Good news for fans of the Sailor Moon musicals but perhaps not for those living outside of Japan. A set with six of the recent musicals is coming on November 17th though at this time it is only mentioned to be available from the official Sailor Moon fan club as well as the King Records e-SHOP which only ships within Japan. It will also be sold at the Sailor Moon 30th Anniversary Musical festival which is also in Japan. It isn’t clear if it will be available to members of the International Sailor Moon Fan Club or sold at other retailers. It is not currently listed on either Amazon Japan or CD Japan which I’ve used to buy such products from in the past.

Which musicals are included? This set will feature the 2013 musical La Reconquista, the 2014 musical Petite Étrangère, the 2015 musical Un Nouveau Voyage, the 2016 musical Amour Eternal, the 2017 musical Le Mouvement Final and the 2021 musical Princess Kaguya’s Lover. Noteably absent are the Super Live musical which has never been released on home video and the Nogizaka46 x Sailor Moon musical which already has two Blu-ray releases.

Why is this something anyone would care about? Aren’t these already on video? They are but unfortunately five of these six musicals were only released on low quality standard definition DVDs. The Princess Kaguya’s Lover musical was already released on Blu-ray. It’s also worth noting that the price is fairly good, by Japanese standards. The MSRP is 17,600 yen which is about $127. This is about double the usual prince of a single musical on Blu-ray. When I first heard of the news I dreaded seeing the price tag expecting something close to the $300 to $500 range. The price seems appealing, assuming people outside of Japan can manage to get a hold of it somehow.

The recent musicals, despite only being released on low quality DVDs, do appear to have been recorded on some higher quality video. The DVDs were widescreen suggesting they weren’t shot with NTSC video cameras but rather converted from a high definition source. There have also been streaming and downloadable versions of the musicals available exclusively in Japan which were in high definition.

These sets have one disc for each musical with a seventh bonus disc. Since most of the DVD and Blu-ray sets for the recent musicals included a second disc for bonus features it seems unlikely all of those features will be included with this set. The musicals are all fairly long and so, unless video quality is sacrificed, it’s not likely that many hours of special features will be included on the same disc alongside the video of the musical performances themselves.

Japanese DVDs are region 2 so be sure your DVD player can handle this is you’re looking to buy the DVD set. Japanese Blu-rays are region A which is the same region as North America. I’ve had no problem watching Japanese Blu-rays on my Canadian purchased PlayStation 3, 4 and 5 machines.

There will be an online event held on August 20th at 7pm, Japan Standard Time, which those who pre-order this set will have access to view.

Will you be picking up this set, assuming you are able to? I would certainly be happy to revisit these great musicals in high definition!

Fans of Sailor Moon musicals who aren’t able to make yearly trips to Japan will be happy to hear that they may be able to head to their local movie theatre to see the latest musical! Indeed Sailor Moon Le Mouvement Final has already been playing in some US theatres since March 10th. Many locations have more showings of the musical coming up including some tonight. Visit the sailormoonlive.com web site for a full list of participating theatres in North America to see if yours is having a showing!

The “film” will be showing here in Canada at Cineplex theatres. The Cineplex site has showing starting on Wednesday April 4th. Links for individual Canadian theatres on the sailormoonlive.com site redirect to that page.

The presentation is a filmed version of the stage musical. Showings are in Japanese with English subtitles. Have any of you had a chance to attend any of the showings which have already taken place? Will any of you be attending showings in your city?

Fans interested in a Japanese copy of the DVD release of this musical can order it now as it was released today, March 14th.

The latest Sailor Moon musical, Le Mouvement Final, was presented in Japan from September 9th to October 1st. As with other recent musicals one performance was made available to stream to Japanese fans and Miss Dream, the fan subbing group, recorded the stream and has created an English subtitled version which they have made available for download. Fans can follow this link to download Sailor Moon Le Mouvement Final musical!

This latest musical is the last of the current wave, following the Stars story arc of the manga, which had been adapted as the Sailor Moon Sailor Stars season of the original anime. This covers the story of the Sailor Starlights, posing by day as the pop group the Three Lights, as they join the other Sailor Guardians to fight Sailor Galaxia and the Animamates. I haven’t watched the musical yet but once I do I’ll likely post something with my thoughts on it. For those who have watched it, what did you think?

Sadly this will be the last musical in this recent wave which started back in 2013 with La Reconquista and continued with five musicals starring all female casts. I would never assume this will be the last Sailor Moon musical ever as we’ve seen the musicals come back after an 8 year absence in the past, but the next one we will see will quite possibly be something quite different with a different cast and potentially be yet another retelling of the story.

The latest Sailor Moon musical, Sailor Moon Le Mouvement Final, began being performed in Japan yesterday, Friday September 8th! The DVD has now been announced and it will be released on March 14th 2018. This DVD will have an MSRP of 7,800 yen, about $72 US and is currently available for pre-order from online retailers such as Amazon Japan and CD Japan.

