Following the success of last year’s Sailor Moon 4-D attraction Universal Studios Japan will be having yet another Sailor Moon 4-D ride starting May 31st 2019! This isn’t just a repeat of what was there last year but instead a whole new story! While I’m not fluent in Japanese it seems like this one is called Sailor Moon The Miracle 4-D Moon Palace Edition. Where the first event featured Sailor Moon fighting Morga and the Dark Kingdom from the first story arc this new attraction will feature Super Sailor Moon as well as all 10 Sailor Guardians, that being Sailor Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, Venus, Pluto, Uranus, Neptune, Saturn and Chibi Moon. We can see an image of the CG versions of these characters above.

The inclusion of all of these characters makes me wonder when this attraction will take place in the story. These ten characters are first brought together in the Infinity arc of the Manga. While only the core group continue into Sailor Moon SuperS in the anime, all of them return in the Dream and Stars arc in the manga. Sailor Moon eventually upgrades to Eternal Sailor Moon in Stars so it would likely take place prior to that. We also don’t see any of the other Sailor Guardians upgraded to their Super forms and Saturn isn’t a baby so it probably makes the most sense for this to to be taking place around the end of the Infinity arc before Hotaru becomes a baby and Haruka, Michiru and Setsuna take off for a while. The most telling clue is that Sailor Moon’s Cosmic Heart Compact is the transformation item being used for merchandise. This was her transformation item used in the Infinity arc, so that is probably where this takes place. All that said there’s no Moon Palace featured in the Infinity arc. The palace is mentioned in the title and in the description of the plot.

As with the last attraction there will be a bunch of exclusive merchandise sold at this event. We have Cosmic Heart Compacts in different colours. Are these supposed to represent the various Sailor Guardians? This would be nonsense since only Sailor Moon uses a Cosmic Heart Compact to transform. In the Infinity arc of the manga the other Sailor Guardians don’t use any transformation items while in Sailor Moon S the others continue to use their Star Power Sticks which they received in Sailor Moon R. Sailor Chibi Moon uses the Prism Heart Compact to transform during the Infinity arc or Sailor Moon S and this doesn’t much resemble the Cosmic Heart Compact. Even Sailor Moon’s actual Cosmic Heart Contact is red, of which only one of these Compacts is, and it isn’t clear that this one is tied to Sailor Moon. In all there are 11, not 10 of these, so I don’t even know that there are meant to represent individual Sailor Guardians. They’re just different coloured Cosmic Heart Compacts which to me seems to be a very odd piece of merchandise.

Did any of you get a chance to visit this attraction last year? Do you expect to be able to go to Japan while this new event is on?

The Sailor Moon Monopoly game is now out in stores and online. I got my copy from an EB Games store in Ottawa (the Canadian equivalent to GameStop) a while back and it seems like many fans have done the same. With the game in hand we can get a good look at exactly what’s going on with the various pieces! As we’d discussed earlier this seems to be Sailor Moon S the game for reasons which I can’t really fathom. The various characters are mostly all from Sailor Moon S, mainly the villains being the Witches 5, Professor Tomoe and Mistress 9 as well as the inclusion of all Sailor Guardians including Sailor Moon S’s new additional Sailor Uranus, Neptune and Saturn. With the Viz video releases now having reached the end of Sailor Moon SuperS this seems an odd way to do it. Perhaps the game was simply in development for too long or this may have been an intentional choice as many of the Sailor Guardians introduced in this season would not appear in Sailor Moon SuperS and a Sailor Moon Sailor Stars Monopoly game would not be as recognisable to fans. For whatever the reasons, it’s Sailor Moon S Monopoly!

As with many other versions of Monopoly this really is the same old game we’ve seen time and time again with a different esthetic. This was immediately obvious to me as I’ve played countless hours of the game in my youth and I even spent quite some time programming a Monopoly computer game in Turbo Pascal when I was a child (the game mostly worked well but lacked houses, hotels, Chance and Community Chest cards). This is good for purists who want to have the same game experience as normal Monopoly. One thing which I think is fairly odd however is the completely random grouping of characters for most of the properties. Allow me to rant a bit about each one.

