A box set with six recent musicals is coming to DVD and Blu-ray on November 17th

Sailor Moon La Reconquista Musical DVD - Queen Serenity, Sailor Venus, Jupiter, Mars and Moon

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!

The Sailor Moon Le Mouvement Final musical poster, story, cast and schedule have been released

Sailor Moon Le Mouvement Final banner

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.

Sailor Moon Le Mouvement Final banner

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.

Harukawa Meiku - Sailor Star Fighter

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

Riona Tatemichi as Rubeus

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

Saki Matsuda Sailor Star Healer

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

Princess Kakyuu

Princess Kakyuu will be played by 岡村麻未.

Coco Isuzu Sailor Galaxia

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

Aoki Shion - Sailor Iron Mouse

Sailor Iron Mouse will be played by Aoki Shion.

Sailor Tin Nyanko

Sailor Tin Nyanko will be played by 橋垣美佑.

Sailor Aluminum Siren will be played by 小林由佳.

Juri Hirayu - Sailor Lead Crow

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

Hirani Yamaguchi as Chibi Chibi

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?

The Sailor Moon Un Nouveau Voyage musical began today in Japan

Sailor Moon Un Nouveau Voyage Musical - Usagi and Haruka

The new Sailor Moon musical, Sailor Moon Un Nouveau Voyage, began playing today in Japan. The show will run from September 18th to the 25th and then from October 2nd to the 4th. Though the show played in the evening that was in the past in Japan because of this mysterious thing we have call time zones.

Sailor Moon Un Nouveau Voyage Musical - Professor Tomoe and Hotaru

This musical covers the Infinity story arc, which includes the appearance of Haruka, Sailor Uranus, Michiru, Sailor Neptune and Hotaru, Sailor Saturn. The enemies are the Death Busters including Professor Tomoe, Kaolinite, the Witches 5 and Mistress 9. I don’t live in Japan so I haven’t seen the show yet though some images can be found at natalie.mu. I’ve included a few in this post but you should check out the full article for many more. I’ll have more thoughts on the musical once I actually see it.

Sailor Moon Un Nouveau Voyage Musical - DVD info

The DVD for this show, because we still aren’t doing Blu-Rays for musicals, will be available on February 24th in Japan for 7800 yen, about $65 US. As the announcement on the Sailor Moon official site indicates there will also be DVD rereleases of the first two new musicals, La Reconquista and Petite Étrangère. These will be available at the musical and include exclusive covers. The new covers are manga art by Naoko Takeuchi. This is not new art but rather art which was originally included on the jackets of the Sailor Moon Manga.

Sailor Moon Un Nouveau Voyage - Sailor Mars Crepe

There are a lot of exclusive food and drink items available at the show including Sailor Moon themed Crepes and some Sailor Moon Drinks and deserts at the Terrace Café.

Sailor Moon Un Nouveau Voyage - Tuxedo Mask Desert

Have you seen the musical? If so, what did you think?

Sailor Moon Un Nouveau Voyage Musical - Haruka and Michiru

Keep reading for more images from this musical.

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Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Petite Étrangère DVD review

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Petite Étrangère DVD - Cover

The Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Petite Étrangère musical was released on DVD on January 28th in Japan. This is a region 2 DVD so if you’re thinking of getting it, make sure you have a DVD player that you can watch it on. The DVD can be imported from sites like Amazon Japan or CD Japan. It will cost a bit over $50 US plus shipping fees. If you don’t speak Japanese, I’m sure you can find a subtitled version of this musical somewhere.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Petite Étrangère DVD -Disk 1 - Main Menu

The main feature, the musical itself, runs in at 2 hours and 36 minutes. This is the second of the latest round of musicals focusing on the story of Chibiusa, Sailor Pluto, the Black Moon Clan and Crystal Tokyo. Like with the first musical, La reconquista, it features an all female cast, even for the male characters. This DVD only has Japanese audio included and no subtitles so it may not be worth much to English speaking fans. The video quality isn’t great. There is no Blu-Ray and the video is interlaced. I can’t say I feel it’s much different than the feed I watched on Niconico when it was first playing. Judge for yourself with the screenshots below.

Sailor Moon Petite Étrangère musical - Usagi Band

Niconico Version

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Petite Étrangère DVD - Usagi Band

DVD Version

The performance is followed by footage of the cast members speaking to the audience.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Petite Étrangère DVD - Post show speaking to the audience

The second disk includes the special features. Its total duration is 84 minutes and spans many different parts, each of which I will briefly explain. All features are in Japanese only and as I do not speak the language, I can’t say I have a full grasp of the content.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Petite Étrangère DVD - Special Features - Chibiusa highlight

The first bit of footage shows various clips of Chibiusa throughout the musical, first starting with her running around among the audience and going through the entire story. This lasts roughly 15 minutes.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Petite Étrangère DVD - Special Features - Performance in a mall

Next is footage from a July 21st live performance which appears to be taking place at some sort of mall in Japan. The first song performed is Ai No Starshine (Starshine of Love) followed by Moonlight Densetsu, the theme song to the original Sailor Moon anime. As this only covers two songs it runs for about 6 minutes.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Petite Étrangère DVD - Special Features - Interview with Fumio Osano

This is followed by an interview between Fumio Osano, Sailor Moon’s editor also known as Osabu, Satomi Ookubo, the actress who plays Sailor Moon, and Yuga Yamato, the actress who plays Tuxedo Mask. This is a 10 minute interview.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Petite Étrangère DVD - Special Features - Drinking juice for 40 minutes

Next is footage of the 6 actresses who play the Sailor Guardians, Sailor Moon, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, Venus and Pluto, sitting around, drinking juice and chatting for 40 minutes. This is pretty long to watch if you don’t speak any Japanese but I imagine if you know what they’re saying it is much more interesting.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Petite Étrangère DVD - Special Features - The Chibiusas interview people

We then have the two actresses who played Chibiusa, Kokoro Kuge and Airi Kanda, going around and interviewing various other actresses for about 10 minutes. It may not be obvious from the musical itself but yes there are two actresses to play Chibiusa and Sailor Chibi Moon. This is standard for earlier musicals as well.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Petite Étrangère DVD - Special Features - Autograph cards

Finally the last clip is something that I couldn’t quite figure out. It has all actresses from the musical one by one talking while holding what appears to be an autograph card signed by them. I don’t fully understand the purpose of this. Perhaps the cards were part of a giveaway of some kind. This lasts for about 8 minutes as we work our way through all of the actresses.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Petite Étrangère DVD - Booklet - Cover

The packaging is pretty standard for a DVD. It comes with a 26 page booklet which includes character bios and the words to songs from the musical.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Petite Étrangère DVD - Booklet - Page 3 and 4

It’s difficult for me to recommend this DVD to most of my readers. It’s region 2, not playable in most DVD players outside of Japan. It’s in Japanese only and the quality isn’t good enough to be something worth watching raw instead of the decent quality subbed versions available. If you’re a hard core collector of all things Sailor Moon, you’ll probably just buy it anyway as I did.

Keep reading for more images from the menus and photos of the packaging and all pages of the included booklet.

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The Sailor Moon Petite Étrangère musical DVD will be released January 28th

Pretty Guardian Petite Étrangère DVD cover

This coming Wednesday, January 28th 2015, the Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Petite Étrangère musical will be released in Japan. This second musical covers the Black Moon Clan story arc introducing us to Chibiusa, Sailor Pluto and Crystal Tokyo. As with the release of last year’s musical, La reconquista, this DVD is region 2 and will have Japanese audio. Not terribly useful for English speaking fans with region 1 DVD players.

News about this was posted on the Sailor Moon Official site along with the following commercial:

This follows presentations of the Petite Étrangère musical in the Shanghai Theatre Academy in China from January 18th to the 20th.

You can preorder the DVD from Amazon Japan for 6233 yen, which is about $53 US. They ship worldwide, though the fees can be considerable.

Two more videos were posted to the Sailor Moon YouTube channel. One is a digest of various clips from the first day and the other is the “Ai No Starshine” song. Both can be seen below.

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Watch the Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Petite Étrangère musical with English subtitles

Sailor Moon Petite Étrangère musical - Tuxedo Mask kissing Black Lady

Great news for Sailor Moon musical fans. This year’s musical, Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Petite Étrangère, is now available to download with English subtitles. The gang over at Miss Dream have subtitled the streaming feed.

Sailor Moon Petite Étrangère musical - Sailor Pluto and Chibiusa

I posted my thoughts on the musical last week. I’m not likely to do a second review after watching the subbed version so check that out to see how I felt and what I may have missed due to my poor understanding of Japanese.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Petite Étrangère musical first impressions

Sailor Moon Petite Étrangère musical - Tuxedo Mask kissing Black Lady

On Sunday, September 7th, the new Sailor Moon musical Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Petite Étrangère (French for Small Stranger) was broadcast streaming on Niconico. Though the sign up pages are confusing a ticket to watch the live stream can be purchased even from North America. The stream which was previously broadcast live can still be viewed on the Niconico site. Consider viewing it this way to support the musical if you intend on downloading a copy later. For those waiting for a version with English subtitles the gang over at Miss Dream are currently translating it. I watched the stream of the musical on Sunday and although I don’t really understand Japanese I found it easy enough to follow as the story of the Black Moon Clan, Chibiusa, Sailor Pluto and Crystal Tokyo has been told before a few times. My review may include spoilers for events that are mostly known to Sailor Moon fans. It may include mistakes since I may have misinterpreted some events.