I haven’t generally had anything good to say about these DVD releases in the past. This is a Japanese only DVD with no English subtitles or audio. The video quality of the last 4 musicals has been an embarrassingly sub par 480i which seems especially disappointing given there are HD versions of the musical available online in Japan. This is the kind of stuff we would have expected in the 90s but in 2017 there’s no excuse! There will be no Blu-Ray version of this release. Instead the DVD will simply have a Blu-Ray equivalent price! Will they somehow make this DVD a bit better and at least have progressive scan video? Seems unlikely.

There are currently no specifics about what special features may be included but these usually include a number of bonus features including interviews and other behind the scenes featurettes. Check out my reviews for the La Reconquista, Petite Étrangère, Un Nouveau Voyage and Amour Eternal DVDs to see what kind of special features those included.

Additionally, as has been done in the past, some special covers for the previous DVD releases will be available exclusively at the venues where the musical is being performed. These exclusive covers feature manga art corresponding to the story arc being covered by the particular musical.

Yesterday there was a special live event to celebrate Usagi’s birthday, June 30th. The main news pertaining to new Sailor Moon Crystal, which is what everyone has been waiting for, was that the upcoming 4th story arc or 4th season will not be presented as episodes but as two theatrical films. These will be played in theatres in Japan but it isn’t clear at this time what that means for international fans. Will we get the films in theatres ourselves? Will it be streamed online at a later date, perhaps split into individual episodes? A free simulcast seems a bit unlikely as there wouldn’t be much of an incentive to get people into theatres if the movies were available online on the first day. We will have to wait and see for more details as we still don’t have any timeline of when this might happen. After the event this information was posted to the official site.

We’ve also learned that these two movies will be directed by Chiaki Kon, who was the director for the Infinity Arc of Sailor Moon Crystal. I really dug the animation style of the latest season so I’m happy to see her return, but it doesn’t look like all fans share that sentiment.

The rest of the live event wasn’t all that compelling. Since it was Usagi’s birthday there was a cake and Happy Birthday to You was sung, which it seems is now public domain and not subject to copyright.

There was also a new trailer shown for the upcoming Sailor Moon Le Mouvement Final. This included another look at the new characters from this musical. This trailer can be seen embedded below.

There was also a message from Naoko Takeuchi which was read by Sailor Moon’s voice actor Kotono Mitsuishi. No new information was included but it was about looking back at her time with the manga and thanking fans. This letter was also shared on the official site. This letter mentions that in 1992 she was 26 years old. This doesn’t match with many sources stating that she was born on March 15th 1967. If she was indeed 26 in 1992 this would put her year of birth at 1966. According to the Naoko Takeuchi Wikipedia talk page there are sources which indicate that she was born in 1966. It would seem plausible that this is in fact the case. This would mean that my most viral Tweet where I wished Naoko Takeuchi a happy 50th birthday in March of this year was in fact wrong as she would have turned 51 this year. Without confirmation of her year of birth we can’t be sure one way or another.

The most annoying part of the event was when they screened the intro and ending themes from the last story arc. This would have been a great time to see something new instead of something we’ve seen well over a year ago!

For now we must continue to wait for more details about these two movies and what they mean for North American fans or the possibility of a Stars story arc. Sailor Moon fans have certainly learned to be patient with Sailor Moon Crystal!

We finally got our first look at Sailor Galaxia and the Sailor Animamates for the upcoming Sailor Moon Le Mouvement Final musical this past week. The Sailor Animamates are Sailor Guardians who are being controlled by Galaxia. The photo includes Sailor Lead Crow, Sailor Iron Mouse, Sailor Galaxia, Sailor Tin Nyanko and Sailor Aluminum Siren. We’ve also gotten another photo including the entire cast, the rest of whom we’d already seen with previous announcements. We also previously had cast information about these characters. Coco Isuzu is Sailor Galaxia, Shion Aoki is Sailor Iron Mouse, Miyu Hashigaki is Sailor Tin Nyanko, Yuka Kobayashi is Sailor Aluminum Siren and Iriya Yuuto is Sailor Lead Crow.

In the second photo we see that Sailor Galaxia and her Sailor Animamates are on the ground while the rest of the Sailor Guardians are all flying! Will we be seeing some fancy wire work in this musical?

The official Sailor Moon site has been updated with an image of Princess Kakyuu and the Sailor Starlights, Sailor Star Maker, Fighter and Healer, from the upcoming Sailor Moon Le Mouvement Final musical. The cast of this musical was previously announced with Asami Okamura as Princess Kakyuu, Riona Tatemichi as Sailor Star Maker, Meiku Harukawa as Sailor Star Fighter and Saki Matsuda. as Sailor Star Healer. What do you think of the new costumes?

Last week we also got a look at the Sailor Cosmos and Sailor Chibi Chibi costumes as it was announced that Satomi Okubo, who previously played Sailor Moon in earlier musicals, will be returning as Sailor Cosmos.

