An in depth look at the Sailor Moon Eternal magazine

Sailor Moon Eternal Magazine - Front and back covers

The Sailor Moon Eternal magazine which we posted about last week was released on December 24th. Now that I’ve gotten my hands on a copy, and taken many photos of it, I’m prepared to share some thoughts on it. I’m very happy with this magazine! For the price this really is a great value. The magazine costs only 550 Japanese yen, a bit over $5 US, and includes 32 full colour pages with photos of Sailor Moon Eternal as well as other series from throughout the years. Don’t accept the photos I am sharing as substitutes for the real thing and pick a copy up for yourselves if you can. If you happen to live in Japan this is probably easy enough though international fans will find that the shipping cost for such an inexpensive item is significant, as was the case for me when I ordered my copy from Amazon Japan.

I’ll include photos of all pages of this magazine. These aren’t the best they could be as I don’t own a scanner anymore and because I’m in the middle of a move my camera is in a box somewhere. These were taken with my iPhone and edited to create smaller files. If anyone would like a close up photo of anything in this magazine let me know and I’ll see what I can do.

Sailor Moon Eternal Magazine - Front cover - Sailor Saturn, Pluto, Uranus and Neptune

First off is the cover, which is quite beautiful. Note that this is the online exclusive cover featuring Sailor Saturn, Pluto, Uranus and Neptune with Chibi Moon on the back. There is also a cover which is sold in stores in Japan which features Sailor Moon on the cover and Sailor Mercury, Mars, Jupiter and Venus on the back. I was surprised at just how big this was! This is much larger than a magazine and is probably more like a special edition newspaper. The paper quality isn’t the best and there is no binding. These are just loose sheets so the item came packaged in a sealed plastic bag. As indicated on the cover this magazine is released by Sponichi also known as Sport Nippon. Why is a daily sports magazine releasing a Sailor Moon magazine? Not sure!

Sailor Moon Eternal Magazine - Pages 2 and 3 - Interview with Nanao, the voice of Nehelenia

Pages 2 and 3 feature a two page interview with Nanao, a Japanese actress and model who will be providing the voice of Nehelenia in the films.

Sailor Moon Eternal Magazine - Pages 4 and 5 - Interview with Naomi Watanabe, the voice of Zirconia

Next is a two page interview with Japanese comedian Naomi Watanabe who will be providing the voice of Zirconia.

Sailor Moon Eternal Magazine - Pages 6 and 7 - Character bios

The following two pages include bios for all of the Sailor Guardians as well as Tuxedo Mask and Helios. The ordering of these, as well as some other elements in this magazine, strikes me as a bit odd. Anyone who reads manga will realize that Japanese is written “backwards” as compared to what is seen in the west where panels will be read from right to left and top to bottom. These bios however are sorted from left to right starting with Sailor Moon in the top left and ending with lowly Helios in the bottom right. All the while the Sailor Mercury transformation sequence at the top of the pages goes from right to left.

Sailor Moon Eternal Magazine - Pages 8 and 9 - The Dead Moon Circus, Chibiusa and Pegasus

Page 8 shows us the Dead Moon Circus with Nehelenia, Zirconia, the Amazon Trio and the Amazoness Quartet. Page 9 has Chibiusa and Pegasus with an overview of the film’s story.

Sailor Moon Eternal Magazine - Pages 10 and 11 - Interview with Kotono Mitsuishi, the voice of Usagi, and Momoiro Clover Z

Page 10 is an interview with Kotono Mitsuishi, the voice of Sailor Moon, and it also includes a few images from the film, most of which we’ve seen in better quality at this point. Page 11 has information about Momoiro Clover Z and Moon Color Chainon, the theme for the film. It also includes some other staff information.

Sailor Moon Eternal Magazine - Pages 12 and 13 - Usagi and Mamoru's Miracle Romance

Pages 12 and 13 are layed out like newspaper clippings telling the story of Usagi and Mamoru’s “Miracle Romance”. This features images from earlier in the Sailor Moon Crystal series.

Sailor Moon Eternal Magazine - Pages 14 and 15 - Sailor Moon Cafe Ad and Sailor Moon's History Map

Page 14 is an ad for the Sailor Moon Cafe. Page 15 is half of a fold out which I’ll explain below.

Sailor Moon Eternal Magazine - Sailor Moon's History fold out

This Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon’s History fold out is the back side of the centerfold which is actually pages 15 and 18. This shows a timeline of the various incarnations of Sailor Moon spanning manga, anime and musicals. Even the often forgotten live action series gets a mention! The final piece in the history is a poster for the Sailor Moon Prism On Ice show which we hope to see soon!

