The Sailor Moon official site has posted a lot of details about the upcoming Sailor Moon Prism On Ice show which was announced last summer. The event will be taking place June 5th to the 7th at the KOSÉ Shin Yokohama Skate Center in Tokyo. We had previously learned that Evgenia Medvedeva, a Russian figure skater and Olympic medalist, was going to be in the show. We now have confirmation that she will be playing Sailor Moon herself! An article at Oricon includes photos of Evgenia Medvedeva in her Sailor Moon costume! The rest of the cast includes Sailor Mercury, Mars, Jupiter and Venus as well as Tuxedo Mask. The villains are the Dark Kingdom’s Queen Bery, Jadeite, Nephrite, Zoisite and Kunzite. All of the above mentioned characters will be portrayed by figure skaters, most of whom are world class competitive skaters, from around the world.

Also appearing in the musical is Anza as Queen Serenity. Anza is best known to Sailor Moon fans as the first to play Sailor Moon in a Sailor Moon musical. She continued in this role for many years. The other special guest, who’s role is not mentioned, is Kurt Browning. He is a World Champion figure skater who was a well known sports celebrity here in Canada in the 1990s.

The show will also have a voice cast which includes the main cast from Sailor Moon Crystal. Only the Sailor Guardians currently have voice actors listed at this time. This could mean that the show will mainly feature those characters in spoken roles or perhaps the others will be announced at a later time. The details on the site list them as being the voice actors from the Sailor Moon Eternal films. As the Dark Kingdom specific characters will not be in the Sailor Moon Eternal films, they may not have been mentioned for this reason. It may also prove more complicated in booking voice talent from a previous season when there hadn’t been an expectation for them to be reprising their roles in the future.

Music will be by Akiko Kosaka, who has been involved with music in the original Sailor Moon anime, the Sailor Moon Musicals and Sailor Moon Crystal.

A full translated cast list in included below:

Sailor Moon/Usagi Tsukino: Evgenia Medvedeva
Sailor Mercury/Ami Mizuno: Satoko Miyahara
Sailor Mars/Rei Hino: Mirai Nagasu
Sailor Jupiter/Makoto Kino: Alissa Czisny
Sailor Venus/Minako Aino: Becky Bereswill
Tuxedo Mask/Mamoru Chiba: Andrew Poje
Queen Serenity: ANZA
Kunzite: Jason Brown
Jadeite: Takahito Mura
Nephrite: Dylan Moscovitch
Zoisite: Seiya Hashimoto
Queen Beryl: Shinko Sakamaki

Additional skaters: Youji Nakano, Shigeru Matsumura, Koichi Kobayashi, Kohei Yoshino, Yuka Kono, Takana Ito

Special guest appearance: Kurt Browning

Voice cast:

Sailor Moon/Tsukino Usagi: Kotono Mitsuishi
Sailor Mercury/Ami Mizuno: Hisako Kanemoto
Sailor Mars/Rei Hino: Rina Sato
Sailor Jupiter/Makoto Kino: Ami Koshimizu
Sailor Venus/Minako Aino: Shizuka Ito

Other staff:

Screenplay: Takuya Hiramitsu
Choreography: Yuka Sato, Benji Schwimer (Assistant)
Music: Akiko Kosaka, Lunar Eclipse Meeting

As I put the list from the official site through Google Translate some of the names that aren’t hyperlinks may be incorrect. I’ve included Wikipedia links when I found them to give some insight into what those athletes have done.

Are you excited for this event? Will any of you be making the trip to Japan to check out this show in June? Who are you most excited to see?

50 years ago today, on July 21st 1969, was the pinnacle of the Apollo 11 mission in which Neil Armstrong became the first person to walk on the Moon since the fall of the Moon Kingdom, Silver Millennium. Though we don’t know who the first person to ever walk on the Moon was, we know of course that Neil Armstrong was the first to do it in a very long time as there was no one on the Moon when the Apollo Lunar Module made it’s landing on July 20th, except of course if we count the consciousness of Queen Serenity which was uploaded into an advanced Moon Kingdom supercomputer following her death.

One may of course quibble as to whether or not the inhabitants of the Moon Kingdom were in fact human or aliens, with some of them being born on the Moon or other planets. The plaque left by the Apollo 11 crew in 1969 stated quite clearly “Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the Moon July 1969, A. D. We came in peace for all mankind.” While the inhabitants of the Moon Kingdom itself did not come from the Earth, others did. Endymion traveled to the Moon from the Earth to see Princess Serenity and of course Queen Beryl, the Shitennou and the army which accompanied them were all natives from the Earth who set foot and eventually died on the Moon.

Though no women walked on the Moon throughout the time of the Apollo missions, we know that a few have been there since. Sailor Moon and the Sailor Guardians, as well as a couple of cats, all went in the 90s. The specifics vary depending on the canon of course. In the original anime the cats got in a fight with Kunzite while the rest of the girls were in a time warp which somehow landed them on the Moon in the present day, but the manga and Sailor Moon Crystal clearly show them all going to the Moon. Though they may all have been aliens in their previous lives they were reborn to human families as humans on the Earth.

Naturally most biased news coverage of the Apollo 11 mission fails to dwell on the specifics, that they weren’t actually the first people on the Moon. Just like Christopher Columbus was not technically the first person in the Americas we use these kind of simplified versions of history to highlight the great achievements of those involved. Nothing but respect for the hardworking men and women at Nasa who managed to make it from the Earth to the Moon without using some kind of teleportation. That might actually have been a first. Some aliens have been shown to be able to travel interstellar distances in bubbles generated by plants but it isn’t clear if this was ever used to go to the Moon.

We’ve finally got some specifics on the upcoming showings of the Sailor Moon The Super Live musical which will be taking place in New York City and Washington D.C. We also have specifics of who will be involved in the cast which has been dubbed Team America and I have detailed descriptions of those cast members later in the post. The name “Team America” bears an unfortunately and likely unintended resemblance to the all puppet adult film “Team America World Police” by South Park’s Trey Parker and Matt Stone.

First! The dates. The Washington D.C. performance will be on March 24th at 7pm at the Warner Theatre. This will be a full performance of the musical! It was previously announced that the cast of the musical would perform something at the opening ceremonies of the National Cherry Blossom Festival held on March 23rd but the length of those ceremonies made it unlikely the entire musical could be performed during the 90 minute ceremony. Fans in the area will be able to get tickets from Live Nation.

The New York City show will have three performances over two days. The first will be Friday March 29th at 8pm followed by two showing on March 30th at 1pm and 5pm. The musical will be performed at the PlayStation theatre on Broadway in Manhattan New York. That’s right! Sailor Moon is finally returning to PlayStation after a long hiatus following the 1996 Sailor Moon SuperS fighting game for the original PlayStation. Fans can order tickets from AXS.

Now a word on the cast! Previously the Sailor Moon The Super Live Musical was performed by three different casts in Japan, those being the ❤ Pink Heart Cast, the ◆ Yellow Diamond Cast and the ♪ Blue Musical Note Cast. We had previously posted those casts list in earlier posts here on the site. So which Team is it that’s making up Team America? It’s actually a bit of a mix! Sailor Moon, Mercury and Mars as well as Queen Beryl are from the ♪ Blue Musical Note Cast while Sailor Jupiter and Venus are from the ◆ Yellow Diamond Cast. Kunzite and Tuxedo Mask were the same actresses for all performances in Japan and they will be reprising their roles in America. Dancers are from all casts, as is detailed at the end of the post.

A bit of background on each of the actresses for those wondering who they might be seeing in these shows!

Usagi Tsukino, Sailor Moon, will be performed by Tomomi Kasai. She was previously a member of the popular Japanese band AKB48. She was also in the Sentai series Kamen Rider W in which she played Elizabeth (the one of the left in the above picture). You can learn more about Tomomi Kasai from her official web site, Twitter feed or Instagram page.

Momoko Kaechi will be playing Sailor Mercury. She previously appeared in a few Japanese drama series and films. You can follow her on Twitter where she occasionally posts images of a Sailor Mercury doll in her travels.

Yui Hasegawa will portray Sailor Mars. Her main acting experience is as a voice actor who’s works include video games such as Phantasy Star Online 2. She has previous stage acting experience as well including portraying Viluy of the Witches 5 in the Sailor Moon Un Nouveau Voyage musical. For more about Yui Hasegawa follow her on Twitter or check out her official web site.

Sailor Jupiter will be played by Kanna Matsuzaki. She is an actress and model who has a small role in a recently released film called Blood Club Dolls. You can follow her on Instagram where she occasionally posts pictures of cats.

Sailor Venus will be portrayed by Yu Nakanishi. She is a dancer and actress from movies and other stage plays including Luna Rossa and Ranpo Chronicle. For more on Yu Nakanishi you can follow her Twitter account or check out her official site.

Queen Beryl is played by Makoto Aikawa. She is an actress who has performed in a number of stage plays in the past couple of years. You can see more of her stuff by following her Twitter feed, Instagram page or checking out her official web site.

Reo Sanada will play Kunzite of the Shitennou. As with all musicals since La reconquista we have all male characters portrayed by women and The Super Live continues with this tradition. Reo Sanada is a transgender woman with experience in acting and dance. Fans looking for more can check out her Instragram page.

The important role of Tuxedo Mask will be performed by Riona Tatemichi who is playing her fourth character in a Sailor Moon musical! She first played Rubeus in the Petite Étrangère musical and then played Hawk’s Eye in the Amour Eternal musical and finally was Taiki Kou, Sailor Star Maker of the Sailor Starlights, in the Le Mouvement Final musical. In addition to her many Sailor Moon credits she has also appeared in a number of other stage musicals including some based on Utena and Gundam. You can find out more about Riona Tatemichi from her Twitter feed or official web site.

Finally we have a group of dancers. Though I have not yet seen the musical we can see from various photos that these five characters appear to be Dark Kingdom monsters of some type. These are generally non singing role which are portrayed by professional dancers. With the original three teams the various dancers often performed on more than one team and here we have a mix of dancers from the three teams. This includes Atsumi Matsubayashi, from the ❤ and ◆ teams, Izumi Niihashi, from the ❤ and ♪ teams, Ayumi Higashikawa, from the ◆ team, Moeko Koizumi from the ◆ and ♪ teams, and finally Hinako Aikawa from the ◆ team. Note that the image below does not feature the five dancers from Team America, as they have not performed together in the past. This is another of the teams from one of the Super Live performances.

Will any of you be lucky enough to be attending either of these showings? These are much closer to my home town than any other musical performance has ever taken place! I’ve taken road trips to New York and Baltimore (near to Washington D.C.) in the past with little trouble. Unfortunately with two children under 2 years old at this time it seems unlikely I’ll be able to make the trip. Please let us know if you plan on attending and how it goes!

Characters from Sailor Moon Crystal will soon be appearing in the popular Japanese mobile game Monster Strike. What is Monster Strike? It seems a bit like StreetSmash, the Street Pass mini game in Super Smash Bros. for 3DS where you smash round pieces into others on a board. The characters will be appearing in the game shortly, meaning no specific date has been given. A number of images, available on the Official Sailor Moon site and Monster Strike web site, show that this will include Sailor Moon, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter and Venus, Tuxedo Mask, Queen Beryl, Jadeite, Nephrite, Zoisite and Kunzite. Some fans believe this art may be a first look at the designs of the upcoming fourth season of Sailor Moon Crystal. I’m not convinced.

We have previously learned that Kazuko Tadano, who was a character designer and animation director for the first two seasons of the original Sailor Moon anime, would be doing the designs for the Dream arc of Sailor Moon Crystal. What her take on the series is remains to be seen however she did a sketch of Sailor Mercury, Mars, Jupiter and Venus back in 2013 which gives us an idea of what her art style is like more recently. If you’re looking to see how she drew Sailor Moon back in the 90s note that she did all of the laser disc cover art, which has been used for home video releases over the last 25 years. So much to say the image of Sailor Moon most people think of matches her style.

