Set you alarm extra early because Sailor Moon Crystal Act 10, Moon, will be available at 5am Eastern Time November 15th

Posted on November 14, 2014 by Adam

Good news and bad news! Japan does not observe daylight savings time. When many of us rolled our clocks back a couple of weeks ago, our good friends in Japan did not do the same. What does this mean for us Sailor Moon Crystal fans? Some of us will get the next episode one full hour earlier than we’re used to. 7pm Japan standard time this coming Saturday, November 15th, will actually be 5am Eastern Time and 2am Pacific time for North Americans on the east and west coast who observe DST. If you’re one of those lucky fans who don’t observe daylight savings or don’t know what it is, don’t panic. Sailor Moon Crystal will air when you expect it to. Not 100% sure at what time 7pm JST is where you live? Crunchyroll’s countdown timer is a good indicator of exactly how much time is left until the episode will be available to stream. As with all new episode, you can also watch it on Hulu and Niconico.

This week is episode 10, Moon, and like the title suggests the gang is going to the Moon! Luna thinks this is where all the answers will be and she’s right. A computer simulation of Queen Serenity is waiting to reveal all the truths about the tragedies of Silver Millennium and we should also be seeing Sailor Venus getting the sword which is featured so prominently in the Sailor Moon Crystal logo. The sword can be seen in Sailor Venus’s hand in the screenshot below.

The manga version of this story featured Usagi and Shingo playing an old game system, something like a Super Famicom. Will this be included and updated for this show?

Sailor Moon R episodes 51 and 52 are now available on Hulu

Posted on November 3, 2014 by Adam

This morning, November 3rd, the two latest episodes of Sailor Moon R were added to Hulu and Neon Alley. This week we have episodes 51 and 52 as Sailor Moon upgrades her transformation and attack item and we get a better look at Minako.

In episode 51, A New Transformation: Usagi’s Power-Up, the gang go watch the Cherry Blossoms. This seems a bit like a school trip but for convoluted reasons all of the Sailor Guardians, who are not in Usagi’s class, come along. Naru chokes Umino in a sleeping bag and everyone has a good time eating while watching the cherry trees bloom. An interesting animation technique is used in this episode as character are animated as talking to each other while a zoomed out version of the group appears in the background. During this interaction we see that Usagi is lazy and makes bad lunches but Rei is even lazier and brought fast food burgers. Usagi feeds Rei a sandwich covered in a spicy sauce causing her to breather fire, one of the last times she’ll use her Fire Soul technique and the only time it’s used while she is not transformed into Sailor Mars. A monster shows up, breaks Sailor Moon’s transformation broach and then she falls into a hole which takes her to visit Queen Serenity who upgrades her broach to the Crystal Star, returns the Silver Crystal to her and gives her the Cutie Moon Rod! Where was this weird subspace type world she visited? It’s never really revealed but it looks a bit like Silver Millennium.

Episode 52, The Targeted Kindergarteners: Venus to the Rescue, is a Minako episode which is all about shipping Minako and Artemis. The episode opens with Minako hugging Artemis in bed then she accuses him of peeping on her while she’s changing. Ultimately Minako runs into a young girl who is getting bullied and helps her out. The monster of the week is attacking kindergarten children and so Minako has decided to protect them. The young girl she befriends is a fan of Sailor Moon but, much to her chagrin, has never heard of Sailor Venus! This changes of course when Sailor Venus saves her life. Minako gets a new attack in this episode, her Crescent Beam Shower. The rest of the gang will eventually also be getting new infrequently used attacks in upcoming episodes.

Sailor Moon Crystal Act 9, Serenity – Princess, Review

Posted on November 2, 2014 by Adam

Sailor Moon Crystal Act 9, Serenity – Princess, went online yesterday, November 1st, on Crunchyroll, Hulu and Niconico. This episode is full of revelations as Princess Serenity, Prince Endymion, the Silver Crystal and tons of details about the past are finally revealed!

Did anyone really think Minako was the Moon Princess? That was all a bit silly with the last episode. Minako was the ruse and now we are finally shown the worst kept secret in Sailor Moon history, the true identity of Princess Serenity. But not content to have super obvious things finally revealed we are now being really secretive about the true identity of the woman from the past who killed Prince Endymion. Boy I wonder who the evil woman might be? Her face is obscured so I have no idea who this is.

