Here’s our first look at Sailor Moon Eternal, a Sailor Moon Crystal movie covering part of the Dream arc of the manga, will be released in 2020

Posted on June 30, 2019 by Adam

Today is June 30th, Usagi’s birthday, and to celebrate this there was a birthday party event held in Japan. We often get Sailor Moon news at such events and this year was no different! We finally have our first look at the designs for the upcoming new season of Sailor Moon Crystal which will be taking place as two theatrically released films. It was announced that the first of these movies will be called Sailor Moon Eternal and will be released in 2020. This could be anywhere from 6 to 18 months from now, so we will have to be patient to see when this finally happens! Also keep in mind the original release of Sailor Moon Crystal was planned for 2013 but that it actually first aired in 2014, so delays at this stage are certainly still possible, but things are finally coming together.

Along with the news was the revelation of a number of character designs for the series. The first was the poster featuring Super Sailor Chibi Moon and Super Sailor Moon. A teaser trailer which was posted to the newly redesigned Official Sailor Moon Site also included images of Sailor Moon, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, Venus and Chibi Moon all of whom have those little transparent shoulder pad things to show that they’re Super. You can watch that trailer embedded below.

The music used in the trailer in Moonlight Legend, the opening theme for the first four seasons of the original Sailor Moon anime, but that doesn’t necessarily indicate that this music will be used in the film. While this is possible it may simply be that the new music for the new Sailor Moon Eternal film is either not ready or that they otherwise don’t wish to release it at this time.

Kazuko Tadano Sailor Mercury, Mars, Jupiter and Venus sketch from 2013

A sketch by Kazuko Tadano from 2013

Now that we’ve gotten a first look at the designs for this film we finally see what Kazuko Tadano, character designer for the first two seasons of the original Sailor Moon anime, chose to do for Sailor Moon Crystal. A lot of fans have commented about how similar the designs look to the 90s anime, which certainly makes sense if we consider this! What we’re seeing is a bit of a mix of the aesthetic of Sailor Moon Crystal’s 3rd season designs, the original anime designs and a little something new. When Kazuko Tadano was announced as the Dream Arc’s character designer Sailor Moon sketches she made in 2013 (above) were used as a baseline for what we might be seeing. Though the designs aren’t identical we can certainly see some similarities to what we’re seeing now.

Sailor Moon Eternal will cover the first half of the Dream arc of the Sailor Moon manga. This is the same story which was the basis for the Sailor Moon SuperS season of the anime, though in this case the manga and anime had some significant differences. Though we don’t know exactly where the two movies will split, it is likely this will include the introduction of Pegasus as well as the villains the Amazon Trio, the Amazoness Quartet and Zirconia of the Dead Moon Circus. It will probably include early appearances by Helios and Queen Nehelenia, though they will feature more prominently in the second film. Sailor Uranus, Neptune, Pluto and Saturn may not show up in this one as they are not present for the first few chapters, though they could show up at the end of Sailor Moon Eternal. Since they were completely neglected from Sailor Moon SuperS it will be nice to see them included in Sailor Moon Crystal.

What do you think of the new designs? I’m really liking them. While the animation in the first two seasons wasn’t stellar, I thought season 3 was a great improvement. I can’t say I’m so attached to any Sailor Moon Crystal designs to be too bothered by this change. As long as these new films continue to be a faithful adaptation of the manga storyline, as the first three seasons have been, then the core of what makes Sailor Moon Crystal what it is should remain, even if there isn’t a consistent visual style. As always it’s a bit difficult to get a full feeling of what’s in store with just a few images. To see this animation style in action will be something. For now we’ll have to wait a while longer but at this stage we can at least confidently say that Sailor Moon Eternal is real and after more than 3 years we are finally getting more Sailor Moon Crystal! It remains to be seen how or when the film will be released here in North America.

PS: Not to rub it in but I was totally right and this art looks nothing like the Sailor Moon Crystal x Monster Strike designs we saw last fall.

Get caught up with Sailor Moon Crystal before the movie comes out by buying the first three seasons using the Amazon links below, or save your money by streaming it on Crunchyroll, Hulu or Neon Alley.

