Here’s more information on the planned Sailor V anime series

Posted on October 5, 2021 by Adam

Earlier this week I posted about some newly unearthed images which appear to be art from the original planned Sailor V anime series which was ultimately retooled as the Sailor Moon anime we all known and love. I mentioned a few character names but wasn’t sure where those had come from. Twitter user @MinakoMoments posted a couple of images and their translations which are the source of a lot of the older information around about these. While these looked familiar I had obviously missed out on this information. These are from the Sailor Moon Volume Infinity art book, which is a very rare book showing a lot of images of characters from Sailor Moon drawn by other artists and people involved with the series. These images looked familiar to me because I have this book but as I don’t read Japanese I assumed these were simply early designs for Rei, Makoto and Ami. While this is technically true, these are actually Miyabi, Mamoru and Hikaru from the planned Sailor V anime!

Based on the resolution it looks like the Japanese originals from those pages in question come from the Three Lights dot net scans of the Infinity art book. The translation is attributed to a friend of the @MinakoMoments account’s poster @switchpoint. Some of the details from this image were mentioned in yesterday’s article but there’s a bit more here that we can dig into. While I fully realize this may be old news to many this was new to me so I’m sharing it here for the benefit of others who may not have known the specifics before. Close up photos were taken from my copy of the Infinity art book.

At the top of the page is Amano. He was the Umino lookalike from Codename Sailor V. Perhaps I’m saying this wrong. Umino looks like Amano much like Ami looks like Hikaru, not the other way around. Those characters came first and Sailor Moon’s characters came afterwards. It is mentioned that Amano looks handsome when he took his glasses off. In the Masquerade Dance Party chapter of the Sailor Moon manga when Princess D is found to be beautiful behind her googly glasses the girls speculate that Umino must similarly be handsome behind his. Amano seems to resemble Umino in this way as well!

Minako is presented more or less as she is in Codename Sailor V and Sailor Moon with some minor differences. She, along with a few others characters, is 15. Minako was only 13 at the start of Codename Sailor V while Usagi and the other girls are 14 at the start of the Sailor Moon manga and anime series. The plan seemed to have been to age them up a bit for this series. This would put them all in high school, which is something which doesn’t occur until the Dream Arc of the Sailor Moon manga and the Sailor Stars season of the anime. Note that the crescent moon on Minako’s forehead is upside down compared to what we see in Codename Sailor V and Sailor Moon. She looks like a member of the Black Moon clan! In her character description it’s mentioned that she has no specific ability besides her super powers, which is a big difference in this story as her friends do not actually transform. They use their worldly and otherworldly gifts to assist Sailor V. It says that Minako’s special skill is love! She really was the Usagi of this series. It seems that Minako was retooled as Usagi but then was herself brought back into the series as another character, so it’s no surprise that the two characters share some similarities.

Next up is Miyabi Yoronu. In my previous article I called her a Rei like character but now I see that she’s had a real name all along! The image seen through the page I mentioned is in fact this image of Miyabi. She uses a scroll with Rei’s catchphrase “Akuryou Taisan”, an incantation used to exercise evil spirits. That Miyabi had supernatural powers that weren’t related to being a Sailor Guardian is an interesting explanation for why Rei has powers that seem to be completely unrelated to her being Sailor Mars. The character she was adapted from needed these powers because she didn’t actually transform!

Mamoru Chino is not actually related to Mamoru Chiba in any way but by name. This character was clearly later adapted into Makoto Kino. This image of her smoking is why many people were mentioning that she smoked. She is 17, a full two years older than the other characters, and so she would not be in their class or grade though she would still be at their school as both 15 year olds and 17 year olds are high school aged in Japan. Mamoru is known for being strong, like Makoto, but is referenced as having “herculean strength”. Whether this means she truly had the superhuman strength of demi-god Hercules or not isn’t clear. Regardless she still has super powers! Mamoru has telekinesis, the ability to teleport and ESP (extra sensory perception). She also runs fast, which may simply be a side effect of her super strength. Surprised she doesn’t get out of breath what with her smoking. Surprisingly, Mamoru is associated with the planet Saturn and not Jupiter.

Next is Hikaru who is already a character in the Codename Sailor V manga. In this series she was to be the intelligent one which was the obvious inspiration for Ami. In the Sailor V manga Hikaru isn’t mentioned as being particularly brilliant. Though she physically resembles Ami her role was similar to Naru’s as she was simply Minako’s friend and classmate.

