New episodes of Sailor Moon Crystal are coming this Spring. A new director and character designer have been announced.

Posted on January 8, 2016 by Adam

The Sailor Moon Official Site has posted some information about the upcoming new episodes of Sailor Moon Crystal. The Infinity story arc will start this Spring. The production staff has been revealed with more details coming during a live event which will be shown on Niconico Wednesday January 27th at 8pm Japan Standard Time, 6am Easter Time, 3am Pacific Time.

Sailor Moon Crystal’s new director is Chiaki Kon. She has directed a number of Anime shows I’ve never heard of including Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, Junjo Romantica and Hanasakeru Seishonen. It’s nice to see a woman directing a show that is largely about and for women and girls. Akira Takahashi, who was an animation director for individual episodes of Sailor Moon Crystal, will be taking on the role of character designer.

Other staff remain the same. Series writer Yuji Kobayashi returns. Takashi Kurahashi remains the animation director. Yasuharu Takanashi will continue to do the music.

The third arc of Sailor Moon Crystal, called the second season by some and the third season by others, will cover the Infinity story arc of the manga, which is the Sailor Moon S season of the original anime. This will introduce us to Sailor Uranus, Neptune and Saturn as well as the Death Busters. The rest of the gang, including Sailor Pluto, will return. Unlike in the original anime Chibiusa will be present throughout this arc. She didn’t stay in the future for any period of time following the fight against the Black Moon Clan. We previously learned that the new episodes will air on TV in Japan first, though it is unclear how quickly it will be available to stream for international viewers. One way or another, the show will likely be made available either officially or through fansubs within a few days of the original broadcast. You can always count on this site sharing specifics about how to enjoy the show.

You can check out the stream on the Niconico site starting January 27th at 6am Eastern Time. I’ve watched many of the older streams online but I have been region blocked from viewing more recent ones for not being in Japan. I will do my best to watch the feed or at the very least follow news of the event and share all of the details.

As always take all news for what it is. The original release of Sailor Moon Crystal was delayed a number of time before having a firm release date. A very official source is claiming that the show will be available in the Spring but there is always the possibility of further delays. For reference, Spring this year will run from March 20th to June 20th.

TOEI Animation Europe states that new episodes of Sailor Moon Crystal will air on Japanese TV before being streamed online

Posted on November 4, 2015 by Adam

New episodes of Sailor Moon Crystal will be airing on Japanese TV on Tokyo MX in 2016. While the first two story arcs, which comprised the first 26 episodes, first appeared online simultaneously worldwide on streaming services, this doesn’t appear to be what will be happening with the next batch of episodes according to TOEI Animation Europe. The announcement, posted on their web site on Tuesday, is pretty straightforward and included below:

TUESDAY 3RD NOVEMBER 2015

Sailor Moon Crystal, the reboot of the Sailor Moon series from the 90’s, continues with a third season recently announced in Japan! While the 26 first episodes were aired online on Niko Niko, the new season will be broadcast on TV Tokyo MX in 2016.

In Europe, the two first seasons (26×26’) of Sailor Moon Crystal are on air in Portugal (Biggs) and in France (Canal J).

The series was recently highlighted in France during the Kidexpo event where photo sessions were organized with Sailor Moon

This lacks detail about if and when a streaming version will be available. This does not exclude the possibility of a simultaneous streaming version being online at the same time or immediately following the broadcast. It’s also possible that a version will be online some short time following the broadcast. If there is a streaming version, we also don’t know if it will continue to be on Niconico, Hulu and Crunchyroll as the rest of the series has been to date. When we learn any of these details we will be sure to share them.

It is important to note TOEI Animation Europe’s poor track record in breaking news about Sailor Moon Crystal. Earlier this year many claimed they had confirmed new episodes of Sailor Moon Crystal, which we later learned was not the case and was actually a problem in confusion and mistralation on their part and that of fans. I would note that I was originally skeptical of this announcement, assuming that this was a poor translation which turned out to be completely correct. In this case, mistranslation doesn’t seem to be likely to account for what we’re seeing here, though TOEI Animation Europe’s track record should be considered. We will be more confident in this news when something is announced on the official Sailor Moon site.

Source: TOEI Animation Europe (English, French)

Sailor Moon Crystal’s English dub is coming to Hulu in November and Blu-Ray in 2016 plus the English voices for the Witches 5 have been announced

Posted on October 12, 2015 by Adam

This past weekend Viz Media held their Sailor Moon Panel at New York Comic Con. We got a lot of news about Sailor Moon Crystal. First and most importantly, the dub of Sailor Moon Crystal will be coming to Hulu and Viz.com next month, some time in November. We previously learned that the dub cast would be the same cast which was used for Viz’s new dub of the original Sailor Moon anime.

We have also learned, via a flyer of their upcoming releases, that Sailor Moon Crystal would be released on DVD and Blu-Ray in 2016. The first release is “Sailor Moon Crystal Set 1: The Dark Kingdom Arc” and will include Sailor Moon Crystal Acts 1 to 13. This Blu-Ray set will no doubt include the original Japanese and English dubbed versions of Sailor Moon Crystal, including optional subtitles. We’ve previously learned that Viz’s version of Sailor Moon Crystal will be the updated version used for the Japanese Blu-Ray releases, which had minor changes to the animation from the original streaming version.

In casting news we have also learned the voice actors who will be playing the Witches 5, who are 6 of the new villains from the upcoming dub of Sailor Moon S. Now that the Infinity story arc of Sailor Moon Crystal has been announced in Japan, it stands to reason that this same cast will be around to voice these characters once those episodes are dubbed into English. The new cast includes some returning actors who have done other voices in the series. Erin Fitzgerald will voice Eudial. Kira Buckland will voice Mimete. Laura Post, who previously voiced a kindergarden teacher in Sailor Moon R episode 52 and the monster Amaderasu in episode 53, will voice Tellu. Cricket Brown, who previously voiced Usagi’s teacher Haruna, will play Viluy. Johanna Luis, who previously voiced An the Alien also known as Natsumi in Sailor Moon R, will play both Cyprine and Ptilol who somehow count as one of the Witches 5.

Source: @TheMatthewPaul on Twitter, @sailor_moon_na on Twitter.

A new season of Sailor Moon Crystal has been announced and will feature Sailor Uranus, Neptune and Saturn

Posted on September 28, 2015 by Adam

It’s official! Following the airing of the final episode of Sailor Moon Crystal on Japanese TV a new set of episodes was announced. This was immediately confirmed on the Official Sailor Moon Site and Twitter account. The image included with this announcement shows Sailor Uranus’s Space Sword, Sailor Neptune’s Deep Aqua Mirror and symbols for all 10 Sailor Guardians. The Space Sword and Deep Aqua Mirror are two of the Talismans that have some importance in this next story arc. Missing is the third Talisman, Sailor Pluto’s Garnet Orb. I guess we’ve seen enough of it with the New Horizons photos of Pluto at this point.

As expected this will cover the Infinity story arc for the manga which introduces us to Sailor Uranus, Sailor Neptune and Sailor Saturn as well as the enemies the Death Busters which includes Professor Tomoe, Kaolinite and the Witches 5. This is the equivalent to the Sailor Moon S season of the original Anime. Not a lot of details are included about the actual release schedule of these episodes. It seems likely that these episodes will once again be available to stream on Nicinico and to air on TV in Japan. We don’t yet know which of these will come first. Will we continue with the model of releasing online first, with a more traditional model of releasing on TV first or perhaps have a simultaneous TV and online release? We will have to wait and see as new details will be coming on the official site.

The Infinity arc of the Sailor Moon manga covers 12 acts by the new manga chapter numbering which was used for Crystal. This will likely mean 12 episodes in this story arc. The Dream arc, which is the equivalent of the Sailor Moon SuperS season of the original anime, covers an additional 11 episodes. If another year of the show was coming we would likely get both of these arcs. No such details were included in the press release which is no surprise as the Black Moon arc was not announced until late in the Dark Kingdom story arc of Crystal. At this point we don’t know how many more episodes are being planned. If we get that number we should be able to make a reasonable prediction about how many arcs that will cover.

The Japanese announcements are breaking the story arcs into phases, with the Black Moon episodes being referred to as the second phase and this as the 3rd phase. Some also use the term season though with the first year of Sailor Moon Crystal covering two story arcs and arguably being considered one season this naming convention can be a bit confusing. Is this season 2, the second year of the show, or season 3, the third arc of the show? Is the term season even relevant to a show who’s primary method of distribution was online?