I frankly don’t see the resemblance here. The art style and almost comically large heads in the Monster Striker images just don’t seem to fit with either anything that Kazuko Tadano has put out or what Sailor Moon Crystal was doing. If I had to venture a guess I would say this art is made by one of the artists who has done other Monster Strike art over the years. Further by the very fact that we only have characters from the Dark Kingdom story arc shown here I don’t think it’s likely that these are new Sailor Moon Crystal designs. We similarly never saw any of the characters unique to the first two story arcs done in the style of Sailor Moon Crystal’s 3rd season. There is plenty of art from the Dark Kingdom arc which could be used for purposes such as these if that was the desire here. Instead this appears to be Sailor Moon Crystal in the style of Monster Strike. The super deformed or chibi versions with very large heads seem to fit with in game graphics of other characters. This is only my own personal assessment of the art of course! You are free to make your own determinations about what you think and these will be confirmed in 2065 when we get the two Sailor Moon Crystal Dream Arc films.

Further to the art shown on the web sites there was a video stream which showed the Sailor Moon content. Start watching the video embedded below at 11 minutes for the relevant content. This included a number of images of mash ups between Monster Strike characters and Sailor Moon characters. The only name I could decipher was Alice who is Sailor Moon. The other Sailor Guardians and Tuxedo Mask have gotten a similar treatment.

In addition to being featured in this game there will be a number of Sailor Moon Crystal x Monster Strike products sold at the XFLAG store in Shibuya. This includes a number of food items.

Do you play Monster Striker? Do you plan on playing the game when these characters are out? What do you think of the designs? Do you believe these are Sailor Moon Crystal Season 4 designs, Monster Strike style designs or something else?

Keep reading for more art which will be used in the game.

Last weekend the Sailor Moon Official Site was updated with images of the entire cast of the upcoming Sailor Moon The Super Live musical. We had previously gotten a complete cast listing and some partially obscured images of the cast. Here we have the ❤ Pink Heart, ◆ Yellow Diamond and ♪ Blue Musical Note casts. I had previously made an attempt to translate most of the cast names and was missing only a few. I’ve been able to fill in the blanks with details from a post on Anime News Network. The image on the official site and those posted to Twitter were a bit confusing with a number of repeated images for Queen Beryl, Kunzite and Tuxedo Mask who’s actors span multiple teams. I attempted to simplify them in the amalgamated image above. The Super Live Musical web site also gives a decent matrix showing them all. Check out the updated cast listings, with separate images, below.

❤ Pink Heart Cast:

Sailor Moon/Usagi Tsukino: Kanae Yumemiya
Sailor Mercury/Ami Mizuno: Cocona
Sailor Mars/Rei Hino: Kitomi Hirai (2)
Sailor Jupiter/Makoto Kino: Kie Obana
Sailor Venus/Minako Aino: Sena Hooper

◆ Yellow Diamond Cast:

Sailor Moon/Usagi Tsukino: Natsuki Koga (2)
Sailor Mercury/Ami Mizuno: Umino Kawamura (2)
Sailor Mars/Rei Hino: Kyoko Ninomiya
Sailor Jupiter/Makoto Kino: Kanna Matsuzaki
Sailor Venus/Minako Aino: Yu Nakanishi

♪ Blue Musical Note Cast:

Sailor Moon/Usagi Tsukino: Kasai Tomomi (2)
Sailor Mercury/Ami Mizuno: Momoko Kaechi
Sailor Mars/Rei Hino: Yui Hasegawa
Sailor Jupiter/Makoto Kino: Shio Yamazaki (2)
Sailor Venus/Minako Aino: Saaya Goto (2)

Confusingly, there are two Queen Beryls over the three teams.

❤ Pink Heart and Yellow Diamond ◆ Cast:

Queen Beryl: Kyoka

♪ Blue Musical Note Cast:

Queen Beryl: Makoto Aikawa

Kunzite and Tuxedo Mask are the same amongst all three teams, as was reported last time.

❤ Pink Heart, Yellow Diamond ◆ and ♪ Blue Musical Note Cast:

Kunzite: Sanada Reo
Tuxedo Mask/Mamoru Chiba: Riona Tatemichi

What do you think of the look of the latest Sailor Teams? Casting for Tuxedo Mask is always important. Do you think Riona Tatemichi who played Taiki in the Le Mouvement Final musical fits the part? The musical starts at the end of the month on August 31st and will run until September 9th in Tokyo. It will also be held at the Japonismes event in Paris November 3rd and 4th. With so many showings there are often multiple teams doing shows on the same day. Good news for the cast members who get to relax between showings but a lot of work for Sanada Reo and Riona Tatemichi was are present for every performance! Are any of you planning on seeing this one?

The official Sailor Moon site has been updated with a full list of the cast of the Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon The Super Live musical as well as a trailer and a poster but for whatever reason we can’t see any of the actor’s faces in them. Seems like an odd decision since the cast has been revealed but there’s a good reason for this! There is no single cast of this musical but rather three different teams! The Nogizaka46 x Sailor Moon musical had Team Moon and Team Star and we’re doing one more here with teams ❤, ◆ and ♪ which are denoted simply by those coloured characters. I don’t know what the naming convention will be in Japanese but these are pink heart, yellow diamond and blue musical note. Sounds a bit like Lucky Charms marshmallows when it’s said like that. Check out the trailer embedded below.

As with other recent musicals we once again have an all female cast which includes the Sailor Team, which is split up into three groups, as well Queen Beryl, Kunzite and Tuxedo Mask which are the same actors throughout the different groups. This tells us the story, if there is some overarching story, will be that of the Dark Moon story arc once again. We also have a series of extras, some of which are in two groups, which are likely playing monsters or other types of background characters. I’ve done my best to translate the names and find a public social media profile for most of these actors but for some of them I wasn’t able to find anything and so I left the original untranslated Japanese names. If anyone has any more details for some of these please feel free to share them in the comments and I’ll update the post.