Sailor Cosmos has been cast in the upcoming Sailor Moon Le Mouvement Final musical and she will be played by none other than Satomi Okubo, the actress who played Sailor Moon before Hotaru Nomoto took over the role. Satomi Okubo was Sailor Moon in the La Reconquista, Petite Étrangère and Amour Eternal musicals. This is such an interesting casting choice when considering the actual identity of Sailor Cosmos. Spoilers below for those who may not have read the manga!

Sailor Cosmos is basically Sailor Moon from the very distant future. This is way beyond when she was Neo Queen Serenity. There is some disagreement amongst the fan community about what exactly this means. Is Sailor Cosmos just a really old but still alive version of the Sailor Moon we see in the series or is she a reincarnated version, much like Princess Serenity from Silver Millennium is the Sailor Moon we know? Alternatively some fans think of her more like a descendant of Chibiusa, which isn’t really an interpretation I can get behind. It seems like Sailor Cosmos once was Sailor Moon which is what makes this casting so brilliant. Here is a great way to have a slightly older version of Sailor Moon that looks totally familiar. With there being less than two years between the ages of the two actresses the difference isn’t all that drastic, but it’s a nice touch.

This reminds me of a few other instances in fiction where a similar interaction with a prior actor occur. The most similar comparison to me is the 2009 Star Trek movie which included a completely new cast but included interactions between the new Spock, Zachary Quinto, and older time traveling Spock played by the original actor Leonard Nimoy. In this case everything down to the time travel similarity is in place. The X-Men film franchise did something similar as the Days of Future Past film from 2014 included new cast members James MacAvoy and Michael Fassbender as Professor X and Magneto acting alongside their original series future counterparts of Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen.

There are a few other not totally similar examples. John Wesley Shipp played the Flash in a 1990 TV series and returned to play the father of the Flash in the 2014 Flash TV series. His name changed but it was an interesting juxtaposition. Batman The Animated Series did similar things a few times. The Grey Ghost was a Batman like character from Bruce Wayne’s childhood who was played by Adam West who had played Batman in the 1966 series. In the 1999 series Batman Beyond Bruce Wayne was portrayed by Kevin Conroy who voiced him in the 1992 animated series. In this case the new Batman was Terry McGinnis, a completely new character, so it’s not really the same thing. Doctor Who is all about changing his face and time traveling so this has happened in the series more times than I would attempt to count.

All we need now is a movie in which Thomas Dekker and Edward Furlong meet! Can you think of any other examples in which an actor previously portraying the role met with a new actor?

Source: Sailor Moon Official Site

A ton of information about the Sailor Moon Le Mouvement Final musical has been released! The musical will start in September and run in three different cities in Japan, those being Tokyo, Aichi and Osaka. As expected this musical will cover the Stars arc of the manga, which has the Sailor Guardians joining forces with the Sailor Starlights to fight Sailor Galaxia.

Check out the new cast members! Note that I don’t speak Japanese so for some of these I couldn’t get a good English version of the name so I just included the Japanese text. I’ll update those when I get some better into.

Seiya Kou, Sailor Star Fighter, will be played by Meiku Harukawa.

Taiki Kou, Sailor Star Maker, will be played by Riona Tatemichi. Riona previously played Rubeus in the Petite Étrangère musical.

Yaten Kou, Sailor Star Healer, will be played by Saki Matsuda.

Princess Kakyuu will be played by 岡村麻未.

Sailor Galaxia will be played by Coco Isuzu (Twitter, Instagram).

Sailor Iron Mouse will be played by Aoki Shion.

Sailor Tin Nyanko will be played by 橋垣美佑.

Sailor Aluminum Siren will be played by 小林由佳.

Sailor Lead Crow will be played by Juri Hirayu (Twitter, Instagram).

There will be two actresses playing Chibi Chibi. Hinari Yamaguchi and 新津ちせ.

There will also be some dancers playing additional villains. These are 椎原夕加里,　肥田野好美,　匂坂あゆ美 and Ayano Nagasawa. A number of them played villains in past musicals.

Performances in Tokyo will be from September 8th to the 18th. Performances in Aichi will be September 23rd and 24th. Performances in Osaka will be held from September 29th to October 1st.

Will any of you be attending this round of musicals?

An update posted to the Official Sailor Moon site this morning revealed that the name of the upcoming musical, taking place in Japan this fall, will be called Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Le Mouvement Final. The above logo was included with the post. No other details were included.

We have previously learned that almost all of the cast will be reprising their roles with the exception of Karin Takahashi who will not be returning as Sailor Saturn. That role will be played by Mirai. Though we’ve received no official confirmation of the subject of the musical it seems logical that this will focus on the Stars arc of the manga. The wings in the logo suggest we will be seeing Eternal Sailor Moon, who appears at the end of the Amour Eternal musical. The title, French for “final movement”, suggests that this final arc of the manga will somehow finalize the story of these musicals. I had been hoping that after this 5th musical we would somehow continue the story of Sailor Moon with some kind of original musical that takes place after the story of the manga. Perhaps this will still be the case!

Update: I misreported the title as “Movement Final” and not “Mouvement Final”. This is the correct French word for Movement.