First we have Luna and Artemis, as a single property, bundled with Mimette of the Witches 5. Wouldn’t it have been easier to just use this, one of the only two pairs of properties, as Luna and Artemis? Mimette does not fit with Luna and Artemis at all. The characters don’t ever actually interact.

Next we have Eudial, Viluy and Tellu. This actually works! They are 3 of the Witches 5 and since there are no sets of five properties (most are groups of three) this sort of works!

Then there’s Cyprene/Ptilol with Kaolinite and … Sailor Chibi Moon! Kaolinite does have a brief interaction with Chibiusa at some point and the two characters do show up together in succession in the later versions of the Sailor Moon S credits. Cyprene and Ptilol fit only with Kaolinite. It would have made more sense to have put Mimette with her fellow Witches and then put Chibiusa with either her parents or maybe with Sailor Saturn!

Next is Sailor Mercury, Mars and Jupiter. There are all Sailor Guardians so this works decently. Aside from Sailor Moon they do spend some time together before Sailor Venus joins the show so I’ll say this is one of the three less terrible one.

Next is Sailor Venus, Professor Tomoe and Sailor Pluto. None of these characters have much to do with each other, except perhaps for a brief interaction between Sailor Venus and Pluto in one episode of Sailor Stars. Sailor Venus belongs with the Sailor Guardians from the first season while Sailor Pluto fits in better with Sailor Uranus and Neptune or even with Sailor Chibi Moon. I would personally have put her with King Endymion but that’s because I like trolling people. Professor Tomoe is a villain and if he’s going to be paired with anyone but his fellow villains from the season it should probably be his daughter, and not the Sailor Guardians who steals his baby from him in Sailor Stars.

Next is Sailor Uranus and Neptune with … Tuxedo Mask! Naturally Sailor Pluto would have worked better here. There’s nothing these two lesbians love more than the show’s male love interest! At least Sailor Uranus and Neptune are together where they belong.

On the last side we have Sailor Moon with Sailor Saturn and Mistress 9. This sort of works since Sailor Moon fights Mistress 9 and sort of saves Sailor Saturn but these characters would fit so much better elsewhere. Saturn should be with her father or her friend Chibiusa and Mistress 9 could easily fit with the villains! It does of course work that two versions of Hotaru be grouped together.

Finally we have the only grouping that works well, and that is Neo Queen Serenity and King Endymion. The only issue here is that they don’t really appear in Sailor Moon S so they don’t fit with the game at all.

Other groupings make some sense! The railroads are all items, either Talismans or Sailor Saturn’s Silence Glaive. The utilities are replaced by Sailor Moon’s items, that being her broach and rod. Jail and Free Parking are unchanged. It seems like there’s an opportunity here to use something a bit more Sailor Moon themed for these. Maybe Pharaon 90 sends you to the Tau Star System or something like that. A missed opportunity which leaves art which ultimately clashes with the rest of the game.

When it comes to the game pieces they are nice! These are the three Talismans, Sailor Moon’s Cosmic Heart Compact and Spiral Heart Moon Rod, and the Holy Grail. They’re all things and not characters but then aside from the dog most Monopoly game pieces are just things anyway.

The money is a bit odd. The colours and values are more or less kept from real Monopoly with different characters appearing on each bill. The money is all shown with an M with a slash through it. Moon dollars or something of the sort. It’s not like Sailor Moon takes place in a universe they don’t use normal currency. We frequently see prices and money in the series being yen. Is there some rule that a themed Monopoly came have some weird non existent currency?

Finally we have the Love and Friendship Cards. These seem to basically be Chance and Community Chest cards with the flavour language changed and the same dollar amounts and consequences. The descriptions of what is occurring are just random events occurring during Sailor Moon S.

Should you buy this game? If you wanted to I imagine you already would have! It’s just one of a very, very, very long series of Monopoly games with images based on many franchises. The specific decisions made in adapting this game seem to be pretty poor as someone with a minor amount of effort would likely have been able to put together property groupings and other aspects of the game which work much better. It seems like someone with next to no knowledge of the franchise was given a list of characters, art and perhaps episode summaries of Sailor Moon S and that they threw together a version of Monopoly that superficially seemed to have made sense. For my money the Sailor Moon games by Dyskami Publishing are a much better way to play a Sailor Moon game.

