The voices of the Sailor Animamates from Viz’s new Sailor Stars dub have been revealed

Sailor Moon Sailor Stars episode 175 - Sailor Iron Mouse and her phone booth

This past weekend was Anime Central in Rosemont, near Chicago. The convention included a Moon Panel on Saturday which included the announcement of the voice actors for the Sailor Animamates in Sailor Moon Sailor Stars which will be released on DVD and Blu-Ray starting June 18th. The newly announced voice actors are Katie Leigh as Sailor Iron Mouse, Andi Rich as Sailor Lead Crow, Faye Mata as Sailor Aluminum Siren and Corina Boettger as Sailor Tin Nyanko. This follows an earlier announcement of the voices of the Sailor Starlights, Chibi Chibi and Sailor Galaxia.

Katie Leigh, who will be playing Sailor Iron Mouse, is a veteran voice actor who has voiced many famous characters that some fans who grew up in the 80s are probably familiar with including Sunni in the Gummi Bears and Rowlf in Muppet Babies. Faye Mata, who plays Sailor Aluminum Siren, has appeared in a number of recent video games and anime series including roles such as Yukako in JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure and Lene in Fire Emblem Heroes. Corina Boettger, who plays Sailor Tin Nyanko, has a background in both live action and voice acting work such as Marshtato Mary in Trolls: The Beats Goes and Anju Yuuki in Love Live: School Idol Project. She also streams video games on Twitch. I couldn’t find much information about Andi Rich. I don’t know if this is because this is a voice actor with little experience or perhaps it’s a pseudonym of someone who has worked under another name. This is sometimes done because of rules relating to union work as was likely the case with Barbara Goodson using the alias Janis Carrol when voicing Ziriconia in Sailor Moon SuperS. If any fans have details on Andi Rich’s prior work feel free to leave a comment to let us know about it.

Sailor Moon Sailor Stars episode 182 - Sailor Lead Crow and Sailor Aluminum Siren

Since Sailor Moon Sailor Stars volume 1 will only include the first half of the season, that being episode 167 to 183, we won’t be hearing all of these voice actors in the first set. We will be getting all of Sailor Iron Mouse’s episodes but Sailor Aluminum Siren and Sailor Lead Crow will only appear in episode 182, along with Chibi Chibi. Sailor Tin Nyanko will not be introduced until episode 188 which will be on the second set. Hopefully we won’t have to wait too long for that one!

Sailor Moon Sailor Stars episode 188 - Sailor Tin Nyanko

What to you think of this cast? Are you a fan of any of these voice actors’ prior work? Which of the Sailor Animamates is your favourite? I must admit I’ve always had a preference for Sailor Iron Mouse!

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Sailor Moon S The Movie and Sailor Moon SuperS The Movie are coming to theatres in July and August

Sailor Moon S and SuperS movies

Great news! The 2nd and 3rd Sailor Moon films, Sailor Moon S The Movie and Sailor Moon SuperS The Movie, are coming to theatres in North America this summer. Sailor Moon S The Movie will be shown with an encore presentation of Sailor Moon R The Movie Saturday July 28th and Monday the 30th while Sailor Moon SuperS The Movie will be shown with the Ami’s First Love special Saturday August 4th and Monday the 6th. The Saturday showings will have Viz’s new English dub of the film while the Monday showings will be in Japanese with English subtitles. This was announced earlier today at Viz’s Moon Panel at Anime Central in Rosemont, just outside of Chicago. A trailer has been uploaded to YouTube and can be seen below:

The movie posters for these two movies are similar in style to what we saw when Sailor Moon R The Movie was released in theatres.

Sailor Moon S The Movie Sailor Moon Supers The Movie

Fans will be able to get tickets and a complete list of participating theatres from the Fathom Events web site. Currently no theatres are listed but there will surely be more added as we get closer to the dates. It seems practical to refer to the SuperS film as Sailor Moon SuperS The Movie rather than it’s full official title Sailor Moon SuperS: The Nine Sailor Guardians Unite! Miracle of the Black Dream Hole. I hardly hold this against Viz as I’ve been known to do the same myself! This will be the first time Ami’s First Love is released here in North America. This short animated special, which was originally shown alongside the SuperS film in Japan, tells the story of Ami receiving a love letter which she suspects is from her intellectual rival Mercurius.

Ami's First Love - Mercurius

Sailor Moon S The Movie is adapted from a manga story The Lover of Princess Kaguya which focuses on Luna and her infatuation with a human man. It is well known for featuring Human Luna.

Sailor Moon S The Movie - Human Luna

The Sailor Moon SuperS film is an original story not based on any manga chapter. It has Chibiusa befriending Perle, a sort of fairy boy who’s rebelling against Badiane, a villain who is attempting to put the Earth’s children into an eternal sleep in the Black Dream Hole. The film’s story has some similarities to the film The Matrix, which was made a few years after it, though these may be a simple coincidence.

Sailor Moon SuperS The Movie - Perle, Chibiusa and Diana

Do you plan on checking out these films?

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Viz Media to release all 200 episodes of Sailor Moon subbed and with a new dub on DVD, Blu-Ray and streaming starting May 19th

Viz Media

After years of waiting the original Sailor Moon anime series has been licensed for distribution by Viz! The original Sailor Moon series will be released by them on DVD, Blu-Ray and streaming both dubbed and subbed. Viz has also acquired the rights to the new Sailor Moon anime Sailor Moon Crystal! This was announced on Friday, May 16th, at Anime Central.

Sailor Moon season 1 promotional image

The streaming subbed episodes will be released every Monday starting with the first four episodes which will be released on Neon Alley and Hulu with two new episode being released every Monday after that.

Luna using a computer

In addition to this subtitled release a whole new dub is being produced. This new release will be retaining all original names and story arcs, be completely unedited, and include all 200 episodes, including Sailor Stars which has never previously been released in North America and the 7 episodes from the first two seasons which were never dubbed. Viz has also acquired the rights to the three Sailor Moon movies and the specials. The new dub will be released streaming in late 2014. Details about the cast of the new dub will be announced at Anime Expo in Los Angeles the weekend of July 3rd to the 6th. This will likely be taking place on Sailor Moon Day, which is being held July 5th. Anime Expo will be having as guests a number of voice actors from the original dub of the Sailor Moon anime, including Linda Ballantyne, Sailor Moon, Katie Griffin, Sailor Mars, Stephanie Morgenstern, Sailor Venus, Karen Bernstein, Sailor Mercury, Susan Roman, Sailor Jupiter, Toby Proctor, Tuxedo Mask, Mary Long, Molly, Ron Rubin, Artemis and John Stocker, voice director. Though fans would love to see their favourite voice actors reprise their role there has been no indication one way or another that this will be the case.

These new releases will also be on DVD and Blu-Ray. The subtitled digital download releases will begin in Summer 2014 with season 1 part 1. The dub will be released with the DVD and Blu-Ray/DVD combo pack releases at a later date. The video is mentioned to be the remastered version from Japan, though details on this remastering process are not currently known. The DVD releases currently available in Japan are standard definition releases. The first season and movies are in 480p, progressive scan, though Sailor Moon R, S, SuperS and SailorStars have only ever been released on interlaced 480i DVDs in Japan to date. Based on comments made in an Anime News Network interview it would appear that the work has been done using post processing rather that going back to the original film source. The last DVDs released domestically from ADV were pretty much completely terrible, so we can certainly expect this version to be a vast improvement.

The following trailer accompanies this announcement: