We’ve got more cast details and our first look at Princess Kakyuu, Sailor Galaxia and Chibi Chibi from the upcoming Sailor Moon Cosmos films. The movies will start Nana Mizuki as Princess Kakyuu, Megumi Hayashibara as Sailor Galaxy and Kotono Mitsuishi as Chibi Chibi.
Nana Mizuki, the voice of Sailor Kakyuu, is a voice actor known for such roles as Hinata Hyuga in Naruto, Tsubomi Hanasaki in Heartcatch Precure! and Ann Takamaki in Persona 5.
Megumi Hayashibara, the voice of Sailor Galaxia, is a well known veteran voice actor. Some of her more memorable roles include Rei Ayanami and Pen Pen in Evangelion, Pidgeotto and Pidgeot in Pokémon, Ai Amano in Video Girl Ai, Lina Inverse in Slayers, Faye Valentine in Cowboy Bebop and Ai Haibara in Detective Conan.
Fans will surely recognize Kotono Mitsuishi, the voice of Chibi Chibi, as providing the voice of Sailor Moon in both the original Sailor Moon anime and Sailor Moon Crystal. By providing the voice for Chibi Chibi this continues the tradition from the original Sailor Moon anime of having Kotono Mitsuishi provide the voices of both Sailor Moon and Chibi Chibi. As Sailor Moon Cosmos will more closely follow the story of the manga than the original anime this will make sense considering Chibi Chibi’s true identity.
What do you think of the designs for these characters? Are you excited for this new cast?
A new trailer for the Sailor Moon Cosmos films has been released and this one includes the Sailor Starlights! We also have photos and names of the voice actors who will be portraying them and release dates for both parts of the films in June. In the trailer we see Seiya, Yaten and Taiki also known as the idol group The Three Lights as well as their Sailor Guardian counterparts The Sailor Starlights! You can watch the trailer on YouTube or embedded below.
We already knew that the Sailor Moon Cosmos films cover the Stars arc of the Sailor Moon manga in which the Sailor Starlights feature heavily so seeing them isn’t a surprise but it is nice to finally see them. They sure do look great! We have a few clips of Seiya and Usagi on a rooftop, many clips of the Three Lights as their civilian identities and a bit of transformation sequences and attacks for the Sailor Starlights. There’s also a bit of music, something that is likely to be an important part of the film as the Three Lights are an idol group who perform many songs. Manga is not a medium which lends itself to music but the original Sailor Moon anime had a lot of Three Lights songs, and these films surely will as well!
Seiya Kou, Sailor Star Fighter, will be voiced by Marina Inoue who has been an anime voice actor for nearly twenty years. She is known for having provided the voices of Armin Arlert from Attack on Titan, Momo Yaoyorozu from My Hero Academia and Cure March from Smile PreCure!
Taiki Kou, Sailor Star Maker, will be voiced by Saori Hayami, a voice actor and singer who’s been working for about 15 years. Her voice acting credits include Leona from Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai and Himawari Uzumaki from Boruto: Naruto Next Generations.
Yaten Kou, Sailor Star Healer, will be voiced by Ayane Sakura, who’s been doing voice acting for about 12 years. Her roles include Ochaco Uraraka from My Hero Academia and Yae Miko from Genshin Impact.
Sailor Moon Cosmos Part 1 will be in theatres in Japan on June 9th followed by Part 2 on June 30th. There has not yet been a date announced for an international release.
The big news from the 30th Anniversary Streaming Event was the announcement of Sailor Moon Cosmos! The two films, Part 1 and Part 2 as was the case with Sailor Moon Eternal, will continue to Sailor Moon Crystal series and cover the Stars arc of the Sailor Moon manga. The current plan is to have these films come out in the summer of 2023 though delays are not completely uncommon with Sailor Moon Crystal. A trailer for the films was shown at the event and then posted on the Sailor Moon Official YouTube Channel. You can watch it embedded below.
The Stars arc is the fifth and final story arc of the Sailor Moon manga so this is likely the end of Sailor Moon Crystal. There’s a lot going on in this trailer! The Stars arc has Usagi meeting the Three Lights and fighting Galaxia. Though it seems that revealing the Sailor Starlights is something that is being kept for a later date we do get a quick look at a poster of The Three Lights in the background in Usagi’s room and an arm seen in the trailer likely belongs to Seiya who is wearing his school uniform. Sailor Galaxia is shown, with her face somewhat obscured. We also got a quick look at Chibi Chibi arriving at the end of the trailer. The final shot has three shooting stars crossing the sky, which would be the Sailor Starlights who are arriving from outside of the solar system.
The film’s title, Sailor Moon Cosmos, is a reference to Sailor Cosmos who is a future incarnation of Sailor Moon who we sort of see in the trailer but sort of don’t.
Mamoru, Tuxedo Mask, is seen briefly in this trailer. Will we see much more of him in the films? What a nice looking golden crystal in that one shot.
Now the speculation can begin about this film! It looks like the art style is fairly similar to what we saw in Sailor Moon Eternal. Does this mean that Kazuko Tadano is returning? The official movie site lists her as the character designer but not the animation director for the films. Since I can’t read Japanese I’m not able to translate anything else.
We haven’t seen much of the Three Lights and Sailor Starlights yet. The songs they performed were a big part of the music for the Sailor Stars season of the original Sailor Moon anime. One would think this would be an important part of these new movies. Who might voice these characters? Perhaps some popular Japanese vocalists! In the original Sailor Moon anime the Three Lights were men as civilians and they transformed into women when they became the Sailor Starlights, though they were voiced by women at all times. The Sailor Moon Crystal series follows the manga more faithfully in which case the Sailor Starlights are women and they disguise themselves as men when they are the Three Lights. It seems likely they could get women to do the voices of these characters, though it could go either way. What popular Japanese pop singers would you like to see voicing the Three Lights?
A note on language while discussing these movies. I’ll generally be referring to the Sailor Starlights as women with pronouns to match and the Three Lights as men with the equivalent pronouns. A lot has happened since the 1990s as far mainstream acceptance of transgender, genderfluid and non binary identities. It might not be evident how exactly to classify these characters by modern standards. As the story tends to have the Starlights identifying as women while they’re Sailor Guardians and the Three Lights identifying as men in their civilian identities I’ll be using language which fits that when discussing those characters. Since the Japanese language doesn’t use pronouns in the same way as we do in English I expect this isn’t something that is likely to be addressed in the official canon but am happy to update this practice if there seems to be cause to do so. If any of this seems incorrect or inappropriate feel free to bring it up in the comments.
Are you excited for these films? Do you think they will actually be released in 2023?
Keep reading for many more screenshots from this trailer.