Keep reading for more photos of this game.

A Sailor Moon Monopoly game is coming! A listing for this game has been up with many retailers for a while now but we can now see, from the GameStop listing for the product, what the game’s board will look like! The game will retail for $39.99 US and will be released November 9th according to GameStop’s site. With the release of this version of Monopoly there will be as many different types of Monopoly games as there are Funko Pop toys at GameStop! The box and board feature all characters from the Sailor Moon S season including all 10 Sailor Guardians as well as other villains from that season such as Professor Tomoe, the Witches 5 and Mistress 9. Neo Queen Serenity and King Endymion are also on the game though those characters don’t make a proper appearance in the S season. As a long time Monopoly player it seems obvious that the values on most of the board match what people would be used to only all spaces are replaced with Sailor Moon themed characters and items. Properties are all characters with other characters and items making up others squares. I’ve listed a breakdown of what characters are replacing for every original Monopoly space:

Mediteranian Avenue – Luna and Artemis
Baltic Avenue – Mimete

Oriental Avenue – Eudial
Vermont Avenue – Viluy
Connecticut Avenue – Tellu

St. Charles Place – Cyprine/Ptilol
States Avenue – Sailor Chibi Moon
Virginia Avenue – Kaolinite

St. James Place – Sailor Mercury
Tennessee Avenue – Sailor Mars
New York Avenue – Sailor Jupiter

Kentucky Avenue – Sailor Venus
Indiana Avenue – Professor Tomoe
Illinois Avenue – Sailor Pluto

Atlantic Avenue – Tuxedo Mask
Ventor Avenue – Sailor Neptune
Marvin Gardens – Sailor Uranus

Pacific Avenue – Mistress 9
North Carolina Avenue – Sailor Saturn
Pennsylvania Avenue – Sailor Moon

Park Place – King Endymion
Boardwalk – Neo Queen Serenity

Reading Railroad – Garnet Rod
Pennsylvania Railroad – Deep Aqua Mirror
B. & O. Railroad – Space Sword
Short Line – Silence Glaive

Electric Company – Cosmic Heart Compact
Water Works – Spiral Moon Heart Rod

Community Chest – Love
Chance – Friendship

Income Tax and Luxury Tax – Something with the Witches 5?

The following spaces are unchanged:
Go
In Jail/Just Visiting
Free Parking
Go To Jail

In addition we can get a bit of a look at the “Sailor Moon Money” in this image and we see the following denominations on bills:

$1 – Sailor Moon
$5 – Sailor Chibi Moon
$10 – Sailor Mercury
$20 – Sailor Mars
$50 – Sailor Jupiter
$100 – Sailor Venus
$500 – Sailor Moon

Why Sailor Moon is on both the $1 and $500 isn’t clear! I may be mistaken as it’s hard to see exactly what it says on the $1 bill but it seems to have a crescent moon and the “Sailor” part is clear and the second 4 letter word appears to be Moon from the top of the letters we see. I’m not sure the $ is the appropriate symbol to be using in this case as there seems to be an M symbol to reference Sailor Moon Money when dollars are mentioned but it is a bit hard to make out. Sailor Moon Money has no basis in canon. Throughout most of the series the character live in Tokyo and would use Japanese Yen as currency. I don’t know what currency would be used in Crystal Tokyo but it seems unlikely that it would be called Sailor Moon Money as Sailor Moon is no longer an active superhero at the time, what with being the Queen of that city.

We also see what the tokens for the game will be. These are also listed on the GameStop site. These are the Cosmic Heart Compact, Moon Chalice, Spiral Heart Moon Rod, Garnet Orb, Deep Aqua Mirror and Space Sword. These are again all items appearing in Sailor Moon S.