The press release also noted that a rebroadcast of Sailor Moon Crystal will begin next Monday starting with the Dark Kingdom arc.

Note that all but the first image in this post include art from the original Sailor Moon anime and not Sailor Moon Crystal.

Sailor Moon Crystal director Munehisa Sakai has completed his work on the series. Is anyone taking his place?

Posted on August 18, 2015 by Adam

Munehisa Sakai, the director of Sailor Moon Crystal, has ceased working on the series. He mentioned this in a tweet yesterday. The tweet, in Japanese, thanks all of the staff for their hard work and says that his work on Sailor Moon Crystal is complete.

セーラームーンCrystal、自分の作業はこれにて完了！全てのスタッフ、叱咤激励いただいた皆さまに激しく感謝。ありがとうございました！

— 境宗久 (@munehisa_sakai) August 17, 2015

As director of the series he is ultimately the person who is most responsible for how the show came together and the final product we saw, so if you liked Sailor Moon Crystal, you liked his work. Now we must wonder if this is a sign that Sailor Moon Crystal is truly over. It seems that he is not staying on as director for any additional episodes of Sailor Moon Crystal, but is anyone taking his place? If so, this new show may be quite different from what we’ve seen. We haven’t heard anything about the series since the “À bientôt” message was left at the end of Act 26. That episode aired a month ago today, so it hasn’t been so long that we should panic after not hearing much else in this much time. If the creative talent behind the show is moving on the other projects, this could be an indication that “À bientôt” was a reference to something other than new episodes of Sailor Moon Crystal.

Thanks for all the good work to anyone who worked on the series that we’ve seen to date. Let’s hope that there is more to come, by however may be at the helm of the Infinity arc of Sailor Moon Crystal.

Source: Munehisa Sakai’s Twitter page via Sailor Moon Portugal

A review of the final episode of Sailor Moon Crystal, Act 26, Replay – Never Ending

Posted on July 19, 2015 by Adam

The latest and final episode of Sailor Moon Crystal, Act 26, Replay – Never Ending, is now available on Crunchyroll, Hulu and Niconico. For now this is the final episode. No next episode preview exists and a message stating “À bientôt” or “See you soon” appears at the end of the episode. I’ve already written another blog post about this and will discuss it later in this post. An obvious interpretation of this is that there will be more episodes some time in the future, but nothing of the sort has been confirmed to date. With that, there is a lot to discuss about this episode, so let’s focus on the present, or rather the 30th century, for one last time.

I never really noticed this in the past but Chibiusa is really small! In one particular shot she seems especially small. She usually seems to be about half the size of most adults in the show, which would put her under 3′, something closer to 2’6″ in this shot where she doesn’t even reach the bottom of Sailor Jupiter’s skirt. This is typical of a 3 or 4 year old. Her age isn’t really known with her actually being 900 but given her level of language, maturity and schooling she really shouldn’t be this short. This sort of reminded me of Shippo from Inuyasha who’s size varied wildly from shot to shot.

Neo Queen Serenity awakes and everything is cool between her and Chibiusa. She seems proud of the Sailor Guardian she’s become and sends her off to help her friends. But wait doesn’t she already know this because she fought alongside her for years when she was a teenager?

Sailor Chibi Moon is given Neo Queen Serenity’s sceptre which becomes the Cutie Moon Rod. The idea seems to be that Sailor Moon of the past has the Cutie Moon Rod. In the future it becomes Neo Queen Serenity’s sceptre, and then it is given back to Sailor Chibi Moon. This is why both Sailor Moon and Sailor Chibi Moon have matching rods. Like with the two Silver Crystals, they are the same items from different times. They fight Death Phantom, use a double Moon Princess Halation and then Sailor Moon’s Cutie Moon Rod is destroyed. So where does Neo Queen Serenity’s sceptre come from? How does Sailor Chibi Moon’s future version continue to exist? The future as seen in this story arc is the future of this arc, because later in the mange there are item, uniform and cast changes which are not reflected in the future but as the Cutie Moon Rod is replaced even within this same arc, the timeline is already in question.