The ❤ (Pink Heart) Team includes:

Sailor Moon/Usagi Tsukino: 夢宮加菜枝 (Kanae Yumemiya?)
Sailor Mercury/Ami Mizuno: Cocona
Sailor Mars/Rei Hino: Kitomi Hirai (2)
Sailor Jupiter/Makoto Kino: Kie Obana
Sailor Venus/Minako Aino: Sena Hooper

Background dancers:

松林篤美
新橋 和
土定美月
Osawa Suzuka
Miyuu Ohashi (2)

The ◆ (Yellow Diamond) Team includes:

Sailor Moon/Usagi Tsukino: 古賀なつき (2)
Sailor Mercury/Ami Mizuno: Umino Kawamura (2)
Sailor Mars/Rei Hino: Kyoko Ninomiya
Sailor Jupiter/Makoto Kino: Kanna Matsuzaki
Sailor Venus/Minako Aino: Yu Nakanishi

Background Dancers:

松林篤美
Aiko Enomoto
Ayumi Higashikawa
小泉もえこ
Hinako Aikawa

The ♪ (Blue Musical Note) Team Includes:

Sailor Moon/Usagi Tsukino: Kasai Tomomi (2)
Sailor Mercury/Ami Mizuno: Momoko Kaechi
Sailor Mars/Rei Hino: Yui Hasegawa
Sailor Jupiter/Makoto Kino: Shio Yamazaki (2)
Sailor Venus/Minako Aino: Saaya Goto (2)

Background Dancers:

小泉もえこ
新橋 和
土定美月
Osawa Suzuka
Miyuu Ohashi (2)

All performances will include the same actors as Queen Beryl, Kunzite and Tuxedo Mask:

Queen Beryl: 京香
Kunzite: Sanada Reo
Tuxedo Mask/Mamoru Chiba: Riona Tatemichi

We have a few returning actors in this musical. Riona Tatemichi, who will be portraying Tuxedo Mask with all casts, was previously cast as Taiki Kou, Sailor Star Maker, in the Le Mouvement Final musical. Yui Hasegawa, who will be Sailor Mars in the ♪ (Blue Musical Note) group was also Viluy of the Witches 5 in the Un Nouveau Voyage musical.

This musical will be taking place quite soon with performances in Tokyo being held from August 31st to September 9th and performances at Japonismes, a cultural event in Paris, being held November 3rd and 4th. Are any fans who will be in Japan or France around this time planning to attend this musical?

A few weeks ago we got our first look at the Nogizaka46 x Sailor Moon musical. This new musical will be playing in Tokyo this summer first at the Tennōzu Galaxy Theatre June 8th to the 24th and then at the TBS Akasaka ACT Theater September 21st to the 30th. What, you may ask, is this musical all about? Nogizaka46 is an all female pop band in Japan and this is a Sailor Moon musical featuring members of that band. As we can see from the promo image and the posts on the Sailor Moon official site and musical’s official site, 10 of the band members have formed two Sailor Teams. One is Team Moon and the other is Team Star.

The two teams seem to be identical in costume and appearance, though we can clearly see that the members in those costumes differ from one image to the other. With multiple shows being put on over a fairly short time the two teams are scheduled to perform on different nights. At first I imagined this was to give the other team a break on the off days but since a lot of the other cast of the musicals is only listed once it seems like not everyone is on that schedule. Perhaps this setup is simply meant to vary the performances to feature more of their talent. It remains to be seen if the performances themselves will vary depending on the team performing. Perhaps each team will have an exclusive song to encourage people to see multiple performances! At this point this is only speculation.

Here’s a translated cast listing. I’m not good with Japanese names (since Google Translate messes them up) so I had a little help from this Anime News Network article for this list. I attempted to find a relevant link when possible. All members of Nogizaka46 have profiles from the official site and for others I tried to find a profile or social media link.

Team Moon:
Sailor Moon/Usagi Tsukino: Mizuki Yamashita (Nogizaka46)
Sailor Mercury/Ami Mizuno: Riria Itō (Nogizaka46)
Sailor Mars/Rei Hino: Kazumi Takayama (Nogizaka46)
Sailor Jupiter/Makoto Kino: Ami Noujo (Nogizaka46)
Sailor Venus/Minako Aino: Hina Higuchi (Nogizaka46)

Team Star:
Sailor Moon/Usagi Tsukino: Sayuri Inoue (Nogizaka46)
Sailor Mercury/Ami Mizuno: Miria Watanabe (Nogizaka46)
Sailor Mars/Rei Hino: Ranze Terada (Nogizaka46)
Sailor Jupiter/Makoto Kino: Minami Umezawa (Nogizaka46)
Sailor Venus/Minako Aino: Kana Nakada (Nogizaka46)

Naru Osaka: Yuka Yamauchi
Umino Gurio: Marina Tanoue

Kunzite: Chihiro Andō
Zoisite: Sari Kojima
Nephrite: Shin
Jadeite: Rina Takeda

Ensemble (I assume this means background dancers, various monsters and such)：
Mayuko Kawamoto, Mayu Kaburagi, Kumiko Saitō, Ayuka Kurachi, Minami Watanabe, Mami Mitsuoka

Queen Beryl: Nami Tamaki

Tuxedo Mask/Mamoru Chiba: Mikako Ishii

Director: Worry Kinoshita

Only the main cast of the Sailor Team will be composed of Nogizaka46 members. The rest of cast of characters are played by various musical stars and dancers, as was the case with other musicals. To me the most interesting casting decision here is that Mikako Ishii, who played Sailor Pluto in the last few musicals, will be playing Tuxedo Mask! It’s well established that Sailor Pluto has an unrequited love for King Endymion in the future! What better way to gain someone’s affection than to literally become them? Also returning is Chihiro Ando as Kunzite. She previously played Tiger’s Eye in the Amour Eternal musical. As we see from this an other casting we once again have an all female cast even including the male characters.

It seems clear that the story will cover the Dark Kingdom story arc though beyond that it’s hard to get a sense of what the content or structure of the musical will be like. Given the cast and that we have two returning cast members I’m inclined to think that it will be a similar presentation to musicals we have seen in the past.

So … which Team are you rooting for? Is that how we’re supposed to be reacting to this? Go Team Star! No way Team Moon is the best! … and so forth.

This is a review and discussion of the Live Action Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon series Act 9, I’ll Protect the Legendary Silver Crystal, and Act 10, I am Queen Beryl, Queen of Darkness. These originally aired on Japanese TV on November 29th and December 6th 2003. These two episodes follow a story similar the manga Act 6, Tuxedo Mask. In this story in the manga Tuxedo Mask tries to solicit the help of the people of the city in order to find the Crystal, as occurs in Act 9, and then after Zoisite attacks them Sailor Moon heals the people of the city with her Moon stick, which resembles the end of Act 10. Though Act 9 and 10 as Live Action episodes don’t really have much to do with each other they both take elements from this manga story.