So there were only four girls in this series instead of five? The fifth woman on this page is a female human Artemis! She is credited as “fifth beautiful girl” and is shown nude wearing a tiara adorned with Artemis’s crescent moon. What the exact plan was for this gender bending male cat who transformed into a a female human isn’t clear. Perhaps Artemis was meant to be female in this series? It is mentioned in the Codename Sailor V manga that Artemis is a woman’s name, though this seemed to be intended as a joke.

One other odd piece is this ad for the Sailor V Manga where it appears that Usagi is the one dressed as Sailor V along with a white cat, presumably Artemis. This ad was published though by the time the manga it advertised was out, it was quite different than what was in the ad.

So what happened to this series? I believe it was incorrect for me to say that this series was abandoned or scrapped. It’s more accurate to say that Sailor V evolved into Sailor Moon. I’m not privy to all of the behind the scenes decisions but it seems like Codename Sailor V showed promise to be a series. The idea of a girl fighting crime alone was expanded into more of a group show, like we see with these characters who would have helped out Minako. This was in turn further expanded into the girl version of Super Sentai which was Sailor Moon. Minako become Usagi, Hikaru became Ami, Miyabi became Rei, Mamoru became Makoto and then the original Minako became the slightly different Minako. Many of the other elements don’t really map from one series to another. The Dark Agency is not terribly similar to the Dark Kingdom and there wasn’t a real equivalent to Mamoru in Sailor V, though surely some sort of love interest would have popped up eventually. It seems like Sailor Moon, the manga, was made with the intention of it being adapted into an anime series. The Sailor V anime concept was just a step on that path. Wouldn’t it be great if that series had been made? It kind of did, there were just a lot of changes in getting there. The Sailor V anime is like Star Trek with Captain Pike and Number One. Sailor Moon is what we got after the idea evolved a bit.

Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 Review

Posted on July 23, 2021 by Adam

Sailor Moon Eternal Parts 1 and 2 are both currently streaming on Netflix. This is my review for the second film. You can also read my Part 1 review which was posted last month. I always used to put episode reviews for Sailor Moon Crystal up within a few days of their release but the nature of these movies means that reviewing them is a bit more work! I call this a review even though it’s really more of a vague recap with random commentary and a sprinkling of what might be considered a review.

Part 1 ended on a cliffhanger. Not literally. If it followed the manga more closely it would have ended on a literal cliffhanger as Minako was hanging off of a cliff but stories were moved around to make things fit into movies a bit better. The conclusion to the whole Minako and Human Artemis thing was moved into Part 1 instead of taking place after we get a look at what’s going on with Hotaru and her three moms, which is really where this movie starts off. For the most part, like all of Sailor Moon Crystal, this movie is fairly faithful to the manga source material which it was based on.

Last time we saw Hotaru she was a baby being whisked away by Sailor Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. We finally see what they’ve been up to, starting with Haruka and Michiru. If I can take issue with the dub for a moment! There’s a character which, referencing Haruka, says that “He’s such a hottie”. Now I know Japanese doesn’t tend to use gender specific pronouns so this is likely not a terribly literal translation. I also understand that there being some confusion over Haruka’s gender makes sense and is a common theme in the series but are we really going to just pretend that Haruka is not very clearly dressed unambiguously as a woman in this scene? I’m not sure what this was all about.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Setsuna's left hand

Left handed mouse

Back at the house Setsuna is using a left handed mouse. What’s this? Is she actually left handed? I didn’t know this! While looking into this I found an article from Tuxedo Unmasked which mentions that Sailor Pluto may be left handed as she usually holds her Garnet Rod in her left hand. This article also goes into some detail about whether or not Rei is left handed, something I mentioned in my Part 1 review. So she’s left handed? Not likely. The only reason we see her left hand on the mouse is because the movie wants to show us her ring which is on her left hand and this is a convenient way to do so. Have you ever tried to use a mouse with your off hand? It’s very awkward. What’s my evidence suggesting that Setsuna isn’t actually left handed? In a scene a bit later in the film she’s back to using a mouse with her right hand. Ambidextrous? Seems like her handedness is whatever suits the needs of the shot!

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Setsuna is now right handed

Right handed mouse

While Setsuna is browsing an article about the eclipse we see a date! 2016-03-28 or March 28th 2016. I will assume this isn’t the actual date of the eclipse but rather the date on which the article was published. This fits with the date seen in Part 1 where Chibiusa circles April 1st as her date to return to the 30th century. An article about the April 1st eclipse coming out some four days before makes perfect sense. Any problems with this? Well April 1st 2016 was a Friday in the real world and according to Chibiusa’s calendar it was a Thursday. There was also no solar eclipse on April 1st 2016. There was a total solar eclipse on March 9th of 2016 and Japan wasn’t the best place to see it from. So why would the story take place five years in the past? This would probably be because the last new episode of Sailor Moon Crystal we got was on June 27th 2016. Since the series started airing on July 5th 2014 this makes the first few seasons take place within a few years. A six month passage of time since the eclipse is suggested at one point during this film so most of it takes place in late 2016. Most manga arcs seem to take place over about year which could put the Dream arc around 2017 if the events of the first season really are to take place in 2014. If they take place in 2013, when the show was originally meant to start, things line up pretty well. So much to say with a five year gap between Sailor Moon Crystal season 3 and the Sailor Moon Eternal films we can hardly just say it’s 2021 and expect it to make sense that everyone’s just starting high school so the 2016 date seems to work.

