It is with great sadness that I share the news that actor Akira Kobodera died earlier this week at the young age of 43. He is likely best known to Sailor Moon fans as the actor who portrayed Kunzite in the live action Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon series. The character in that series was quite different from that in other continuities, as he was at first seen as Shin, a young man with amnesia who didn’t know something sinister inside him, and later as Kunzite deals with conflicted feelings about his past and current life. Akira Kobodera brought wonderful emotion to the character which was a highlight of the series.

Fans may also have seen Akira Kobodera in various Kamen Rider series. He was Kanai in Kamen Rider Blade, Aberu in Kamen Rider Kiva and Doctor Fujita in Kamen Rider OOO.

Source: Anime News Network

The Sailor Moon official site has posted a lot of details about the upcoming Sailor Moon Prism On Ice show which was announced last summer. The event will be taking place June 5th to the 7th at the KOSÉ Shin Yokohama Skate Center in Tokyo. We had previously learned that Evgenia Medvedeva, a Russian figure skater and Olympic medalist, was going to be in the show. We now have confirmation that she will be playing Sailor Moon herself! An article at Oricon includes photos of Evgenia Medvedeva in her Sailor Moon costume! The rest of the cast includes Sailor Mercury, Mars, Jupiter and Venus as well as Tuxedo Mask. The villains are the Dark Kingdom’s Queen Bery, Jadeite, Nephrite, Zoisite and Kunzite. All of the above mentioned characters will be portrayed by figure skaters, most of whom are world class competitive skaters, from around the world.

Also appearing in the musical is Anza as Queen Serenity. Anza is best known to Sailor Moon fans as the first to play Sailor Moon in a Sailor Moon musical. She continued in this role for many years. The other special guest, who’s role is not mentioned, is Kurt Browning. He is a World Champion figure skater who was a well known sports celebrity here in Canada in the 1990s.

The show will also have a voice cast which includes the main cast from Sailor Moon Crystal. Only the Sailor Guardians currently have voice actors listed at this time. This could mean that the show will mainly feature those characters in spoken roles or perhaps the others will be announced at a later time. The details on the site list them as being the voice actors from the Sailor Moon Eternal films. As the Dark Kingdom specific characters will not be in the Sailor Moon Eternal films, they may not have been mentioned for this reason. It may also prove more complicated in booking voice talent from a previous season when there hadn’t been an expectation for them to be reprising their roles in the future.

Music will be by Akiko Kosaka, who has been involved with music in the original Sailor Moon anime, the Sailor Moon Musicals and Sailor Moon Crystal.

A full translated cast list in included below:

Sailor Moon/Usagi Tsukino: Evgenia Medvedeva
Sailor Mercury/Ami Mizuno: Satoko Miyahara
Sailor Mars/Rei Hino: Mirai Nagasu
Sailor Jupiter/Makoto Kino: Alissa Czisny
Sailor Venus/Minako Aino: Becky Bereswill
Tuxedo Mask/Mamoru Chiba: Andrew Poje
Queen Serenity: ANZA
Kunzite: Jason Brown
Jadeite: Takahito Mura
Nephrite: Dylan Moscovitch
Zoisite: Seiya Hashimoto
Queen Beryl: Shinko Sakamaki

Additional skaters: Youji Nakano, Shigeru Matsumura, Koichi Kobayashi, Kohei Yoshino, Yuka Kono, Takana Ito

Special guest appearance: Kurt Browning

Voice cast:

Sailor Moon/Tsukino Usagi: Kotono Mitsuishi
Sailor Mercury/Ami Mizuno: Hisako Kanemoto
Sailor Mars/Rei Hino: Rina Sato
Sailor Jupiter/Makoto Kino: Ami Koshimizu
Sailor Venus/Minako Aino: Shizuka Ito

Other staff:

Screenplay: Takuya Hiramitsu
Choreography: Yuka Sato, Benji Schwimer (Assistant)
Music: Akiko Kosaka, Lunar Eclipse Meeting

As I put the list from the official site through Google Translate some of the names that aren’t hyperlinks may be incorrect. I’ve included Wikipedia links when I found them to give some insight into what those athletes have done.

Are you excited for this event? Will any of you be making the trip to Japan to check out this show in June? Who are you most excited to see?

A two day concert named “Akiko Kosaka’s 45th Anniversary Sailor Moon Music History Supported by Pretty Guardians” will be taking place in Tokyo on November 9th and 10th. This two days concert will actually include two different performances with completely different artists on each day. November 9th will be a relaxed piano concert with some conversations and the 10th will have a band performance. So what exactly is this? Akiko Kosaka is well known for having written many songs for the original Sailor Moon anime as well as Sailor Moon Crystal but in this case it is likely her involvement writing many songs for the Sailor Moon musicals which is the basis for this concert. We can tell from the other artists appearing at this event that this will almost certainly involve performances of a number of Sailor Moon musical songs as this will involve performers from the musicals. Across the two days actresses who portrayed almost all of the Sailor Guardians in the musicals, that being everyone but Sailor Pluto, as well as others will be performing. Sailor Pluto is likely only absent because Yuuko Hosaka, who originally played Sailor Pluto in some musicals, was originally scheduled to be involved with the event but had to cancel.