Why Sailor Moon S? Why now? Sailor Moon SuperS has now been released in its entirety in North America on home video. Sailor Moon Sailor Stars is out subtitled on streaming services. When it comes to Sailor Moon Crystal we’ve only gotten up to the Infinity Arc, telling the equivalent of the Sailor Moon S story, but these are clearly original Sailor Moon anime based designs and not Sailor Moon Crystal designs like we’ve seen with the Sailor Moon Crystal Dice Challenge game. Surely there is the convenience of having all of the Sailor Guardians appearing in Sailor Moon S allowing for more properties with those characters in it. If we had a first season based game we might be seeing Queen Beryl and the Shitennou alongside Naru and Umino instead. There are certainly reasons for which Sailor Moon S makes sense for the game’s setting, but it still seems odd and a bit arbitrary to me.

Do you plan on picking this game up? How many versions of Monopoly do you own?

After waiting for an entire year we finally have some concrete details about Viz’s release of Sailor Moon S. This weekend at Anime Expo it was announced that the first part of Sailor Moon S is coming to home video on November 15th 2016. You can pre-order this set from Right Stuf Anime for $62.99 US. This first set will include episodes 90 to 108 of the series which is a few episodes before Hotaru first shows up. Box art seen above shows that this will look a lot like earlier releases and include a full colour booklet with a lot of art and other information about the series. This set will include the show both in Japanese and English dialogue with optional subtitles. This will have Viz’s new English dub of Sailor Moon S. An extended trailer showing many new English clips from the early episodes of Sailor Moon S have been released which you can watch below.

For a limited time pre-orders from Right Stuf will come with a collectible gold coloured coin showing Sailor Moon’s Cosmic Heart Compact, her transformation item during the S season of the anime. The set is exclusively available to pre-order from Right Stuf for now but it will be available from other retailers prior to its release.

Though no details about a Moonlight Party were mentioned, it seems likely that one will take place at some point to give us a sneak peak of some dubbed episodes of Sailor Moon S. This has typically been done before all sets are released as a way to advertise the upcoming release. We’ll be sure to share any information about such events or dubbed episodes being added to Hulu as we learn about them.

A few great PROPLICA toys from Sailor Moon S are being released by Bandai. Sailor Moon’s Holy Grail, used to transform into Super Sailor Moon, will be released in February and the Cosmic Moon Compact will be released in May. For whatever reason Bandai refers to the Holy Grail as the Rainbow Moon Chalice. They used that name when the first toy was released in the 90s and they are using that name again, even though this item was only ever referred to as the Holy Grail in the Sailor Moon manga and anime. It makes sound and light, as can be seen in the promotional video below which has the voice of Kotono Mitsuishi, who plays Usagi, saying “Crisis Make Up” while the Holy Grail shines in a number of colours. Watch a video below of the Holy Grail.

The Cosmic Moon Compact is the transformation item used by Sailor Moon in Sailor Moon S and the Infinity arc of the manga. It opens to reveal a heart shaped crystal which makes plays the music of Sailor Moon’s third transformation, while the crystal blinks. This toy once again uses the voice of Kotono Mitsuishi. You can watch a video of this below.

A Spiral Heart Moon Rod PROPLICA item was previously announced. It is released this month. I just never got around to posting about it.

PROPLICA items are high quality but they aren’t cheap. These replicas are perfectly to scale and look just like you’d imagine these items to look like in the real world. The Holy Grail will cost 10,800 yen, which is about $90 US. The Cosmic Moon Compact will cost 6500 yen, which is about $63 US. The Spiral Heart Moon Rod costs 11,880 yen, about $96 US.

Source: The Sailor Moon Official Site (Holy Grail, Cosmic Heart Compact) & Tamashii Nations (Holy Grail, Cosmic Heart Compact, Spiral Heart Moon Rod)

Support the site by taking out a small loan and buying some of the previously release PROPLICA items using the links below:

The latest and final episode of Sailor Moon Crystal, Act 26, Replay – Never Ending, is now available on Crunchyroll, Hulu and Niconico. For now this is the final episode. No next episode preview exists and a message stating “À bientôt” or “See you soon” appears at the end of the episode. I’ve already written another blog post about this and will discuss it later in this post. An obvious interpretation of this is that there will be more episodes some time in the future, but nothing of the sort has been confirmed to date. With that, there is a lot to discuss about this episode, so let’s focus on the present, or rather the 30th century, for one last time.