The Icy Queen from the live action series

The Silver Crystal from the original anime series

Act 9 is all about Tuxedo Mask and the hunt for the Silver Crystal! What does this Crystal look like? We don’t really know but a couple of depictions in this episode remind of of what it looked like in the original Sailor Moon anime, as opposed to what it looked like in the manga. In the opening scene we see a child looking at a round gem called the Icy Queen that looks like the Crystal in the original anime. A depiction on television mentions that it would glitter in rainbow colours, and this includes 7 distinct colours shining. This is reminiscent of the 7 Rainbow Crystals from the original Sailor Moon anime, which were shards of the Silver Crystal which when assembled formed the complete Crystal.

For this episode Minako is off in London to record a new song. This again reminds us of the original Sailor Moon anime which had Minako spending time in London while she was Sailor V, though it’s unlikely she’s fighting any crime in London as this would be incredibly suspicious, like how Batman always shows up in Metropolis when Bruce Wayne is there for business. This keeps Minako out of the picture for Act 9 and 10, which serves the plot well.

We get a bit of an idea as to why Tuxedo Mask is looking for the Crystal! We see a dream of his where the Princess is asking him to find the Crystal. We don’t see any real details of her as her hair style is fairly normal however her voice is closer to that of Miyuu Sawai, who plays Usagi, as opposed to that of Ayaka Komatsu, who plays Sailor V.

Reporters talking about the Silver Crystal in the live action series

Zoisite looking for the Silver Crystal in Sailor Moon Crystal

In order to try to flush out the Crystal Tuxedo Mask makes a very public statement telling people what to look for and that it’s worth a billion yen, roughy 9 billion US dollars. This is similar to the plot of the manga Act 6, Tuxedo Mask, where Tuxedo Mask does the same. Sailor Moon Crystal Act 6 more specifically based one scene on the live action series. When Zoisite appears on a large TV in the street asking people to find the Crystal this is nearly identical to a scene in this episode where two reporters are asking the viewers to find the Crystal.

Tuxedo Mask is looking through his coat and sees the handkerchief that Sailor Moon patched his hand with. Odd that this would be in his Tuxedo jacket since he was clearly still wearing it after changing back into his civilian clothes in the last episode! Plot hole or did Mamoru just put it in his jacket after he removed it? Doesn’t this thing go to hammer space like any respectable superhero costume?

The gang don’t like Tuxedo Mask one bit! He’s a thief and he’s competing for the Crystal. Rei suggests he may save Sailor Moon as a trick! Usagi of course doesn’t want to hear any of this as she’s totally in love with Tuxedo Mask! This is the worst kept secret however she is only able to admit it to an empty room! Usagi is conflicted about what to do with Luna and her friends against him on one side but Naru, who only has vague details about the situation, cheering her on from the other.

Queen Beryl turns Jadeite into a rock in this episode. It’s probably jade. In the manga when a Shitennou gets turned into a gem they’re essentially dead only returning as ghosts to talk to Mamoru, but this is not the last we will see of Jadeite!

As the city is furiously looking for the Crystal a rich man, Masanobu Narita, believes he’s found it and wants to hire Rei to protect it for him! Rei, not being hired to appear at this episode’s location shoots, isn’t interested at all and so Ami volunteers to go on her behalf, posing as her top apprentice, a fellow Shinto Priestess. She keeps doing this weird thing with her glasses which makes them squeak. A tick that she gave her fictional character which doesn’t actually do anything? It’s kind of odd.

Usagi and Makoto come along to help Ami and transform. Makoto becomes a police officer and Usagi a worker who is trimming trees. When a ton of Tuxedo Masks show up though, Usagi thinks she sees the real one! Why, I wonder, is everyone dressing up as Tuxedo Mask? They want the Crystal, sure, but does this incredibly conspicuous costume help anyone? What’s one more Tuxedo Mask? Usagi uses her phone to make herself dressed as Tuxedo Mask in order to distract the real police from who she thinks is the real Tuxedo Mask. He turns out to be a weird kind of pervert who gets off on touching Usagi’s wrist which is a very odd form of intimacy.

When Tuxedo Mask Usagi gets cornered the real Tuxedo Mask tells her to transform! How does this help the situation at all? We don’t know. She transforms, we see her stock footage, and then the problem is somehow resolved! There’s no scene of her escaping or anything, she just transforms and we don’t deal with that problem anymore. Tuxedo Mask and Sailor Moon have a little heart to heart. She expresses that she wants to know who he is but he doesn’t want to share.

Meanwhile the supposed Silver Crystal is so fake that it breaks from being dropped. This means it’s what, made of glass? It looks like something that would hang off of a cheap chandelier. The gem was appraised as having qualities similar to the Silver Crystal yet… it just breaks when it’s dropped? Very lame! What do these people do to test them? Does Tuxedo Mask really need to steal all of these to find out if they’re legit? Does he look at it with one of those little monocle microscope thingeys or can he just sense it after having illegally repossessed it and held it a bit?

Act 10 is all about the story of Princess Kaguya, known in Japan as The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter. It’s difficult for a North American viewer to completely appreciate the episode without having the expected understanding of The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter that most Japanese children would have. Just another example of why this show is not very accessible outside of Japan. This story is well known in Japan and was recently adapted as a 2013 Studio Ghibli film The Tale of the Princess Kaguya. I would recommend checking out the film which presents a fairly straightforward adaptation of this ancient tale as it is something that is referenced frequently in Sailor Moon. As we learn in this episode it is the story of a young girl who is born from a bamboo shoot and raised by her adoptive parents until she finally learns that she is from a Kingdom on the Moon and must return home. Sound familiar? There are certainly a lot of parallels to Usagi’s story as told in the original manga and anime, as she is a Princess who originally comes from a Kingdom the Moon and was reincarnated on Earth to finally return to the Moon to meet her real mother. It seems likely that the Tale of the Bamboo Cutter served as some inspiration for the story of Sailor Moon.