Sailor Moon Eternal Magazine - Pages 16 and 17 - Centerfold - Small Worlds Tokyo Map

The centerfold for the magazine is a two page spread of the Small Worlds Tokyo exhibit which included a mini version of Tokyo as seen in Sailor Moon. This features some side by side photos of real locations in Tokyo compared to scenes from Sailor Moon Eternal!

Sailor Moon Eternal Magazine - Pages 18 and 19 - Sailor Moon's History and VR Dream Flight Ad

Page 18 is the other half of the Sailor Moon’s History fold out and Page 19 has an ad for VR Dream Flight which is an event I haven’t posted about but probably should have. This is a Virtual Reality experience which lets fans fly around Tokyo with Pegasus, Chibiusa and Sailor Moon.

Sailor Moon Eternal Magazine - Pages 20 and 21 - All manga covers

Pages 20 and 21 show us every single manga cover released in Japan! This includes four full releases and the first two covers of the new colour versions.

Sailor Moon Eternal Magazine - Pages 22 and 23 - Moon Color Chainon Ad and a weird Q&A chat thing

Page 22 is an ad for the Moon Color Chainon CD/Blu-ray releases which are coming on January 13th. These are still not in stock on Amazon Japan so I’m hoping that gets resolved in the next couple of weeks. Page 23 is a weird thing which I can’t quite figure out. It seems to be a fake group chat between various Sailor Moon characters though I’m not sure who’s who or what’s going on.

Sailor Moon Eternal Magazine - Pages 24 and 25 - Sailor Moon Eternal Ad and Four Choices Quiz

Page 24 is an ad for a Sky Garden Sailor Moon Eternal event which will include a screening of the film, a shop, a cafe and the VR event. Page 25 has a quiz where there are four choices each. Again the order of these question is a bit odd, reading left to right. Some of these are very easy but I’m frankly stumped by question 7 which asks which character is Phobos. Perhaps it will be obvious what colour Phobos and Deimos are in the film but as it currently stands there is only conflicting evidence of this from manga art book sources.

Sailor Moon Eternal Magazine - Pages 26 and 27 - Konica Minolta Planetarium

Pages 26 and 27 are ads for the Konica Minolta Planetarium where fans will be able to take their photo with a Sailor Moon poster, buy Sailor Moon themed drinks at the cafe as well as other merchandise.

Sailor Moon Eternal Magazine - Pages 28 and 29 - Merchandise

Pages 28 and 29 show tons of Sailor Moon merchandise which is available for sale from various retailers.

Sailor Moon Eternal Magazine - Pages 30 and 31 - Colouring Page and 3coins Ad

Page 30 has a colour page based on the Nehelenia poster. I’m not sure the paper can be drawn on terribly well but I’m not about to let my children loose on this thing to test that theory out! Page 31 is an ad for 3coins which is a store which is selling a number of fairly inexpensive Sailor Moon products.

Sailor Moon Eternal Magazine - Back cover - Super Chibi Moon and the Index

Finally the back cover of the magazine shows Super Sailor Chibi Moon!

All in all I really think this is a great magazine. It’s full of ads, yes, but they’re all Sailor Moon ads. For the low price point this is a fun collectible for fans to check out. Below I’ve included a few more close up images of some things in this magazine.

Sailor Moon Eternal Magazine - Human Artemis

Spoiler! This is Artemis in human form! There was a leak of this image earlier but here is a higher quality version.

Sailor Moon Eternal Magazine - Phobos or Deimos?

Sailor Moon Eternal Magazine - Deimos or Phobos?

Which is Phobos and which is Deimos? Wikimoon mentions that there has been inconsistent evidence of which character is what colour. The two are only ever shown in black and white in the manga so there’s no conclusive evidence there. They are in some of the Sailor Moon art books however in volume IV Phobos is purple and Deimos is red (PIPDIR) while in volume V Phobos is red and Deimos is purple (PIRDIP). Hopefully the film will clear this up once and for all, but will this really settle things conclusively? This reminds me of the controversy in the Transformers fan community where there is a never ending conflict between the cartoon purist FIRRIB camp (Frenzy is red, Rumble is blue) and the toy collecting FIBRIR camp (Frenzy is blue, Rumble is red).

Sailor Moon Eternal Magazine - Pegasus

This is an image of Pegasus in a cage which I shared previously in lower quality.

Sailor Moon Eternal Magazine - Mamoru and Young Usagi

I hadn’t seen this image of Mamoru and young Usagi before so I figured I’d share.