The time travel is really a mess. So the Death Phamtom is beaten, yay, and everything is great again. Sailor Moon and Neo Queen Serenity want to meet but it’s forgiven because, as Neo Queen Serenity states, it is not a part of history. Well is any of this a part of history? Does Neo Queen Serenity remember spending years of time with her future daughter as a kid, and traveling through time, and saving the future or any of this crazy stuff? If she does, then it’s all a predestination paradox. If she doesn’t, then what fundamental difference does it make if two people actually meet each other? Tuxedo Mask and the ghost of King Endymion are BFFs at this point, but their physical bodies didn’t occupy the same space so it doesn’t matter? Influence can happen through any sort of transmission of information. Simply being able to see the future would have the ability to drastically change the course of history, yet somehow a lot of importance is put on the actual meeting of people.

So what do we do? Oh forget the timeline I want to meet you so they just go see each other. Is this really wise? I mean I know we completely ignore all rules of time travel as we’ve seen by Sailor Pluto never doing her job but what are the implications here? If we actually did somehow change the flow of time by having Sailor Moon and Neo Queen Serenity meeting the main thing that would happen is that Chibiusa would never be born, which is kind of serious business. But nothing seems to happen and so everyone from the future thinks it’s a great idea to just go meet their past selves as the Queen, King, all of the Sailor Guardians and even the cats come and say hi to their past selves. Only Diana is not guilty of tainting her timeline and she may never be born if this is allowed!

There’s so much kissing in this episode. Neo Queen Serenity wakes up King Endymion with a kiss. Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask kiss while wandering in space. Usagi and Mamoru kiss back and earth and of course Chibiusa and Mamoru kiss when she returns! It should make a lot of the fans of romance happy seeing so much smooching.

Sailor Moon gets her brooch updated. Now she has the Cosmic Heart Compact. Oddly though Chibiusa is also seen with a Cosmic Heart Compact. In the anime the transformation item she has for Sailor Moon S is the Prism Heart Compact, though it is unnamed in the manga. It is not usually drawn in details but it does not seem like it was ever meant to closely resemble Sailor Moon’s brooch as it does here.

Chibiusa leaves, somewhat. The clock says 7:20am. How early to be time traveling, but Chibiusa is doing this on a morning before school so that makes some sense. After a teary farewell she leaves only to return moments afterwards. Classic time travel! It’s not clear how long she was gone for but obviously more than a few seconds passed in the future for Chibiusa to be sent back for training. The letter Neo Queen Serenity sends references Usagi having offered to train Chibiusa, though no such agreement ever seems to have taken place. But then Neo Queen Serenity is from the future so perhaps she knows that Usagi was fine with it, having been her in the past, assuming this isn’t part of some abandoned timeline since she met herself and ruined the universe. It seems that Neo Queen Serenity is being a bit lazy here by sending Chibiusa away in order to be rid of her for a while, but this makes no real sense. If time travel is at play she could just have sent her to the future. Chibiusa may very well return to the time she left once her training is complete. There’s no reason to look at this as a normal non time traveler’s sending a child to boarding school. Let’s not forget that Chibiusa is 900 years old so Neo Queen Serenity has had her around for quite a while and does not appear to have tried to sent her to time travel boarding school before.

So Chibiusa is back. Sailor Moon has a new brooch and attack item. Why do all this if this is the last episode? Because that’s what happens in the manga. Sailor Moon Crystal has not simply been a somewhat faithful manga adaptation. It has been a nearly exact retelling of the manga story. New episodes or not they wouldn’t have removed these scenes.

Will the show return for season 2? The final scene of the episodes carries a message, “À bientôt”. This is French and is accurately translated as “See you soon”. We do not know with any certainly what this means. The default assumption here, which I believe is the intended meaning, is that there will be more episodes. This is the closest thing we’ve had to any official confirmation. There are no details and it’s hard to get any specifics. We are, as far as I interpret this statement, being led to believe that the series will continue at some time. When, we can’t say. Will something happen between now and then that will interfere with this plan to bring us new episodes? That is certainly possible and so even if this message is meant to tell us new episodes are coming, these plans may not come to fruition.

There are other possibilities for the meaning of these statements. The live action series ended with the words “See you again”, a less accurate translation of “À bientôt”, which was only meant as a reference to the at the time already announced Special Act, a single episode straight to video special which was itself followed up with a prequel. With other things happening in the Sailor Moon world it could simply be a reference to some other project which fans may care about to varying degrees.

