Does Luna have a last name? I would never have thought so but it seems that now she does! Luna’s full name is listed as Luna Kuroneko in the broadcast credits for the first season of the original Sailor Moon anime! While the “new” dub by Viz has been out for many years and these episodes have been available to stream and on home video, they were not broadcast on TV until recently as part of the Toonami Rewind block. While the new dub isn’t the same one as aired during the 90s Toonami is able to air Sailor Moon thanks to Viz’s new dub. Those ending credits show only the English voice credits for the episode and amongst many other first season credits, many of whom aren’t actually in the first two episodes, we have Luna Kuroneko voiced by Michelle Ruff. Michelle Ruff is indeed the voice of Luna in the new Viz English dub. I saw the photo above on the Moon Sisters Facebook Page. It can also be seen on the Codename Sailor Earth Twitter page. Definitely worth checking out both pages if you like funny videos and wild ships.

What’s this name about and where is it from? Well “Kuroneko” simply means “black cat” in Japanese. Usagi refers to Luna as “Kuro neko Luna” in the opening narration starting with episode 2 and for the first half of the first season in of the original Sailor Moon anime. I believe she stops referring to her as such after Makoto shows up. I never assumed this was meant to be a name but rather a description of Luna’s colour and species. It seems like someone may have taken this literally and considers it to be Luna’s full name which, as is the standard in Japan, is stated with the family name first and the given name second. The order of names in the credits is given in the western style of given name first and family name second, as it’s done with the other names in the credits.

Luna does not otherwise have a family name which is mentioned in the manga, the original anime or Sailor Moon Crystal. She is an alien cat from another planet who as far as we can tell doesn’t have a family name. The human version of Luna who appears in the second half of the live action Sailor Moon series goes by the name Luna Tsukino as she is a part of the Tsukino family when not transformed into Sailor Luna. Human and cat Luna are the same character but cat Luna doesn’t use that full name in the series and even when Human Luna shows up in the manga, anime and Sailor Moon Crystal, she does not pretend to be part of the Tsukino family so the name simply does not apply to those series. That being said if Luna was ever brought to the vet she might be tracked in their system as having the family name Tsukino, if that’s how things are done in Japan. Somehow the idea of Luna getting prodded by a vet seems perverse and we know she doesn’t get spayed so perhaps she’s never been.

How official is this name? It’s in the credits so that’s something. It isn’t stated anywhere in the English version of the show and while it is said repeatedly in the Japanese version, that’s hardly what was likely intended with those scenes. I’d say the name is more or less as official as original dub names like Darien Shields or Amy Anderson.

This of course raises another interesting question. What is Artemis’s name? Is he Shironeko Artemis, meaning “White cat Artemis”? Does that mean Diana would take her father’s family name, Shironeko, even though she’s grey? Calling her “Haiironeko Diana” or “Grey cat Diana” would fit with the trend but not with how family names work.

Have you been watching Sailor Moon on Toonami Rewind? I’m Canadian so I don’t get Cartoon Network. Sailor Moon airing on Toonami is not a part of my own history of watching Sailor Moon so I have no nostalgia for it. The show played on Global and YTV throughout the week and also on US stations UPN 38 and WPix in the early hours of the morning back in 1995, years before the show reached a broad audience in the US through Toonami.

The latest Sailor Moon musical, Princess Kaguya’s Lover, is now available to stream with English subtitles from Japan 2.5D Stage Play World. Tickets allow unlimited streaming for a two week period. I chose December 10th to the 23rd and so I had at long last had a chance to watch this musical a few weeks ago. I’ll share my thoughts in this post.

This musical is a pretty faithful adaptation of the Princess Kaguya’s Lover side story from the Sailor Moon manga. This story had previously been adapted as Sailor Moon S: The Movie so fans of the film will immediately recognize the story of Luna falling in love with a human Kakeru as his lover Himeko travels to space all while the evil Princess Snow Kaguya threatens the Earth! As this musical is a more faithful adaptation than even the S movie, which was itself fairly faithful, there will still be a lot of similarity between the musical and that film.

The musical starts out with a brief overview of the early events of the manga, which is not something included in the manga story it is based on. By the end of this we are pretty much where the manga is at the start of The Lover of Princess Kaguya though Diana is strangely absent, because her existence would be inconvenient to the story. Diana also doesn’t exist yet in the Sailor Moon S film adaptation. I suppose technically Diana isn’t born yet in any version of this story but in the manga we are introduced to her in 30th century Crystal Tokyo and she is in this time due to time travel. She only arrives in the 20th century during the Sailor Moon SuperS season of the original Sailor Moon anime.

We have a shared birthday party taking place which really situates the story in time more than any other. In the musical it is a shared birthday between Minako, Makoto and Setsuna. Minako’s birthday is October 23rd, Makoto’s birthday is December 5th and Setsuna’s birthday is between the two on October 29th. In the manga Setsuna is not included in the celebration, though she is present at the party. It’s okay though as she’s used to being ignored after having spent centuries pining after King Endymion. There’s quite a gap between Minako and Makoto’s birthdays but it’s not uncommon for groups of friends to get together and have a shared birthday party. It’s likely closer to Makoto’s birthday than Minako’s at this point since the events of the musical are leading up to the climax on December 24th, Christmas Eve. Yes, this is a Christmas musical!

An interesting thing which is mentioned in the liner notes for the Sailor Moon Eternal Edition manga is that voice actors Rika Fukami and Emi Shinohara share a birthday on August 8th. It’s possible that the party from the manga was inspired by a real live shared birthday party between those actors who’s birthdays are actually much closer than those of the characters they voice.

One of the main differences between this musical and the manga story it’s based on is the almost complete lack of Artemis. In scenes where he would actually be present in the manga he is instead only referenced. We will see him at the end of the musical… sort of.

The main plot of the musical centers around a comet that is going to hit the earth. At first everything seems fine because the comet just sort of died out. How exactly does this work? A massive object in space can’t just disappear. It’s said that it went close to the sun and burnt out. Was it on its way to the earth or not? The whole thing is very odd. The idea of an asteroid crashing into the earth isn’t unreasonable. The musical makes reference to the comet being roughly the size of the one that wiped out the dinosaurs and another like that would of course be very bad. So why a comet and not an asteroid? Well comets go around and around over and over. Asteroids do too, but that’s a bit what comets are known for since we are able to witness them due to the gas which trails behind them, often caused by water ice which evaporates when exposed to sun light. Since Princess Snow Kaguya, the musical’s villain, is said to be returning after 4.5 billion years, roughly the age of the earth, it seems this is meant to be a return equivalent to seeing a comet again.

It’s curious that since watching this musical a very popular Netflix film, Don’t Look Up, similarly features a comet which threatens to destroy the Earth. I have not seen the film and don’t intend to but from what I understand from this great review of the film, Sailor Moon sadly does not make an appearance.