In addition to this episode The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter is related to the manga side story The Lover of Princess Kaguya, which was adapted as the Sailor Moon S movie. The film itself doesn’t actually have much to do with the story. Kakeru, the man who Luna falls in love with, is a romantic who believes in the legend of Princess Kaguya and who, despite being a brilliant astronomer, believes that what he sees in space relates to such magical things. When Luna finally takes human form in the story she identifies with Princess Kaguya but her character or journey in the story doesn’t have much to do with Princess Kaguya beyond the superficial fact that she’s going to space. The villain of this story Princess Snow Kaguya also doesn’t have much in common with the Princess Kaguya from the Tale of the Bamboo Cutter. Kakeru’s girlfriend Himeko, who based on the title would be the lover of Kakeru, who is Princess Kaguya’s lover, also doesn’t have much in common with Princess Kaguya, aside from the fact that she goes to space.

This episode has Rei dealing with the loss of her mother. In the opening scene we see her at the hospital shortly after her mother died, with a children’s story book about Princess Kaguya left on her mother’s bed. This leads into a unique transition to the opening credits as Rei stares at the Moon as it leads into the opening. Rei believed, and still seems to believe to some extent, that her mother is still alive on the Moon, like Princess Kaguya from the story which her mother frequently read to her as a child. She befriends a young girl, Erika, who also believes that her recently deceased mother is still living on the Moon. The two are working on a picture story of The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, with Erika and Rei working on the final page where Princess Kaguya leaves for the Moon on her chariot. Young Rei, as seen in this episode, is not the same young Rei we will be seeing in the future!

While Rei is sad about her mother dying Usagi has a really pointless argument with her own mother about whether or not to put cheese on her omelette. She tries to run away first to Crown Karaoke, then to Naru’s, then to Ami’s, then to Makoto’s and finally, as a last resort, to see Rei at her shrine. When she shows up Rei asks if Usagi had a fight with her parents, which is humorous since Usagi’s father is as unseen in this series as Princess Serenity’s father! Rei is happy to let Usagi stay there for a while, which doesn’t even end up being overnight, though when Usagi realizes that Rei’s mother is dead she feels particularly bad about her comparatively silly problem!

Zoisite, meanwhile, is working on his latest song! This one creates a monster which sings and makes any Princess, be it an image, a person, or someone who just sort of feels like a Princess, burn up! This causes all sorts of non Princesses to have problems and seems to cause few problems to the actual Princesses we care about! The image of Princess Kaguya that Rei and Erika are working on lights on fire. So does a young girl’s doll. Erika, who thinks of herself as Princess Kaguya because of her thing with her mom, gets a fever, which is convenient since it would have been really extreme if she just spontaneously combusted. There’s also an actual Princess who falls ill on TV, which is how Makoto knows something is up. Who isn’t affected by this? Minako, who we are meant to believe is the Princess, who is away in London supposedly out of Zoisite’s range. Usagi isn’t affected. This could either mean that people who are Princesses but don’t know it aren’t affect or that Sailor Moon is not Princess Serenity in this continuity, as some fans legitimately believed at this point in the series and I’ll never let them forget it.

Makoto’s Sempai from Act 6

Mysterious man at the library from Act 10

Ami is at the library and she sees a Princess from a young girl’s story book catch fire. The other notable thing about the library? Makoto’s “Sempai” is there! Back in Act 6 we learned that Makoto left her old school after having an unrequited love for a student in another grade, frequently referred to as her “Sempai”. When we see her flashback about people leaving, such as her parents, the last person we see leave is the person who I assume is this older boy who she was in love with. This guy is in the library! We are made to believe that Makoto moved and changed schools to get away from this guy. Did Ami go to a really far away school? Did this guy go to a far away library that she thought might have a book with information helping her to find Sailor V? Did they just reuse an extra and not expect some overly analytical fan to notice some 14 years later?

So the gang fights the monster by dancing to dodge her musical notes and it’s all silly. Finally Sailor Moon uses her Moon Stick to heal everyone, real or paper, who has been negatively affected by this weird thing which attacks anyone who isn’t a Princess. This is similar to the end of Act 6 of the manga where Sailor Moon uses her Moon Stick to resurrect the people of Tokyo, though not much else from this episode resembles that story.

The gang are then confronted by Queen Beryl who gives them a bit of information about their past which Luna was hesitant to share. She tells them that they all come from the Moon! What a shocker! Later at the Princess Kaguya picture show Usagi breaks down crying due to the fact that her birth mother may not actually be her mother! This is something I’ve mentioned in the past as a potentially confusing plot point of the series. Unlike Princess Kaguya these girls were born from the wombs of their Earth mothers, not cut out of a bamboo shoot. Is Usagi Tsukino genetically identical to Princess Serenity of Silver Millennium? If so, does she actually share any genes with her mother and father who live in present day Tokyo as most human children do or was there a magical cloning or embryo implantation done at conception? Does she share roughly 1/2 of her genes with her brother Shingo who was also born from those parents? Does he have a Silver Millennium equivalent that he’s reincarnated from? If not, is it actually creepy when Shingo has a crush on Sailor Moon in the original Sailor Moon anime if they don’t actually have any genetic similarities? This very significant and meaningful observation by Usagi, which is mostly ignored by her friends who are in a similar situation, is atypical for her to catch on to. Shouldn’t Ami, the genius child of a doctor mother who’s career path she aspires to follow in, be wondering where her intelligence comes from if it’s not inherited? Shouldn’t Rei, who hates her father, be glad to be potentially the genetic equivalent to being adopted by him through magical reincarnation? What link does she have to her mother who she misses? Regardless of genes she may have she was still raised in her womb as that prenatal environment affects her development. She seems to have some concern about some aspect of this as she’s also brought to tears by the sentiment. Should Makoto be pleased at the prospect of having parents on the Moon or are they also dead? Will we ever get answers to any of these questions? No we really don’t. Queen Serenity or any other inhabitants of Silver Millennium aren’t really seen in this series, not that we’d likely get answers to such specifics questions if they were.

In the final scene Minako, who’s been away in London for the past two episodes, arrives back in Tokyo. Zoisite plays his song which instead of directly attacking her seems to be controlling the driver of a truck which is swerving towards her! End of episode! Cliffhanger! This is almost identical to the final scene from the fantastic Street Fighter II animated movie which has Bison trying to run a truck into Ryu! Coincidence? Certainly!

