrible at and disqualified her from being considered to be Sailor Moon. Turns out Kunzite totally missed the boat on this one as he had no idea Sailor Moon was completely awkward, which calls the logic of this trap into question. One discovery that is made in this episode is that the person Luna has been communicating with through her computer at the arcade is actually Artemis who for reasons unknown continued this deception instead of simply coming clean. Also Artemis eats cat food right out of the can. How does he use the can opener?

In episode 38, The Snow, the Mountains, Friendship and Monsters, the plot of the week assumes that Sailor Moon is a good skier. The Dark Kingdom has a ski contest going off of the assumption that Sailor Moon would be the winner. Usagi is in fact a completely terrible skier. It’s only because she had no control over herself that she awkwardly and ineptly flew to the front of the pack and into the enemy’s trap. There is no indication as to why the Dark Kingdom would think Sailor Moon was good at skiing, but we can chalk this up to another failure on Kunzite’s part. Meanwhile this episode gives Usagi and Rei a chance to have a heart to heart about Mamoru. Rei comes to terms with the fact that Usagi stole her boyfriend and gives her blessing to the relationship.

Don’t forget that you can also now watch the first 23 episodes of Viz’s new Sailor Moon dub on Hulu.

Watch the Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Petite Étrangère musical with English subtitles

Posted on September 15, 2014 by Adam

Great news for Sailor Moon musical fans. This year’s musical, Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Petite Étrangère, is now available to download with English subtitles. The gang over at Miss Dream have subtitled the streaming feed.

I posted my thoughts on the musical last week. I’m not likely to do a second review after watching the subbed version so check that out to see how I felt and what I may have missed due to my poor understanding of Japanese.

New dresses and lingerie items from Peach John

Posted on September 14, 2014 by Adam

The first round of Sailor Moon pyjamas and lingerie were released in February. Now, as posted on the official Sailor Moon site, Peach John is expanding their line to include lingerie of all 10 Sailor Guardians as well as 7 dresses including some school uniforms. They now offer lingerie for rest of the Sailor Guardians, Sailor Uranus, Neptune, Saturn, Pluto and of course the completely inappropriate Sailor Chibi Moon lingerie! The existing and new lingerie items have also been upgraded to include a skirt! They still include the original bra top, panties and choker on top of the new skirts. That’s right, you’ll need to upgrade your Sailor Moon, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter and Venus lingerie sets. All sets cost 7,538 yen (about $70 US).

This round isn’t all about lingerie! Bandai is also offering some costume style dresses of some of the Sailor Guardians’ civilian school uniforms as well as dresses for Princess Serenity and Black Lady. Go to school dressed up as Usagi, Ami, Rei, Makoto or Minako. The school uniforms are 5,378 yen (about $50 US). If you’re really rich the Princess Serenity dress is 14,018 (about $130 US) though at a slightly more affordable 9,698 (about $90) you might be able to convince your father to buy you the Black Lady dress.

Pre-orders from Premium Bandai begin September 19th.

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Watch the first 23 episodes of Viz’s new Sailor Moon English dub on Hulu

Posted on September 13, 2014 by Adam

Last weekend Viz released a number of dubbed episodes to Hulu and Neon Alley. You can currently watch the first 23 episodes of Viz’s new English dub but these episodes may not be there for long so watch them while you can. I haven’t had a chance to watch too many episodes but after watching a bit the dub seems decent. There are less changes to the script than there were in the original dub though some jokes not in the original version have been added, such as making fun of Mamoru’s pants or referring to Ami’s IQ like it was a Dragonball Z power level.

This first half of the season coincides with the episodes being released on DVD and Blu-Ray on November 11th. It’s not clear how long these episodes will remain online but they may be removed when the home video version is released. We’ve already seen pictures of the packaging. Check out the new video below which shows the super high tech foil used in the box.

Start watching starting with the first episode and see how you like it!

Some Sailor Moon Crystal scenes will be reanimated up for the DVD and Blu-Ray release

Posted on September 12, 2014 by Adam

Streamed version to Blu-Ray comparison - Sailor Moon Crystal Act 2 - Ami and Luna

Top: Original streaming version.
Bottom: New Blu-Ray version.

The upcoming Blu-Ray and DVD release of Sailor Moon Crystal, coming October 15th in Japan, will include some touched up scenes. A lot of fans had issues with the quality of some of the animation in Sailor Moon Crystal when it was first streamed and now some of these scenes have been reanimated. A video has been released on the official Sailor Moon YouTube Channel showing new scenes.

This video on it’s own doesn’t show anything obvious but when we compare these clips to the original version we see the difference. Screenshots included in this post show that some scenes seem to have been completely redrawn though many others have not been modified at all. The footage only contains scenes from the first two episodes as there are only two episodes included in each volume of the DVD and Blu-Ray release. There has not been any announcement about a North American video release. Pre-order the volume 1 deluxe limited edition Blu-Ray (Amazon Japan, CD Japan), regular edition Blu-ray (Amazon Japan, CD Japan) or DVD (Amazon Japan, CD Japan).

Streamed version to Blu-Ray comparison - Sailor Moon Crystal Act 2 - Usagi and Mamoru

Top: Original streaming version.
Bottom: New Blu-Ray version

How do you feel about these changes? Many fans are happy with them though this brings up an age old debate amongst fans of all things about the state of a work of art as either a fixed event in time or a constantly growing and evolving work. Certainly many movies will have a “director’s cut” or include a few new scenes in a video release, often including the original version. The extreme example of this would be something like the Star Wars Special Editions including drastic often unwelcome changes and who’s director is openly hostile towards fans of the original unaltered versions. Somewhere in between are things like the Final Fantasy Advent Children Complete Edition. I consider myself a bit of purist, as can be inferred from my less than kind reviews of these Star Wars DVDs or the Ghost in the Shell 2.0 Blu-Ray. That said, I understand these changes to be minor and generally positive without any major change to the original work. All redrawn scenes have the same poses as the originals, just with slightly more polish. No guns replaced with walkie-talkies here!

Streamed version to Blu-Ray comparison - Sailor Moon Crystal Act 2 - Ami and Usagi

Top: Original streaming version.
Bottom: New Blu-Ray version

One has to wonder what motivates this change? Why not just do it right the first time? It’s no secret that the show’s production was quite rushed, including a number of delays. With a twice monthly release schedule there are obvious time constraints with making this show. Perhaps there was just a shortage of time with the first few episodes. It’s also possible that the show’s success was underestimated and with a higher budget it’s now possible to go back and put more polish on some of the more sloppily done scenes. It remains to be seen if such changes will continue for many of the later episodes or if the higher quality of animation will simply become commonplace in the future. Act 3 had some pretty questionable scenes but the latest episode looked quite good.