This musical is all about Luna. After being harassed by the same group of kids or a similar group of kids to those who put a band aid on her in the first manga story she has the exact same thing done to her again. This disorients her and blocks her magic, yet again, which causes her to avoid an accident and end up in the arms of titular character Kakeru, the Lover of Princess Kaguya. Luna falls in love with Kakeru! Sadly Kakeru loves Himeko and while it seems like he may be returning Luna’s affection she’s sort of a Seiya to Kakeru’s Usagi while Himeko is his Mamoru. The difference being that Luna gets to kiss Kakeru.

There’s this very odd thing in the story where we act like going from Tokyo, Japan, to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida is really not a big deal. It’s treated as if it was hopping on a train over to the next city. Knowing that Naoko Takeuchi was inspired to write this story after a trip to Cape Canaveral makes one wonder if she forgot having flown the 16 or so hours it takes to cross the Pacific Ocean and the entire width of the United States of America. Himeko travels there for work. Kakeru on a whim takes a couple of days off to join her. Once he falls ill Himeko brings him back to Tokyo and eventually flies back to the United States. Sounds expensive! Meanwhile Luna sneaks onto two of these flights.

Things get real which means that Usagi and Luna have to explain to Himeko what’s going on. They mention that Princess Snow Kaguya, the fairly lackluster villain of the musical, comes from space. She’s shocked, asking if that makes her an alien? Lady, the talking cat is also technically an alien and Usagi is sort of an alien so maybe show a bit of respect and as a scientist, have an open mind?

It’s repeatedly mentioned that Princess Snow Kaguya was around 4.5 billion years earlier. This date closely coincides with the age of the Earth. As she’s defeated she mentions having seen a light, like that from the silver crystal, 4.5 billion years ago. Does that suggest that there was a Sailor Moon type hero wielding the silver crystal or something like it when the earth was created? Not super clear.

So there’s a big fight and the bad lady is defeated along with a nice song. This means luckily that the plan to launch a spaceship to destroy the comet in a very Armageddon/Deep Impact sort of way isn’t needed anymore. After countless delays to launching due to unpleasant weather and radiation in space along with the main reason for the mission now disappearing do they scrap it? Well no. They instead completely change the goal of the flight and proceed anyway! They aren’t going to destroy the comet but instead they’ll just go on with their newly added crew member to the Moon Base. Wait there’s a Moon Base now? Is it anywhere close to the ruins of Silver Millennium? Does the space ship even have the right amount of fuel for this completely different mission? They don’t need to reprogram a bunch of flight paths? Is the Moon, where they didn’t actually plan on landing earlier that day, even in the optimal place to travel there at this time of the month? So very odd.

As the Silver Crystal was used to save the day it’s suggested it can simply be used to grant a wish and make Luna human. Since when is that an option? The Crystal seems to be a pretty versatile tool which can be used as a sort of energy weapon, to heal people on a massive scale, to purify or cleanse evil. It seems it’s also able to just sort of make wishes come true as well. In this case it’s “make the cat human for a while” which is actually making Luna turn into a human form which she already had which is in itself a bit odd. Is the Silver Crystal like the Dragonballs?

Human Luna shows up and … it’s a totally different actress. Human Luna is the same actress who played the shadow Luna who was showing up in certain scenes. What is odd is that the actress who plays Cat Luna is quite young but the actress playing Human Luna is an adult. This gives an odd impression of Luna’s age. I suppose that the intention in casting a younger actress as Cat Luna was a practical one because a cat happens to be smaller than a person but it makes Luna seem like she’s actually a younger woman and then when Human Luna shows up it seems that the idea here is that this is actually reflecting Luna’s actual age. Her feelings for Kakeru are a woman’s feelings and not those of a teenage girl. As a fan of Sailor Moon since watching the old dub in the 90s it’s always hard for me to think of Luna as anything but the older sounding lady from that dub, even if I understand that the canon seems to instead suggest that Luna is somewhere between Usagi’s age, and therefore a peer of hers, or a slightly older young adult, to match the physical appearance of Human Luna in the manga and S movie. The live action series further confuses this with Luna becoming a very young Sailor Luna, but that’s a whole other story.

We learn that Himeko is pregnant which is something that is very much not in the S movie but it is in the manga. It’s a bit irresponsible to go into space with an unborn child in your womb as it’s being exposed to higher levels of radiation. It is specifically mentioned that there’s a geomagnetic blizzard which I think could be dangerous for the baby once Himeko no longer has the protection which the Earth’s magnetic field gives the inhabitants of the planet while they aren’t in space.

Finally Artemis shows up and what a joke this is! He’s basically a very cheap little projected image on the wall. He doesn’t talk. He doesn’t look anything like Luna. He’s totally shafted in this musical!

I did enjoy the musical quite a bit, though it’s far from my favourite of the Sailor Moon musicals. I was never a particularly big fan of the Sailor Moon S movie. It’s good enough but as the movies go it’s my third favourite out of the three. This is the same story and though the manga lacks some of what makes the S Movie a bit weak, it’s still not my favourite story. I understand and appreciate that a lot of people have a special affection for the S movie, consider it to be the better film and also have a great fondness for this manga story. Those fans should be quite pleased with this musical as it’s a very faithful adaptation. Sailor Moon Crystal has given us an accurate anime adaptation of the manga and this musical does a great job of doing the same with the Princess Kaguya’s Lover side story. If only we could get the rest of the side stories and Sailor V adapted somehow!

Bottom line is that you should absolutely support this streaming event. If you haven’t already signed up you can continue to do so until February 3rd. The cost is reasonable and the musical is well worth watching. If you’re a person who’s watched musicals over the years by downloading fansubs you really should be supporting this official release if you have the means to do so. This will show that there’s interest in Sailor Moon musicals and make it more likely that more get released outside of Japan in the future.

A final thought on the end of the musical where the cast speak to the audience. A lot of them mentioned how happy they were that this musical was actually able to be performed and that they were lucky that everyone stayed healthy throughout. This serves as an interesting reminder of how severe the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic was when this musical took place in Tokyo in September of 2021. Even when I watched this musical in mid December things were going fairly well, pandemic wise, where I live and then in the short weeks since the situation has very quickly become more serious and strict lockdowns are in place in my home province. This musical was delayed a whole year and, like with the Tokyo Olympics, almost didn’t happen. We shall see what the future may bring with regards to a new musical in 2022. I’m hoping for the best but also that if we get a new musical that it’s because it’s safe to do so and that fans are able to travel to Japan to see it without any serious health risks.

Let us know what you thought of the musical in the comments!

Sailor Moon Eternal Parts 1 and 2 are both currently streaming on Netflix. This is my review for the second film. You can also read my Part 1 review which was posted last month. I always used to put episode reviews for Sailor Moon Crystal up within a few days of their release but the nature of these movies means that reviewing them is a bit more work! I call this a review even though it’s really more of a vague recap with random commentary and a sprinkling of what might be considered a review.