The big thing for the start of the film is fast aging Hotaru. This is something we see at the start of SailorStars in the original Sailor Moon anime. All of this growth occurred over a six month period and we get a sense of how quick it has been when Haruka mistakenly thinks they need diapers for their fast aging daughter. Hotaru is spouting out odd poetry and making faithful models of the solar system where events up to those taking place in the present play out in super speed. This makes me wonder just how accurate these are. If individual people are recreated in this model do those people experience joy and pain? Does Hotaru recreate every act of suffering in the history of our planet on a whim in her living room? Does this include the death of her mother as well as her father’s painful memories of it? Alternatively if the exact same information patterns of someone’s life are run over and over again are those actual new experiences or just the one experience? Is there a subjective feeling experienced more than once? The whole thing might be very unethical depending on one’s perspective on these issues.

So! Hotaru gets old and gives everyone their Sailor Crystals avoiding the requirement of a handful more individual stories in which they learn something about themselves and get their shoulder pad upgrades. Hotaru basically gives them all the upgrades herself. How convenient. Most importantly… a Sailor Saturn transformation sequence! Sailor Saturn had a transformation sequence in season 3 of Sailor Moon Crystal but it was a bit different. This one is shorter but a bit more consistent with other transformations. Since Sailor Saturn never did transform in the original Sailor Moon anime it’s always nice to see a transformation sequence. She did have an original anime style transformation sequence as part of a Sailor Saturn game but this was never seen in the TV series or movies.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Two glass shards

Two shards

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Zirconia picks up one glass shard

One shard

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 - Zirconia with two glass shards

Two shards again

Sailor Uranus, Neptune, Pluto and Saturn show up to save the day and everyone is back together again! This doesn’t last long, sadly. Later Zirconia dispatches the Amazoness Quartet and then traps Sailor Chibi Moon and Saturn into shards of a mirror. She then picks up one piece of the mirror and then somehow has two in her hands. What’s going on here? Infuriating! This scene is brief but it’s great seeing Sailor Saturn in action since she’s so neglected in the original Sailor Moon anime. The scene of her and Chibi Moon in the circus tent is similar to their scenes in the early part of Sailor Stars when they fight Nehelenia. In a way the first six episodes of Sailor Stars are a more faithful adaptation of the dream arc than all of Sailor Moon SuperS.

We see a young Usagi and Mamoru, which is odd since we sort of already got a fairly extensive look at young Usagi earlier. They turn young in real life and then have a dream where they’re both young which makes me wonder why their real selves needed to even be made young in the first place. How do their dream selves know that their bodies are young? Shouldn’t there be some dysmorphia going on? Regardless, seeing young Usagi and Mamoru in domestic bliss is incredibly cute. What I enjoy about this scene is how similar it is to a major plot point in the Sailor Moon SuperS film. Usagi is in a dream world with Mamoru and questions his unwavering devotion to her. While in the SuperS film this is what she uses to break out of The Matrix, here it’s just a curiosity. Basically Mamoru states that his dream is to live with Usagi and she questions his other dreams like being a doctor. It’s worth noting that many other elements from this arc, like the young versions of so many characters, are also seen in the Sailor Moon SuperS film at many points. While on the surface the movie has nearly nothing to do with the Dream arc of the manga and the SuperS season of the original anime, there are in fact many similarities. These are not likely all intended. Unless some advanced knowledge of one work or another was planned the timelines simply don’t add up. This particular manga story with young Usagi and Mamoru came out in Nakayoshi in December of 1995, the same month in which the SuperS film was released. Since both a manga and animated film take months or longer to go from story to release, these particular similarities seem to be coincidence.

