This weekend, Novemeber 11th to the 13th, Sailor Moon fans will be able to meet voice actors from the original and new dubs of Sailor Moon at Fan Expo Vancouver at the Vancouver Convention Center. In attendance from the English dub of the original Sailor Moon anime will be Linda Ballantyne, the voice of Sailor Moon, and Susan Roman, the voice of Sailor Jupiter. Fans will also be able to meet Cherami Leigh, the voice of Sailor Venus from the new dub of the original Sailor Moon anime and Sailor Moon Crystal.

Though not one of the main cast fans will also be able to meet Ryo Horikawa from the original Japanese version of Sailor Moon. He is best known as the voice of Vegeta from Dragonball Z but he also provided the voice of some guest characters in the original Sailor Moon anime. In Sailor Moon S episode 119 he voiced Thomas Harris, a DJ who was targeted by Mimete of the Witches 5 . In Sailor Moon SuperS episode 140 he played Yoshiki Usui, a fashion designer who was targeted by Fish Eye.

The main panel to catch is “Sailor Moon Celebration Panel with Stars Linda Ballantyne & Susan Roman” on Saturday at 12pm. You’ll be able to see Cherami Leigh at the “Q&A Session with the Stars of Fairy Tail: Cherami Leigh, Chris Sabat, Jamie Marchi & Eric Vale” Sunday at 11:30am. Ryo Horikawa has three panels. Friday at 5pm is “E-manga Promotion with Ryo Horikawa”, Saturday at 4:30pm is “Dragon Ball Z with Ryo Horikawa & Chris Sabat & Eric Vale” and finally Sunday at 12:30pm is “Anime Q&A with Dragon Ball Super’s Ryo Horikawa”.

Will any you be at this convention? Who are you most looking forward to meeting?

The sequel to the sequel to Space Jam is out and it features Sailor Moon! This fan film by Ryan Higa stars Jeremy Lin of the NBA basketball team the Brooklyn Nets. Amongst the anime stars are Goku, Naruto, Yu-Gi-Oh and of course Sailor Moon. As with the original Space Jam the story has animated characters, this time from anime, recruiting a professional basketball player to help them. Sailor Moon plays on the AnimeNiacs team, which is the latest incarnation of the Tune Squad. Watch the full video on YouTube embedded below.

What do you think of the film?

Sailor Moon will be joining other less iconic anime characters on official merchandise associated with the upcoming 2020 Summer Olympic Games being held in Tokyo. Merchandise will feature Sailor Moon, Astro Boy, Crayon Shin-Chan, Monkey from One Piece, Naruto, Goku from Dragonball Z, Jibanyan from Yokai Watch and Mirai and Riko from Precure. I think featuring a character from Akira would have been fitting but these will have to do.

Merchandise shown and mentioned on the Official Sailor Moon site includes a tshirt, golf shirt, towel, hat, bag, mug, cup, landyard, thermos, pencil case and I guess maybe a bento box? Two images are shown featuring the exact same products displayed in a slightly different way.

In addition to Sailor Moon herself appearing on merchandise the Moon shaped logo for the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games looks a lot like the crescent Moon which is seen throughout the series, most prominently on Princess Serenity and Eternal Sailor Moon’s forehead.

The clothes will be going on sale starting July 16th on the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games shop. These items are not yet featured on the site. Availability outside of Japan is unknown at this point. I couldn’t find any specifics about international shipping on the shop web site. As a Canadian I usually only see specifically Canadian branded Olympic products sold domestically here. This was fine for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics of course.

A recent episode of My Little Pony Friendship is Magic features a Sailor Moon reference. This is in the episode Scare Master, the 21st episode of season 5, which originally aired on Halloween. In this particular scene Fluttershy is trying to scare her friends, as part of Nightmare Night, failing entirely. One of her attempts shows them five paper cutouts. She explains that they are “Unplanned guests. Your worst nightmare. You don’t have enough fruit for them.” These five cutouts are of popular 90s anime characters, reimagined as ponies. From left to right they are Sailor Moon from Sailor Moon, Rei Ayanami from Neon Genesis Evangelion, Utena from Revolutionary Girl Utena, Bulma from Dragon Ball and Ranma from Ranma 1/2. Whoever put together this visual gag must have been into anime around the same time I was in the 1990s!

This is not the first reference this season. Earlier this year in episode 13, Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep?, Big McIntosh does a Sailor Moon like transformation. This scene happens in a dream world where anyone can do what they want and apparently Big McIntosh dreams of transforming into a Pretty Guardian. This could be a reference to any sort of Magical Girl anime, but Sailor Moon in the most popular which would make most assume this was the reference. Watch a YouTube clip of the transformation below.

There are many Sailor Moon references in the My Little Pony show and comic due to much of the creative staff being a fan and the fact that the show is constantly referencing dozens of things an episode. We previously showed the similarity between My Little Pony’s Crystal Empire and Sailor Moon’s Crystal Tokyo as well as Sailor Moon references in the My Little Pony comic. I found that many scenes from the first episodes also resembled Sailor Moon in less overt ways.

Thanks to LioConvoy for letting me know about the most recent reference. I found the Big McIntosh clip on Moon Chase! while investigating.