Feel free to leave a comment with your own thoughts on these two episodes. If you’re looking to watch along with the series you can get English subtitled fan subbed versions from sites such as Miss Dream, TV-Nihon and Sea of Serenity. Fans looking to stream the show can do so from Dramanice and Kiss Asian.

Keep reading for more screenshots from these episodes.

The Funko web site has revealed the 2nd wave of Sailor Moon themed Funko Pop! Vinyls which will be coming in November, just in time for Christmas! This wave includes Sailor Chibi Moon, Sailor Uranus, Sailor Neptune, Sailor Pluto, Sailor Saturn and Queen Beryl. Queen Beryl will be a Toys R Us exclusive. There will also be Pocket Pop! Keychains. Sailor Moon and Sailor Chibi Moon are the two keychains featured on the blog post, though there may be more.

Apparently Sailor Chibi Moon is the must have Vinyl since she’s the only new character who has a keychain shown and there’s a Barnes and Noble exclusive glitter version of her. Not really sure what the appeal of that is but if you must have every exclusive ever, you’ll probably want that! Barnes and Noble is an American book store chain. Not sure who, if anyone, will be distributing this exclusive in Canada.

Do you plan on getting these? I’ve made my thoughts on them clear before! I think they’re kind of ugly but I still have a couple of them. On a recent trip to Gamestop I saw a Bob Ross and Justin Bieber Funko Pop! Vinyl so I’m not sure what figure they could possibly make to surprise me anymore. If I live long enough I’m sure I’ll have a Funko Pop! Vinyl made out of me. There will be one created for every fictional or real living or dead being to ever remotely resemble a humanoid. Funko Pop! Vinyls will outnumber of us all until the universe is so packed with them that there isn’t room for anything else. We need not fear entropy. The end of time will occur when every particle in existence is part of a Funko Pop! Vinyl.

Keep reading to see the rest of the new figures.

This is a review and discussion of Live Action Sailor Moon Act 3, The 3rd Senshi is Miko Rei, and Act 4, Sneaking into the Party! These episodes originally aired on TV in Japan October 18th and 25th 2003. Since Act 3 includes a date of October 22nd on a blackboard and Act 4 takes place at a Halloween party, it is safe to conclude that these episodes of the series were intended to take place roughly during the same dates in which they were aired. Assuming this trend was meant to continue we can estimate that roughly a year of time is elapsed over the course of the series.

Act 3 introduces us to the Miko, or Priestess, Rei Hino who becomes Sailor Mars. Once again this episode quite closely follows the equivalent manga story for Act 3, which has a plot by the Dark Kingdom around Hikawa Shrine causing the disappearance of girls, where Rei is suspected, and where ultimately she travels to a pocket dimension and transforms into Sailor Mars. Rei is played by the lovely Keiko Kitagawa. Though most of the actresses have had minor acting and modelling careers following the series Keiko Kitagawa has without a doubt had the most success. She is a very accomplished model and has acted in many movies and TV series in Japan.

The episode opens with a game show hosted by Luna. A lot of the sense of realism becomes a bit hard to grasp with some of the things which take place at Karaoke Crown. How does Luna, a cat with no opposable thumbs, do any of this? How did she create the forged year long passes that the girls use to freely come and go? How did she set up the headquarters? How does she set up things like gameshow buzzers on a whim? All magic, perhaps? There’s no evidence that she’s able to transform into a human to do this work… yet. Luna quizzes the girls and the answers we get are at best intentionally misleading and at worst, completely false. In an answer to the question of how many more Guardians there are, the correct answer is given to be 2. Let us ignore Sailors Uranus, Neptune, Pluto and Saturn as they do not appear in this series, but the answer is still incorrect. There are 4 Sailor Guardians who protect the Princess. Okay let us assume, for argument’s sake, that one of the remaining 3 Sailor Guardians is the Princess, meaning two more to protect her, but there’s still this pesky business of a 6th Sailor Guardian which appears in the later half of the series. Without getting into specifics, this is perhaps something Luna should have some knowledge about! Little things like this, and the general way the show plays out, lead me to believe that even with a relatively short run of the show, a lot of the plot points were not known ahead of time but instead were a bit made up as the show goes on. Minako in the opening, for example, is seen interacting with the others and wearing a school uniform that never appears in the series, but resembles what is seen in the manga and anime.

A bit of probably pointless trivia. This guy in Usagi’s class… doesn’t he look a bit like Umino? Perhaps it’s just a guy with glasses.

In class Usagi invites Ami to eat with her and her friends. She is at first excited but, upon seeing her friends looking at her oddly, declines the invitation stating that it would be too suspicious if all of a sudden they were friends. This seems to be a fabricated excuse on Ami’s part because of a potentially uncomfortable situation with Naru and Usagi’s other friends. Usagi and Ami bonded quickly before it was even known that she was Sailor Mercury, simply because they ran into each other on a bridge. They could have stated that, perhaps leaving out the part about the magical talking stuffed cat which can arrange game shows without thumbs, and it should be good enough!

Meanwhile Ami visits Usagi’s house, and their friendship appears to be developing, but we will eventually see that things aren’t all that easy. We learn in the process that Usagi’s mother is a bit nuts.

Enter Rei! She first bumps into Usagi on a bridge, leaving behind a bracelet which leads Usagi to try to track her down. With all of the disappearances and rumours about Hikawa Shrine, Usagi gets scared when she hears a couple of crows. These crows aren’t named however they could be Phobos and Deimos, Sailor Mars’s two pet crows.

Some girls show up at the shrine and bully Rei, taking her weird birdhouse looking thing and even pushing her to the ground. Usagi to the rescue! It doesn’t take much for her to befriend someone, and she immediately tries to be kind with Rei, again not knowing that she’s really a Sailor Guardian. It seems like the series constantly assures us that Usagi would get along with these girls if they didn’t have super powers, so that we don’t think they are just together for convenience.

In a classic Terminator move it looks like Rei is about to attack Usagi and Ami with a charm but it turns out she’s attacking a pack of leaves turned monster behind her. Kyle Reese does this to Sarah Connor in the first film. The Terminator does this to John Connor in the second. Usagi and Rei get whisked away to this pocket dimension type thing where everything has a blue haze to it. The fight goes on as expected with Rei becoming Sailor Mars and using Youma Taisan, which is an attack unique to the live action series similar to her Fire Soul from the anime and manga.