Indeed, the big thing in this episode is this great flashback to Silver Millennium, the kingdom on the Moon from some time in the distant past. The English dub mentioned this time to be 1000 years ago which seems about right but an exact timeline is not ever given. Looking at the technology and architecture of Earth at the time it would seem that a Midlevel setting is what we’re seeing. This isn’t a flashback to when Prince Endymion was on Earth in the 1950s. The places on Earth also appear to be European rather than Asian, despite the people clearly speaking Japanese.

Usagi is revealed to be the Princess and so the proper pecking order is well established. The other girls are her guardians, and this is shown both in their willingness to protect her in battle but also in the way they all come together to support her as friend now that she’s pretty down thinking Mamoru is kidnapped and likely dead. One concern she expresses is that they need to get him before his body deteriorates. No wonder she wants to return to a worry free teenage life.

The Shitennou are all still around which didn’t really go anywhere. In the manga version of this story we get a nice flashback showing they were Endymion’s generals back in the day and we see Jadeite’s body undo decomposition but all of this is skipped. Changes are expected to this story seeing as they are all still alive, rather than having been killed like in the manga, but I expected more rather than less to occur this week. For now we will continue to wait to see what is in store for those characters in the coming episodes. Kunzite recognized the name Endymion when it was mentioned so it looks like it’s only a matter of time until everything is on the table.

Next time we go to the Moon! Everyone is kind of waiting around but the girls want some answers and Luna suggests they may be found on the Moon. November 15th episode is Act 10, Moon. We’ll see more flash backs and a look at Queen Serenity, Princess Serenity’s mother from back in the day.

Check out more screenshots from this week’s episode and the next episode preview below.

Continue reading →

Sailor Moon episodes 43 and 44 are now available on Hulu

Posted on October 6, 2014 by Adam

Episode 43 and 44 of the original Sailor Moon anime were added to Hulu and Neon Alley this morning, October 6th. As with every Monday two new episodes in Japanese with English subtitles by Viz are added to these streaming services. This week the first season is starting to wrap up as the gang tries to get into the Dark Kingdom to free Tuxedo Mask and have a flashback to their past.

Episode 43, Usagi Abandoned: The Falling-Out of the Sailor Guardians, centers around the girls having a mutiny against Sailor Moon! But things aren’t as they seem. The mutiny is nothing more than a ruse to try to get Sailor Moon into the Dark Kingdom to rescue Tuxedo Mask. In this process Sailor Mars steals the Moon Stick from Usagi! Seems fitting after Usagi stole her boyfriend! This is the episode which was recently reanimated, scene by scene, by a team of over 250 different animators. If you haven’t already watched Moon Animate Make-Up! I would suggest watching that version of the episode instead of watching this.

Episode 44, Usagi’s Awakening: A Message from the Distant Past, is all about the flash back. Other stuff happens, mainly Kunzite dying and the discovery of a portal to the artic but really we are all about the flash back sequence. Kunzite attempts to randomly send the Sailor Guardians through time but thanks to a little meddling from the Moon Stick they are sent to the Moon where they get a lovely lesson in history from the ghost of Queen Serenity, Usagi’s mom from her past life. The Moon used to be a great place to live back in the days of the Silver Millennium, and Princess Serenity fell in love with a man from Earth, Prince Endymion. Too bad an army from Earth led by Queen Beryl destroyed the kingdom on the moon and killed everyone. Queen Serenity uses her last bit of strength to send everyone into the future to be reincarnated, including some generic Sailor Guardians! Indeed we see Sailor Mercury, Mars, Jupiter and Venus in this episode but we also see some other Sailor Guardians in these bubbles that are going to the future. Some have speculated that one is Sailor Neptune due to her hair but as this episode was made before even Sailor Pluto has made an appearance in the manga any resemblance to future characters is purely coincidental. It’s unclear what the exact timeline of this past is, though based on the Earth technology it seems medieval. The DiC English dub stated this time period to be “1000 years ago” and this seems like a decent approximation. The name Silver Millennium does not actually refer to any particular period of time, but rather the kingdom itself which is located in the Sea of Tranquility on the Moon.

Differences from the manga in the events of the past are numerous. Beryl’s jealousy isn’t really touched upon. The Shitennou are present but there’s no mention of them being Endymion’s generals. Princess Serenity is killed instead of taking her life after Endymion dies. Queen Serenity seems to be a ghost rather than a hologram generated by a supercomputer which she uploaded her consciousness to. We’ll see all that before long in Sailor Moon Crystal. This episode also marks the first appearance by Kae Araki as the voice of Usagi and Princess Serenity. Kotono Mitsuishi was off due to an illness and missed 7 episodes. Kae Araki later returned to voice Chibiusa and Black Lady.