Part 1 ended on a cliffhanger. Not literally. If it followed the manga more closely it would have ended on a literal cliffhanger as Minako was hanging off of a cliff but stories were moved around to make things fit into movies a bit better. The conclusion to the whole Minako and Human Artemis thing was moved into Part 1 instead of taking place after we get a look at what’s going on with Hotaru and her three moms, which is really where this movie starts off. For the most part, like all of Sailor Moon Crystal, this movie is fairly faithful to the manga source material which it was based on.

Last time we saw Hotaru she was a baby being whisked away by Sailor Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. We finally see what they’ve been up to, starting with Haruka and Michiru. If I can take issue with the dub for a moment! There’s a character which, referencing Haruka, says that “He’s such a hottie”. Now I know Japanese doesn’t tend to use gender specific pronouns so this is likely not a terribly literal translation. I also understand that there being some confusion over Haruka’s gender makes sense and is a common theme in the series but are we really going to just pretend that Haruka is not very clearly dressed unambiguously as a woman in this scene? I’m not sure what this was all about.

Left handed mouse

Back at the house Setsuna is using a left handed mouse. What’s this? Is she actually left handed? I didn’t know this! While looking into this I found an article from Tuxedo Unmasked which mentions that Sailor Pluto may be left handed as she usually holds her Garnet Rod in her left hand. This article also goes into some detail about whether or not Rei is left handed, something I mentioned in my Part 1 review. So she’s left handed? Not likely. The only reason we see her left hand on the mouse is because the movie wants to show us her ring which is on her left hand and this is a convenient way to do so. Have you ever tried to use a mouse with your off hand? It’s very awkward. What’s my evidence suggesting that Setsuna isn’t actually left handed? In a scene a bit later in the film she’s back to using a mouse with her right hand. Ambidextrous? Seems like her handedness is whatever suits the needs of the shot!

Right handed mouse

While Setsuna is browsing an article about the eclipse we see a date! 2016-03-28 or March 28th 2016. I will assume this isn’t the actual date of the eclipse but rather the date on which the article was published. This fits with the date seen in Part 1 where Chibiusa circles April 1st as her date to return to the 30th century. An article about the April 1st eclipse coming out some four days before makes perfect sense. Any problems with this? Well April 1st 2016 was a Friday in the real world and according to Chibiusa’s calendar it was a Thursday. There was also no solar eclipse on April 1st 2016. There was a total solar eclipse on March 9th of 2016 and Japan wasn’t the best place to see it from. So why would the story take place five years in the past? This would probably be because the last new episode of Sailor Moon Crystal we got was on June 27th 2016. Since the series started airing on July 5th 2014 this makes the first few seasons take place within a few years. A six month passage of time since the eclipse is suggested at one point during this film so most of it takes place in late 2016. Most manga arcs seem to take place over about year which could put the Dream arc around 2017 if the events of the first season really are to take place in 2014. If they take place in 2013, when the show was originally meant to start, things line up pretty well. So much to say with a five year gap between Sailor Moon Crystal season 3 and the Sailor Moon Eternal films we can hardly just say it’s 2021 and expect it to make sense that everyone’s just starting high school so the 2016 date seems to work.

The big thing for the start of the film is fast aging Hotaru. This is something we see at the start of SailorStars in the original Sailor Moon anime. All of this growth occurred over a six month period and we get a sense of how quick it has been when Haruka mistakenly thinks they need diapers for their fast aging daughter. Hotaru is spouting out odd poetry and making faithful models of the solar system where events up to those taking place in the present play out in super speed. This makes me wonder just how accurate these are. If individual people are recreated in this model do those people experience joy and pain? Does Hotaru recreate every act of suffering in the history of our planet on a whim in her living room? Does this include the death of her mother as well as her father’s painful memories of it? Alternatively if the exact same information patterns of someone’s life are run over and over again are those actual new experiences or just the one experience? Is there a subjective feeling experienced more than once? The whole thing might be very unethical depending on one’s perspective on these issues.

So! Hotaru gets old and gives everyone their Sailor Crystals avoiding the requirement of a handful more individual stories in which they learn something about themselves and get their shoulder pad upgrades. Hotaru basically gives them all the upgrades herself. How convenient. Most importantly… a Sailor Saturn transformation sequence! Sailor Saturn had a transformation sequence in season 3 of Sailor Moon Crystal but it was a bit different. This one is shorter but a bit more consistent with other transformations. Since Sailor Saturn never did transform in the original Sailor Moon anime it’s always nice to see a transformation sequence. She did have an original anime style transformation sequence as part of a Sailor Saturn game but this was never seen in the TV series or movies.

Two shards

One shard

Two shards again

Sailor Uranus, Neptune, Pluto and Saturn show up to save the day and everyone is back together again! This doesn’t last long, sadly. Later Zirconia dispatches the Amazoness Quartet and then traps Sailor Chibi Moon and Saturn into shards of a mirror. She then picks up one piece of the mirror and then somehow has two in her hands. What’s going on here? Infuriating! This scene is brief but it’s great seeing Sailor Saturn in action since she’s so neglected in the original Sailor Moon anime. The scene of her and Chibi Moon in the circus tent is similar to their scenes in the early part of Sailor Stars when they fight Nehelenia. In a way the first six episodes of Sailor Stars are a more faithful adaptation of the dream arc than all of Sailor Moon SuperS.

We see a young Usagi and Mamoru, which is odd since we sort of already got a fairly extensive look at young Usagi earlier. They turn young in real life and then have a dream where they’re both young which makes me wonder why their real selves needed to even be made young in the first place. How do their dream selves know that their bodies are young? Shouldn’t there be some dysmorphia going on? Regardless, seeing young Usagi and Mamoru in domestic bliss is incredibly cute. What I enjoy about this scene is how similar it is to a major plot point in the Sailor Moon SuperS film. Usagi is in a dream world with Mamoru and questions his unwavering devotion to her. While in the SuperS film this is what she uses to break out of The Matrix, here it’s just a curiosity. Basically Mamoru states that his dream is to live with Usagi and she questions his other dreams like being a doctor. It’s worth noting that many other elements from this arc, like the young versions of so many characters, are also seen in the Sailor Moon SuperS film at many points. While on the surface the movie has nearly nothing to do with the Dream arc of the manga and the SuperS season of the original anime, there are in fact many similarities. These are not likely all intended. Unless some advanced knowledge of one work or another was planned the timelines simply don’t add up. This particular manga story with young Usagi and Mamoru came out in Nakayoshi in December of 1995, the same month in which the SuperS film was released. Since both a manga and animated film take months or longer to go from story to release, these particular similarities seem to be coincidence.