With this year’s Sailor Moon musical being delayed until 2020 this concert may serve as a nice alternative for some fans. I can only speculate as to the specific format but with there being performers to represent each characters with no duplicates it seems likely that some effort to have someone take the part of the Sailor Guardian they previously portrayed is likely. Will they wear some sort of costume or just sing some classic songs? Who knows! Here’s a breakdown of who’s going to be involved and when.

Not everyone is going to be involved with both days, but here’s a list of the actors which are going to be there for both November 9th and 10th. Akiko Kosaka, who’s career is being celebrated with this concert, will evidently be there for both days. Anza, the first actress to play Sailor Moon in a musical from 1993 to 1998, will likely be performing as Sailor Moon. Hisano Akamine, the third actress to play Sailor Mercury from 1999 to 2000, will likely be performing as Sailor Mercury. Misako Kotani, the second actress to play Sailor Mars from 1994 to 1997, will likely be performing as Sailor Mars. Emi Kuriyama, the seventh actress to play Sailor Jupiter from 1999 to 2000, will likely be performing as Sailor Jupiter. Akiko Miyazawa, the fourth actress to play Sailor Venus also played Queen Beryl and musical exclusive characters Bilhah Emerald and Elizabeth Bathory, a vampire. She will likely be performing as Sailor Venus. Sanae Kimura, the first actress to play Sailor Uranus from 1994 to 1997, will likely be performing as Sailor Uranus.

Yuuta Mochizuki, the second actor to play Tuxedo Mask, also played Kunzite in the very first musical and later the musical exclusive character Count Dracul. He is also well known for playing the Red Power Ranger in Zyuurangers, the series which was adapted in North America as the original Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers. He will likely be performing as Tuxedo Mask. Hikari Ono has played Hawk’s Eye, Sailor Star Maker, Loof Merrow, a musical exclusive pirate, Bloody Dracul Vampir, a musical exclusive vampire who is Dracula’s daughter, and Prince Demande. It isn’t clear who she would be portraying in this concert as there doesn’t seem to be an actress to represent each of the Sailor Starlights.

The only person who will only be at the first day performance is Sakoto Yoshioka who played Princess Kakyuu in a musical in 1997. While it’s possible that she could be reprising her role as Princess Kakyuu, there is currently only one Sailor Starlight scheduled to be present on the first day so it doesn’t really add up.

There are a more performers who will only be there on the second day. This is when the full cast was originally planned to be together all at once. Yuuka Asami, the sixth actress to play Sailor Neptune from 1999 to 2002, later returned to play Jadeite in 2003. She will likely be performing as Sailor Neptune. Mao Mita, the fourth actress to play Sailor Saturn from 1999 to 2000, will likely be performing as Sailor Saturn. Tamaki Dia Shirai, the third actress to play Chibiusa from 1995 to 1996, will likely be performing as Sailor Chibi Moon. Ryuuji Kasahara played a number of characters including Kunzite, Death Ra, a musical exclusive member of the Death Busters, Tiger’s Eye, MC Fly, a musical exclusive minion of Galaxia, Chaos, Professor Tomoe, Baron Gilles de Rais, a musical exclusive vampire, and Dark Nibiru, a musical exclusive character. It’s not clear who he will be portraying. Momoko Okuyama, the first actress to play Sailor Star Healer in musicals from 1996 to 1998, may be reprising her role but once again as there is no Sailor Star Fighter actress involved we can’t be sure what role she will be playing.

With this event only taking place on a single day it may prove more difficult to get tickets than other musicals. Do any of you hope to be able to make it to this concert? I’m certainly hoping a CD or video release will be made available for fans who aren’t likely to attend.

Source: Sailor Moon official site Original Story with an Update.

We’ve finally got some specifics on the upcoming showings of the Sailor Moon The Super Live musical which will be taking place in New York City and Washington D.C. We also have specifics of who will be involved in the cast which has been dubbed Team America and I have detailed descriptions of those cast members later in the post. The name “Team America” bears an unfortunately and likely unintended resemblance to the all puppet adult film “Team America World Police” by South Park’s Trey Parker and Matt Stone.

First! The dates. The Washington D.C. performance will be on March 24th at 7pm at the Warner Theatre. This will be a full performance of the musical! It was previously announced that the cast of the musical would perform something at the opening ceremonies of the National Cherry Blossom Festival held on March 23rd but the length of those ceremonies made it unlikely the entire musical could be performed during the 90 minute ceremony. Fans in the area will be able to get tickets from Live Nation.