Also Queen Serenity is Jesus.

Sailor Moon Crystal Act 6, Tuxedo Mask, Review

Posted on September 21, 2014 by Adam

The latest episode of Sailor Moon Crystal, Act 6 – Tuxedo Mask, is now available for viewing on
Crunchyroll, Hulu and Niconico. The episode was released on September 20th in Japan and worldwide. This week’s it’s all about Tuxedo Mask as we finally see Mamoru with his shirt off, just like we did in the manga and original anime. How does everyone like shirtless Mamoru in Sailor Moon Crystal?

One noticeable change in this episode is that the intro has been modified. Most of the changes are relatively minor, like changes to shading or colouring, but some are more significant such as Sailor Mars’s pose at the end of the intro or Queen Serenity’s hair and eye colour. In the original manga and anime Queen Serenity, Sailor Moon’s mother on the Moon, had white or silver hair. In the intro for streaming episodes 1 to 5 she has blonde hair. This has been updated, most likely because she will be appearing in the series soon and her hair colour will be white. With the DVD and Blu-Ray release coming up on October 15th it’s likely that this intro will be used for those, but we won’t know for sure for a few weeks.

There are minor changes in this episode compared to the manga. It was otherwise as always mostly faithful. When Luna explains the power of the Silver Crystal, she says it has the ability to destroy a planet while in the manga it has the ability to destroy a star. Did the Silver Crystal get a downgrade in power? It never really did either so perhaps it’s not that huge a deal. Tuxedo Mask has a great moment in this episode where he explains to Sailor Moon that her true power is about making her friends happy and bringing out the best in them. This has always been what I like about Sailor Moon. Her strength is her kindness and compassion, not in her sheer power to destroy a planet or star. Luna finally explains to the girls that she’s from the Moon, a shocking revaluation indeed. She also speaks of who she thinks the enemy is and we see and image of Queen Metalia, the evil energy which is controlling the Dark Kingdom. When the plot progresses Luna also shows the girls their awesome headquarters hidden under the Crown Game Center. Slightly more impressive than the Karaoke room from the live action series!

This episode has Mamoru asking the public to find the Silver Crystal, followed by Zoisite doing the same, but while dressed as a woman. It’s certainly nice to see this series showing someone cross dressing after last week’s episode. Usagi was meant to transform into a groom in act 5 but this sequence was removed from the series. When Zoisite appears on TV asking people to find the Silver Crystal it looked very similar to a scene in the live action Sailor Moon series in which reporters are urging people to tell them to look for the Crystal and the broadcast is similarly shown to a group of people on a large outdoor TV in downtown Tokyo. Unlike most scenes that have a similarity to the original anime or live action series, this one was not lifted from the manga as those TV broadcasts were only shown on small TVs.

Sailor Moon finally gets to use her new Moon Stick in this episode, as she learns a lesson from the Sailor V game. While at the arcade she notices how Sailor V is using a weapon which bears a striking resemblance to her new Moon Stick. It’s by following what Sailor V does in the game that she is able to use her new attack Moon Healing Escalation which she uses to heal the town which has had it’s energy drained by Zoisite.

On top of her appearance in the Sailor V game we also get a live look at Sailor V in this episode. The girls speculate a bit about who she might be, and if she has a civilian identity. We also see Artemis along with her. If the manga is any indication, and it has been to date, we should be seeing Sailor Venus at the end of the next episode.

Act 7, Mamoru Chibi – Tuxedo Mask, will be available Saturday October 4th. We see a bit more of Mamoru in this episode as Usagi wakes up at his place and has learned that he’s Tuxedo Mask. In the original manga story the Dark Kingdom uses VHS tapes to brainwash the people of Tokyo. I have a feeling this might be updated for a 2014 audience just a little! Be sure to check that out in two weeks.

Keep reading for more screenshots from this episode.

Continue reading →

Video clips and screenshots of the intro and first episode of Sailor Moon Crystal

Posted on June 30, 2014 by Adam

This coming Saturday, July 5th 2014, the first episode of Sailor Moon Crystal will finally be released! Earlier today, June 30th 2014, in Japan there was a premiere event where the first episode of the new Sailor Moon anime was played in celebration of Usagi’s birthday. A number of screenshots of the intro and first episode have been released. Some sketchy bootlegged video of some of the episode has been leaked as well. Check out the video below for the complete intro, with the theme song Moon Pride by Momoiro Clover Z, followed by Sailor Moon’s first transformation.

