Sailor Moon Eternal Part 1 review

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 1 - The Amazoness Quartet

The Sailor Moon Eternal films are both streaming on Netflix worldwide, outside of Japan, and it’s been nearly six years since I’ve been able to do a review of Sailor Moon Crystal content! Here are my thoughts on the first of the two film. These are usually about 25% story recap, 70% silly observations and jokes and 5% actual review type thoughts.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 1 - The Amazon Trio

As with the rest of the Sailor Moon Crystal series these movies are a very faithful adaptation of the manga source material. As Sailor Moon SuperS is the anime season that probably varies the most from the manga, fans will probably find the differences considerable while those who’ve read the manga will find this all very familiar. The main difference in this story would be the relative unimportance of the Amazon Trio who dominate the first half of the Sailor Moon SuperS season, acting as pick up artists for young women, older women and boys. In this film like with the manga they aren’t much more than monsters of the week. Easily discarded.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 1 - Mamoru's green jacket

The movie isn’t billed as a Sailor Moon Crystal movie, though that’s obviously what it is. It isn’t really standalone. Fans of the Sailor Moon Crystal TV and web series will of course be happy to see this continuation of the story they’ve been following. I have to wonder how many fans of the old 90s anime will see these movies appear on Netflix and check them out without having much context. These aren’t anything like the Sailor Moon R, S and SuperS movies from the 90s, standalone stories with little connection to the TV series. That said these movies do present a single story arc which begins and ends with these films. Sure we may not know where Chibiusa comes from or how everyone got their powers but we can more or less follow the story of the Dream arc without needing that back story. Part 2 will have more issues here with the Infinity arc backstory for Haruka, Michiru, Setsuna and Hotaru being particularly important. It’s really mostly an issue of background on characters. One Letterboxd review, for example, asked if the child (Chibiusa) wants to boink (engage in sexual relations with) her dad (Mamoru). I think to anyone who’s familiar with either the original anime series or Sailor Moon Crystal this much, in less graphic terms, is pretty much assumed! So much to say it does seem that some people are coming into these movies fresh and these are the types of questions which must be coming up.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 1 - Usagi watches the eclipse

The film starts more or less where we left off. A roughly six month gap occurred during Act 38 and then, in an instant which lasted almost five years in the real world, the movie starts. It actually rewinds a bit and recaps a bit from Act 38 which wasn’t in the first Dreams manga arc. The gang are in the park to view an eclipse during which they see Pegasus. A note on casting here. While almost all of the Sailor Moon Eternal English voice cast are actors reprising their roles either from earlier seasons of Sailor Moon Crystal or the Sailor Moon SuperS dub of the original Sailor Moon anime the voice actor for Pegasus/Helios is a different actor. This wasn’t a huge surprise. Chris Niosi voiced Pegasus in Viz’s dub of the original Sailor Moon anime a few years ago. Since then he was target of some abuse allegations and, following his own admission of his role in such and other events, he was recast in many of the roles which he had been working on. Brian Beacock takes over as Helios in this series. Since the character did not previously appear in Sailor Moon Crystal this isn’t technically a recasting of the role however this is an outlier with most other actors returning. Brian Beacock previously voiced Ail/Seijurou in Viz’s dub of Sailor Moon R!

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 1 - Mamoru, Chibiusa and Usagi in bed

The girls find a couple of kaleidoscope toys which Mamoru is disappointed to have to buy. These are about $10 which is certainly more expensive than some cheap kaleidoscopes but considerably cheaper than the replica kaleidoscope toy which sells in Japan for roughly $300 US! I guess Mamoru got a real deal there, not to mention they end up being magical items. Not wanting to open up a rift in time and space in the middle of a crowded park the girls opt to spend the night at Mamoru’s, something which is hardly new to either of them. While going to bed Chibiusa and Usagi both wish they were the opposite’s age and if anyone of you grew up in the 80s and 90s I’m sure you’ve seen how this movie plays out!