Usagi and Mamoru are now with Helios in Elysion and the whole being young thing wasn’t any sort of lasting problem. What is this place? In mythology the similarly named Elysium is the afterlife. Here Elysion, which is a unique name in Sailor Moon, is another world that seems to be somewhat parallel to the Earth. An analog to it as Helios is himself tied to the Earth and the Golden Crystal. More specifically I wonder just where it is. It is suggested that Elysium is within the Earth somehow and there are references to “the surface”. I wonder if Elysium is compatible with the idea of The Hollow Earth. This is an idea of a world deep beneath the surface of the Earth. Though specifics vary the concept is that the Earth itself is a hollow shell and that within that shell there is a whole other ecosystem where “down” is actually towards the outside of the Earth. I tried hard to see indications that Elysion had a normal sky. We don’t see any stars from it. We don’t see the sun even though late in the story there is light coming from the sky. The Hollow Earth is often described as having a small sun at the center of the Earth. The Moon is seen in the sky in that we can see the eclipse from Elysion, but it isn’t clear if the Moon itself is actually visible. Keep in mind this is one of my own pet theories about Elysion and isn’t necessarily intended in either the manga or Sailor Moon Eternal films, but I wonder if this is a kind of pseudoscientific belief that Naoko Takeuchi was into along with all the weird stuff from the Black Moon arc.

We do this weird thing where we pretend that the maiden that Helios is looking for isn’t Chibiusa and it’s all very silly. He sees this image of a clearly pink haired woman who looks more or less like an older Chibiusa who asks him to find the Golden Crystal. She’s called “Princess Lady Serenity”. He acts as if this is Sailor Moon which makes Chibiusa quite upset, even though she clearly still has Helios’s affection.

All this time Mamoru is just walking around in his dress shirt. Why do we pretend these dress shirts are the most comfortable thing? He gives them out to all the ladies who sleep over. Chibiusa sleeps in one during Part 1 and when he’s sick in bed this seems to be his sleepwear of choice. I often wear shirts of this type for work but I’ll generally put a t-shirt on when I’m at home relaxing, especially if I’m sick and bedridden. This would be a believable “I was out doing stuff and then I came home and untucked my shirt so it’s my after hours casual mode” but he’s been bedridden for a while now and the last time he was out was for the eclipse, as far as we can tell, when he wasn’t wearing his tuxedo (which has a ruffled shirt) but a grey dress shirt and vest. Am I to believe that he took off his grey dress shirt and put on a white dress shirt to climb into bed? This really makes no sense and is probably the biggest plot whole in the movie.

The shrine in Elysion is guarded by the Maenads who have hair just like Sailor Moon and Chibi Moon which back in the day would have been like both Queen and Princess Serenity. I guess this really was the style at the time? What a strange coincidence that reincarnated Usagi happened to chose a very similar yet impractical and almost never seen hair style.

So there’s some fighting which is actually the bulk of the movie. I don’t have a ton to say about this. Almost all of the attacks are so similar to the original Sailor Moon anime that I wonder if they were traced. Helios dies in a non permanent death which is actually fairly common for Sailor Moon but I don’t for a moment think it’s a real thing. Does anyone cry for Helios? Of course he’ll be fine.

We then see an interesting scene which is the birth of Princess Serenity. This scene reminds me a lot of the birth of Aurora in Sleeping Beauty. In Sleeping Beauty we have Maleficent, the only one not invited, showing up to celebrate the Princess’s birth only to end up cursing the child to eternal sleep after pricking herself on a spinning wheel needle. Similarly Nehelenia was the only one not invited after Princess Serenity’s birth. Once she shows up an uncharacteristically unkind Queen Serenity, along with the Sailor Guardians, disparage her and tell her she isn’t welcome. She ends up cursing Silver Millennium saying it will fall. This of course does end up happening in the distant past. I wonder if any inspiration occurred between these. One noticeable thing here is that Sailor Mercury, Mars, Jupiter and Venus are all significantly older than the newborn Princess Serenity. Though their ages aren’t specified they speak well, are fairly tall for children and seem ready to fight. I’d guess they are about 6 or 7 here. Princess Serenity appears to be an adolescent in the first story arc. She is arguably slightly older than the 14 year old Usagi who notices physical changes in herself when turning into the Princess. This would put the other Sailor Guardians at over 20 in those flashbacks, though they all appear to be more or less the same age. In the Amour Eternal musical when we see the birth of Princess Serenity the age difference is even greater as the Sailor Guardians are shown to be their fully adolescent ages at that point, similar to their ages in the modern times story of that musical. We know that in Crystal Tokyo adults done age, which include Sailor Moon eternally being in her early 20s, but is there a reason to have people frozen in adolescence in Silver Millennium?

I think if original anime Sailor Moon had been in her mother’s place when Nehelenia showed up she could have found a way to make peace or may even have invited her in the first place. The manga version of Sailor Moon does more killing of villains and less winning them over. Remember that anime Sailor Moon ended up having compassion for Nehelenia after all of the harm she did to her and her friends! Queen Serenity with her blank reflectionless eyes doesn’t seem to have any of that attitude when she seals away Queen Nehelenia.

Once the Moon Effect character song kicks in the movie is really reaching the climax! A lot of this was released in a very spoiler filled music video! This song features vocals by the actors playing all ten of the Sailor Guardians and is included on the “Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Character Song Collection Eternal Collection” album. Though Tuxedo Mask and Sailor Moon are still afflicted with the disease which has black roses on their lungs it seems the resolution to this is… to kiss! Everything is fine now! Great!

Did you like Human Artemis? Did you enjoy Human Luna (in the first season)? Well how about human version of the whole cat family including Diana! This is a big deal as this is the first time we see all of the cats in human form in any anime series!

Next up is Eternal everybody! There’s a new Holy Grail and then Sailor Moon becomes Eternal Sailor Moon, hence the name of the movies, but beyond that all of the other Sailor Guardians also get upgraded to their Eternal forms which means those little bubble shoulder pad things which is something we never saw in the original Sailor Moon anime! Sailor Moon finally does her Starlight Honeymoon Therapy Kiss and saves the day! The eclipse, which we can kind of see even though we’re kind of inside the earth, is finally over which is arguably the end of a very long period which only took place over the course of a few minutes, the length of time an eclipse usually lasts for. There isn’t any clear agreement of this but by that timeline the events of this film actually take place within the same day.

Turns out Helios isn’t dead and Sailor Chibi Moon (Eternal Sailor Chibi Moon) kisses him while he sleeps. Do we want to dig up the whole kissing a sleeping person lacks consent discourse again? In this particular case since Helios had previously expressed his interest in Chibiusa when he kissed her in the first film I think that makes this whole situation less of a concern than when Tuxedo Mask did it in the first story arc. The best kept secret of the films, that Chibiusa is actually the one Helios has been looking for, is revealed! She becomes Princess Lady Serenity and gets her Pink Moon Crystal!

Eternal Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask now becomes Neo Queen Serenity and King Endymion for the first time without some influence from the future. Everyone gets their lovely princess dresses back and there was much rejoicing.

Sailor Saturn still has the Amazoness Quartet balls. When these four are revived they are the Sailor Quartet! Sailor Cere, Sailor Palas, Sailor Juno and Sailor Vesta are all named after the same celestial objects they had identified with originally but now it makes a bit more sense why! They are Sailor Guardians who’s duty it is to protect Eternal Sailor Chibi Moon or rather Princess Lady Serenity and not related directly to Sailor Moon or Neo Queen Serenity. It’s really fun to see the Sailor Quartet! Sadly they aren’t around for long as they claim that they should be asleep in the jungle so they take off. Why does this matter? You’re here! Let’s get the gang together! Chibiusa should only be a twinkle in Mamoru’s eye but she’s around and actively involved in the fight so who’s to say that the Amazoness Quartet are better off chilling in a jungle somewhere? My two dream concepts for new Sailor Moon series would be a Codename: Sailor V series and some sort of future Sailor Guardian series with Chibi Moon, the Sailor Quartet and maybe Helios fighting some evil and perhaps traveling through time to do it! I won’t hold my breath for that.