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Check out these Sailor Moon socks from Everything Legwear

Posted on June 15, 2019 by Adam

There’s certainly been no shortage of Sailor Moon products in or out of Japan lately and this even includes socks! I was recently contacted by the folks at Everything Legwear to let us know about some of their Sailor Moon products. There are a ton of Sailor Moon socks that you can find on their Sailor Moon store on Amazon. The prices seem reasonable for sets of 2 to 5 socks for $13 to $20 with designs featuring many characters and symbols from the series. The ads below show a few of what I’m told are the more popular items. Though Sailor Moon News does not have a business relationship with Everything Legwear we do use Amazon ads so if you buy products through links in this post this site will get a commission.

We had previously heard that Everything Legwear had the Sailor Moon sock license in 2017 when License Global made an announcement about a large number of companies who had made merchandising deals with TOEI to distribute Sailor Moon product. These, and many other products, have shown up in stores online and in the real world.

I once bought some Sailor Moon socks at EB Games and I’ll be honest, none of them fit! Keep an eye on the sizes as a lot of these are women’s socks which seems to indicate that this adult size 12 shoe wearing man isn’t exactly the target demographic! Hopefully you have better luck!

Have any of you bought socks from Everything Legwear? What do you think of them? Do you plan on picking any of these up?

A new Sailor Moon 4-D attraction, Sailor Moon The Miracle 4-D – Moon Palace Edition, is coming to Universal Studios Japan starting May 31st

Posted on March 21, 2019 by Adam

Following the success of last year’s Sailor Moon 4-D attraction Universal Studios Japan will be having yet another Sailor Moon 4-D ride starting May 31st 2019! This isn’t just a repeat of what was there last year but instead a whole new story! While I’m not fluent in Japanese it seems like this one is called Sailor Moon The Miracle 4-D Moon Palace Edition. Where the first event featured Sailor Moon fighting Morga and the Dark Kingdom from the first story arc this new attraction will feature Super Sailor Moon as well as all 10 Sailor Guardians, that being Sailor Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, Venus, Pluto, Uranus, Neptune, Saturn and Chibi Moon. We can see an image of the CG versions of these characters above.

The inclusion of all of these characters makes me wonder when this attraction will take place in the story. These ten characters are first brought together in the Infinity arc of the Manga. While only the core group continue into Sailor Moon SuperS in the anime, all of them return in the Dream and Stars arc in the manga. Sailor Moon eventually upgrades to Eternal Sailor Moon in Stars so it would likely take place prior to that. We also don’t see any of the other Sailor Guardians upgraded to their Super forms and Saturn isn’t a baby so it probably makes the most sense for this to to be taking place around the end of the Infinity arc before Hotaru becomes a baby and Haruka, Michiru and Setsuna take off for a while. The most telling clue is that Sailor Moon’s Cosmic Heart Compact is the transformation item being used for merchandise. This was her transformation item used in the Infinity arc, so that is probably where this takes place. All that said there’s no Moon Palace featured in the Infinity arc. The palace is mentioned in the title and in the description of the plot.

As with the last attraction there will be a bunch of exclusive merchandise sold at this event. We have Cosmic Heart Compacts in different colours. Are these supposed to represent the various Sailor Guardians? This would be nonsense since only Sailor Moon uses a Cosmic Heart Compact to transform. In the Infinity arc of the manga the other Sailor Guardians don’t use any transformation items while in Sailor Moon S the others continue to use their Star Power Sticks which they received in Sailor Moon R. Sailor Chibi Moon uses the Prism Heart Compact to transform during the Infinity arc or Sailor Moon S and this doesn’t much resemble the Cosmic Heart Compact. Even Sailor Moon’s actual Cosmic Heart Contact is red, of which only one of these Compacts is, and it isn’t clear that this one is tied to Sailor Moon. In all there are 11, not 10 of these, so I don’t even know that there are meant to represent individual Sailor Guardians. They’re just different coloured Cosmic Heart Compacts which to me seems to be a very odd piece of merchandise.

Did any of you get a chance to visit this attraction last year? Do you expect to be able to go to Japan while this new event is on?