Sailor Moon SuperS Special - Lilica Hubert

Chibiusa protests going to bed. This is a habit I am very familiar with as I have two children, the oldest of which was conceived around the time of the last episode of Sailor Moon Crystal. No relation between those events. She asks Mamoru for a story saying that she used to get these from her parents back in the future. The examples she gives are stories about robots and vampires. Wow! Are these real stories??? I suppose technically the Droids from Sailor Moon R are like robots but I wouldn’t describe them as such and those come from the future. Vampires? In the manga we get a side story about a vampire girl named Lilica. It seems unlikely Chibiusa’s parents told her this story as it’s one that Chibiusa herself experienced, unless they’re really trying to mess her up by telling her stories about her own future which took place in their past. Time travel!

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 1 - Chibiusa wakes up

So Pegasus shows up looking for a maiden with beautiful dreams and a major plot point here is that we don’t really know if the Princess is Minako or Usagi. Sorry we don’t know if the maiden is Chibiusa or Usagi. At this point we think it’s Chibiusa. Pegasus appears with sound effects that seem right out of Sailor Moon SuperS! An odd choice.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 1 - Usagi and Chibiusa encounter a tiger

The next morning there’s a tiger loose in the Juban shopping district. What an odd problem that does not on the surface appear to be related to any sort of evil villain at all. It’s been six months since the Death Busters were defeated and it’s evident that neither Sailor Moon, Chibi Moon or any other Sailor Guardians have transformed since. For some reason instead of leaving this escaped circus tiger problem to animal control or maybe the local police the girls decide that they should of course transform? Are they actually equipped to fight a tiger? If they happened upon a bank robbery would they just transform and take down the robbers? Does this mean that, to be consistent with their behaviour, they should monitor a police scanner and fight crimes like Batman? The whole situation seems odd. Anyway it doesn’t work since the grail isn’t around because Sailor Uranus, Neptune and Pluto aren’t there. Luckily they get some new transformation broaches which is good because animal control still hasn’t shown up.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 1 - Big Chibiusa and Small Usagi

They transform into Super Sailor Moon and Super Sailor Chibi Moon right away. No two stages of transformation needed at this point. Convenient! They get a bunch of news toys. Chibi Moon gets a bell that makes the SuperS sound effect and they both have their $10 kaleidoscopes transform into Kaleidomoon scopes. They fight a could of the Amazoness Quartet, who unlike the Amazon Trio are the main villains of this story arc, and PallaPalla swaps their ages, with hilarious consequences!

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 1 - Small Usagi and Big Chibiusa

I feel like the age swap, in the manga and in this movie, was oddly brief. It could be a major plot point with serious consequences. Instead it’s treated a bit as a joke and a bit of “be careful what you wish for” type wisdom which really is silly since people can’t wish for things. Mamoru and Usagi have this really weird moment where they express how awkward their age difference is. It seems there’s a limit to the age gap! Older Chibiusa seems to have some sort of revelation that she can’t hook up with her father. The two seem concerned and frustrated trying to find a solution which turns out to be … just transform again? Really no one tried this? So we’re okay with transforming to be scabs for animal control but when their fundamental ability to fight an active threat in town is in question they don’t even test their transformations? A bit weak! Seeing young Usagi is nice, though we will see her again later, and seeing not evil older Chibiusa is kind of cool.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 1 - Big Chibiusa and young Usagi

Then things really start to seem like a series of episodes and we cut from one character’s story to another. The manga frequently does this in a number of arcs, having a story focus on a certain character. This works well when they are broken up into individual comic acts or TV episodes. In the movie however it’s very obvious that these are a number of stories stitched together. I appreciate the faithfulness to the source material but there is a down side. These aren’t totally contained, with the age swap story bleeding into the Ami’s family sucks story and such, but we can see the obvious separation.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 1 - Ami's parents