The New York City show will have three performances over two days. The first will be Friday March 29th at 8pm followed by two showing on March 30th at 1pm and 5pm. The musical will be performed at the PlayStation theatre on Broadway in Manhattan New York. That’s right! Sailor Moon is finally returning to PlayStation after a long hiatus following the 1996 Sailor Moon SuperS fighting game for the original PlayStation. Fans can order tickets from AXS.

Now a word on the cast! Previously the Sailor Moon The Super Live Musical was performed by three different casts in Japan, those being the ❤ Pink Heart Cast, the ◆ Yellow Diamond Cast and the ♪ Blue Musical Note Cast. We had previously posted those casts list in earlier posts here on the site. So which Team is it that’s making up Team America? It’s actually a bit of a mix! Sailor Moon, Mercury and Mars as well as Queen Beryl are from the ♪ Blue Musical Note Cast while Sailor Jupiter and Venus are from the ◆ Yellow Diamond Cast. Kunzite and Tuxedo Mask were the same actresses for all performances in Japan and they will be reprising their roles in America. Dancers are from all casts, as is detailed at the end of the post.

A bit of background on each of the actresses for those wondering who they might be seeing in these shows!

Usagi Tsukino, Sailor Moon, will be performed by Tomomi Kasai. She was previously a member of the popular Japanese band AKB48. She was also in the Sentai series Kamen Rider W in which she played Elizabeth (the one of the left in the above picture). You can learn more about Tomomi Kasai from her official web site, Twitter feed or Instagram page.

Momoko Kaechi will be playing Sailor Mercury. She previously appeared in a few Japanese drama series and films. You can follow her on Twitter where she occasionally posts images of a Sailor Mercury doll in her travels.

Yui Hasegawa will portray Sailor Mars. Her main acting experience is as a voice actor who’s works include video games such as Phantasy Star Online 2. She has previous stage acting experience as well including portraying Viluy of the Witches 5 in the Sailor Moon Un Nouveau Voyage musical. For more about Yui Hasegawa follow her on Twitter or check out her official web site.

Sailor Jupiter will be played by Kanna Matsuzaki. She is an actress and model who has a small role in a recently released film called Blood Club Dolls. You can follow her on Instagram where she occasionally posts pictures of cats.

Sailor Venus will be portrayed by Yu Nakanishi. She is a dancer and actress from movies and other stage plays including Luna Rossa and Ranpo Chronicle. For more on Yu Nakanishi you can follow her Twitter account or check out her official site.

Queen Beryl is played by Makoto Aikawa. She is an actress who has performed in a number of stage plays in the past couple of years. You can see more of her stuff by following her Twitter feed, Instagram page or checking out her official web site.

Reo Sanada will play Kunzite of the Shitennou. As with all musicals since La reconquista we have all male characters portrayed by women and The Super Live continues with this tradition. Reo Sanada is a transgender woman with experience in acting and dance. Fans looking for more can check out her Instragram page.

The important role of Tuxedo Mask will be performed by Riona Tatemichi who is playing her fourth character in a Sailor Moon musical! She first played Rubeus in the Petite Étrangère musical and then played Hawk’s Eye in the Amour Eternal musical and finally was Taiki Kou, Sailor Star Maker of the Sailor Starlights, in the Le Mouvement Final musical. In addition to her many Sailor Moon credits she has also appeared in a number of other stage musicals including some based on Utena and Gundam. You can find out more about Riona Tatemichi from her Twitter feed or official web site.

Finally we have a group of dancers. Though I have not yet seen the musical we can see from various photos that these five characters appear to be Dark Kingdom monsters of some type. These are generally non singing role which are portrayed by professional dancers. With the original three teams the various dancers often performed on more than one team and here we have a mix of dancers from the three teams. This includes Atsumi Matsubayashi, from the ❤ and ◆ teams, Izumi Niihashi, from the ❤ and ♪ teams, Ayumi Higashikawa, from the ◆ team, Moeko Koizumi from the ◆ and ♪ teams, and finally Hinako Aikawa from the ◆ team. Note that the image below does not feature the five dancers from Team America, as they have not performed together in the past. This is another of the teams from one of the Super Live performances.

Will any of you be lucky enough to be attending either of these showings? These are much closer to my home town than any other musical performance has ever taken place! I’ve taken road trips to New York and Baltimore (near to Washington D.C.) in the past with little trouble. Unfortunately with two children under 2 years old at this time it seems unlikely I’ll be able to make the trip. Please let us know if you plan on attending and how it goes!

Characters from Sailor Moon Crystal will soon be appearing in the popular Japanese mobile game Monster Strike. What is Monster Strike? It seems a bit like StreetSmash, the Street Pass mini game in Super Smash Bros. for 3DS where you smash round pieces into others on a board. The characters will be appearing in the game shortly, meaning no specific date has been given. A number of images, available on the Official Sailor Moon site and Monster Strike web site, show that this will include Sailor Moon, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter and Venus, Tuxedo Mask, Queen Beryl, Jadeite, Nephrite, Zoisite and Kunzite. Some fans believe this art may be a first look at the designs of the upcoming fourth season of Sailor Moon Crystal. I’m not convinced.