Sailor Moon Crystal was originally announced in summer 2012 for the summer of 2013, but it was delayed a full year before it finally began in July 2014. Episodes were obviously animated at the last minute as next episode previews often had changes by the time the episodes came around, and the next episode preview for Act 26 was all reused clips from earlier episodes. There were also all of the changes done for the Blu-Ray releases. If some time is needed to catch up on the backlog and get a bit of a buffer for new episodes, that is great. There may be a ton of other financial and planning decisions being made in Japan right now that we aren’t and won’t be made aware of. With the series now airing on TV in Japan there may be some desire to have new episodes released either on TV first or simulcast on TV and online. We really don’t know any details. Now is the time to be patient, and hope that new episodes will come at some point. The sooner the better, but in this case late is always better than never.

Like with the premier of Sailor Moon Crystal we must be weary of rumours and pay attention to official sources. There was a ton of speculation based on international sources or subtle mentions which had us assuming all sorts of premiere dates for Sailor Moon Crystal which didn’t pan out until the official release date finally came from an official source, a live event. There were also delays to timelines layed out by official sources, and news with specifics of those delays again came from similar places. A lot of rumours continue as dates such as Winter 2016 are now being spoken of with regards to new episodes of Sailor Moon Crystal, but the only official news we’ve had is “À bientôt”. We will be keeping an eye on the official web site and Twitter account, reporting any promising rumours as they come up but always keeping in mind the strength of various evidence. We will be sharing anything we find to be relevant on this site as we learn it.

Be patient friends. We waited a long time for this series. For a lot of us that wait paid off. Do not mistake my snarky negativity for a dislike of the series. I’ve greatly enjoyed Sailor Moon Crystal and sincerely hope there is more in store for us some day.

Keep reading for more screenshots from what we hope is not the final episode of Sailor Moon Crystal.

Continue reading →

Will Sailor Moon Crystal return? What is the meaning behind the cryptic final message “See you soon”?

Posted on July 18, 2015 by Adam

The final episode of Sailor Moon Crystal, Act 26, Replay – Neverending, was available this morning on Crunchyroll, Hulu and Niconico. There has been no confirmation of any episodes beyond Act 26 to date as fans continue to hope for some kind of announcement of more episodes. No next episode preview appeared where it usually does and instead of the usual “À suivre” or “To be continued” message we instead saw “À bientôt”, French for “See you soon”.

It’s unclear exactly what this means. The ideal case of course would be that this means we will be seeing more episodes at some time in the future. It could also simply mean that we will be seeing more of Sailor Moon in various ways, through products, the musical and other ways which are already being released all the time. This may also be a reference to something new and unexpected. A new movie, special or something else we simply aren’t expecting.

There’s not much to go along with this. A tweet from this morning on the Sailor Moon official Twitter account simply mentions that the latest information will be announced at the official site. That is generally the main place we expect any big news to come from, as opposed to the smaller international sites and sources which are often referenced as evidence for a second season.

For now we wait and hope for some official announcement. What do you think this message means? Are you remaining optimistic?

No new episodes of Sailor Moon Crystal were announced at today’s official live event

Posted on June 29, 2015 by Adam

There was a live streaming event this morning to celebrate Usagi and Chibiusa’s birthdays which take place on June 30th. Fans were hoping for some sort of announcement of new episodes at this event but no such thing took place. At this point we have only two more episodes of Sailor Moon Crystal which remain in the second phase which is currently airing and no new episodes beyond this have been announced. Act 25 will air on July 4th and Act 26, the final episode currently planned, will air on July 18th.

Should any new episodes air they would begin on August 1st given the current schedule, and such episodes would cover the infinity arc which introduces us to Sailor Uranus, Neptune and Saturn. With no new episodes announced to date it seems quite possible that no new episode will be airing on that day. There is always the possibility of a break in the release of episodes leading to a new season at a later point in time. At this point we don’t have any confirmation one way or another as to whether the series will be renewed or canceled.

The event was blocked outside of Japan but it does not seem like there was much to miss. The cast of Sailor Moon Crystal was there as they recapped older episodes and read excerpts from the manga. This event was not really intended to announce any news but fans were still hoping for something.

As always should any new information become available about new episodes of the series we will share it with you.

Source: Moonkitty.net and Niconico

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