First up is Sailor Mercury and her terrible parents! Ami’s mother works too hard and is never home. This isn’t totally horrible. One can hardly expect a single mother to quit her job so that she can spend more time with her daughter, who’s out studying and fighting crime most of the time anyway, but it does seem like Ami has a rough home life. Ami’s socially awkward mother happens to be the significantly better parent as her hippie father just took off for not so clear reasons, sent some divorce papers in the mail and doesn’t seem to want to have much to do with his daughter. He makes hollow gestures like sending her paintings of fish which does little to make up for his lack of support. Perhaps if he paid child support Ami’s mother wouldn’t have to work graveyard shifts most nights. Ami meets little fairy Mercury, learns a bit about herself and gets these little shoulder pads. Shoulder pads were bit in the 90s but in 2021 no one really has shoulder pads anymore.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 1 - Pegasus kisses Chibiusa

Meanwhile Chibiusa has this whole weird thing with Pegasus who spends a lot less time under the pretence of being a horse in this continuity. We’re pretty late in Sailor Moon SuperS before we discover that this horse Pegasus is actually a dude named Helios but in this continuity we learn it pretty quickly. We don’t really think of him as Pegasus for long. We have the humourous scene where Chibiusa kisses a horse but then he turns into Helios. Whatever. At least she’s not making out with her dad again.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 1 - Rei's sexy grandpa

On to the next “episode” of our lives. It’s Rei’s turn! Her grandfather is sick and hot damn, he’s gorgeous! Fans of the original 90s Sailor Moon anime will recall Rei’s grandfather as a creepy old man who lusted after teenaged girls. Sailor Moon Eternal Rei’s grandfather, who looks somewhat like his manga counterpart, is a hunk! He has grey hair but still looks quite fit and youthful. I bet original anime Rei’s grandpa would have had more luck with the ladies if he looked like this! Someone has mentioned that he looks like Colonel Sanders in the parody dating sim I Love You, Colonel Sanders! and I think that fits perfectly. Superficial signs of age but still a youthful appearance. It’s like those men’s clothing catalogues that get young models with their hair died grey to wear their clothes.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 1 - A mirror that doesn't reflect

Rei wanders into a house of mirrors and is really amazed that one of the mirrors isn’t reflecting an image. Is this really that weird? Isn’t that just like… a piece of glass? Or even a wall? Non reflective surfaces are by far the norm in the natural and unnatural world but Rei assumes this is… magic? Super weird.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 1 - Deimos and Phobos

We see a young and cute Rei meeting Phobos and Deimos for the first time. She can converse with them somehow and instantly knows their names. We get the humanoid Phobos and Deimos reveal which is something I’ve posted about extensively over the past six months but that still was considered enough of a spoiler that some dude on Twitter felt the need to publicly announce his unfollowing me for daring to reveal this 25 year old information. As I’d mentioned before there was always some confusion over the colours, which had been settled when the movies were released. As we see here Phobos is the fairy on the right, who is dressed in red, while Deimos is the one on the left, dressed in purple.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 1 - Rei and Tiger's Eye

Young Rei is cute but child bride Rei with Tiger’s eye is super creepy. When PUA Tiger’s Eye in the anime goes after mostly teenaged girls it’s a bit weird but when he’s with a full on a child it’s about as awkward as Mamoru and young Usagi!

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 1 - Rei uses a bow right handed Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 1 - Mars Flame Sniper

Finally let me rant a bit about handedness, which will be coming back in the next film. Rei’s Mars Flame Sniper has her pulling back the arrow with her left hand. This is the left handed way to hold a bow. We see young Rei doing archery in this story and she pulls back the arrow with her right hand, the correct way for a right handed person. This seems like a mistake. What’s the issue here? Well it would go back to the 90s anime since many of the transformations and attacks in this movie are nearly identical to the ones we saw in Sailor Moon SuperS! Perhaps the person who animated that attack many years ago simply didn’t know much about archery.

Sailor Moon Crystal Act 17 - Makoto's father was Brock from Pokémon

Sailor Moon Crystal Act 17

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 1 - Makoto's parents

Sailor Moon Eternal Part 1

Makoto is the next to power up. The most notable change since the last Jupiter episode is the photo of her parents. We originally saw this during the Black Moon arc where I couldn’t help but notice that her late father looked suspiciously like Brock from Pokémon. We see this photo again but it’s changed slightly. The frame is different and though her mother and father are posed in the same way her father’s hair is evidently not Brock like at all and they aren’t wearing the same clothes. Why would Makoto have swapped out this photo with a nearly identical one? It’s not like it’s a new photo!

