Fans waiting for Viz’s next Sailor Moon TV series release will need to be a little more patient. The release had originally been scheduled for April 10th, as we mentioned back in November, however some readers have noticed that pre-orders were being delayed until April 24th. Indeed the listings on Amazon and Right Stuf’s web sites now show an April 24th release date. After some concern in our comments section reader Drew reached out to Viz for clarification and they confirmed that the new release date for Sailor Moon SuperS Part 1 is in fact April 24th. This is only a two week delay but I know some fans have been waiting quite some time for this one!

I’m not aware of any reason given for the delay, though such things are not uncommon. Since there haven’t been any dubbed episodes released to stream yet this will be the first chance we get to hear Viz’s new Sailor Moon SuperS dub. It will also be the first time the Sailor Moon SuperS Special will be available in North America. This shows, amongst other things, what Haruka and Michiru were up to during the Sailor Moon SuperS season. Are you planning on picking up this set? You can pre-order it from Amazon using the link below.

Yesterday was Sailor Moon Day at Anime NYC in Manhattan. Viz Media held a Moon Panel with the cast of the English dub of Sailor Moon at which they revealed long awaited details about Sailor Moon SuperS on home video! The Blu-Ray and DVD release will be out April 10th and is currently available for pre-order from Right Stuf for $71.99. A Right Stuf exclusive coin is included for the Limited Edition. Though the release isn’t named “Part 1″ the episodes listed are only episodes 128 to 146, the first 19 episodes of the season, even though Sailor Moon SuperS runs up to episode 166, leaving 20 episodes for the eventual second part.

Fans who attended the panel mentioned that the set would also include the Sailor Moon SuperS Special though this isn’t specified on the product listing. This special has never seen a release in English before. The Sailor Moon SuperS Special originally aired on Japanese TV between Sailor Moon SuperS episodes 131 and 132. Since it’s not standard episode length and doesn’t have an episode number it isn’t really considered to be part of the show proper. It also doesn’t continue the story of the Dead Moon Circus but instead involves a few flashbacks and some side stories. The first side story shows us what Sailor Uranus and Neptune were up to during this season and the other tells the story of a Vampire girl Lilica who is one of Chibiusa’s classmates. This story is an adaptation of the first of Chibiusa’s Picture Diary from the manga. It makes sense to include these with the TV series if that is indeed what is going on here. The Japanese DVD release included the SuperS Special along with the first SuperS DVD. One would expect they will be doing the same when Sailor Moon SuperS gets its upcoming Blu-Ray release in Japan.

Update: A poster handed out at the event confirms that the “Never-before-seen TV Special” will be included in the set. This would be the Sailor Moon SuperS Special. This can be seen in photos of the pamphlet on Twitter. Thanks to Liza from our Facebook page for finding this confirmation.

https://www.rightstufanime.com/Sailor-Moon-Super-S-Limited-Edition-Blu-ray-DVD

There was a live streaming event this morning in Japan, related to the upcoming Infinity arc of Sailor Moon Crystal. Art was shown, but since we’d seen that earlier this week this was not a big revelation. We did not get any details about a schedule for the series but we did get cast information for the upcoming season. Junko Minagawa, the voice of Sailor Uranus and Sayaka Ohara, the voice of Sailor Neptune, joined the event. The actress voicing Sailor Saturn, Fujii Yukiyo, showed up momentarily via a separate video.

In addition to this the actors playing the Death Busters, including the Witches 5, were announced. A full cast list, with IMDB links, is included below.

Sailor Uranus – Junko Minagawa
Sailor Neptune – Sayaka Ohara
Sailor Saturn – Yukiyo Fujii

Professor Tomoe – Takuya Kirimoto
Kaolinite – Hikari Yono
Pharaon 90 – Takaya Hashi

Eudial – Chiaki Takahashi
Mimete – Yuki Nagaku
Viluy – Rina Honizumi
Tellu – Naomi Ohzora
Cyprine – Umeka Shouji

I don’t watch much newer anime but a lot of these voice actors have a great deal of experience from recent years. MoonSisters.org posted a nice summary of all of their works on their Facebook Page. Most noteable is Takaya Hashi, who will be voicing Pharaon 90, who played a few small characters in the original Sailor Moon anime. He played Astronomer Dr. Sergai Ajimov in episode 120 of Sailor Moon S and the ventriloquist in the Sailor Moon SuperS Special.

Another odd thing was the inclusion of Cyprene but not Ptilol. In the recent musical Un Nouveau Voyage only Cyprene appeared, though Cyprene and Ptilol, twins, appeared together in the manga and original Sailor Moon anime. Assuming Sailor Moon Crystal will continue to be faithful to the manga it seems only logical that Ptilol will also be making an appearance. If this is the case she will likely also be voiced by Umeka Shouji.

Also announced at the event this morning was “The Exhibition of Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon” in Tokyo from April 16th to June 19th. This exhibit will have stuff from the Sailor Moon comics and anime as well as merchandise for sale.

An image of the Infinity arc’s art was revealed, but as this was the same we’d seen earlier this week this wasn’t really anything new. We continue to wait for some confirmation of a timeline for the new episodes. At this point we can only speculate as to when it will be released.

Thanks to Twitter user @aers00 for streaming the event. I was unable to view the feed on Niconico and so I was happy to have an option to watch it while showering and getting ready this morning. I hope others who were looking to do the same found the feed as well.