Now Helios is there with Pegasus which makes me wonder how this is even possible! Aren’t they kind of the same being? In the original Sailor Moon anime they certainly were, with Pegasus being his name rather than a descriptor of the kind of horse he is, but it seems they are different entities. Kind of weird!

Well the movie pretty much wraps up with a bunch of people going on their way. What we don’t see in the Netflix version is a message saying “To be continued” but this is on the Japanese Blu-ray and it seems like it was in the version shown in theatres in Japan. Why remove this from the Netflix version? No idea! I hope we don’t have to wait quite as many years to get a Stars arc of Sailor Moon Crystal as we did for Sailor Moon Eternal!

The credits are fairly unremarkable. I can’t read any of that! We have a couple of songs here. The first is Moon Color Chainon, the theme song for the Sailor Moon Eternal films. This is actually the first time we hear it in this movie since it doesn’t have an intro like the 90s films did! After this we have the new version of “Rashiku” Ikumasho (I’ll Go As Myself) by Anza! Anza was the first actress to portray Sailor Moon in the Sailor Moon musicals and continued to do so for five years. This song was originally the second ending theme for Sailor Moon SuperS, the original adaptation of the Dreams arc of the Sailor Moon manga, which makes it a fitting song to end the final movie with.

All in all I found Part 2 to be a good movie. It wasn’t as obviously episodic as Part 1 where you could easily see the breaks between manga chapters. That said there isn’t really as much going on with this film which mostly centers on the big battles with Zirconia and Nehelenia.

More generally the Sailor Moon Eternal films just look fantastic. The designs are great and since these movies are shorter than full seasons the animation is better and there seems to have been more time and money dedicated to every minute of this film compared to earlier seasons of Sailor Moon Crystal. We can only hope the Stars arc will look as good, though I’m hoping for a return to a series for that season or that if it will be movies that they make three of them! We shall see.

What did you think of this second film? Let us know in the comments!

Keep reading for more screenshots of the film.

A Sailor Moon panel featuring the original English voice cast of the 90s Sailor Moon anime is going to be streamed on Friday July 9th at 8pm Easter Time. The panel will be streamed on YouTube. You can also watch it embedded below.

The panel will feature Linda Ballantyne, the third voice of Sailor Moon, Katie Griffin, the first voice of Sailor Mars, Susan Roman, the voice of Sailor Jupiter, Toby Proctor, the second voice of Tuxedo Mask, Ron Rubin, the voice of Artemis, Jill Frappier, the voice of Luna, and Barbara Radecki, the voice of Sailor Neptune as well as Serena’s mother and Queen Serenity in the first episode. Watch a clip advertising the event below:

Get ready guys!!! This Friday July 9th at 8pm EST the cast of Sailor Moon will be on Geektainment TV on YouTube!! @GeektainmentTV @ronjrubin @LABallantyne @JillsObjets @barbara_radecki @tobyproctor @kissmechaos #sailormoon https://t.co/vbNhUTrTow pic.twitter.com/2cPMe5Gra0

— Celebrity Talent Booking (@CTBsocial) July 7, 2021

The panel will be hosted by Geektainment TV who have done other similar panels on their YouTube page. It is likely that the panel will continue to be available once the live event is completed. Will you be watching the panel live?

The poster and cast information for the upcoming Princess Kaguya’s Lover musical have been released. The post was up on the Sailor Moon official site briefly last night after which it was removed. It has now been reposted and the musical site has been updated with information from this musical. I didn’t catch the post when it was first online however I quickly saw the poster shared from a number of Sailor Moon fans. The poster gives us some interesting information. Luna is featured twice! It looks like the Luna in black is meant to be cat Luna while the one in the Human Luna yellow dress would be her when she transforms into a human late in the story. Also featured are Kakeru, Himiko and Princess Snow Kaguya. All ten Sailor Guardians appear which is noteable for the inclusion of Sailor Saturn. Canonically this story takes place between the Infinity Arc and the Dream arc when Hotaru is still a baby. Haruka, Michiru and Setsuna appear in the manga and I guess they got a babysitter for Hotaru during that time. The official site does mention that this is her first appearance in this story. Artemis is not on the poster and is not in the cast list. Perhaps he’ll be a plush toy or something.

I was happy to see that the Facebook page “We Are The Pretty Guardians- Sera Myu” shared the names of the entire cast as well as social media links for many of them. When this sort of cast information is posted to the official site I usually spend some time searching names and plugging them into online translators to try to do the same so I’m glad to see that someone has already done the hard work here. Please give their page a follow if you’re on Facebook.

Below I’ve included a cast listing with links to Twitter and Instagram accounts when they exist. I’ve opted for the western given name first, family name second order as I usually do on this site although the source I’m using follows the Japanese practice of family name first and given name second. This is an all new cast. There is no one returning from Le Mouvement Final, which was many years ago, though this musical is continuing with the tradition of an all female cast. There are two Chibiusas which is not uncommon for young actresses given Japanese child labour laws.

Sailor Moon/Usagi Tsukino – Riko Tanaka (Twitter, Instagram)
Sailor Mercury/Ami Mizuno – Kanon Maekawa (Twitter, Instagram)
Sailor Mars/Rei Hino – Rei Kobayashi (Twitter, Instagram)
Sailor Jupiter/Makoto Kino – Kisara Matsumura
Sailor Venus/Minako Aino – Marin Makino (Twitter, Instagram)
Sailor Chibi Moon/Chibiusa – Yurika Kobayashi
Sailor Chibi Moon/Chibiusa – Erena Kamata (Instagram)
Sailor Uranus/Haruka Tenoh – Shinju Terada (Twitter, Instagram)
Sailor Neptune/Michiru Kaioh – Ayana Kinoshita (Twitter, Instagram)
Sailor Pluto/Setsuna Meioh – Minami Chisato (Twitter)
Sailor Saturn/Hotaru Tomoe – Yuka Ide (Personal site)
Tuxedo Mask/Mamoru Chiba – Riku Sorahane (Instagram)
Cat Luna – Sakurai Yune
Human Luna – MARISA (Twitter)
Kakeru – Natsume Oki (Twitter)
Himeko Nayotake – Nanami Tamai (Twitter, Instagram)
Princess Snow Kaguya – Sayaka Okamura (Twitter, Instagram)
Snow Dancers – Moeko Koizumi, Ayumi Ozaka, Ayano Nagasawa, Yuri Hirano, Sakura Morimoto and Eri Yanagida

A lot of the actresses have done some stage work in the past. Riku Sorahane, who is playing Tuxedo Mask, seems to have the most extensive experience. Some of the Snow Dancers worked on previous musicals. Moeko Koizumi was previously in the Super Live musical as a backup dancer. I still haven’t seen that musical! Ayano Nagasawa was in the Amour Eternal musical as one of the Dead Moon Circus.

