More evidence has been found that suggests quite strongly that the Sailor Moon Eternal films, the first of which has been released in theatres in Japan, will be released to stream on Netflix outside of Japan. The post in question, which was shared to me by the SailorMoonOoC Twitter account, is a message posted by voice actor Mario Arenas on Facebook. In the post, which is in Spanish, he thanks Netflix for the opportunity to reprise his role as Tuxedo Mask. The original post, which was public at the time when the screenshot was taken, no longer exists and the Facebook profile for Mario Arenas Torres is currently unavailable. I do not speak or read Spanish however I transcribed the message and translated it via Google translate. It isn’t perfect, but it gives us a good idea of what is being said.
The other day life gave me a dubbing (the movie of Sailor moon, character, the lord of the mask). I want to thank Netflix who insisted on finding the original voices for the series; Cecilia Santiago, director of the dubbing that I take on a fly; Carmen from production who treated me like a rock star; to the technician who put all the meat on the grill and finally thanks to Sonygraf.
This pretty clearly indicates that Mario Arenas was reprising the role of Tuxedo Mask for Netflix, who made an effort to use the original voice actors from this Spanish version of the series. Note that this is for the European Spanish version of the dub, from Spain, and not the Latin American version, from Mexico. Mario Arenas provided the voice of Tuxedo Mask for the dubs of Sailor Moon S and SuperS. While he was not involved with the dub of Sailor Stars that series was dubbed in Spanish with Ángel Sacristán recording the few lines Tuxedo Mask has in that season. It’s worth noting that Mario Arenas did not provide the voice of Tuxedo Mask for earlier episodes of Sailor Moon Crystal. That role was done by Gerardo Reyero who was the voice of Tuxedo Mask in Sailor Moon R. Apologies if some of those specifics are incorrect as I’m getting some conflicting sources on some of that information. The important part as it relates to this message is that this recording could only be about the Sailor Moon Eternal films as all other episodes of Sailor Moon and Sailor Moon Crystal had already been dubbed prior to this December 18th Facebook post.
This seems like a pretty compelling piece of evidence. Unfortunately with the post no longer being publicly available I can’t verify its authenticity beyond any doubt. I have seen two different screenshots of it taken at different times which suggests it is authentic. One is from the Twitter post mentioned earlier and the other is from this December 26th Facebook post, which was made at a time when the profile was still public and those seeing the post would be able to verify its authenticity. This is old news to the Spanish speaking world, it seems. The information mentioned in the post is listed on the Anime News Network page for the Sailor Moon Eternal film. I am always cautious to share rumours or unproven claims without the proper context and so I’ve given all of the relevant context and I must say that in this case I’m convinced.
This is of course only relevant to the dub from Spain. What about the English dub? Last month we posted about an American voice actor who shared an image on Instagram which inadvertently showed that he was recording lines for Sailor Moon Eternal and the monitor he was working with had the word Netflix on it. This was following the information on the Screen Actors Guild web site telling us that “Astro Girl” was being dubbed by Netflix. With these strong pieces of evidence telling us that Netflix is doing the English and European Spanish dubs for Sailor Moon Eternal it seems likely that the same will be true for many other languages outside of Japan.
The question of whether or not the movies will be streamed on Netflix seems to have been answered, though we currently have no indication of when this will be. Now that Sailor Moon Eternal Part 1 is out in theatres in Japan a simultaneous release is impossible. The delay in releasing the films on streaming platforms outside of Japan may be an effort to encourage fans to attend screenings in movie theatres. We also don’t know if the movies will be streamed on Netflix in Japan along with the rest of the world. Some official information would be nice right about now!
Additional sources: Sailor Moon (European Spanish dubs) – Sailor Moon Wiki, Mamoru Chiba – Wikipedia (Spanish)