We have previously learned that Kazuko Tadano, who was a character designer and animation director for the first two seasons of the original Sailor Moon anime, would be doing the designs for the Dream arc of Sailor Moon Crystal. What her take on the series is remains to be seen however she did a sketch of Sailor Mercury, Mars, Jupiter and Venus back in 2013 which gives us an idea of what her art style is like more recently. If you’re looking to see how she drew Sailor Moon back in the 90s note that she did all of the laser disc cover art, which has been used for home video releases over the last 25 years. So much to say the image of Sailor Moon most people think of matches her style.

I frankly don’t see the resemblance here. The art style and almost comically large heads in the Monster Striker images just don’t seem to fit with either anything that Kazuko Tadano has put out or what Sailor Moon Crystal was doing. If I had to venture a guess I would say this art is made by one of the artists who has done other Monster Strike art over the years. Further by the very fact that we only have characters from the Dark Kingdom story arc shown here I don’t think it’s likely that these are new Sailor Moon Crystal designs. We similarly never saw any of the characters unique to the first two story arcs done in the style of Sailor Moon Crystal’s 3rd season. There is plenty of art from the Dark Kingdom arc which could be used for purposes such as these if that was the desire here. Instead this appears to be Sailor Moon Crystal in the style of Monster Strike. The super deformed or chibi versions with very large heads seem to fit with in game graphics of other characters. This is only my own personal assessment of the art of course! You are free to make your own determinations about what you think and these will be confirmed in 2065 when we get the two Sailor Moon Crystal Dream Arc films.

Further to the art shown on the web sites there was a video stream which showed the Sailor Moon content. Start watching the video embedded below at 11 minutes for the relevant content. This included a number of images of mash ups between Monster Strike characters and Sailor Moon characters. The only name I could decipher was Alice who is Sailor Moon. The other Sailor Guardians and Tuxedo Mask have gotten a similar treatment.

In addition to being featured in this game there will be a number of Sailor Moon Crystal x Monster Strike products sold at the XFLAG store in Shibuya. This includes a number of food items.

Do you play Monster Striker? Do you plan on playing the game when these characters are out? What do you think of the designs? Do you believe these are Sailor Moon Crystal Season 4 designs, Monster Strike style designs or something else?

Keep reading for more art which will be used in the game.

Last weekend the Sailor Moon Official Site was updated with images of the entire cast of the upcoming Sailor Moon The Super Live musical. We had previously gotten a complete cast listing and some partially obscured images of the cast. Here we have the ❤ Pink Heart, ◆ Yellow Diamond and ♪ Blue Musical Note casts. I had previously made an attempt to translate most of the cast names and was missing only a few. I’ve been able to fill in the blanks with details from a post on Anime News Network. The image on the official site and those posted to Twitter were a bit confusing with a number of repeated images for Queen Beryl, Kunzite and Tuxedo Mask who’s actors span multiple teams. I attempted to simplify them in the amalgamated image above. The Super Live Musical web site also gives a decent matrix showing them all. Check out the updated cast listings, with separate images, below.

❤ Pink Heart Cast:

Sailor Moon/Usagi Tsukino: Kanae Yumemiya
Sailor Mercury/Ami Mizuno: Cocona
Sailor Mars/Rei Hino: Kitomi Hirai (2)
Sailor Jupiter/Makoto Kino: Kie Obana
Sailor Venus/Minako Aino: Sena Hooper

◆ Yellow Diamond Cast:

Sailor Moon/Usagi Tsukino: Natsuki Koga (2)
Sailor Mercury/Ami Mizuno: Umino Kawamura (2)
Sailor Mars/Rei Hino: Kyoko Ninomiya
Sailor Jupiter/Makoto Kino: Kanna Matsuzaki
Sailor Venus/Minako Aino: Yu Nakanishi

♪ Blue Musical Note Cast:

Sailor Moon/Usagi Tsukino: Kasai Tomomi (2)
Sailor Mercury/Ami Mizuno: Momoko Kaechi
Sailor Mars/Rei Hino: Yui Hasegawa
Sailor Jupiter/Makoto Kino: Shio Yamazaki (2)
Sailor Venus/Minako Aino: Saaya Goto (2)

Confusingly, there are two Queen Beryls over the three teams.

❤ Pink Heart and Yellow Diamond ◆ Cast:

Queen Beryl: Kyoka

♪ Blue Musical Note Cast:

Queen Beryl: Makoto Aikawa

Kunzite and Tuxedo Mask are the same amongst all three teams, as was reported last time.