[The video has been set to private since this post was originally made. Check out many screenshots of the video at the bottom of this post to see images from the intro and scene from the episode]

The scene where Luna gives Usagi her broach seems to follow the same scene from the first episode of the original Sailor Moon anime very closely. It remains to be seen if the rest of the premiere episode is as similar.

Keep reading for a ton more new images and screenshots from the leaked footage.

Source: natalie.mu

Continue reading →

Bandai’s Proplica Moon Stick first impressions

Posted on June 16, 2014 by Adam

Bandai’s Proplica Moon Stick is now available in North America! I received mine a few days ago and I think it looks great. This is by far the most accurate looking Moon Stick to date. It comes with a stand, a swappable Silver Crystal and even a cradle to put the Silver Crystal in when not in use.

Irwin Cosmic Crescent Wand (left) Live Action Sailor Moon Moon Stick (center) Bandai Proplica Moon Stick (right)

Above is a size comparison of this toy to a few others I had. The toy lights up and plays a variety of sound clips, given you get the three LR44 batteries it takes. I was able to find some at the dollar store. The sounds it makes are different depending on how long you hold the button, what the switch at the base of the toy is set to and whether or not the Silver Crystal is in the toy. Voice clips are from the anime, mostly being that of Kotono Mitsuishi though Mika Doi can also be heard as the voice of Queen Serenity. The manual coming with the toy describes all of these, given you can read Japanese, and also gives an overview of the Moon Stick in the anime and other toys that came before it.

Support this site by ordering the item from the Amazon link below. It’s not cheap but I think it’s worth the price.

Keep reading for a ton more photos of the Moon Stick and it’s packaging.

Continue reading →

Complete Toon Makers’ Sailor Moon voice-over script

Posted on November 2, 2012 by Adam

Toon Makers' Sailor Moon voice-over session script title

Here’s a Sailor Moon News exclusive first look at the full script for the animated segments of the Toon Makers’ Sailor Moon series pilot. This concept of a show, which never made it past the pilot stage, was a mix of live action and North American animation. It’s often referred to as Saban Moon, Saban Sailor Moon or Fox Kids Sailor Moon. This script is for a voice-over session scheduled for May 11th 1994. The project was referred to as ‘Project “Y”‘ possibly to hide the specifics of this being about Sailor Moon, which seems futile as the name is all over the script.

This script was included in an eBay auction which I won along with a couple of cels from the series. Photographs of 8 of the pages of the script were included in the auction listing though 14 were included in the full document.

As this is a voice-over script it mostly covers animated segments but also voice overs for the live action footage. There is a big hole in the story between pages 7 and 8. This is because this portion would be filled with live action footage which would not require a voice-over. What specifically happens during this time isn’t clear but a large amount of time appears to have passed and all of a sudden all characters have begun acting like Earth teenagers when the originally had not been. The final two pages of the script included the “voice-over for live action”. This is mostly Luna’s lines. I inserted these two pages in the gap between pages 7 and 8 so that the narrative remained in order. It’s unclear how much time passed between each of Luna’s lines though individually numbered lines likely occurred as one piece of dialog. The lines may all have occurred within a single scene or throughout the entire episode for all we can tell.

Below you will find a complete transcription of the entire script. I have made an effort to preserve all formatting where applicable, which includes only two words that are lower case and a single italicized line. I will include scans of all 14 pages below this transcription. A number of hand written modifications to the original script occurred. I have only transcribed the original script. See the scans for all of the hand written details.

Continue reading →

Sailor Moon News

Bringing you the latest news about the new anime series Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Crystal and all things Sailor Moon.

Tag Archives: Queen Serenity

Set you alarm extra early because Sailor Moon Crystal Act 10, Moon, will be available at 5am Eastern Time November 15th

Sailor Moon R episodes 51 and 52 are now available on Hulu

Sailor Moon Crystal Act 9, Serenity – Princess, Review

Sailor Moon episodes 43 and 44 are now available on Hulu

Sailor Moon Crystal Act 6, Tuxedo Mask, Review

Video clips and screenshots of the intro and first episode of Sailor Moon Crystal

Bandai’s Proplica Moon Stick first impressions

Complete Toon Makers’ Sailor Moon voice-over script