Sailor Moon Petite Étrangère musical - Sailor Pluto and Chibiusa

The musical begins with Chibiusa already in the present though the opening scene, which is itself a flashback, shows us the future events in Crystal Tokyo as the Black Moon Clan attack. Neo Queen Serenity, seen in this future, is played by Satomi Okubo, the actress who plays Usagi. At the end of the musical she appears to be played by another actress, likely because the short notice wardrobe change would be tough. Usagi and Chibiusa’s relationship is pretty hostile, as is expected, and Mamoru is trying hard to get along with both, much to Usagi’s frustration.

Sailor Moon Petite Étrangère musical - Chibiusa and Usagi

The Sailor Team is in a rock band of sort named Usagi Band, though Usagi is not present during their performance. There is a new actress, Momoyo Koyama, who plays Sailor Mercury. The rest of the cast is returning. Sailor Mercury, Mars and Jupiter aren’t in the musical a ton as they stay behind while Sailor Moon, Venus and Chibiusa go to the future.

Sailor Moon Petite Étrangère musical - Usagi Band

The Black Moon Clan are not all represented. The four Ayakashi sisters are not in this musical, who’s cast is entirely comprised of women, though Rubeus, Saphire and Prince Demande, all men, do appear along with Esmeraude, the only woman in the Black Moon Clan. My Japanese is not great though it seemed to be insinuated that some, perhaps all, of the Black Moon Clan are actually Droids. If this is the case this is a considerable departure from the Manga.

Sailor Moon Petite Étrangère musical - Black Lady

As expected Wise Man gets his hands on Chibiusa and transforms her into Black Lady. We get a nice inappropriate father/daughter kiss between Tuxedo Mask and Black Lady. Sailor Pluto dies sacrificing herself and this shock causes Black Lady to become young again and transform into Sailor Chibi Moon. In the manga this is what happens though in the anime Chibiusa leaves at the end of Sailor Moon R without having transformed, returning only partway through Sailor Moon S.

Sailor Moon Petite Étrangère musical - Sailor Chibi Moon mourns Sailor Pluto

Back in the present time Chibiusa has a tearful farewell with her friends after which the curtain lowers and the musical is done. Once the performers have all bowed to the audience another small bit follows as Chibiusa, still dressed as Sailor Chibi Moon, gives a letter to Usagi, still dressed as Sailor Moon, explaining that Chibiusa will be returning to complete her training. This letter comes from Usagi’s future self, Neo Queen Serenity. We will likely see Chibiusa continue to be involved in future musicals.

Sailor Moon Petite Étrangère musical - Sailor Moon reads a letter from her future self

Overall I found the musical quite enjoyable. The performances and singing were good. My favourite performance, as with the first musical, was Yuga Yamato as Tuxedo Mask and King Endymion. Check it out if you have a chance, though I would certainly suggest watching last year’s musical, La Reconquista, first.

Keep reading for more screenshots from the musical.

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The Sailor Moon Petite Étrangère musical started in Japan today

Sailor Moon - Petite Étrangère - Black Moon Clan

Today, August 21st 2014, marks the first performance of the new Sailor Moon musical, Petite Étrangère, in Japan. This new musical covers the second story arc, covering the first appearance of Chibiusa, fighting with the Black Moon Clan and traveling to the future city of Crystal Tokyo to meet Sailor Pluto, Neo Queen Serenity and King Endymion. The musical will be running from August 21st to the 31st in Tokyo and then from September 7th to the 9th in Osaka. With the premiere we have gotten some new information about merchandise for the musical and the first international airing of a Sailor Moon musical. Fans must all be wanting to see the musical for themselves but unless they’re in Japan this isn’t possible yet. Fansubbing group Miss Dream has mentioned that they will be subtitling the webcast version during the weekend of September 6th. Indeed Niconico will have a live webcast of the musical on September 7th.

Sailor Moon - Petite Étrangère - DVD preorder incentives

News on the Sailor Moon official site has announced that the DVD of the musical will be released on January 28th 2015. Those who pre-order the upcoming DVD will get some bonuses including 5 cards and an exclusive DVD jacket for the first Sailor Moon Musical, La Reconquista, with art made by Naoko Takeuchi, the creator of the Sailor Moon manga. This is not new art but a mix of existing images. The cards contain images of the new manga cover and the DVD jacket is a reuse of the original cover of the 4th volume of the Sailor Moon Manga. The Sailor Moon Petite Étrangère DVD will cost 7800 yen (about $75 US) and yes, we once again only have a DVD and not a Blu-Ray release of the musical. I was very disappointed with the video quality of the Sailor Moon La Reconquista DVD release and there doesn’t seem to be any indication that your $75 plus shipping costs will be getting you anything better this time around. There are no real specifics on special features at this time, though comparable features to the La Reconquista DVD should be expected.