I never really noticed this in the past but Chibiusa is really small! In one particular shot she seems especially small. She usually seems to be about half the size of most adults in the show, which would put her under 3′, something closer to 2’6″ in this shot where she doesn’t even reach the bottom of Sailor Jupiter’s skirt. This is typical of a 3 or 4 year old. Her age isn’t really known with her actually being 900 but given her level of language, maturity and schooling she really shouldn’t be this short. This sort of reminded me of Shippo from Inuyasha who’s size varied wildly from shot to shot.

Neo Queen Serenity awakes and everything is cool between her and Chibiusa. She seems proud of the Sailor Guardian she’s become and sends her off to help her friends. But wait doesn’t she already know this because she fought alongside her for years when she was a teenager?

Sailor Chibi Moon is given Neo Queen Serenity’s sceptre which becomes the Cutie Moon Rod. The idea seems to be that Sailor Moon of the past has the Cutie Moon Rod. In the future it becomes Neo Queen Serenity’s sceptre, and then it is given back to Sailor Chibi Moon. This is why both Sailor Moon and Sailor Chibi Moon have matching rods. Like with the two Silver Crystals, they are the same items from different times. They fight Death Phantom, use a double Moon Princess Halation and then Sailor Moon’s Cutie Moon Rod is destroyed. So where does Neo Queen Serenity’s sceptre come from? How does Sailor Chibi Moon’s future version continue to exist? The future as seen in this story arc is the future of this arc, because later in the mange there are item, uniform and cast changes which are not reflected in the future but as the Cutie Moon Rod is replaced even within this same arc, the timeline is already in question.

The time travel is really a mess. So the Death Phamtom is beaten, yay, and everything is great again. Sailor Moon and Neo Queen Serenity want to meet but it’s forgiven because, as Neo Queen Serenity states, it is not a part of history. Well is any of this a part of history? Does Neo Queen Serenity remember spending years of time with her future daughter as a kid, and traveling through time, and saving the future or any of this crazy stuff? If she does, then it’s all a predestination paradox. If she doesn’t, then what fundamental difference does it make if two people actually meet each other? Tuxedo Mask and the ghost of King Endymion are BFFs at this point, but their physical bodies didn’t occupy the same space so it doesn’t matter? Influence can happen through any sort of transmission of information. Simply being able to see the future would have the ability to drastically change the course of history, yet somehow a lot of importance is put on the actual meeting of people.

So what do we do? Oh forget the timeline I want to meet you so they just go see each other. Is this really wise? I mean I know we completely ignore all rules of time travel as we’ve seen by Sailor Pluto never doing her job but what are the implications here? If we actually did somehow change the flow of time by having Sailor Moon and Neo Queen Serenity meeting the main thing that would happen is that Chibiusa would never be born, which is kind of serious business. But nothing seems to happen and so everyone from the future thinks it’s a great idea to just go meet their past selves as the Queen, King, all of the Sailor Guardians and even the cats come and say hi to their past selves. Only Diana is not guilty of tainting her timeline and she may never be born if this is allowed!

There’s so much kissing in this episode. Neo Queen Serenity wakes up King Endymion with a kiss. Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask kiss while wandering in space. Usagi and Mamoru kiss back and earth and of course Chibiusa and Mamoru kiss when she returns! It should make a lot of the fans of romance happy seeing so much smooching.

Sailor Moon gets her brooch updated. Now she has the Cosmic Heart Compact. Oddly though Chibiusa is also seen with a Cosmic Heart Compact. In the anime the transformation item she has for Sailor Moon S is the Prism Heart Compact, though it is unnamed in the manga. It is not usually drawn in details but it does not seem like it was ever meant to closely resemble Sailor Moon’s brooch as it does here.