❤ Pink Heart, Yellow Diamond ◆ and ♪ Blue Musical Note Cast:

Kunzite: Sanada Reo
Tuxedo Mask/Mamoru Chiba: Riona Tatemichi

What do you think of the look of the latest Sailor Teams? Casting for Tuxedo Mask is always important. Do you think Riona Tatemichi who played Taiki in the Le Mouvement Final musical fits the part? The musical starts at the end of the month on August 31st and will run until September 9th in Tokyo. It will also be held at the Japonismes event in Paris November 3rd and 4th. With so many showings there are often multiple teams doing shows on the same day. Good news for the cast members who get to relax between showings but a lot of work for Sanada Reo and Riona Tatemichi was are present for every performance! Are any of you planning on seeing this one?

With great sadness I share the news that actor Denis Akiyama, known to Sailor Moon fans as the voice of Malachite in the original English dub of the Sailor Moon anime, passed away on Thursday at age 66. Malachite was the English name for Kunzite in the DiC dub of the series. In addition to his voice acting roles in Sailor Moon and other anime, cartoons and video games Denis Akiyama was also an accomplished live action actor with roles in films such as Johnny Mnemonic and the film Pixels in which he portrayed Pac Man creator Toru Iwatani who was attacked by a recreation of Pac Man.

Just last month I was looking up Denis Akiyama and his career as I watched Johnny Mnemonic, a film which was partially shot in the actor’s home town of Toronto and was released around the same time as the Sailor Moon anime was originally playing on TV here in Canada. Denis Akiyama leaves behind a great legacy of performances in TV and film. He will be greatly missed.

Source: Anime News Network

The official Sailor Moon site has been updated with a full list of the cast of the Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon The Super Live musical as well as a trailer and a poster but for whatever reason we can’t see any of the actor’s faces in them. Seems like an odd decision since the cast has been revealed but there’s a good reason for this! There is no single cast of this musical but rather three different teams! The Nogizaka46 x Sailor Moon musical had Team Moon and Team Star and we’re doing one more here with teams ❤, ◆ and ♪ which are denoted simply by those coloured characters. I don’t know what the naming convention will be in Japanese but these are pink heart, yellow diamond and blue musical note. Sounds a bit like Lucky Charms marshmallows when it’s said like that. Check out the trailer embedded below.

As with other recent musicals we once again have an all female cast which includes the Sailor Team, which is split up into three groups, as well Queen Beryl, Kunzite and Tuxedo Mask which are the same actors throughout the different groups. This tells us the story, if there is some overarching story, will be that of the Dark Moon story arc once again. We also have a series of extras, some of which are in two groups, which are likely playing monsters or other types of background characters. I’ve done my best to translate the names and find a public social media profile for most of these actors but for some of them I wasn’t able to find anything and so I left the original untranslated Japanese names. If anyone has any more details for some of these please feel free to share them in the comments and I’ll update the post.

The ❤ (Pink Heart) Team includes:

Sailor Moon/Usagi Tsukino: 夢宮加菜枝 (Kanae Yumemiya?)
Sailor Mercury/Ami Mizuno: Cocona
Sailor Mars/Rei Hino: Kitomi Hirai (2)
Sailor Jupiter/Makoto Kino: Kie Obana
Sailor Venus/Minako Aino: Sena Hooper

Background dancers:

松林篤美
新橋 和
土定美月
Osawa Suzuka
Miyuu Ohashi (2)

The ◆ (Yellow Diamond) Team includes:

Sailor Moon/Usagi Tsukino: 古賀なつき (2)
Sailor Mercury/Ami Mizuno: Umino Kawamura (2)
Sailor Mars/Rei Hino: Kyoko Ninomiya
Sailor Jupiter/Makoto Kino: Kanna Matsuzaki
Sailor Venus/Minako Aino: Yu Nakanishi

Background Dancers:

松林篤美
Aiko Enomoto
Ayumi Higashikawa
小泉もえこ
Hinako Aikawa

The ♪ (Blue Musical Note) Team Includes:

Sailor Moon/Usagi Tsukino: Kasai Tomomi (2)
Sailor Mercury/Ami Mizuno: Momoko Kaechi
Sailor Mars/Rei Hino: Yui Hasegawa
Sailor Jupiter/Makoto Kino: Shio Yamazaki (2)
Sailor Venus/Minako Aino: Saaya Goto (2)

Background Dancers:

小泉もえこ
新橋 和
土定美月
Osawa Suzuka
Miyuu Ohashi (2)

All performances will include the same actors as Queen Beryl, Kunzite and Tuxedo Mask:

Queen Beryl: 京香
Kunzite: Sanada Reo
Tuxedo Mask/Mamoru Chiba: Riona Tatemichi

We have a few returning actors in this musical. Riona Tatemichi, who will be portraying Tuxedo Mask with all casts, was previously cast as Taiki Kou, Sailor Star Maker, in the Le Mouvement Final musical. Yui Hasegawa, who will be Sailor Mars in the ♪ (Blue Musical Note) group was also Viluy of the Witches 5 in the Un Nouveau Voyage musical.

