Great news for fans who use the Funimation streaming service to watch anime. Sailor Moon R The Movie will be added to that service on August 7th. The dubbed and subbed versions of the film will be available to watch for free with ads or, for those who have signed up for the pay version of the service, without ads.

The movie is currently available to stream on Crunchyroll which also has the option of watching the film for free with ads or without ads with a paid subscription. There’s no indication at this time as to if or when Sailor Moon S The Movie or Sailor Moon SuperS The Movie (The Nine Sailor Guardians Unite! Miracle of the Black Dream Hole) would be added to either service. The original Sailor Moon anime series is not on either of these services but American fans can stream it for free on Viz’s web site or with a paid Hulu subscription while Canadians can stream it on TubiTV.

Sailor Moon R The Movie is my favourite of the Sailor Moon films and it’s always a joy to watch. If you haven’t seen it in a while this would be a nice time to watch it!

Yesterday we shared a video from Anime North 2013 where John Stocker mentioned that he had heard that FUNimation was going to be doing the dub for the new Sailor Moon anime. Some clarification has now come from the FUNimation Facebook page stating simply that “FUNimation does not hold the license for Sailor Moon.”.

This is pretty straightforward. Whether or not some future deal has FUNimation doing the dub for the new anime is something we can only speculate about. As of now they simply do not hold the rights. There is not currently any indication of anyone holding the rights to the Sailor Moon anime, old or new, in North America. Should we get any reliable information to the contrary we will be sure to let you know about it.

We regret having shared a rumour that did not turn out to be correct but as always we attempt to present such information in it’s full context so that you the reader can make your own informed decision as to whether or not to believe such claims. If there is ever any evidence that is contrary to something that is posted on this site please do not hesitate to contact us and let us know about it so that we can post corrections when necessary in our ongoing effort to keep you informed about all things Sailor Moon.

May 29th Update: In response to this claim FUNimation has mentioned that they do not hold the license for Sailor Moon.

With no official announcement about this information it should be treated as a rumour, but this clip is being provided as the full context for this comment. John Stocker, voice director for the Sailor Moon S and SuperS series of Sailor Moon as well as the movies, mentioned at a “Memories of the 80s” panel at Anime North 2013 that FUNimation has the rights to dub the new Sailor Moon anime. A short clip including this is shown below.

This is not an official announcement but it should be considered that John Stocker works in the voice acting industry and that this is the kind of information he may very well have come by when dealing with his professional contacts. Note also that it is mentioned that this has been in the works for three years now. If this is the case this may be referring what is or once was a redubbing of the original Sailor Moon anime rather than the new show, though it would stand to reason that regardless of what that means that whoever holds the rights to dub the original anime may very well also have the rights to dub the new Sailor Moon anime which we are currently expecting to begin airing later this year or early in 2014.

This information is consistent with what was mentioned by John Stocker in our interview with him at last year’s Fan Expo when he mentioned that he had heard about Houston as the place for this dub to happen but didn’t know if this was true. Since then he certainly seems much more sure of his answer.

Joining John Stocker in this panel is voice actor Susan Roman who provided the voice of Sailor Jupiter. The rest of this “Memories of the 80s” panel as well as the “Sailor Moon Voice Actors Q&A” recorded at Anime North 2013 in Toronto will be posted to the site as soon as possible.

About a week and a half ago, on July 3rd, a photo was shared on FUNimation’s twitter and Instrgram pages. The photo included a reference to a rabbit! Time to speculate! Rabbits are important to Sailor Moon. Sailor Moon’s Japanese name is “Usagi” which is the Japanese word for rabbit. Her full name “Tsukino Usagi” is literally “Tsuki No Usagi” or “Rabbit of the Moon” because when you look at the moon from Japan (or anywhere in the southern hemisphere) you see the shape of a rabbit. So… was this a super secret tipping of their hat that they’ll be working on a redub or maybe on the new series?

Almost certainly not. About 2 minutes of investigation got to the bottom of this. The food shown is said to be rattlesnake and rabbit sausage from a restaurant named “Wurstkuche”. 10 seconds later I’m on the Wurstküche web site looking at their menu and in the “Exotics” section is in fact a “Rattlesnake & Rabbit with Jalapeño Peppers” sausage. So yeah, that’s just a normal sausage and all signs point to a coincidence.

Is it possible that in some bizarre plot someone happened to order an item, and possibly chose a restaurant, just because they had rabbit just so that they could make this really, really obscure hint that they’ll be doing Sailor Moon? Well anything’s possible. Actually no, that’s nonsense, a lot of things are impossible, but there’s some insignificant chance that is the case. All in all, it’s quite possible FUNimation spoke with Toei about Sailor Moon, and if we hear any actual news about them doing so, we’ll be sure to share it with you.