Chibiusa leaves, somewhat. The clock says 7:20am. How early to be time traveling, but Chibiusa is doing this on a morning before school so that makes some sense. After a teary farewell she leaves only to return moments afterwards. Classic time travel! It’s not clear how long she was gone for but obviously more than a few seconds passed in the future for Chibiusa to be sent back for training. The letter Neo Queen Serenity sends references Usagi having offered to train Chibiusa, though no such agreement ever seems to have taken place. But then Neo Queen Serenity is from the future so perhaps she knows that Usagi was fine with it, having been her in the past, assuming this isn’t part of some abandoned timeline since she met herself and ruined the universe. It seems that Neo Queen Serenity is being a bit lazy here by sending Chibiusa away in order to be rid of her for a while, but this makes no real sense. If time travel is at play she could just have sent her to the future. Chibiusa may very well return to the time she left once her training is complete. There’s no reason to look at this as a normal non time traveler’s sending a child to boarding school. Let’s not forget that Chibiusa is 900 years old so Neo Queen Serenity has had her around for quite a while and does not appear to have tried to sent her to time travel boarding school before.

So Chibiusa is back. Sailor Moon has a new brooch and attack item. Why do all this if this is the last episode? Because that’s what happens in the manga. Sailor Moon Crystal has not simply been a somewhat faithful manga adaptation. It has been a nearly exact retelling of the manga story. New episodes or not they wouldn’t have removed these scenes.

Will the show return for season 2? The final scene of the episodes carries a message, “À bientôt”. This is French and is accurately translated as “See you soon”. We do not know with any certainly what this means. The default assumption here, which I believe is the intended meaning, is that there will be more episodes. This is the closest thing we’ve had to any official confirmation. There are no details and it’s hard to get any specifics. We are, as far as I interpret this statement, being led to believe that the series will continue at some time. When, we can’t say. Will something happen between now and then that will interfere with this plan to bring us new episodes? That is certainly possible and so even if this message is meant to tell us new episodes are coming, these plans may not come to fruition.

There are other possibilities for the meaning of these statements. The live action series ended with the words “See you again”, a less accurate translation of “À bientôt”, which was only meant as a reference to the at the time already announced Special Act, a single episode straight to video special which was itself followed up with a prequel. With other things happening in the Sailor Moon world it could simply be a reference to some other project which fans may care about to varying degrees.

Sailor Moon Crystal was originally announced in summer 2012 for the summer of 2013, but it was delayed a full year before it finally began in July 2014. Episodes were obviously animated at the last minute as next episode previews often had changes by the time the episodes came around, and the next episode preview for Act 26 was all reused clips from earlier episodes. There were also all of the changes done for the Blu-Ray releases. If some time is needed to catch up on the backlog and get a bit of a buffer for new episodes, that is great. There may be a ton of other financial and planning decisions being made in Japan right now that we aren’t and won’t be made aware of. With the series now airing on TV in Japan there may be some desire to have new episodes released either on TV first or simulcast on TV and online. We really don’t know any details. Now is the time to be patient, and hope that new episodes will come at some point. The sooner the better, but in this case late is always better than never.

Like with the premier of Sailor Moon Crystal we must be weary of rumours and pay attention to official sources. There was a ton of speculation based on international sources or subtle mentions which had us assuming all sorts of premiere dates for Sailor Moon Crystal which didn’t pan out until the official release date finally came from an official source, a live event. There were also delays to timelines layed out by official sources, and news with specifics of those delays again came from similar places. A lot of rumours continue as dates such as Winter 2016 are now being spoken of with regards to new episodes of Sailor Moon Crystal, but the only official news we’ve had is “À bientôt”. We will be keeping an eye on the official web site and Twitter account, reporting any promising rumours as they come up but always keeping in mind the strength of various evidence. We will be sharing anything we find to be relevant on this site as we learn it.

Be patient friends. We waited a long time for this series. For a lot of us that wait paid off. Do not mistake my snarky negativity for a dislike of the series. I’ve greatly enjoyed Sailor Moon Crystal and sincerely hope there is more in store for us some day.

Keep reading for more screenshots from what we hope is not the final episode of Sailor Moon Crystal.