The fight is won and everyone starts leaving the blue pocket dimension thanks to Sailor Mercury. Sailor Moon gets cut off and … Tuxedo Mask… is in the blue dimension? Where did he come from? Jadeite mentioned 6 girls were kidnapped. Did he kidnap Tuxedo Mask as well? Did he sneak in at some point? It seems plausible that he snuck in through the portal as it was closing, but this isn’t clearly demonstrated.

The episode concludes when Usagi, happy to have her friends together, suggests a karaoke party. Rei says that she hates karaoke and doesn’t intent to join them! Big spooky music, this is clearly the conflict to be dealt with in Act 4…

Act 4 on its surface appears to be a story unique to the live action series, but it actually has some similarities to the manga Act 4, Masquerade – Dance Party. This is also somewhat similar to episode 22 of the original anime, Romance Under the Moon: Usagi’s First Kiss. In these there is a gem to be revealed at a masquerade party which invites the attention of the Sailor Guardians, Nephrite and Tuxedo Mask, who all fight to get the crystal. Here the masquerade is instead a Halloween themed disguise birthday party for a girl who is again revealing a gem with all parties interested in getting it.

This episode introduces us to a great relationship of the series, and that’s Queen Beryl and Jadeite! She point blank says to Jadeite that if he loves her, he should be of some use to her. It seems that Jadeite’s motivation is his love for Queen Beryl. This dedication, as we will see throughout the series, is beyond that of the other Shitennou. With that we are introduced to Nephrite, the second of the Shittennou, who looks nothing like his manga or anime counterparts! He has short red hair and a reddish uniform. While Jadeite looks much like other versions of Jadeite, we will see that this similarity is not there for the rest of our Dark Kingdom villains!

Another first of the series we see here is Rei and her skirt pants! Back in 2003 when this show was first airing I had never seen a person wear a skirt and pants at the same time. This was a fashion trend that eventually became somewhat common, but whether this was due to my ignorance of high fashion or not, this was the first time I saw it and I thought it was weird! I’ve since come to accept and appreciate Rei’s shirt pants and pretty much anything she wants to wear to be honest.

The tension with Rei continues. Not only does she not like karaoke but she doesn’t want to attend the party with Ami and Usagi. Ami confronts Rei alone about this and insightfully suggests that perhaps Rei is afraid of friends. This seems right on the mark as Rei says that friends and family eventually abandon a person, and we get some insight into her past that we will be seeing more of as the series goes on. By the end of the episode Rei warms up to Usagi and Ami a little, stating that even though she still hates karaoke, she would be okay with a get together if it didn’t involve karaoke. If only all social problems were this easily resolved!

In two cases in this episode Usagi does a terrible job of hiding her super powers. In the first case, while looking for fancy dresses for the party, Usagi uses her magical clothes changing phone in front of a crowded street full of traffic to change her outfit a number of times. In the second case, at the end of the episode, Ami calls out “Tsukino-san” to Sailor Moon in front of Tuxedo Mask. Sailor Moon responds by calling Sailor Mercury “Ami-chan” and Sailor Mars “Rei-chan”. Tuxedo Mask appears to be too dense to notice this, as the eventual revelation of Usagi’s identity much later in the series is a total surprise to him.

Ami shows up at the party wearing a ridiculous cute/sexy cat costume. Luna makes a comment asking how they could have known it was a Halloween party. This is ridiculous for a few reasons. For one, they clearly seem to know as Ami and Usagi both came with costumes. Sure they have those phones which can copy another person’s costume, but there do not appear to be any other sexy cat or ridiculous furry bear costumes present at Yuka’s party. The other reason should be obvious and that’s that it’s Halloween! During Act 3 we see a date of October 22nd on a blackboard. Act 4 aired on October 25th, within a week of Halloween. It stands to reason, based on this and the fact that this is a Halloween party, that it is in the whereabouts of Halloween at this point! Why, then, is a Halloween costume party so out of the question?

Back in 2002 I was invited to a Halloween party at a friend’s house. This friend had Halloween parties every year and they were always dress up parties. I made my own Jadeite costume for this party and, upon arriving, was informed by all my friends that it wasn’t a costume party! The correct question is not how one could have known it was a costume party, but how anyone in their right mind could expect that one wouldn’t think such a thing was a Halloween costume party! I spent the night ignoring my friends and talking with people at the party who I had never met. They, having no prior contact with me, did not have the social responsibility of explicitly informing me that this was not a costume party and so I was not upset at any of them.

Much like in the manga and anime versions of the episode, the guest of honour of the party, in this case Yuka, is possessed by a monster so that she can steal her own gem. The monster, in this case, is a ridiculous looking cactus. It splits into 3 pieces requiring precise timing of three attacks to defeat him. The trick? The three girls sing Minako’s hit song “C’est la vie” in unison. This was a trick used in the film Hudson Hawk by a bank robber played by Bruce Willis and his partner. They sang a song of a particular length to get the timing of their job just right, and like in Sailor Moon, the trick worked! As Rei sang along with “C’est la vie” all I could think was “Who hates karaoke now, Rei?”. This will not be the last time we hear Rei sing in this series!

With the fight completed Usagi leaps to catch the jewel, in doing so nearly falling off the ledge of the building. Tuxedo Mask grabs her and in doing so puts her in a much more favourable position that Sailor Moon and Ami were in Act 2. Tuxedo Mask, in this case, is fully stable on the roof. Although Sailor Moon told Ami not to give up when in a much worse position, she tells Tuxedo Mask it’s no use. Where did that optimism go? They both fall and Sailor Moon creates a magic bubble to float to the ground. In the manga and anime equivalent stories, the two fall off of a balcony and Usagi uses her disguise pen to create an umbrella which allows them to defy physics and float to safety. Since the disguise pen in this series is a cell phone app, things needed to be switched up a bit.

Feel free to leave a comment with your own thoughts on these two episodes. If you’re looking to watch along with the series you can get English subtitled fan subbed versions from sites such as Miss Dream, TV-Nihon and Sea of Serenity. What does everyone think of the new banner?

Keep reading for more screenshots from these episodes.