Usagi and Mamoru are now with Helios in Elysion and the whole being young thing wasn’t any sort of lasting problem. What is this place? In mythology the similarly named Elysium is the afterlife. Here Elysion, which is a unique name in Sailor Moon, is another world that seems to be somewhat parallel to the Earth. An analog to it as Helios is himself tied to the Earth and the Golden Crystal. More specifically I wonder just where it is. It is suggested that Elysium is within the Earth somehow and there are references to “the surface”. I wonder if Elysium is compatible with the idea of The Hollow Earth. This is an idea of a world deep beneath the surface of the Earth. Though specifics vary the concept is that the Earth itself is a hollow shell and that within that shell there is a whole other ecosystem where “down” is actually towards the outside of the Earth. I tried hard to see indications that Elysion had a normal sky. We don’t see any stars from it. We don’t see the sun even though late in the story there is light coming from the sky. The Hollow Earth is often described as having a small sun at the center of the Earth. The Moon is seen in the sky in that we can see the eclipse from Elysion, but it isn’t clear if the Moon itself is actually visible. Keep in mind this is one of my own pet theories about Elysion and isn’t necessarily intended in either the manga or Sailor Moon Eternal films, but I wonder if this is a kind of pseudoscientific belief that Naoko Takeuchi was into along with all the weird stuff from the Black Moon arc.

We do this weird thing where we pretend that the maiden that Helios is looking for isn’t Chibiusa and it’s all very silly. He sees this image of a clearly pink haired woman who looks more or less like an older Chibiusa who asks him to find the Golden Crystal. She’s called “Princess Lady Serenity”. He acts as if this is Sailor Moon which makes Chibiusa quite upset, even though she clearly still has Helios’s affection.

All this time Mamoru is just walking around in his dress shirt. Why do we pretend these dress shirts are the most comfortable thing? He gives them out to all the ladies who sleep over. Chibiusa sleeps in one during Part 1 and when he’s sick in bed this seems to be his sleepwear of choice. I often wear shirts of this type for work but I’ll generally put a t-shirt on when I’m at home relaxing, especially if I’m sick and bedridden. This would be a believable “I was out doing stuff and then I came home and untucked my shirt so it’s my after hours casual mode” but he’s been bedridden for a while now and the last time he was out was for the eclipse, as far as we can tell, when he wasn’t wearing his tuxedo (which has a ruffled shirt) but a grey dress shirt and vest. Am I to believe that he took off his grey dress shirt and put on a white dress shirt to climb into bed? This really makes no sense and is probably the biggest plot whole in the movie.

The shrine in Elysion is guarded by the Maenads who have hair just like Sailor Moon and Chibi Moon which back in the day would have been like both Queen and Princess Serenity. I guess this really was the style at the time? What a strange coincidence that reincarnated Usagi happened to chose a very similar yet impractical and almost never seen hair style.

So there’s some fighting which is actually the bulk of the movie. I don’t have a ton to say about this. Almost all of the attacks are so similar to the original Sailor Moon anime that I wonder if they were traced. Helios dies in a non permanent death which is actually fairly common for Sailor Moon but I don’t for a moment think it’s a real thing. Does anyone cry for Helios? Of course he’ll be fine.

We then see an interesting scene which is the birth of Princess Serenity. This scene reminds me a lot of the birth of Aurora in Sleeping Beauty. In Sleeping Beauty we have Maleficent, the only one not invited, showing up to celebrate the Princess’s birth only to end up cursing the child to eternal sleep after pricking herself on a spinning wheel needle. Similarly Nehelenia was the only one not invited after Princess Serenity’s birth. Once she shows up an uncharacteristically unkind Queen Serenity, along with the Sailor Guardians, disparage her and tell her she isn’t welcome. She ends up cursing Silver Millennium saying it will fall. This of course does end up happening in the distant past. I wonder if any inspiration occurred between these. One noticeable thing here is that Sailor Mercury, Mars, Jupiter and Venus are all significantly older than the newborn Princess Serenity. Though their ages aren’t specified they speak well, are fairly tall for children and seem ready to fight. I’d guess they are about 6 or 7 here. Princess Serenity appears to be an adolescent in the first story arc. She is arguably slightly older than the 14 year old Usagi who notices physical changes in herself when turning into the Princess. This would put the other Sailor Guardians at over 20 in those flashbacks, though they all appear to be more or less the same age. In the Amour Eternal musical when we see the birth of Princess Serenity the age difference is even greater as the Sailor Guardians are shown to be their fully adolescent ages at that point, similar to their ages in the modern times story of that musical. We know that in Crystal Tokyo adults done age, which include Sailor Moon eternally being in her early 20s, but is there a reason to have people frozen in adolescence in Silver Millennium?

I think if original anime Sailor Moon had been in her mother’s place when Nehelenia showed up she could have found a way to make peace or may even have invited her in the first place. The manga version of Sailor Moon does more killing of villains and less winning them over. Remember that anime Sailor Moon ended up having compassion for Nehelenia after all of the harm she did to her and her friends! Queen Serenity with her blank reflectionless eyes doesn’t seem to have any of that attitude when she seals away Queen Nehelenia.