We now have a poster, title and release date for the latest Sailor Moon Musical. The title is Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Un Nouveau Voyage, which like the title of the second musical is in French. Many have been translating this as “A New Voyage”. I feel the title translates more accurately to something like “A New Journey” or “A New Trip” as the French word voyage has more uses than the English voyage does. Journey is more likely to be what the title is referring to, as it’s more of a new chapter in the lives of the Sailor Guardians whereas trip would insinuate the Sailor Guardians are going on some kind of vacation, as used in “Bon voyage” which is not likely the case given what we know about the third story arc of the Sailor Moon manga. All considered I will be using “A New Journey” as the English title on this blog and will change this should there be any official confirmation of an English title.

The main cast of five girls will be the same as the last musical but this will be their final performance together. No further casting details have been revealed at this time.

The musical will be playing in Tokyo from September 18th to the 27th and then in Osaka October 2nd to the 4th. The story will cover the Infinity arc of the manga, Sailor Moon S from the original anime, which has the Sailor Guardians dealing with the Death Busters and meeting Sailor Uranus, Sailor Neptune and Sailor Saturn. Chibiusa will continue to be present as Sailor Chibi Moon. The poster features Sailor Moon’s Cosmic Heart Compact.

Source: The Sailor Moon Musical Official Site and Sailor Moon Musical Staff Blog.

The two latest episodes of Sailor Moon S were added to Hulu and Neon Alley\ this morning. This week we look at two great romances in the series. First we have a look at Minako’s past as a volleyball player as her relationship with Artemis blossoms and then it’s Usagi’s birthday and she’s furious at Mamoru for not remembering it!

Episode 100, I Want to Quit Being a Sailor Guardian: Minako’s Dilemma, gives us a look at Minako’s past from even before she was Sailor V. The target this week is Tsutomo Asai, a classmate of Minako’s who she used to play volleyball with. She has a bit of a crush on him, and is a bit devastated to learn that although he used to feel the same way, he now has a girlfriend. Minako is troubled as she begins to miss her old simple life, before she had to start saving the world and such. She very briefly contemplates quitting being a Sailor Guardian, as the title suggests. Is this even an option? While fighting the Daimon of the week Minako does a signature volleyball move which Tsutomu recognizes. The lack of costumes fools everyone but you can’t hide volleyball techniques from a real pro! Following the fight he asks Minako to thank Sailor Venus, knowing fully well who Sailor Venus really is. He’s one of the few people in the series to learn a Sailor Guardian’s secret.

Minako is heartbroken by the episode’s events but then her true love Artemis appears in a tree, offering her flowers and inviting her to go on a date with her. She’s flattered at the proposition, and looks at Artemis with loving eyes finally jokingly answering that she’ll think about it. Is there any doubt that Minako and Artemis are one of the great couples of the series?

Episode 101, Usagi in Tears: a Glass Slipper for My Birthday, has Usagi celebrating her 15th birthday! Usagi is excited to see what Mamoru will get her for her birthday only he’s completely forgotten it! Actually it seems he never actually knew her birthday in the first place. Indeed back in the mid 90s there were no Facebook or Google Plus profiles to tell us when someone’s birthday is. We had to remember, or forget, when someone’s birthday is. I suppose Mamoru also doesn’t know his daughter Chibiusa’s birthday, as it also happens to also be on June 30th. Mamoru seems to get a pass when everyone realizes that Usagi never told him when her birthday was but in months of dating, and knowing each other even longer, it’s kind of shocking that he never bothered to ask something so basic. It’s not as if they had only been dating for a few days or weeks here. Usagi is upset and wants a glass slipper to make up for it, which she gets but it turns into a Daimon. Oops! Kaolinite manages to steal Sailor Moon’s Cosmic Heart Compact and then Mamoru gets frozen into a huge glass crystal. All hope seems lost until … À Suivre.