Hisako Kanemoto, Sailor Mercury in Sailor Moon Crystal, returned to voice acting after a year studying abroad and missed no Sailor Moon Crystal

Posted on March 16, 2019 by Adam

Earlier this month on March 1st 2019 Hisako Kanemoto, who voices Sailor Mercury in Sailor Moon Crystal, returned to voice acting after a nearly year long hiatus while she was studying abroad. Her lengthy absence from voice acting had no impact on the recording of Sailor Moon Crystal which had it’s last episode airing nearly three years ago on June 27th 2016. She left Japan to study abroad last summer around the last time that we heard any news about Sailor Moon Crystal’s fourth season. At the time we learned that Kazuko Tadano would return as animation director during an event on Usagi’s birthday, June 30th 2018.

Were Sailor Moon Crystal adhering to a schedule similar to other anime series or even any other TV series airing elsewhere around the globe such a lengthy absence would surely have had an impact on the recording of the series. As an example of this when Phylicia Rashad was pregnant during filming of The Cosby Show they had to shoot around it, having her mostly appear in bed or sitting behind furniture. Even during the original Sailor Moon anime Kotono Mitsuishi was unable to voice Sailor Moon for the first season finale and some episodes of Sailor Moon R due to a relatively short illness, having her dialogue recorded instead by Kae Araki, who would later voice Chibiusa. Luckily for fans of Sailor Moon Crystal we have years to wait between seasons allowing voice actors to spend a couple of semesters studying abroad with no impact to the recording schedule. By the time we get the two movies that will be the Dream arc of Sailor Moon Crystal perhaps some of the voice actors will have had time to raise a large family or go to medical school and do a residency. On the flip side there is a growing chance that some of these voice actors, who were quite young when Sailor Moon Crystal was first announced and children when the original Sailor Moon first aired, may be retired or worse may have passed away of natural causes by the time we get more Sailor Moon Crystal. We certainly hope this is not the case but the ever patient fans know better than to set their expectations to a specific timeline at this point!

Ultimately I find the fact that Sailor Mercury’s voice actor went to study abroad to be quite fitting as it was Ami who, in episode 62 of Sailor Moon R, nearly did the same. In this case Ami stayed behind in Japan as the Sailor Guardians would not be able to get by without her during the lengthy time she planned on studying out of the country! Luckily Sailor Moon Crystal’s schedule is much more forgiving than the life of a Sailor Guardian allowing for such lengthy absences.

Will we get more Sailor Moon Crystal before the heat death of the universe? I certainly am remaining optimistic that this is the case! As I have conceived and become father to two children and built a house since the last episode of Sailor Moon Crystal aired I’d say a lot might still happen before we see those movies! What sort of time consuming life accomplishments have you made since June 2016? What else do you hope to happen before we see Pegasus in Sailor Moon Crystal?

Source: Crunchyroll

Sailor Moon Monopoly game review

Posted on January 18, 2019 by Adam

The Sailor Moon Monopoly game is now out in stores and online. I got my copy from an EB Games store in Ottawa (the Canadian equivalent to GameStop) a while back and it seems like many fans have done the same. With the game in hand we can get a good look at exactly what’s going on with the various pieces! As we’d discussed earlier this seems to be Sailor Moon S the game for reasons which I can’t really fathom. The various characters are mostly all from Sailor Moon S, mainly the villains being the Witches 5, Professor Tomoe and Mistress 9 as well as the inclusion of all Sailor Guardians including Sailor Moon S’s new additional Sailor Uranus, Neptune and Saturn. With the Viz video releases now having reached the end of Sailor Moon SuperS this seems an odd way to do it. Perhaps the game was simply in development for too long or this may have been an intentional choice as many of the Sailor Guardians introduced in this season would not appear in Sailor Moon SuperS and a Sailor Moon Sailor Stars Monopoly game would not be as recognisable to fans. For whatever the reasons, it’s Sailor Moon S Monopoly!

As with many other versions of Monopoly this really is the same old game we’ve seen time and time again with a different esthetic. This was immediately obvious to me as I’ve played countless hours of the game in my youth and I even spent quite some time programming a Monopoly computer game in Turbo Pascal when I was a child (the game mostly worked well but lacked houses, hotels, Chance and Community Chest cards). This is good for purists who want to have the same game experience as normal Monopoly. One thing which I think is fairly odd however is the completely random grouping of characters for most of the properties. Allow me to rant a bit about each one.