Sailor Moon - Petite Étrangère - Chibiusa, Mamoru and Tuxedo Mask Puppet

It was also announced today that the Sailor Moon Petite Étrangère musical will be playing in Shanghai China in Janaury of 2015. This is the first time any of the Sailor Moon musicals has played outside of Japan.

Sailor Moon - Petite Étrangère - Sailor Team

And here’s a cool little Easter Egg that may or may not have been intentional. Tuxedo Mask wearing a Canadian Tuxedo as noted by @el_Ramses on Twitter!

Sailor Moon - Petite Étrangère - Tuxedo Mask wearing a Canadian Tuxedo

Keep reading for more images from the musical or find more on the Moon Sticks and SOS Sailor Moon‘s Facebook pages. I’ll have more thoughts on the actual musical once I get a chance to actually see it!

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Ticketing and other info about the Sailor Moon Petite Étrangère musical plus La Reconquista DVD details

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Petite Étrangère musical

The Sailor Moon official site has been updated with a new poster for the upcoming musical Sailor Moon Petite Étrangère! This poster features the cast of the musical including new characters Sailor Pluto and Chibiusa. A pre-sale lottery is starting today and will run until Sunday June 15th. More details about that can be found at this site.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Petite Étrangère musical - Tuxedo Mask

Sailor Pluto will be played by Mikako Ishii, a Japanese model. Chibiusa and Sailor Chibi Moon will be played by Kokoro Kuge, a 10 year old actress, and Airi Kanda, an 11 year old actress. There are two actors playing the role of Chibiusa which was the case for earlier musicals in which she appeared. In keeping with the Sailor Moon La Reconquista musical, this show will have an all female cast. Not shown in this poster but also appearing in this musical are Erika Mahiro as Prince Demande, Sora Manami as Saphir, Riona Tatemichi as Rubeus, Mitsumi Hiromura as Esmeraude and Yui Ito as Black Lady.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon La Requonquista musical DVD cover

The Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon La Reconquista musical which played last September will be available on DVD starting July 9th. You can pre-order it from Amazon Japan (6264 yen or $61 US) or CD Japan (7800 yen or $76 US). The DVD is a 2 disk set including behind the scenes footage and a 24 page booklet. This is a Japanese language DVD which is region coded to play only on Japanese or region free DVD players. Why this isn’t released as a Blu-Ray in 2014 is a mystery to me.

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Sailor Moon Crystal voice actors and character artwork plus new musical information

New character designs for Sailor Jupiter, Sailor Mercury, Sailor Moon, Sailor Mars and Sailor Venus from Sailor Moon Crystal

The Sailor Moon live event featuring new information about the upcoming Sailor Moon musical and Sailor Moon anime is complete and with that we have a great deal of new information. For the new anime, Sailor Moon Crystal, we have some new character art for all five of the main cast as well as the full cast listing. Most notable is the return of Kotono Mitsuishi, the original voice of Sailor Moon from the 1992 Sailor Moon anime, who will be reprising her role as Usagi in Sailor Moon Crystal. This was heavily insinuated at the original event announcing the new anime but now we have official confirmation.

New character designs for Sailor Jupiter, Sailor Mercury, Sailor Moon, Sailor Mars and Sailor Venus from Sailor Moon Crystal

New voice actresses will be joining the show for the voices of Sailor Mercury, Sailor Mars, Sailor Jupiter and Sailor Venus. The new cast will include Hisako Kanemoto as Sailor Mercury, Rina Sato as Sailor Mars, Ami Koshimizu as Sailor Jupiter and Shizuka Ito as Sailor Venus. Click on their names to view their Wikipedia pages and see what roles they’ve done in the past.

The cast of Sailor Moon Petite Étrangère

In addition to the new information about the new Sailor Moon anime Sailor Moon Crystal we also got details about the Sailor Moon musicals! Last September’s new musical, Sailor Moon La reconquista, will be released on DVD on July 9th 2014. Most of the cast, with the exception of Sailor Mercury, will be returning for this summer’s new musical which is titled Petite Étrangère, which is French for “Little Stranger” with the feminine usage of both words leading us to believe we’re talking about Chibiusa. The musical will play in Tokyo from August 21st to the 31st and in Osaka from September 5th to the 7th. The new Sailor Mercury will be played by Momo Koyama.

Here’s a look at all of the new voice actors from Sailor Moon Crystal:

Kotono Mitsuishi, the voice of Sailor Moon from Sailor Moon Crystal

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