The time span of the anime, which aired over a 5 year period, is questionable at best. We don’t have a ton of indications of the passage of time aside from occasional mentions of Usagi’s age. She is mentioned throughout the first season, including the first episode, and in the Sailor Moon R movie as being 14 years old. In this episode Usagi celebrates her 15th birthday on June 30th. Later in Sailor Moon SuperS she states that she is 15 years old and then in the final episode of SailorStars, episode 200, she states that she is 16 years old. Throughout all of this every season appears to go through an entire year by going through all of the seasons making it seem as if 5 years pass in real time. In the Manga everyone ages 5 years but here in the anime it seems to be more like 2.

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The first episodes of Sailor Moon S are finally available on Hulu and Neon Alley. After a disappointing last week which only included one episode, and that being a flashback, we really get into Sailor Moon S this week. For many American fans Sailor Moon S might be the first they really watched of the show as it aired on Cartoon Network. The original run of the first season and Sailor Moon R, while popular here in Canada, was often playing at less coveted time slots in syndication throughout the United States while most people, including the sun, had not risen yet. The Hulu banner has been updated to reflect the series and the original intros are intact. Those who first watched the series on the Pioneer DVDs had a single intro for all of Sailor Moon S but there were actually a number of slightly different intros as more characters were introduced.

Episode 90, Premonition of the Apocalypse: the Mysterious New Guardians Appear, has a whole lot going on as we are introduced to new enemies and allies! Rei has a prediction of the apocalypse! In a scene that looks like Judgement Day from Terminator 2, she sees all of her friends killed and various things which we will later be able to identify with some spoilers. Basically there is some importance in the Talismans. If only this vision had been more clear to her, and others, we may have been able to clear up some misunderstandings! Too bad that isn’t the case. The new villains for the season are the Death Busters. We are introduced to Professor Tomoe and Kaolinite. Professor Tomoe seems completely insane, which is fairly accurate. Kaolinite is probably the most emotionally stable of the Death Busters. The trick this season is that the Death Busters are taking people’s pure hearts. First on the chopping block is Rei! What a coincidence! The monster rips out her heart and busts Sailor Moon’s Crystal Star broach leaving her powerless. Two mysterious new Sailor Guardians show up to save the day! Actually they seem more interested in Rei’s heart. When it seems there is no Talisman there they return it. Luckily they are able to dispatch the monster because Sailor Moon is totally powerless at this point. Who are these new Sailor Guardians? We’ll be seeing a lot of them this season.

Episode 91, The Rod of Love Is Born: Usagi’s New Transformation, is all about cats! How great. Mamoru finds an abandoned house full of cats so he brings Usagi there. They meet a young girl Miharu in the house but she is worried that the cats need a new home as the house will soon be demolished. High jynx ensues as Usagi tries to pawn off the cats on her friends. The cats in Sailor Moon R and S sure don’t look much like Rhett Butler and the other cats from the first season. Miharu loves to do puzzles and so a Daimon, those are the monsters this season, is made out of a cat puzzle. This Daimon is pretty cool as she crumbles into puzzle pieces when she gets hurt. At this point in the series the monsters start getting a lot more interesting then they have been in the past. Too bad Sailor Moon is powerless with her busted Crystal Star! Time to sell more toys! Sailor Moon gets an upgraded Cosmic Heart Compact and Spiral Heart Moon Rod. Her new attack is the Moon Spiral Heart Attack. At least all of those are words this time.

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This retro game style shirt featuring four of Sailor Moon’s items is available today at ShirtPunch. Like with all shirt a day sites this shirt will only be available for 24 hours today, January 29th, for $10. This shirt shows pixelated versions of Sailor Chibi Moon’s Crystal Carillon which she uses as an attack item in Sailor Moon SuperS, as well as three of Sailor Moon’s transformation brooches, the Crisis Moon Compact used to transform into Super Sailor Moon in Sailor Moon SuperS, the Cosmic Heart Compact from Sailor Moon S and the Eternal Moon Article used to transform into Eternal Sailor Moon in Sailor Stars.

The shirt’s artist is Ashley Hay who also did this Moon Geisha shirt and Sailor Moon Pie shirt, both of which have been previously sold at ShirtPunch. For more of her stuff check out her personal web site, Twitter Feed or Facebook Page.