With the musical coming up in September there are still some travel restrictions in place in Japan for foreign visitors. Are any of you expecting to be able to see this musical or are we all holding out for a home video release of some kind?

Update – 2020-08-14: The original post categorized these as a leak as I was not aware that these images had been posted to the official site.

A collection of 10 new stills from the first of the two Sailor Moon Eternal films has been posted to the Official Sailor Moon site. The post advertises a collaboration with Lawson convenience stores for a number of products. These 10 stills will be available from Lawson photocopiers. Though we’d already seen a couple of these, most of them seem to be new showing us single frames from animation which will likely be seen in Sailor Moon Eternal Part 1, which will be released in theatres on January 8th 2021.

Here’s a look at each still individually.

Super Sailor Chibi Moon and Super Sailor Moon posing. We had already seen this as part of footage which was already released so this is a higher quality image than the other samples.

Sailor Mercury posing during her post transformation speech. The pose is similar to past seasons but the designs are updated.

Sailor Mars posing. Again the same pose with new designs. Her wrist seems a bit less limp if that makes sense.

Sailor Jupiter posing. Her hair isn’t holding as well as it has.

Sailor Venus posing. Her finger seems to keep getting bigger.

Super Sailor Moon hugging a faceless Mamoru. We’ve seen this one already as well.

Pegasus and Chibiusa. Many have pointed out that Pegasus is pony sized in these films.
He does seem to be a bit smaller than what we’d seen in the first Sailor Moon anime, but Chibiusa’s size is a bit inconsistent in Sailor Moon Crystal. An earlier image of Chibiusa and Pegasus which we saw made him look much smaller.

Helios. We’d seen his designs but this is the first actual frame of him that we’ve seen.

Artemis, Diana and Luna. Luna’s eyes are now blue, while they were red in previous seasons. This may be so that her eye colour is consistent with human Luna who we will be saying likely in the second film which will be released on February 11th 2021.

The Amazon Trio. Striking a pose!

At this point we are certainly seeing more and more of the art style. While I would like to see more of it in action these stills give us a decent indication of what we’re in for next year. What do you think?

Source: Sailor Moon Thailand on Twitter

This afternoon, July 25th 2020, at 3pm Pacific Time (6pm Eastern Time) fans will be able to watch a virtual Sailor Moon Panel, Sailor Moon: The Power of Female Friendship, live on YouTube. This is part of San-Diego Comic-Con’s virtual convention which is being held this year instead of a live convention which would be impossible due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

The panel will be hosted by comic book historian Jessica Tseang and includes voice actors from Viz’s new dub of Sailor Moon including Michelle Ruff, the voice of Luna, Kate Higgins, the voice of Sailor Mercury, Amanda Celine Miller, the voice of Sailor Jupiter, as well as comic book writer Sam Maggs, and comedian Chris Bryant.

To view the panel head over the Comic-Con site or watch it directly on YouTube (the video will likely be unavailable until shortly before the event starts). It seems like other panels remain available after the original live broadcast so fans who aren’t able to watch the panel live or are seeing this post too late should still be okay to watch it.

Will you be checking out the panel? For those reading this in the future, did you watch the panel and what did you think?

The Sailor Moon Eternal films are coming to theatres in Japan on September 11th 2020. We don’t have a ton of information about these films but a recent mock interview shared with Japanese members of the Official Sailor Moon Fan Club gives us some morsels of information about the films. We could have inferred most of this information already, but it’s nice to get some confirmation about some of these things.

I am not currently a member of the Sailor Moon Fan Club so I did not receive this newsletter however I read about it on the Tuxedo Unmasked web site. If you don’t already follow that site I suggest you do as there’s a ton of research that goes into those articles which I always enjoy reading. If you can read Japanese you can check out this scanned version of the Sailor Moon Official Fan Club Members Only Special Issue volume 13. I do not, so I will be referencing Tuxedo Unmasked’s translation.

The interview isn’t with an actual person who exists in the real world. Instead it’s a fake conversation between Luna and Usagi in which they destroy the fourth wall and talk somewhat in character about the upcoming films. This reminds me a bit of the Sailor Moon Memorial laserdiscs which are season recaps hosted by Usagi and Luna. So what does the interview tell us?

First there’s a reminder that the movies will come out “After the Olympics” which is a bit vague. The 2020 Summer Olympics, which will take place in Tokyo, will run from July 24th to August 9th. The film has already been announced to be released on September 11th so this bit of dialogue is less precise than what we already know. The actual release date appears on the page and later in the interview.

Then Usagi asks Luna what actually happened in Act 4 of the manga. We already knew that these two films will cover the Dream arc of the Sailor Moon manga which is the story which was adapted as the Sailor Moon SuperS season of the original Sailor Moon anime. This means it will include the Dark Moon Circus, Pegasus, the Amazon Trio, the Amazoness Quartet, Zirconia and Queen Nehelenia. Despite the similar characters the actual stories of the manga and anime differ quite a bit though, so Sailor Moon Eternal will be new to fans of the original Sailor Moon anime!

We learn that the new movie will be about the Dead Moon Circus who break free of a mirror during an eclipse. That eclipse was is seen at the end of the final episode of Sailor Moon Crystal’s third season many, many eclipses ago. We will see Usagi and Chibiusa switch bodies, which is something that also happened in the original Sailor Moon anime though this was a minor story contained to one episode. It is also mentioned that this is a very Chibiusa intensive story! This arc is basically a romance between Chibiusa and Pegasus/Helios so there’s no ignoring that she will feature heavily.

More importantly they ask where the visuals for Sailor Uranus, Neptune and the other Sailor Guardians representing the outer planets are. Luna muses that this must mean that Hotaru’s awakening will be in the second film. This fits with what I had been assuming about the films. These characters only appear in the second half of the manga’s arc and it seems like a good split of the films would be to include them only in Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2, or whatever it is we will be calling it. This would start with us seeing what Haruka, Michiru, Setsuna and Hotaru have been up to for the past while and having them join the rest of the team. In the original Sailor Moon anime this never happens during Sailor Moon SuperS and the short six episode arc which starts off Sailor Moon Sailor Stars does its own quick version of these events. If this information is to be trusted it seems unlikely we’ll be seeing any designs for these characters for the first film, though I still think it may be possible they will appear briefly as an end of movie teaser.

Following this exchange we get some quotes from Chiaki Kon, the film’s director, Kazuyuki Fudeyasu, the film’s writer, Kazuko Tadano, the animation director, Kotono Mitsuishi, the voice of Sailor Moon and Misato Fukuen, the voice of Chibiusa. These are some nice little comments but they don’t really tell us anything new about the films. Misato Fukuen comments that she will finally get to see “an important character” who we can only assume is Pegasus. It seems they’re all being very careful not to tell us anything!