Once the Moon Effect character song kicks in the movie is really reaching the climax! A lot of this was released in a very spoiler filled music video! This song features vocals by the actors playing all ten of the Sailor Guardians and is included on the “Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Character Song Collection Eternal Collection” album. Though Tuxedo Mask and Sailor Moon are still afflicted with the disease which has black roses on their lungs it seems the resolution to this is… to kiss! Everything is fine now! Great!

Did you like Human Artemis? Did you enjoy Human Luna (in the first season)? Well how about human version of the whole cat family including Diana! This is a big deal as this is the first time we see all of the cats in human form in any anime series!

Next up is Eternal everybody! There’s a new Holy Grail and then Sailor Moon becomes Eternal Sailor Moon, hence the name of the movies, but beyond that all of the other Sailor Guardians also get upgraded to their Eternal forms which means those little bubble shoulder pad things which is something we never saw in the original Sailor Moon anime! Sailor Moon finally does her Starlight Honeymoon Therapy Kiss and saves the day! The eclipse, which we can kind of see even though we’re kind of inside the earth, is finally over which is arguably the end of a very long period which only took place over the course of a few minutes, the length of time an eclipse usually lasts for. There isn’t any clear agreement of this but by that timeline the events of this film actually take place within the same day.

Turns out Helios isn’t dead and Sailor Chibi Moon (Eternal Sailor Chibi Moon) kisses him while he sleeps. Do we want to dig up the whole kissing a sleeping person lacks consent discourse again? In this particular case since Helios had previously expressed his interest in Chibiusa when he kissed her in the first film I think that makes this whole situation less of a concern than when Tuxedo Mask did it in the first story arc. The best kept secret of the films, that Chibiusa is actually the one Helios has been looking for, is revealed! She becomes Princess Lady Serenity and gets her Pink Moon Crystal!

Eternal Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask now becomes Neo Queen Serenity and King Endymion for the first time without some influence from the future. Everyone gets their lovely princess dresses back and there was much rejoicing.

Sailor Saturn still has the Amazoness Quartet balls. When these four are revived they are the Sailor Quartet! Sailor Cere, Sailor Palas, Sailor Juno and Sailor Vesta are all named after the same celestial objects they had identified with originally but now it makes a bit more sense why! They are Sailor Guardians who’s duty it is to protect Eternal Sailor Chibi Moon or rather Princess Lady Serenity and not related directly to Sailor Moon or Neo Queen Serenity. It’s really fun to see the Sailor Quartet! Sadly they aren’t around for long as they claim that they should be asleep in the jungle so they take off. Why does this matter? You’re here! Let’s get the gang together! Chibiusa should only be a twinkle in Mamoru’s eye but she’s around and actively involved in the fight so who’s to say that the Amazoness Quartet are better off chilling in a jungle somewhere? My two dream concepts for new Sailor Moon series would be a Codename: Sailor V series and some sort of future Sailor Guardian series with Chibi Moon, the Sailor Quartet and maybe Helios fighting some evil and perhaps traveling through time to do it! I won’t hold my breath for that.

Now Helios is there with Pegasus which makes me wonder how this is even possible! Aren’t they kind of the same being? In the original Sailor Moon anime they certainly were, with Pegasus being his name rather than a descriptor of the kind of horse he is, but it seems they are different entities. Kind of weird!

Well the movie pretty much wraps up with a bunch of people going on their way. What we don’t see in the Netflix version is a message saying “To be continued” but this is on the Japanese Blu-ray and it seems like it was in the version shown in theatres in Japan. Why remove this from the Netflix version? No idea! I hope we don’t have to wait quite as many years to get a Stars arc of Sailor Moon Crystal as we did for Sailor Moon Eternal!

The credits are fairly unremarkable. I can’t read any of that! We have a couple of songs here. The first is Moon Color Chainon, the theme song for the Sailor Moon Eternal films. This is actually the first time we hear it in this movie since it doesn’t have an intro like the 90s films did! After this we have the new version of “Rashiku” Ikumasho (I’ll Go As Myself) by Anza! Anza was the first actress to portray Sailor Moon in the Sailor Moon musicals and continued to do so for five years. This song was originally the second ending theme for Sailor Moon SuperS, the original adaptation of the Dreams arc of the Sailor Moon manga, which makes it a fitting song to end the final movie with.

All in all I found Part 2 to be a good movie. It wasn’t as obviously episodic as Part 1 where you could easily see the breaks between manga chapters. That said there isn’t really as much going on with this film which mostly centers on the big battles with Zirconia and Nehelenia.

