The Sailor Moon Eternal films are coming to theatres in Japan on September 11th 2020. We don’t have a ton of information about these films but a recent mock interview shared with Japanese members of the Official Sailor Moon Fan Club gives us some morsels of information about the films. We could have inferred most of this information already, but it’s nice to get some confirmation about some of these things.
I am not currently a member of the Sailor Moon Fan Club so I did not receive this newsletter however I read about it on the Tuxedo Unmasked web site. If you don’t already follow that site I suggest you do as there’s a ton of research that goes into those articles which I always enjoy reading. If you can read Japanese you can check out this scanned version of the Sailor Moon Official Fan Club Members Only Special Issue volume 13. I do not, so I will be referencing Tuxedo Unmasked’s translation.
The interview isn’t with an actual person who exists in the real world. Instead it’s a fake conversation between Luna and Usagi in which they destroy the fourth wall and talk somewhat in character about the upcoming films. This reminds me a bit of the Sailor Moon Memorial laserdiscs which are season recaps hosted by Usagi and Luna. So what does the interview tell us?
First there’s a reminder that the movies will come out “After the Olympics” which is a bit vague. The 2020 Summer Olympics, which will take place in Tokyo, will run from July 24th to August 9th. The film has already been announced to be released on September 11th so this bit of dialogue is less precise than what we already know. The actual release date appears on the page and later in the interview.
Then Usagi asks Luna what actually happened in Act 4 of the manga. We already knew that these two films will cover the Dream arc of the Sailor Moon manga which is the story which was adapted as the Sailor Moon SuperS season of the original Sailor Moon anime. This means it will include the Dark Moon Circus, Pegasus, the Amazon Trio, the Amazoness Quartet, Zirconia and Queen Nehelenia. Despite the similar characters the actual stories of the manga and anime differ quite a bit though, so Sailor Moon Eternal will be new to fans of the original Sailor Moon anime!
We learn that the new movie will be about the Dead Moon Circus who break free of a mirror during an eclipse. That eclipse was is seen at the end of the final episode of Sailor Moon Crystal’s third season many, many eclipses ago. We will see Usagi and Chibiusa switch bodies, which is something that also happened in the original Sailor Moon anime though this was a minor story contained to one episode. It is also mentioned that this is a very Chibiusa intensive story! This arc is basically a romance between Chibiusa and Pegasus/Helios so there’s no ignoring that she will feature heavily.
More importantly they ask where the visuals for Sailor Uranus, Neptune and the other Sailor Guardians representing the outer planets are. Luna muses that this must mean that Hotaru’s awakening will be in the second film. This fits with what I had been assuming about the films. These characters only appear in the second half of the manga’s arc and it seems like a good split of the films would be to include them only in Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2, or whatever it is we will be calling it. This would start with us seeing what Haruka, Michiru, Setsuna and Hotaru have been up to for the past while and having them join the rest of the team. In the original Sailor Moon anime this never happens during Sailor Moon SuperS and the short six episode arc which starts off Sailor Moon Sailor Stars does its own quick version of these events. If this information is to be trusted it seems unlikely we’ll be seeing any designs for these characters for the first film, though I still think it may be possible they will appear briefly as an end of movie teaser.
Following this exchange we get some quotes from Chiaki Kon, the film’s director, Kazuyuki Fudeyasu, the film’s writer, Kazuko Tadano, the animation director, Kotono Mitsuishi, the voice of Sailor Moon and Misato Fukuen, the voice of Chibiusa. These are some nice little comments but they don’t really tell us anything new about the films. Misato Fukuen comments that she will finally get to see “an important character” who we can only assume is Pegasus. It seems they’re all being very careful not to tell us anything!
This all makes me wonder if the person that wrote this fictional exchange actually knows anything we don’t or if they instead are just inferring all of this from what we already know? I can’t say for sure. For now we are all anxiously waiting until September and wondering just when we’ll be getting the movies outside of Japan! I’m hopeful for some sort of limited North American theatrical run around the same time as the film will be released in Japan but that may be too optimistic of me! We may instead only get the film some while later, possibly not until 2021, and it’s not really guaranteed that it will be out theatrically here at all. I’ll be sure to share anything conclusive as that information becomes available!
Source: Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Official Fan Club Mailer Vol. 13 translated by Tuxedo Unmasked
Keep reading for the full interview translation.
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