After over two years since the first two volumes were released the 3rd and 4th volumes of the Sailor Moon All Color Complete Edition manga will be released August 12th which is in two days but also tomorrow because it’s already tomorrow in Japan. This was announced on the official Sailor Moon site only a couple of days before the publishing date which is odd but also exactly what happened in June of 2020 when the first two volumes were announced and then quickly released. The Sailor Moon manga was originally drawn and released in black and white with only a few colour pages included at the start of each chapter. This new version has every page coloured. The first two volumes, already released, covered the Dark Kingdom story arc. Volumes 3 and 4 will cover the Black Moon story arc with Chibiusa and the Black Moon clan.

A few drawbacks to consider. This is a digital only Japanese release. I held off on getting the first two volumes a couple of years ago hoping for an eventual physical release but after all this time it looks like this isn’t likely to happen. It seems common for colour versions of popular Japanese manga to be released only digitally, likely due to the increased cost of printing colour pages, so this may indeed be all we’ll get. There also aren’t any English or other language version of this release. It’s certainly possible and English release comes out in the future, but nothing has yet been announced.

Purchasing these might pose a challenge. They are widely available through Japanese ebook retailers such as Amazon Japan (volume 3, volume 4) and Rakuten Kobo (volume 3, volume 4) however buying these digital versions may be restricted. I was not able to buy them from Amazon Japan however I later discovered this was likely just a browser issue and trying it in a different web browser worked fine.

Thanks to a tip from Twitter user @thesailorbook I learned that buying them from Rakuten Kobo would work. This still took a bit of effort as I needed to switch to the Japanese store. I wasn’t sure if using a credit card would work since I claimed my address was in Japan but I paid through PayPal and was able to get the first two volumes. I expect to be able to do the same for the next volumes when they’re released in a few days. I had the added challenge of not being able to install the Kobo reader on my Amazon device but I was ultimately able to install it through the Google Play store app which I had sideloaded onto my device some time ago.

Will you be getting these? What device will you be buying them on and what will you use to read them?

Can you ever have enough copies of the Sailor Moon manga? Of course not! The latest iteration is a fully colourized version which will be available only as a digital download. After being spotted in a magazine it has now been officially announced on the official Sailor Moon web site. The good news is that the first two volumes will be released in a couple of days, on June 29th! The bad news is there is no current plan for a physical release of this version of the manga. It remains to be seen if we will be getting a printed version eventually.

The price of this version if fairly low at only 990 yen per volume. This works out to about $9.25 US. It isn’t clear if or when it might be released internationally. The big advantage of the digital versions which were released last year was that they were released in a number of languages and stores worldwide. While I certainly hope that’s eventually the case with this version, I’m not seeing them for sale in any particular stores outside of Japan at this time.

So what’s going on with this version? Sailor Moon was originally a black and white manga and this version has colour added. The original release of the Sailor Moon manga in the magazine Nakayoshi had a few colour pages at the start of each chapter. These were not included in all manga releases though all colour pages were in the latest release, the Eternal Edition of the manga. Oddly these colour pages are actually recoloured differently for this new version of the manga and while it isn’t clear why this is I suspect the aim was to have a consistent look throughout the new version which may not have worked seamlessly if the original colour pages were used.

It’s also worth noting that this colour version is not the same as the ones seen in the 20th Anniversary art exhibit a few years back. Check out this comparison on Twitter which shows slight differences.

Will you be checking out this release? Will you buy the Japanese version or hold out for an English release or perhaps a physical printed edition?