More generally the Sailor Moon Eternal films just look fantastic. The designs are great and since these movies are shorter than full seasons the animation is better and there seems to have been more time and money dedicated to every minute of this film compared to earlier seasons of Sailor Moon Crystal. We can only hope the Stars arc will look as good, though I’m hoping for a return to a series for that season or that if it will be movies that they make three of them! We shall see.

What did you think of this second film? Let us know in the comments!

Keep reading for more screenshots of the film.

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Sailor Moon Eternal Part 1 review

Posted on June 14, 2021 by Adam

The Sailor Moon Eternal films are both streaming on Netflix worldwide, outside of Japan, and it’s been nearly six years since I’ve been able to do a review of Sailor Moon Crystal content! Here are my thoughts on the first of the two film. These are usually about 25% story recap, 70% silly observations and jokes and 5% actual review type thoughts.

As with the rest of the Sailor Moon Crystal series these movies are a very faithful adaptation of the manga source material. As Sailor Moon SuperS is the anime season that probably varies the most from the manga, fans will probably find the differences considerable while those who’ve read the manga will find this all very familiar. The main difference in this story would be the relative unimportance of the Amazon Trio who dominate the first half of the Sailor Moon SuperS season, acting as pick up artists for young women, older women and boys. In this film like with the manga they aren’t much more than monsters of the week. Easily discarded.

The movie isn’t billed as a Sailor Moon Crystal movie, though that’s obviously what it is. It isn’t really standalone. Fans of the Sailor Moon Crystal TV and web series will of course be happy to see this continuation of the story they’ve been following. I have to wonder how many fans of the old 90s anime will see these movies appear on Netflix and check them out without having much context. These aren’t anything like the Sailor Moon R, S and SuperS movies from the 90s, standalone stories with little connection to the TV series. That said these movies do present a single story arc which begins and ends with these films. Sure we may not know where Chibiusa comes from or how everyone got their powers but we can more or less follow the story of the Dream arc without needing that back story. Part 2 will have more issues here with the Infinity arc backstory for Haruka, Michiru, Setsuna and Hotaru being particularly important. It’s really mostly an issue of background on characters. One Letterboxd review, for example, asked if the child (Chibiusa) wants to boink (engage in sexual relations with) her dad (Mamoru). I think to anyone who’s familiar with either the original anime series or Sailor Moon Crystal this much, in less graphic terms, is pretty much assumed! So much to say it does seem that some people are coming into these movies fresh and these are the types of questions which must be coming up.

The film starts more or less where we left off. A roughly six month gap occurred during Act 38 and then, in an instant which lasted almost five years in the real world, the movie starts. It actually rewinds a bit and recaps a bit from Act 38 which wasn’t in the first Dreams manga arc. The gang are in the park to view an eclipse during which they see Pegasus. A note on casting here. While almost all of the Sailor Moon Eternal English voice cast are actors reprising their roles either from earlier seasons of Sailor Moon Crystal or the Sailor Moon SuperS dub of the original Sailor Moon anime the voice actor for Pegasus/Helios is a different actor. This wasn’t a huge surprise. Chris Niosi voiced Pegasus in Viz’s dub of the original Sailor Moon anime a few years ago. Since then he was target of some abuse allegations and, following his own admission of his role in such and other events, he was recast in many of the roles which he had been working on. Brian Beacock takes over as Helios in this series. Since the character did not previously appear in Sailor Moon Crystal this isn’t technically a recasting of the role however this is an outlier with most other actors returning. Brian Beacock previously voiced Ail/Seijurou in Viz’s dub of Sailor Moon R!

The girls find a couple of kaleidoscope toys which Mamoru is disappointed to have to buy. These are about $10 which is certainly more expensive than some cheap kaleidoscopes but considerably cheaper than the replica kaleidoscope toy which sells in Japan for roughly $300 US! I guess Mamoru got a real deal there, not to mention they end up being magical items. Not wanting to open up a rift in time and space in the middle of a crowded park the girls opt to spend the night at Mamoru’s, something which is hardly new to either of them. While going to bed Chibiusa and Usagi both wish they were the opposite’s age and if anyone of you grew up in the 80s and 90s I’m sure you’ve seen how this movie plays out!

Chibiusa protests going to bed. This is a habit I am very familiar with as I have two children, the oldest of which was conceived around the time of the last episode of Sailor Moon Crystal. No relation between those events. She asks Mamoru for a story saying that she used to get these from her parents back in the future. The examples she gives are stories about robots and vampires. Wow! Are these real stories??? I suppose technically the Droids from Sailor Moon R are like robots but I wouldn’t describe them as such and those come from the future. Vampires? In the manga we get a side story about a vampire girl named Lilica. It seems unlikely Chibiusa’s parents told her this story as it’s one that Chibiusa herself experienced, unless they’re really trying to mess her up by telling her stories about her own future which took place in their past. Time travel!