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 1 - Sailor Jupiter slaps Makoto

Hawk’s Eye has set up an herb shop which Makoto is drawn to. She gets slapped by her little fairy Sailor Jupiter thing and then gets a weird crown of oak leaves, which leads to her power up and shoulder pads. If they’d had acid washed jeans as part of their power ups do you think we’d still be using them as part of their uniforms in newer incarnations?

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 1 - Mamoru coughs

Meanwhile we learn more about Helios who comes from Elysion which I suspect could be in the Hollow Earth but I’ll discuss that more at length in my Part 2 review. Mamoru is sick, couching up blood. It’s a bit troubling to see characters with an infectious lung disease given the ongoing pandemic. This is all caused by magic since Mamoru has a black rose inside of him but that doesn’t really explain why others are catching this disease or why Mamoru seems to be the only one who remains sick.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 1 - Artemis gazes at Minako lovingly

Finally, Minako still doesn’t have her shoulder pads and for whatever reason all of the other girls sort of assume she should have them. This whole plot reminds me a bit of how in Sailor Moon S of the original anime Minako was the last to be targeted for her Pure Heart and she felt self conscious about it. A scene where Artemis is staring at Minako in the shower is cut down for the film. Originally Diana mentions the way he’s looking at her which upsets Luna. I suppose the film is trying to downplay the Artemis/Minako shipping.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 1 - Human Artemis

Minako decides she wants to be an idol, which is the plot of another handful of original anime episodes, and this seems to be done via an MXC style competition which is extremely dangerous. Indeed Minako ends up falling to her death saved only by Artemis who turns human! This is one of the big spoilerish reveals of the movies! We’d seen Human Luna before but this is the first time we see animated Human Artemis! As a change from the manga we see the end of Minako’s story and her transformation and new attack. This moves the scenes showing us what has been going on with Hotaru, Haruka, Michiru and Setsuna to the second film.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 1 - Human Artemis and Sailor Venus

Roll credits! I can’t read any of this but it’s worth noting that Moon Color Chainon, the theme song for Sailor Moon Eternal, plays here in the credits. I expected it would be the opening theme (and may even have claimed that it was) so I was a bit surprised to see these movies don’t have actual openings. Next is Watashi-tachi ni Naritakute or Wanting To Be Together With You which is a cover of the first ending theme for Sailor Moon SuperS, which seems fitting here. This particular version is performed by Sailor Moon veteran Yoko Ishida.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 1 - Hotaru

There’s a brief post credits scene which shows us Hotaru and gives us a hint at what we’ll see next!

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 1 - Ami, Rei and Makoto

All around I enjoyed the first film, despite some sort of odd pacing that isn’t really meant to be told in movie format. I might have preferred to see this as a series of episodes which would have had a slightly longer run time but perhaps the animation wouldn’t have been as good in that case. This movie looks great and is a considerable improvement on what we saw in the first 26 episodes. It’s very difficult for me to think of this as one single movie as I was able to, along with every else who first saw these films on Netflix, watch both parts at once. If I saw this in theatres would I have been annoyed at having to wait until the next part? I don’t know. In Japan the time between the two films was barely more than a month.

What did you think of the movie? Let us know in the comments! I’ll get to posting a Part 2 review at some point.

Keep reading for more screenshots from this film.

Continue reading

Phobos is Red, Deimos is Purple

Sailor Moon Eternal - Phobos is Red, Deimos is Purple

An age old controversy may have finally been answered as the Sailor Moon Eternal film has weighed in on the issue of the colour of Phobos and Deimos’s clothes! Phobos and Deimos are Rei’s crows. In the Dreams arc of the manga, and the first Sailor Moon Eternal film, we see their humanoid fairy forms. A quiz in the Sailor Moon Eternal magazine, which I posted photos of recently, asked which character was Phobos and which was Deimos. The only noticeable difference between the two is the colour of their clothes. So which is it? The answer has been a mystery until now. The Sailor Moon Eternal film, now in theatres, settles it. Phobos is red and Deimos is purple!