This musical will be taking place quite soon with performances in Tokyo being held from August 31st to September 9th and performances at Japonismes, a cultural event in Paris, being held November 3rd and 4th. Are any fans who will be in Japan or France around this time planning to attend this musical?

A few weeks ago we got our first look at the Nogizaka46 x Sailor Moon musical. This new musical will be playing in Tokyo this summer first at the Tennōzu Galaxy Theatre June 8th to the 24th and then at the TBS Akasaka ACT Theater September 21st to the 30th. What, you may ask, is this musical all about? Nogizaka46 is an all female pop band in Japan and this is a Sailor Moon musical featuring members of that band. As we can see from the promo image and the posts on the Sailor Moon official site and musical’s official site, 10 of the band members have formed two Sailor Teams. One is Team Moon and the other is Team Star.

The two teams seem to be identical in costume and appearance, though we can clearly see that the members in those costumes differ from one image to the other. With multiple shows being put on over a fairly short time the two teams are scheduled to perform on different nights. At first I imagined this was to give the other team a break on the off days but since a lot of the other cast of the musicals is only listed once it seems like not everyone is on that schedule. Perhaps this setup is simply meant to vary the performances to feature more of their talent. It remains to be seen if the performances themselves will vary depending on the team performing. Perhaps each team will have an exclusive song to encourage people to see multiple performances! At this point this is only speculation.

Here’s a translated cast listing. I’m not good with Japanese names (since Google Translate messes them up) so I had a little help from this Anime News Network article for this list. I attempted to find a relevant link when possible. All members of Nogizaka46 have profiles from the official site and for others I tried to find a profile or social media link.

Team Moon:
Sailor Moon/Usagi Tsukino: Mizuki Yamashita (Nogizaka46)
Sailor Mercury/Ami Mizuno: Riria Itō (Nogizaka46)
Sailor Mars/Rei Hino: Kazumi Takayama (Nogizaka46)
Sailor Jupiter/Makoto Kino: Ami Noujo (Nogizaka46)
Sailor Venus/Minako Aino: Hina Higuchi (Nogizaka46)

Team Star:
Sailor Moon/Usagi Tsukino: Sayuri Inoue (Nogizaka46)
Sailor Mercury/Ami Mizuno: Miria Watanabe (Nogizaka46)
Sailor Mars/Rei Hino: Ranze Terada (Nogizaka46)
Sailor Jupiter/Makoto Kino: Minami Umezawa (Nogizaka46)
Sailor Venus/Minako Aino: Kana Nakada (Nogizaka46)

Naru Osaka: Yuka Yamauchi
Umino Gurio: Marina Tanoue

Kunzite: Chihiro Andō
Zoisite: Sari Kojima
Nephrite: Shin
Jadeite: Rina Takeda

Ensemble (I assume this means background dancers, various monsters and such)：
Mayuko Kawamoto, Mayu Kaburagi, Kumiko Saitō, Ayuka Kurachi, Minami Watanabe, Mami Mitsuoka

Queen Beryl: Nami Tamaki

Tuxedo Mask/Mamoru Chiba: Mikako Ishii

Director: Worry Kinoshita

Only the main cast of the Sailor Team will be composed of Nogizaka46 members. The rest of cast of characters are played by various musical stars and dancers, as was the case with other musicals. To me the most interesting casting decision here is that Mikako Ishii, who played Sailor Pluto in the last few musicals, will be playing Tuxedo Mask! It’s well established that Sailor Pluto has an unrequited love for King Endymion in the future! What better way to gain someone’s affection than to literally become them? Also returning is Chihiro Ando as Kunzite. She previously played Tiger’s Eye in the Amour Eternal musical. As we see from this an other casting we once again have an all female cast even including the male characters.

It seems clear that the story will cover the Dark Kingdom story arc though beyond that it’s hard to get a sense of what the content or structure of the musical will be like. Given the cast and that we have two returning cast members I’m inclined to think that it will be a similar presentation to musicals we have seen in the past.

So … which Team are you rooting for? Is that how we’re supposed to be reacting to this? Go Team Star! No way Team Moon is the best! … and so forth.

This is a review and discussion of the Live Action Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon series Acts 21, What Did You Do To Ami?, and 22, Ami Becomes An Enemy. These aired on February 28th and March 6th 2004. These episodes introduce us to Dark Mercury, the evil version of Sailor Mercury, which is a unique character to the live action series. I think this story arc is a lot of fun and this very cool character is one of the key differences between other incarnations of the Sailor Moon story and the live action series.