So Pegasus shows up looking for a maiden with beautiful dreams and a major plot point here is that we don’t really know if the Princess is Minako or Usagi. Sorry we don’t know if the maiden is Chibiusa or Usagi. At this point we think it’s Chibiusa. Pegasus appears with sound effects that seem right out of Sailor Moon SuperS! An odd choice.

The next morning there’s a tiger loose in the Juban shopping district. What an odd problem that does not on the surface appear to be related to any sort of evil villain at all. It’s been six months since the Death Busters were defeated and it’s evident that neither Sailor Moon, Chibi Moon or any other Sailor Guardians have transformed since. For some reason instead of leaving this escaped circus tiger problem to animal control or maybe the local police the girls decide that they should of course transform? Are they actually equipped to fight a tiger? If they happened upon a bank robbery would they just transform and take down the robbers? Does this mean that, to be consistent with their behaviour, they should monitor a police scanner and fight crimes like Batman? The whole situation seems odd. Anyway it doesn’t work since the grail isn’t around because Sailor Uranus, Neptune and Pluto aren’t there. Luckily they get some new transformation broaches which is good because animal control still hasn’t shown up.

They transform into Super Sailor Moon and Super Sailor Chibi Moon right away. No two stages of transformation needed at this point. Convenient! They get a bunch of news toys. Chibi Moon gets a bell that makes the SuperS sound effect and they both have their $10 kaleidoscopes transform into Kaleidomoon scopes. They fight a could of the Amazoness Quartet, who unlike the Amazon Trio are the main villains of this story arc, and PallaPalla swaps their ages, with hilarious consequences!

I feel like the age swap, in the manga and in this movie, was oddly brief. It could be a major plot point with serious consequences. Instead it’s treated a bit as a joke and a bit of “be careful what you wish for” type wisdom which really is silly since people can’t wish for things. Mamoru and Usagi have this really weird moment where they express how awkward their age difference is. It seems there’s a limit to the age gap! Older Chibiusa seems to have some sort of revelation that she can’t hook up with her father. The two seem concerned and frustrated trying to find a solution which turns out to be … just transform again? Really no one tried this? So we’re okay with transforming to be scabs for animal control but when their fundamental ability to fight an active threat in town is in question they don’t even test their transformations? A bit weak! Seeing young Usagi is nice, though we will see her again later, and seeing not evil older Chibiusa is kind of cool.

Then things really start to seem like a series of episodes and we cut from one character’s story to another. The manga frequently does this in a number of arcs, having a story focus on a certain character. This works well when they are broken up into individual comic acts or TV episodes. In the movie however it’s very obvious that these are a number of stories stitched together. I appreciate the faithfulness to the source material but there is a down side. These aren’t totally contained, with the age swap story bleeding into the Ami’s family sucks story and such, but we can see the obvious separation.

First up is Sailor Mercury and her terrible parents! Ami’s mother works too hard and is never home. This isn’t totally horrible. One can hardly expect a single mother to quit her job so that she can spend more time with her daughter, who’s out studying and fighting crime most of the time anyway, but it does seem like Ami has a rough home life. Ami’s socially awkward mother happens to be the significantly better parent as her hippie father just took off for not so clear reasons, sent some divorce papers in the mail and doesn’t seem to want to have much to do with his daughter. He makes hollow gestures like sending her paintings of fish which does little to make up for his lack of support. Perhaps if he paid child support Ami’s mother wouldn’t have to work graveyard shifts most nights. Ami meets little fairy Mercury, learns a bit about herself and gets these little shoulder pads. Shoulder pads were bit in the 90s but in 2021 no one really has shoulder pads anymore.

Meanwhile Chibiusa has this whole weird thing with Pegasus who spends a lot less time under the pretence of being a horse in this continuity. We’re pretty late in Sailor Moon SuperS before we discover that this horse Pegasus is actually a dude named Helios but in this continuity we learn it pretty quickly. We don’t really think of him as Pegasus for long. We have the humourous scene where Chibiusa kisses a horse but then he turns into Helios. Whatever. At least she’s not making out with her dad again.