Sailor Moon Eternal - Sailor Mars

Twitter user @oozorakeroko2 posted that the answer as to what colour they were had been answered in the film but did not not state what that was! Earlier today Twitter user @KrissyDiggs shared a few photos of a promo packet which she got at a screening of the film. One such photo was a bio for Sailor Mars which included a colour image of Phobos and Deimos with their names under it. She then posted a close up photo of the two. The caption suggests that Phobos is red and Deimos is purple!

Sailor Moon Eternal - Deimos and Phobos

Why do I state that this mystery has been going on for so long? The Sailor Moon manga is black and white so throughout the Dream and Stars arcs in which Phobos and Deimos appear we can never see the colour of their clothing. There are two colour images of the two which have been drawn by Naoko Takeuchi and those gives conflicting information.

Sailor Moon Original Picture Collection Vol. IV - Phobos is Purple, Deimos is Red

The first such image, seen in the February 1996 issue of Nakayoshi and later reprinted in the Sailor Moon Original Picture Collection Vol. IV art book, tells us that Phobos is purple and Deimos is red (PIPDIR).

Sailor Moon Original Picture Collection Vol. V - Phobos is Red, Deimos is Purple

A year later an image from the 1997 issue of Nakayoshi tells a different story. This image was reprinted in the Sailor Moon Original Picture Collection Vol. V art book and states that Phobos is actually red while Deimos is purple (PIRDIP). It seems that Sailor Moon Crystal canon agrees with this later interpretation of their colours. Will this settle the question once and for all or will fans continue to argue about their manga colours for years to come?

Sailor Moon Eternal Magazine - Phobos or Deimos?

Phobos

This whole thing is reminiscent of the Transformers controversy with regards to the colours of Soundwave’s Transforming Mini-Cassettes Frenzy and Rumble. For the toys Frenzy is Blue, Rumble is Red (FIBRIR) while in the animated series Frenzy is Red, Rumble is Blue (FIRRIB).

Sailor Moon Eternal Magazine - Deimos or Phobos?

Deimos

Check out more of @KrissyDiggs’ photos of the movie promo packet including the Dead Moon Circus and some relationship charts, bios for Tuxedo Mask, Helios, Sailor Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, Saturn and Chibi Moon, bios for Sailor Venus, Jupiter, Mars and Mercury and close up photos of the Amazon Trio, the Amazoness Quartet, Phobos and Deimos, Human Artemis and Minako.

Fans can check out scans of the Sailor Moon art books from Sailor Music (Vol. IV, Vol. V) or Miss Dream (Vol. IV, Vol. V).

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.


Here are more stills from the upcoming Sailor Moon Eternal films including human Artemis, Phobos and Deimos

Sailor Moon Eternal - Artemis, Phobos, Deimos and Rei

A few more images from the upcoming Sailor Moon Eternal Part 1 film have made their way online. I stumbled upon a lot of these on social media and don’t have a source on all of them. A few are from Cinemacafe.net and some are scans from the Sailor Moon Eternal magazine which was released today.

Sailor Moon Eternal - Adult Chibiusa and Young Usagi

The significant things here are age swapped Usagi and Chibiusa, a major plot point of the first film, as well as the human version of Artemis, who is usually a cat, as well as Phobos and Deimos, who until now have been crows. There is conflicting evidence in coloured manga images on which one of Phobos and Deimos is red and which is purple, so it’s not clear which is which in these images. I hope we are able to settle this in the film!

Sailor Moon Eternal - Young Usagi kissing Mamoru

Sailor Moon Eternal Part 1 will hit Japanese theatres soon, on January 8th! Part 2 will be out on February 11th. We still don’t have any official confirmation of a release outside of Japan but it seems likely the films will be streamed on Netflix in the future.