Sailor Moon Eternal Part 1 will be released in theatres in Japan on January 8th 2021 with Part 2 coming shortly afterwards on February 11th. Get caught up with the series before the films are released by using the Amazon links below or streaming the episodes on Crunchyroll or Hulu in the US or on Tubi in Canada. Read the manga stories the film will be based on in volumes 7 and 8 of the Eternal Edition which collects Acts 39, Eclipse Dream, through 49, Earth and Moon Dream, as well as some side stories.


Naomi Watanabe has been revealed as the voice of Zirconia in the Sailor Moon Eternal films

Naomi Watanabe as Zirconia

Following Tuesday’s teaser clip of Zirconia we now know that the voice for that character will be none other than Japanese comedian and actor Naomi Watanabe. A Twitter contest was run asking fans to give their guess as to who the voice actually was and, as we reported earlier this week, many of them were right in guessing that this was actually Naomi Watanabe! She is a big fan of Sailor Moon as you can see by the Super Sailor Moon costume which she is wearing in the photo above.

Sailor Moon Eternal - Zirconia

I had previously mentioned Naomi Watanabe in passing when announcing that she would be in The Promised Neverland live action adaptation along with live action Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon star Keiko Kitagawa who played Sailor Mars in the series. Earlier this week, on September 7th, Keiko Kitagawa gave birth to a baby girl!

Keiko Kitagawa as Mama Isabella in The Promised Neverland

Sailor Moon Eternal Part 1 will be released in theatres in Japan on January 8th 2021 with Part 2 coming shortly afterwards on February 11th. We still don’t have any details about a release outside of Japan but we will be sure to share any such information as we get it. What do you think of this casting? Could you tell that it was Naomi Watanabe based on the clip? Which of her previous works have you enjoyed?

A clip of Zirconia from Sailor Moon Eternal is released as part of a contest to have fans guess her voice actor

Sailor Moon Eternal - Zirconia

We’ve finally gotten our first look at Zirconia from the upcoming film Sailor Moon Eternal Part 1 and it comes with a challenge for fans to identify her voice actor. I’ll admit that my ear for distinguishing Japanese voices isn’t good enough to be able to make a decent guess at who this is. Have a listen to the clip on Twitter or embedded below to hear for yourself.


Do you recognize the voice? If so, give us your guess as to what that might be in the comments below or on social media. Fans are asked to post their guess to Twitter using the hashtags #劇場版セーラームーン and #ジルコニアの声優は誰だ which translate roughly to “Sailor Moon The Movie” and “Who is the Zirconia voice actor?”. You’ll probably want to Tweet in Japanese to have a chance of having it be seen! Three correct guesses will be given a Sailor Moon Eternal movie poster.

Naomi Watanabe

A quick look at those hashtags suggests that many Japanese fans are guessing that this is the voice of Naomi Watanabe, a popular Japanese comedian and actress. Her distinctive laugh seems to be what’s making people guess this. We will learn if this is correct on Friday!

The Sailor Moon Eternal Part 1 will be released on January 8th 2021 with Part 2 coming out a month later on February 11th. With the reveal of Zirconia it looks like the main characters from the first film have all been seen.

Keiko Kitagawa to star in a live action adaptation of The Promised Neverland manga

Keiko Kitagawa as Mama Isabella in The Promised Neverland

Keiko Kitagawa, best known to Sailor Moon fans as Sailor Mars from the live action Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon series, will be in yet another live action adaptation of a popular manga and anime series. She will be in the upcoming The Promised Neverland movie as the character Isabella, also known as Mama. The series is about a group of children in a mysterious orphanage where Isabella is their caregiver. This takes place in the distant future where the orphanage, the only world they know, is part of some nefarious plot. I guess that means they’re not actually going to Neverland. Would it be rude to suggest this is similar to the plot of The Island? I haven’t read or seen the series but it seems like Keiko Kitagawa’s character is potentially a villain in this.

The Promised Neverland - Isabella

The casting for the film has already caused some controversy as the character or Krone will be portrayed by a Japanese actress, Naomi Watanabe, though the character in the manga and anime is black. This is an interesting controversy given the recurring backlash when white actors are cast in Hollywood adaptations of Japanese franchises such as Scarlett Johansson in Ghost in the Shell.

The Promised Neverland - Live Action

The movie will be released in Japan on December 18th. There are no details about a North American release at this time. Fans looking to check out the anime can watch the first season on Crunchyroll, FunimationNow, Hulu or Hidive. Are any of you fans of the manga and anime series? Will you be checking out this movie when it’s released?

The Promised Neverland

Source: Sports Hochi via Anime News Network