Act 21 starts out with a ton of flashbacks. Naturally we need to focus on what just happened, as something happened to Ami we just don’t yet know exactly what it is. Along with these flashbacks we see a scene of Makoto punching Tuxedo Mask which takes place during Act 20 but that we didn’t actually see in Act 20. Perhaps it just didn’t fit in that episode so they spliced it in as a flashback? She’s angry that he’s using Usagi which isn’t a great characterization of what’s happening but that’s not to say that she doesn’t have good reason to be upset that this man who clearly has a fiancé is stringing her friend along. Makoto is the central character for the early part of this episode for whatever reason.

Usagi is not at school. She claims to be sick but it’s actually because she’s a bit heartbroken, again, because of this whole Mamoru’s fiancé situation. Ami is also not at school, prompting Makoto to go check out her home. When she first rings the doorbell we clearly see that Ami’s bed is empty but upon entering Makoto finds Ami passed out sick barely able to wake up. What this likely means is that Ami isn’t really sick and that she’s just messing around with Makoto at this point. Considering that Makoto’s is showing constant and legitimate concern for Ami this ruse is very cold and calculated. Makoto makes her some food to help her out. What is that food? It looks like soggy rice. A bit of searching tells me that it’s kayu, called congee in other countries, a sort of rice porridge which is typically served to a sick person. As a write this I have a cold and recently ate chicken soup, a staple sick person food in western countries, but it seems like such a thing is not universal! Ami chows it down, seems to make a miraculous recovery and wishes to go to the amusement park! How atypical!

Act 21

Act 4

At the amusement park we see a bear that looks just like Usagi’s costume from Act 4. In fact if I didn’t know better I’d say they were reusing props!

Just hanging around the amusement park is Motoki. Who works at Karaoke Crown when he’s out doing this kind of thing anyway? He always seems to be at the counter when the girls are there yet is frequently seen outside as well. Motoki claims to be taking Kamekichi, his turtle, out for some fresh air. This seems to be a colossally inefficient way to give your turtle fresh air. Although last time we learned that you have to pay for some parks in Japan an amusement park generally carries a heavy price of admission. Did Motoki really pay to come and give his turtle fresh air, a thing which is more of less available outdoors on the entire surface of the Earth? Perhaps he got more free tickets like he did earlier in the series!

After Ami passes out on the ferris wheel Motoki comes to the rescue! He has his car there because apparently he even drove his turtle to a place to give him some fresh air. His car naturally is green and looks a bit like a turtle. It is filled with turtle decorations. Do I judge him for this? Not with the amount of Sailor Moon merchandise I own! Motoki is wearing Makoto’s scarf and mentions that it was the only valentine’s gift he received! Makoto, trying to deflect the implication, says that it wasn’t meant to be that big a deal. Motoki, being the great guy that he is, accompanies Makoto to the hospital and only reluctantly leaves, giving her a bunch of magazines and snacks to help her pass the time. Makoto and Motoki’s fingers touch when he hands her a coffee. I usually wouldn’t make a big deal about this kind of thing however when Motoki went to the amusement park with Usagi he made a point of only holding her hand with a handkerchief as an intermediary showing perhaps a more intimate relationship between him and Makoto!

Shingo is actually not terrible in this episode! He realizes that Usagi is down and so he gets her… a meat bun! This is a bit like getting anime Naru a chocolate parfait to cheer her up as the meat bun reminds her of the one she got Mamoru on their romantic not date along the coast back in a time before Hina was in the credits for the show.

Meanwhile Mamoru is getting ready to study abroad! He mentions that there’s only one month and he has material from “Saintford College” which is also written in English as “University of Saintford”. There is no such place in the real world. A bit of searching only uncovered an unfinished piece of fan fiction which uses such a name. The name is likely a reference to the real life Stanford University. Anyway Mamoru going abroad to study. Sound familiar? It should! This was a theme in the manga and original Sailor Moon anime where Mamoru left during the Stars or Sailor Stars story arc leaving room for Seiya to saunter in and try to steal his girl! Turns out he never really made it to the United States. Will he make it this time?

Well it turns out Ami went missing from the hospital. This is a lot like when Usagi was being turned evil by Kunzite and ended up disappearing as well. Ami runs into some thugs and she seems to beat them up off screen. Makoto listens to the trees in order to track down her friend which seems to work.

And then the big moment! Ami transforms but not using Mercury Power. Instead she calls out “Dark Power Make Up!” and transforms into an evil goth looking version of Sailor Mercury known as Dark Mercury or Darkury for short. This character is somewhat of an opposite in appearance and behaviour of Sailor Mercury. Simply put this is the evil version of Sailor Mercury and she’s out to attack her former friends! This is a great story arc showing some great drama between Ami and her friends who’s friendship started out rocky but seemed, until recently, to be pretty solid.