First we have Luna and Artemis, as a single property, bundled with Mimette of the Witches 5. Wouldn’t it have been easier to just use this, one of the only two pairs of properties, as Luna and Artemis? Mimette does not fit with Luna and Artemis at all. The characters don’t ever actually interact.

Next we have Eudial, Viluy and Tellu. This actually works! They are 3 of the Witches 5 and since there are no sets of five properties (most are groups of three) this sort of works!

Then there’s Cyprene/Ptilol with Kaolinite and … Sailor Chibi Moon! Kaolinite does have a brief interaction with Chibiusa at some point and the two characters do show up together in succession in the later versions of the Sailor Moon S credits. Cyprene and Ptilol fit only with Kaolinite. It would have made more sense to have put Mimette with her fellow Witches and then put Chibiusa with either her parents or maybe with Sailor Saturn!

Next is Sailor Mercury, Mars and Jupiter. There are all Sailor Guardians so this works decently. Aside from Sailor Moon they do spend some time together before Sailor Venus joins the show so I’ll say this is one of the three less terrible one.

Next is Sailor Venus, Professor Tomoe and Sailor Pluto. None of these characters have much to do with each other, except perhaps for a brief interaction between Sailor Venus and Pluto in one episode of Sailor Stars. Sailor Venus belongs with the Sailor Guardians from the first season while Sailor Pluto fits in better with Sailor Uranus and Neptune or even with Sailor Chibi Moon. I would personally have put her with King Endymion but that’s because I like trolling people. Professor Tomoe is a villain and if he’s going to be paired with anyone but his fellow villains from the season it should probably be his daughter, and not the Sailor Guardians who steals his baby from him in Sailor Stars.

Next is Sailor Uranus and Neptune with … Tuxedo Mask! Naturally Sailor Pluto would have worked better here. There’s nothing these two lesbians love more than the show’s male love interest! At least Sailor Uranus and Neptune are together where they belong.

On the last side we have Sailor Moon with Sailor Saturn and Mistress 9. This sort of works since Sailor Moon fights Mistress 9 and sort of saves Sailor Saturn but these characters would fit so much better elsewhere. Saturn should be with her father or her friend Chibiusa and Mistress 9 could easily fit with the villains! It does of course work that two versions of Hotaru be grouped together.

Finally we have the only grouping that works well, and that is Neo Queen Serenity and King Endymion. The only issue here is that they don’t really appear in Sailor Moon S so they don’t fit with the game at all.

Other groupings make some sense! The railroads are all items, either Talismans or Sailor Saturn’s Silence Glaive. The utilities are replaced by Sailor Moon’s items, that being her broach and rod. Jail and Free Parking are unchanged. It seems like there’s an opportunity here to use something a bit more Sailor Moon themed for these. Maybe Pharaon 90 sends you to the Tau Star System or something like that. A missed opportunity which leaves art which ultimately clashes with the rest of the game.

When it comes to the game pieces they are nice! These are the three Talismans, Sailor Moon’s Cosmic Heart Compact and Spiral Heart Moon Rod, and the Holy Grail. They’re all things and not characters but then aside from the dog most Monopoly game pieces are just things anyway.

The money is a bit odd. The colours and values are more or less kept from real Monopoly with different characters appearing on each bill. The money is all shown with an M with a slash through it. Moon dollars or something of the sort. It’s not like Sailor Moon takes place in a universe they don’t use normal currency. We frequently see prices and money in the series being yen. Is there some rule that a themed Monopoly came have some weird non existent currency?

Finally we have the Love and Friendship Cards. These seem to basically be Chance and Community Chest cards with the flavour language changed and the same dollar amounts and consequences. The descriptions of what is occurring are just random events occurring during Sailor Moon S.

Should you buy this game? If you wanted to I imagine you already would have! It’s just one of a very, very, very long series of Monopoly games with images based on many franchises. The specific decisions made in adapting this game seem to be pretty poor as someone with a minor amount of effort would likely have been able to put together property groupings and other aspects of the game which work much better. It seems like someone with next to no knowledge of the franchise was given a list of characters, art and perhaps episode summaries of Sailor Moon S and that they threw together a version of Monopoly that superficially seemed to have made sense. For my money the Sailor Moon games by Dyskami Publishing are a much better way to play a Sailor Moon game.