This all makes me wonder if the person that wrote this fictional exchange actually knows anything we don’t or if they instead are just inferring all of this from what we already know? I can’t say for sure. For now we are all anxiously waiting until September and wondering just when we’ll be getting the movies outside of Japan! I’m hopeful for some sort of limited North American theatrical run around the same time as the film will be released in Japan but that may be too optimistic of me! We may instead only get the film some while later, possibly not until 2021, and it’s not really guaranteed that it will be out theatrically here at all. I’ll be sure to share anything conclusive as that information becomes available!

Source: Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Official Fan Club Mailer Vol. 13 translated by Tuxedo Unmasked

Keep reading for the full interview translation.

The Usagi and Luna interview:

Usagi: The release date for the Sailor Moon Eternal movie has finally been announced. It’ll hit theaters right after the Olympics finish up.

Luna: Hopefully everyone won’t get too wrapped up in the games and fall behind on their work!

Usagi: So what happens in Act 4 of the manga, anyway?

Luna: You’ve already forgot? You’ve got the memory of a goldfish, Usagi. It’s the story of a group calling itself the Dead Moon Circus that had been locked away inside a mirror breaking free during a solar eclipse.

Usagi: Oh, yeah, that! ChibiUsa and I switch bodies and a lot of other weird stuff happens. And when I couldn’t go back home, I got to stay over at Mamo-chan’s place…

Luna: Well I guess you remember that part, at least. Anyway, ChibiUsa plays a big part in the story, about as big as her part in the Black Moon arc. Since the movie will be following along the manga’s storyline, there connection between ChibiUsa and Helios will be a big part of it.

Usagi: I saw the imagery released with the earlier announcement and it looks like Ami, Rei, Makoto, and Minako are also going to be in it. But what about Haruka, Michiru, and the other Outer Senshi?

Luna: Well, this is just the first half of the story, so… I guess which half Hotaru’s reawakening appears in will be a bit part of the overall story.

Usagi: Hmm, I’m really curious. I guess we could just ask the director and screenwriter about it?

Luna: You need to wait until the movie comes out, Usagi! But I think everyone has a lot to look forward to when it comes to which stories [from the manga] will be featured.

Usagi: Aww, now I’m too excited thinking about the movie to sleep!

Luna: I wouldn’t worry too much about that, Usagi. You’ll just make it up through one of your afternoon naps. Anyway, the movie will be opening up to audiences across Japan on September 11, 2020. I hope to see you there!

Usagi: In the name of the Moon, I’ll punish you!

Quotes from the film’s staff:

Chiaki Kon: I think we all, including myself, have been long time fans of Sailor Moon and I’m incredibly honored to continue my work from [Sailor Moon Crystal] season 3 on into season 4 (the Sailor Moon Eternal movie). I really hope to bring all the fine detail in the manga to the big screen.

Kazuyuki Fudeyasu: A long time ago, a young girl once taught me that a star burns brightly in the hearts of us all. It is with great joy that I’ve been offered the chance to write Usagi’s story and I can’t wait to see it come to life on the big screen. My only hope is that the happiness I’ve been granted in this role is somehow conveyed to all of you who see it. I hope a star burns in the hearts of all you as well!

Kazuko Tadano: The first visual I worked on for this, and which was ultimately used for the movie’s announcement, as done in reference to a beautiful pose done by Ms. Takeuchi. It’s incredibly difficult work to bring the adorable features presented in both the 90s anime and the manga together into one work and I went through several mis-starts. I felt worried every time a new character was announced, but I’m always comforted to see all the lovely messages posted online [about the designs]. This is my second time working on the Sailor Moon series, but there are so many characters that are new to me that I feel like I’m starting fresh. I’ll do my best, and thanks for cheering me on!

Kotono Mitsuishi: I’m really glad to have the opportunity to get all the cast together and see each other once again. You can really tell the love that the anime team has put into this movie. I’m looking forward to seeing the Sailor Soldiers running around up on the big screen once again!

Misato Fukuen: It continues! And as a movie! I’ve been looking forward to this ever since I first heard about it. Plus, since this will be the Dead Moon arc, that means that an character important to ChibiUsa will make an appearance. I’m really looking forward to playing out her character as she deals with her first flitterings of love and starting to mature into an adult. I hope you’re also excited to see the beautiful, adorable, and strong Sailor Soldiers [as they come to the big screen]!

Here’s a music video by Instagram influencer Yuranis León which is called Sailor Moon and has the words Sailor Moon in the lyrics and even has the words Sailor Moon appearing on the screen though I’m not sure what, if anything, it has to do with Sailor Moon.

I don’t think I have a very good explanation for what this is or even who Yuranis León is. As far as I can tell she is an Instagram influencer which I think means she has a popular Instagram account but doesn’t have any sort of “normal” job for which people follow that account other than is just being a very popular account. This is a thing which happens now and I am an old person who does not understand the world I live in. Yuranis León has recently released a music video “Sailor Moon” which is very popular. It has nearly 10 million views on YouTube which is more than many recording artists can hope to get. I suppose this makes her a singer, though her popularity predates this activity as far as I can tell.

So what does this have to do with Sailor Moon? I’m not sure. It seems as if this was a video made by someone who had heard the name Sailor Moon but had no real idea what it was. Everything is pink though Sailor Moon isn’t really about pink things. In the back of the video where Yuranis León spends some time dancing is something which looks like a toy box but this seems to fit more with Barbie than Sailor Moon. If this song had been about Barbie I think it would have worked about as well or maybe a bit better. She has a cat and Sailor Moon also has a cat though this cat doesn’t look much like Luna. The cat does resemble the fluffy white cat Luna from the Toon Makers’ Sailor Moon series though! Could that be a reference? Almost certainly not. Her name is Yuranis which is sort of like Uranus? Not really.

Update:

What do I even tag this in? It doesn’t reference any particular incarnation of Sailor Moon. I’ve chosen “Reference” but I’m not sure there’s even anything that would pass for a Sailor Moon reference in here. It’s just using the words “Sailor Moon”. I can’t really tag it in “Fan Community” because I haven’t seen any evidence that Yuranis León is a fan. I guess she must be to use the name Sailor Moon in this song. Whatever. I watched it. Now you have to watch it. If you have Sailor Moon fan friends who you hate you can send this to them so that they have to watch it too.

Thanks to @JulioDHH on Twitter for spotting this one. He asked fans to flag it and instead I’m sharing this with a bunch of fans which probably isn’t what he would want but here we are. Forgive me Julio!

Sailor Stars – Relationship chart

Sailor Moon Sailor Stars Part 1 was released on DVD and Blu-Ray June 18th but some fans were not pleased with what they got! A relationship chart found in the booklet which is included in the Limited Edition Blu-Ray set refers to Sailor Uranus and Neptune as having a “Friendship”. This was noted by some fans including Erica Friedman of Okazu who wrote an article about it and brought the issue up with Viz directly.