Act 22 continues where we left off with Sailor Mercury attacking her friends. First she turns an icicle into a cool looking sword. This reminds me a bit of the sword that Sailor Mercury created when she was defending Usagi, who Kunzite was turning into a monster. Now Sailor Mercury finds herself in a similar situation to Usagi’s in that episode except with one important difference! When Usagi was on the verge of being turned evil by Kunzite it was Ami who brought her back. Ami can’t bring Ami back because she’s herself! It is the abandonment that Ami is feeling by her friends which has precipitated this transformation and it doesn’t look like there’s any coming back from it! Sailor Moon attempts to heal Sailor Mercury with her Moon Stick but Mercury quickly strikes down the attack! The fight is only halted by Kunzite who seems to be calling the shots, but not for long.

Back at what seems to be Hina’s place she has made hamburger for the two which Mamoru doesn’t seem to be eating. We learn a bit more about the arrangement. Mamoru has agreed to study abroad, presumably at Saintford University, and promised Hina’s father than he would marry her. This whole arrangement seems odd to me from a Western perspective but a few readers have pointed out that this kind of thing isn’t terribly uncommon in Japan. The concept of mukoyoshi has a family adopting an adult son in law by having him marry the daughter. In many such cases the man will take the daughter’s family name. Does this mean Mamoru would end up as Mamoru Kusaka?

Usagi is stressing about how to cover for Ami becoming evil to her teacher and it turns out… she actually came to school! She may be evil but no need to let her grades and attendance record suffer needlessly! Ami has also brainwashed her classmates, including Naru, against Usagi who is stuck eating on the roof like a reject! We’ll remember that both Ami and Makoto spent some time eating their lunch on the roof in earlier episodes, as it seems to be the place for people without friends to go to pass their lunch break. Usagi uses this moment to reflect upon how Ami must have felt herself being abandoned by her friends.

The opinion of the cats seems to be that the gang will have to fight Sailor Mercury but Usagi doesn’t want to have anything to do with that. Unfortunately they will be forced into that situation! A monster appears at the amusement park and the setting for the combat is an odd stage in or close to an aquarium.

Sailor Mercury quickly dispatches Sailor Venus who’s happy to fight a fellow Sailor Guardian. When it comes to Sailor Moon though she won’t fight but instead transforms back into Usagi. This is Usagi at her finest. Her true strength does not come from her ability to fight but from her compassion for her enemy, who in this case is one of her closest friends. This doesn’t convince Dark Mercury as she slashes the mittens that she’d made! This is a symbolic gesture to demonstrate her severing their friendship.

Usagi cries and the tear lands on her broach causing a bright cleansing light. Ami appears briefly, calling Usagi’s name, but Kunzite takes her away before this can go anywhere. This Dark Mercury story arc could easily have been ended here. Usagi essentially put fighting aside and showed her feelings to Ami and then there was some magic stuff to make the bad magic go away, which wasn’t really the problem. The issue was between Ami and her friends and it is essentially resolved through their feelings but we can get more out of this story arc by having Ami remain evil and I’m all for it since I dig the character. It reminds me a bit of what they did with Black Lady in the original Sailor Moon anime. She shows up, there’s a little fight, then Sailor Moon pretty much heals her but they needed to do a big finale episode later so Wiseman sweeps her away.

Sailor Venus mentions that Sailor Moon has begun to awaken with that bright light. It’s easy to see the parallel of the tear to other incarnations. In the manga as well as both Sailor Moon anime series the Silver Crystal appears from Sailor Moon’s tear. At this point in the series we have still not seen the real crystal, just fakes put on by Sailor Venus who is absolutely Princess Serenity in this series. The light wasn’t a total waste of time though. Those mittens were repaired which is again symbolic. If the mittens which were cut can be fused together then perhaps there is still hope for Ami’s friendship. The gang are dedicated to getting her back.

Back to Mamoru and Hina, who are otherwise not really interacting with the rest of the cast in these episodes, they arrive back at Mamoru’s apartment and there is music playing! Hina wonders if he left a CD on, which seems like a perfectly reasonable explanation! I would think a radio or TV could also fit the bill! Mamoru, being no stranger to monsters and all sorts of terrible things, assumes the worst! It’s also worth mentioning that Mamoru is a thief who regularly breaks into jewellery stores to steal expensive gems. A person like that probably assumes some illegal break in could be a real possibility! Alternatively as a fairly unfaithful man perhaps he suspects there is a lady in his apartment! He goes in alone, which serves the plot well because Hina would not know how to react to seeing Zoisite’s ghost. He again refers to Mamoru as Master Endymion. Endymion is Princess Serenity’s lover! Looks like Mamoru’s juggling three women since it’s well established that Minako, and not Usagi, is actually Princess Serenity.

Feel free to leave a comment with your own thoughts on these two episodes. If you’re looking to watch along with the series you can get English subtitled fan subbed versions from sites such as Miss Dream, TV-Nihon and Sea of Serenity. Fans looking to stream the show can do so from Dramanice and Kiss Asian.

Keep reading for more screenshots from these episodes.