Keep reading for more photos of this game.

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Check out Rika Izumi, live action Sailor Mercury, as Nami from One Piece

Posted on December 31, 2018 by Adam

Anime fans who’ve kept up with new stuff since the turn of the millennium will be happy to see Rika Izumi, who played Ami Mizuno in the live action Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon series, as Nami from One Piece in a commercial for Indeed. Rika Izumi, who went by the name Hama Chisaki back when the live action series was airing, appears in the commercial as the scantily clad Nami. I can’t say I know much about One Piece but it would seem Nami is one of the main characters from the very fact that she’s in this commercial. You can view the entire thing embedded below.

Indeed is a job searching web site. They claim that they are the #1 job search site in the world though this is the first I hear of them. In fairness I’m not looking for work and as you may be able to tell I’ve never even watched One Piece. I don’t exactly have my finger on the pulse of anything beyond the 90s.

Source: Natalie.mu via Crunchyroll

Dates and cast details for the New York and Washington D.C. showings of Sailor Moon the Super Live have been revealed

Posted on December 21, 2018 by Adam

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!

(This movie is extremely 18+)

Is the art for the Sailor Moon Crystal x Monster Strike collaboration based on upcoming season 4 character designs?

Posted on November 10, 2018 by Adam

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.

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Check out the board and pieces for the upcoming Sailor Moon Monopoly game

Posted on September 29, 2018 by Adam

A Sailor Moon Monopoly game is coming! A listing for this game has been up with many retailers for a while now but we can now see, from the GameStop listing for the product, what the game’s board will look like! The game will retail for $39.99 US and will be released November 9th according to GameStop’s site. With the release of this version of Monopoly there will be as many different types of Monopoly games as there are Funko Pop toys at GameStop! The box and board feature all characters from the Sailor Moon S season including all 10 Sailor Guardians as well as other villains from that season such as Professor Tomoe, the Witches 5 and Mistress 9. Neo Queen Serenity and King Endymion are also on the game though those characters don’t make a proper appearance in the S season. As a long time Monopoly player it seems obvious that the values on most of the board match what people would be used to only all spaces are replaced with Sailor Moon themed characters and items. Properties are all characters with other characters and items making up others squares. I’ve listed a breakdown of what characters are replacing for every original Monopoly space:

Mediteranian Avenue – Luna and Artemis
Baltic Avenue – Mimete

Oriental Avenue – Eudial
Vermont Avenue – Viluy
Connecticut Avenue – Tellu

St. Charles Place – Cyprine/Ptilol
States Avenue – Sailor Chibi Moon
Virginia Avenue – Kaolinite

St. James Place – Sailor Mercury
Tennessee Avenue – Sailor Mars
New York Avenue – Sailor Jupiter

Kentucky Avenue – Sailor Venus
Indiana Avenue – Professor Tomoe
Illinois Avenue – Sailor Pluto

Atlantic Avenue – Tuxedo Mask
Ventor Avenue – Sailor Neptune
Marvin Gardens – Sailor Uranus

Pacific Avenue – Mistress 9
North Carolina Avenue – Sailor Saturn
Pennsylvania Avenue – Sailor Moon

Park Place – King Endymion
Boardwalk – Neo Queen Serenity

Reading Railroad – Garnet Rod
Pennsylvania Railroad – Deep Aqua Mirror
B. & O. Railroad – Space Sword
Short Line – Silence Glaive

Electric Company – Cosmic Heart Compact
Water Works – Spiral Moon Heart Rod

Community Chest – Love
Chance – Friendship

Income Tax and Luxury Tax – Something with the Witches 5?