Sources: @news_saturn on Twitter, MoonSticks on Facebook, cinemacafe.net, @chibi_rabbit_ on Twitter, @shinpyh on Twitter and Sailor Moon Forums

Keep reading for more images!

Continue reading

Sailor Moon Crystal Volume 3 Deluxe Edition Blu-Ray review

Sailor Moon Crystal Blu-Ray vol. 3 Deluxe Edition

The 3rd Sailor Moon Crystal Deluxe Edition Blu-Ray disk was released on December 10th. Like with the other versions is cames with a number of extras and contains a whopping two whole episodes in 1080 HD. The episodes included are act 5, Makoto – Sailor Jupiter, and act 6, Tuxedo Mask.

Sailor Moon Crystal Blu-Ray vol. 3 Deluxe Edition - Full Cover

The box is quite nice looking as always. This one features Sailor Mars on the cover, even though her introductory episode was in the last set. The square box contains a lot. The Blu-Ray box itself has a full image of Sailor Mars and her crows Phobos and Deimos. The charm included in this set is of Sailor Mars’s transformation item. It goes with the charm bracelet included in volume 1.

Sailor Moon Crystal Blu-Ray vol. 3 Deluxe Edition - Sailor Mars charm

Included in this set is a 20 page full colour booklet featuring episode descriptions, art designs from the episodes and a couple of interview. The first interview is with series writer Yuji Kobayashi and the second is with Rina Sato, the voice of Sailor Mars.

Sailor Moon Crystal Blu-Ray vol. 3 Deluxe Edition - Booklet -

The image quality on this releases is top notch. I tend to watch the Crunchyroll feed because I like the image quality they have. The Blu-Ray version looks better as the image is much more fluid, less choppy. A lot of scenes have been reanimated or touched up with these episodes, and I suspect all episodes will get this same treatment. Act 7 has what I consider to be the worst animation so I’m hoping that episodes gets a good facelift.

Sailor Moon Crystal Blu-Ray vol. 3 Deluxe Edition

Again I would recommend this set only to serious collectors. Unless you’re a real completist you may find it perfectly fine to just watch the streaming version. If you’re curious about the changed scenes there are surely some other ways to get your hands on these episodes. The audio is Japanese only, no subtitles. There are also audio commentaries included on this disk but as I don’t speak Japanese I can’t comment on them. I mentioned in earlier reviews that the Blu-Rays were region A, which covers Japan and North America, but it turns out they are actually region free. The DVDs on the other hand are region 2 so they are not playable in a North American DVD player unless you are lucky enough to have one that isn’t region locked.

Sailor Moon Crystal Blu-Ray vol. 3 Deluxe Edition

You can buy the Deluxe Limited Edition Blu-Ray now for 5194 yen or $43 US (Amazon Japan, CD Japan), or pre-order the regular edition Blu-Ray for 3566 yen or $30 US (Amazon Japan, CD Japan) or DVD for 2722 yen or $23 US (Amazon Japan, CD Japan) which will be released on January 14th.

Keep reading for more images of the packaging including photos of all pages of the included booklet.

Continue reading

“Pretty Guardian Trainer Mars” Sailor Moon/Pokémon shirt for sale today at ShirtPunch

"Trainer Mars" Sailor Moon/Pokémon shirt for sale today at ShirtPunch

This “Pretty Guardian Trainer Mars” shirt, which mixes Sailor Moon and Pokémon, is for sale today and today only at ShirtPunch. This shirt is only $10 but will only be for sale for 24 hours on September 16th. It features Sailor Mars as a Pokémon trainer along with Zoroark, Charmeleon, Chingling and Sailor Mars’s crows Phobos and Deimos as Murkrow.

This is the second in a series of shirts by artist Kinkwink who has previously done a “Pretty Guardian Trainer Venus” shirt which is available at KinkWink’s Redbubble store along with her other past designs. If you missed your chance to pick up this shirt keep an eye on that store. We’ll be sure to let you know when other shirts in this series go on sale.