Viz Media responded fairly promptly to the concerns on Twitter and through a statement on their web site. This statement makes it clear! Sailor Uranus and Neptune aren’t friends but partners (that being romantic partners and not a couple of gals selling insurance together).

Sailor Stars – Moonlight Legend lyrics

Though the updated version of that statement clearly addresses the Uranus/Neptune relationship dynamic the original message is all about a problem with the “romaji” lyrics in the booklet. Upon close inspection we see that this is actually a reference to the first words of Moonlight Legend which in the English translation are not translated as “I’m sorry” but left as “Gomen-ne”. This seems like a bit of a non issue all considered. In both cases we can get a bit of context if we look back at past versions of the booklet. supersonicjc did some investigation of earlier versions and found that the lyrics issue had been there since the first season. Looking at past relationship charts and the Sailor Stars chart we can see other issues which I think could use some attention.

Sailor Stars – Updated relationship chart

First we can look at the Sailor Stars relationship chart and see what else is there and what else is missing. I jokingly put together an updated version of the chart (above) with all sorts of ships which I support but this wasn’t meant to be anything serious. Since Usagi and Mamoru are listed as “Love” and not “Friendship” then we see that there is in fact an option for listing romantic love that is more than mere friendship. The obvious choice would be to put Haruka and Michiru with a “Love” connection. It’s also a bit odd that the link is put between Sailor Guardians rather than their civilian identities, as is done with other relationships. Jokes aside there is one legitimate relationship aside from the many couples I like to ship and that is Luna and Artemis. Though their relationship was a long time coming it was first hinted at in Sailor Moon R, cemented in the Sailor Moon S film which is arguably canon and finally confirmed in Sailor Moon SuperS with the arrival of Diana. No doubt Artemis and Luna of the future are in the relationship, but I think it’s safe to consider present day Luna and Artemis to have a “Love” connection as early as Sailor Moon SuperS as well as in this Sailor Stars chart.

Sailor Moon S – Relationship chart

Looking at past relationship charts we see fairly similar things. Sailor Uranus and Neptune are not in Sailor Moon SuperS and so they aren’t in that chart. They are introduced in Sailor Moon S and that chart lists them not as “Friendship” or “Love” but rather as “Partners”. This is technically true but they are also, obviously, much more than partners. The term “Partner” is sometimes used for gay and lesbian couples in place of gender specific terms such as “boyfriend and girlfriend” or “husband and wife” for a number of reasons. It distinguishes the platonic “I’m going out with my girlfriends” from the “I had a hot date with my girlfriend”. Guy don’t often use “boyfriend” in this non romantic sense but we’re not talking about boys here. It’s gender neutral use can also potentially mask the nature of someone’s same sex relationship in a social or professional situation where it’s unknown how others may feel about the term. The term “Partner” could also be preferred by some gay and lesbian couples as it sounds more serious than boyfriend or girlfriend for committed couples who due to whatever legal issues in their country may not be able to marry. So much to say the Sailor Moon S chart should have used “Love” for Sailor Uranus and Neptune as they used for Usagi and Tuxedo Mask. Why it isn’t Usagi and Mamoru or Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask I can’t say I understand. The term “Partners” is exclusively used to describe Sailor Uranus and Neptune in the Sailor Moon S chart where others who are described by the term in other charts, such as Usagi and Luna, are listed as “Friendship” on this one which was likely intentional.

Sailor Moon SuperS – Relationship chart

Other couples listed in the Sailor Moon S chart, as well as others, are not romantically linked at all. This includes Usagi’s parents Ikuko and Kenji who are only linked through their children. They are present in the Sailor Moon R, S and SuperS charts and in none of these are they shown to be in “Love” or in any way romantically involved. Naru and Umino are also in the R, S and SuperS charts. Though their relationship grows gradually throughout the series one can not deny that they are in a full on relationship in Sailor Moon S and SuperS, if not earlier, with the first indication of their romance dating back to the first season. They are linked only through mutual “Friendship” to Usagi (listed as “Best Friend” and “Friend” in Sailor Moon R) as well as mutual “Teacher/Student” links to Haruna.

Sailor Moon R – Relationship chart

There are others “Lovers” listed in the Sailor Moon R chart, a term unique to that season’s chart, which includes sibling lovers An and Ail as well as Saphir and Petz. The abusive relationships such as Koan and Rubeus or Esmeraude and Demande are not reflected, which is probably for the best.

The term “Partner” which doesn’t appear elsewhere on the Sailor Moon S chart also appears in many places on the Sailor Moon R chart. This includes Luna and Usagi, Luna and Artemis as well as Artemis and Minako. In this sense the usage is not a romantic one, though a case could be made for two of those three couples, but rather in the sense that they are partners in their roles as superheroes.

What does all of this, taken together, tell us? There are a number of relationships in the series which are not acknowledged in these charts. While I can see the concern over Haruka and Michiru’s relationship being downplayed in this way, it’s hard to see how it could have been deliberate “LGBTQ Erasure” as the Okazu blog post puts it, though that text does suggest that “mere lazy editorial decisions” may be the reason. The new dub of Sailor Moon, with this new Sailor Stars dub specifically having a lot of relevant dialogue, makes it very clear that these two are not just friends but lesbians in a romantic relationship. This is an older relationship in which their sexual activities are hinted at as heavily in the dub as they were in the Japanese version. It isn’t something that is, or needs to be, spelled out in black and white but there’s little doubt as to what is going on. As Usagi enters high school in Sailor Stars she suggest, quite awkwardly, that her and Mamoru could take things to the next level, somethings which never happens in the anime. It is clear that Haruka and Michiru already have this more mature relationship between them. Viz has generally stayed true to their commitment to portray this relationship as honestly as the source material did and this relationship chart is at odds with this. It isn’t the 90s anymore and the industry and audience are more permissive about having LGBTQ characters in their fiction, for which we should all be grateful. Whatever the reason for which this occurred, we should be glad that Viz is acknowledging and correcting this oversight.

First season – Moonlight Legend lyrics

As for the song lyrics, this really seems like a non issue. If this was such a big deal would someone perhaps have caught the error the last four times these lyrics were included in a booklet? Going back to the first season we see this same error of not translating their first two words of “Moonlight Legend” occurred in every single release. I seriously doubt Viz will be going back and issuing reprints of five different booklets just because of this problem!

If you’re interested in getting this set, be it the Limited Edition with this booklet or any other version, consider supporting the site by buying it through the Amazon links below.

Keep reading for more images showing the exact same lyric error with every booklet.

First season – Moonlight Legend lyrics

First season – Moonlight Legend lyrics

Sailor Moon R – Moonlight Legend lyrics

Sailor Moon R – Moonlight Legend lyrics

Sailor Moon S – Moonlight Legend lyrics

Sailor Moon S – Moonlight Legend lyrics

Sailor Moon SuperS – Moonlight Legend lyrics

Sailor Moon SuperS – Moonlight Legend lyrics

Sailor Stars – Moonlight Legend lyrics

Sailor Stars – Moonlight Legend lyrics