The following spaces are unchanged:
Go
In Jail/Just Visiting
Free Parking
Go To Jail

In addition we can get a bit of a look at the “Sailor Moon Money” in this image and we see the following denominations on bills:

$1 – Sailor Moon
$5 – Sailor Chibi Moon
$10 – Sailor Mercury
$20 – Sailor Mars
$50 – Sailor Jupiter
$100 – Sailor Venus
$500 – Sailor Moon

Why Sailor Moon is on both the $1 and $500 isn’t clear! I may be mistaken as it’s hard to see exactly what it says on the $1 bill but it seems to have a crescent moon and the “Sailor” part is clear and the second 4 letter word appears to be Moon from the top of the letters we see. I’m not sure the $ is the appropriate symbol to be using in this case as there seems to be an M symbol to reference Sailor Moon Money when dollars are mentioned but it is a bit hard to make out. Sailor Moon Money has no basis in canon. Throughout most of the series the character live in Tokyo and would use Japanese Yen as currency. I don’t know what currency would be used in Crystal Tokyo but it seems unlikely that it would be called Sailor Moon Money as Sailor Moon is no longer an active superhero at the time, what with being the Queen of that city.

We also see what the tokens for the game will be. These are also listed on the GameStop site. These are the Cosmic Heart Compact, Moon Chalice, Spiral Heart Moon Rod, Garnet Orb, Deep Aqua Mirror and Space Sword. These are again all items appearing in Sailor Moon S.

Why Sailor Moon S? Why now? Sailor Moon SuperS has now been released in its entirety in North America on home video. Sailor Moon Sailor Stars is out subtitled on streaming services. When it comes to Sailor Moon Crystal we’ve only gotten up to the Infinity Arc, telling the equivalent of the Sailor Moon S story, but these are clearly original Sailor Moon anime based designs and not Sailor Moon Crystal designs like we’ve seen with the Sailor Moon Crystal Dice Challenge game. Surely there is the convenience of having all of the Sailor Guardians appearing in Sailor Moon S allowing for more properties with those characters in it. If we had a first season based game we might be seeing Queen Beryl and the Shitennou alongside Naru and Umino instead. There are certainly reasons for which Sailor Moon S makes sense for the game’s setting, but it still seems odd and a bit arbitrary to me.

Do you plan on picking this game up? How many versions of Monopoly do you own?

As the new Eternal Editions of the Sailor Moon manga are released in English a smaller Bunkobon version is coming to Japan September 28th

Posted on September 10, 2018 by Adam

As a new even bigger version of the Sailor Moon manga, the Eternal Edition, is being released in English tomorrow an even smaller version will soon be released in Japan! Japanese readers will be getting a Bunkobon version of the Sailor Moon manga which is a smaller and cheaper version of the manga. At only 842 yen, about $7.50 US, this is about half the price of the Complete Editions which were released a few years ago. These are Bunkobon or Bunkoban Editions which are a size which is referred to in Japan as A6, which is roughly 4.13″ x 5.83″. In contrast the new Eternal Editions which are coming out in North America are even bigger than the large Complete Edition Japanese versions and measure a whopping 7.1″ x 9.98″, a bit smaller than a standard 8.5″ x 11″ letter sheet of paper. This is almost double the height and width of the new Bunkobon Japanese versions and roughly 3 times the surface area! Of course the larger English version is also over three times the cost so you really do get what you’re paying for! The Japanese Complete Editions were A5 size which is between the two at 5.83″ × 8.27″. Check out this Tweet by @thesailorbook to see the difference between the new English version and the Japanese Complete Edition. The Bunkobon Edition is not included in this size comparison.

The first two volumes of the Bunkobon editions will be released on September 28th. The covers are similar to the Complete Editions and Eternal Editions showing art of Sailor Moon on volume 1 and Sailor Mercury on volume 2. Both volumes 1 and 2 are available for pre-order from Amazon Japan. If you’re more interested in buying an English version, with high quality paper and some colour pages, you can order those using the Amazon.com links below. Only volume 1 is released on September 11th while volume 2 won’t be out until November 13th with later volumes coming out in 2019. Since there were delays with volume 1 coming out there may be more delays to that schedule.

Will you be picking either of these up? How many versions of the Sailor Moon manga are you up to now? I think I’ll be up to 9 if I get both of these but I’m starting to lose count. My Sailor Moon books are still in boxes as I’m moving into my new place.

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: Sailor Mercury

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As the new Eternal Editions of the Sailor Moon manga are released in English a smaller Bunkobon version is coming to Japan September 28th