The two latest episodes of Sailor Moon SuperS are now available on Hulu and Neon Alley. This week we get episodes 130 and 131 and everyone in Usagi’s entourage are targeted by the PUAs that are the Amazon Trio. First it’s her mother and then it’s her best friend, but will either stray from their committed relationships? Once you’ve watched these episodes you’ll want to watch the Sailor Moon SuperS Special as well. You can read more about that later in this post.

Episode 130, Protect Mom’s Dream: Double Moon’s New Attack, is all about Usagi’s mother Ikuko Tsukino who is generally referred to as Ikuko Mama. In over three seasons we’ve somehow never had an episode focus on either of the Tsukino parents, so this one is a nice change. Usagi gets really mad that she didn’t get to eat a piece of her mother’s pie, which is a classic Usagi reason to get upset, and she storms off. This leads to a nice moment between Ikuko Mama and Chibiusa. What a lovely yet tragic relationship these two share. Chibiusa is stranded in the past and while Usagi does offer some sort of a parental figure to her, what with her being her actual mother, their relationship is much closer to that of sisters. Ikuko Mama believes herself to be Chibiusa’s aunt though as she lives with the Tsukinos she is more of a parent to her. Too bad all of her memories of Chibiusa are destined to disappear whenever she returns to the future. Will she still be alive when Usagi ascends to be Queen of Crystal Tokyo and Chibiusa is born? Will she ever be able to reclaim her lost memories? It’s hard not be a bit sad whenever I see these two interact. Ikuko Mama shows Chibiusa a series of photos of Usagi when she was growing up. This reminds me of the intro to the Sailor Moon SuperS movie where we see clips of all of the Sailor Guardians growing up. More importantly we see a calendar in the background of this scene which states 1995. The timeline for Sailor Moon makes no sense, as the episodes all seem to take place during the actual seasons and years they aired in over a five year period, though Usagi ages only two years over that time. Here Usagi, 14 years old throughout the first season, is 15 years old as determined by her birthday last season and her age being stated in episode 132 which is only two episodes and a short special away. A calendar in the first season showed 1992 while one in this episode shows 1995. Something doesn’t add up!

Ikuko Mama is targeted by Hawk’s Eye, because she is older than the teenaged girls Tiger’s Eye goes after. This doesn’t seem to work very well, as she is quite happily married to Kenji Papa! Hawk’s Eye creates an elaborate lie about his own mother who looks just like her making pies. He really lays it on thick! When the fighting ensues Sailor Moon and Chibi Moon and finally powered up permanently to Super Sailor Moon and Super Sailor Chibi Moon with the weapons we’ve sort of already seen a couple of times. Not sure why this needed to be dragged out this much.

Episode 131, Catch Pegasus: The Amazon’s Trap, is a great humour filled episode. Last episode Hawk’s Eye tried to seduce a married woman and this week Tiger’s Eye has about as much trouble trying to seduce Naru despite her relationship with Umino. This relationship is rock solid, not likely to be broken up by a slick peacocking PUA or some message from the future as we’ve seen with others in the series. Hawk’s Eye is hilariously shattered at the idea that a young lady could pass on his advances but be interested in such a seemingly low class guy as Umino, but he will not be deterred. He comes up with a great tactic, to fake a terminal illness! It somewhat works, as Naru decides it is the right thing to do to be at his side. Umino is broken up by this, going into a depression and drinking a ton of McDonald’s milkshakes which are MoG shakes but the similarity is no coincidence. All of this doesn’t work though. Naru’s love for Umino is too strong! They truly are the strongest couple in the series!

Next, you should really watch the Sailor Moon SuperS Special which originally aired on April 8th 1995, two weeks after episode 131, which aired March 25th, and a week before episode 132, which aired April 15th. Although this episode aired on TV and fits chronologically within the Sailor Moon SuperS season it has never been released in English to date and is unlikely to appear on Hulu next week. If you look around the Internet you should be able to find a copy of this special.

The special is broken into three parts which are each a sort of mini episode. The total length is about that of two episodes, so each episode is somewhat shorter than usual. The first part is a series of flashback clips which is generally uninteresting. The other two parts are much more better.

In the second part, The Return of Haruka and Michiru! The Ghostly Puppet Show, We get a look at what Haruka and Michiru are up to this season as they fight an evil ventriloquist’s dummy. The dummy being the evil one. Haruka is sick throughout. A fight naturally ensues at which point we learn that Michiru would gladly sacrifice many lives just to save Haruka, which is funny but completely contradicting all of Sailor Moon S. As an indicator that we won’t be seeing them later in the season, the two agree that the core group of Sailor Guardians can handle the new threat. At this point in the manga Sailor Uranus, Neptune, Pluto and Saturn would not have joined the story of the dream arc yet, but in the anime they never do.

Next is the third part, Chibiusa’s Adventure! The Dreaded Vampire Castle, which is an adaptation of the first Chibiusa’s picture diary manga side story. It focuses on a young girl named Lilica who joins Chibiusa’s class. She seems like a nice enough girl until some of the boys in her class start disappearing. It turns out Lilica is actually a vampire, so it’s a good thing the girls had a garlic filled lunch allowing them to use Sailor Special Garlic Attack which is naturally never used in any other episode.

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