On to the next “episode” of our lives. It’s Rei’s turn! Her grandfather is sick and hot damn, he’s gorgeous! Fans of the original 90s Sailor Moon anime will recall Rei’s grandfather as a creepy old man who lusted after teenaged girls. Sailor Moon Eternal Rei’s grandfather, who looks somewhat like his manga counterpart, is a hunk! He has grey hair but still looks quite fit and youthful. I bet original anime Rei’s grandpa would have had more luck with the ladies if he looked like this! Someone has mentioned that he looks like Colonel Sanders in the parody dating sim I Love You, Colonel Sanders! and I think that fits perfectly. Superficial signs of age but still a youthful appearance. It’s like those men’s clothing catalogues that get young models with their hair died grey to wear their clothes.

Rei wanders into a house of mirrors and is really amazed that one of the mirrors isn’t reflecting an image. Is this really that weird? Isn’t that just like… a piece of glass? Or even a wall? Non reflective surfaces are by far the norm in the natural and unnatural world but Rei assumes this is… magic? Super weird.

We see a young and cute Rei meeting Phobos and Deimos for the first time. She can converse with them somehow and instantly knows their names. We get the humanoid Phobos and Deimos reveal which is something I’ve posted about extensively over the past six months but that still was considered enough of a spoiler that some dude on Twitter felt the need to publicly announce his unfollowing me for daring to reveal this 25 year old information. As I’d mentioned before there was always some confusion over the colours, which had been settled when the movies were released. As we see here Phobos is the fairy on the right, who is dressed in red, while Deimos is the one on the left, dressed in purple.

Young Rei is cute but child bride Rei with Tiger’s eye is super creepy. When PUA Tiger’s Eye in the anime goes after mostly teenaged girls it’s a bit weird but when he’s with a full on a child it’s about as awkward as Mamoru and young Usagi!

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 1 - Rei uses a bow right handed

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal Part 1 - Mars Flame Sniper

Finally let me rant a bit about handedness, which will be coming back in the next film. Rei’s Mars Flame Sniper has her pulling back the arrow with her left hand. This is the left handed way to hold a bow. We see young Rei doing archery in this story and she pulls back the arrow with her right hand, the correct way for a right handed person. This seems like a mistake. What’s the issue here? Well it would go back to the 90s anime since many of the transformations and attacks in this movie are nearly identical to the ones we saw in Sailor Moon SuperS! Perhaps the person who animated that attack many years ago simply didn’t know much about archery.

Sailor Moon Crystal Act 17

Sailor Moon Eternal Part 1

Makoto is the next to power up. The most notable change since the last Jupiter episode is the photo of her parents. We originally saw this during the Black Moon arc where I couldn’t help but notice that her late father looked suspiciously like Brock from Pokémon. We see this photo again but it’s changed slightly. The frame is different and though her mother and father are posed in the same way her father’s hair is evidently not Brock like at all and they aren’t wearing the same clothes. Why would Makoto have swapped out this photo with a nearly identical one? It’s not like it’s a new photo!

Hawk’s Eye has set up an herb shop which Makoto is drawn to. She gets slapped by her little fairy Sailor Jupiter thing and then gets a weird crown of oak leaves, which leads to her power up and shoulder pads. If they’d had acid washed jeans as part of their power ups do you think we’d still be using them as part of their uniforms in newer incarnations?

Meanwhile we learn more about Helios who comes from Elysion which I suspect could be in the Hollow Earth but I’ll discuss that more at length in my Part 2 review. Mamoru is sick, couching up blood. It’s a bit troubling to see characters with an infectious lung disease given the ongoing pandemic. This is all caused by magic since Mamoru has a black rose inside of him but that doesn’t really explain why others are catching this disease or why Mamoru seems to be the only one who remains sick.

Finally, Minako still doesn’t have her shoulder pads and for whatever reason all of the other girls sort of assume she should have them. This whole plot reminds me a bit of how in Sailor Moon S of the original anime Minako was the last to be targeted for her Pure Heart and she felt self conscious about it. A scene where Artemis is staring at Minako in the shower is cut down for the film. Originally Diana mentions the way he’s looking at her which upsets Luna. I suppose the film is trying to downplay the Artemis/Minako shipping.

Minako decides she wants to be an idol, which is the plot of another handful of original anime episodes, and this seems to be done via an MXC style competition which is extremely dangerous. Indeed Minako ends up falling to her death saved only by Artemis who turns human! This is one of the big spoilerish reveals of the movies! We’d seen Human Luna before but this is the first time we see animated Human Artemis! As a change from the manga we see the end of Minako’s story and her transformation and new attack. This moves the scenes showing us what has been going on with Hotaru, Haruka, Michiru and Setsuna to the second film.

Roll credits! I can’t read any of this but it’s worth noting that Moon Color Chainon, the theme song for Sailor Moon Eternal, plays here in the credits. I expected it would be the opening theme (and may even have claimed that it was) so I was a bit surprised to see these movies don’t have actual openings. Next is Watashi-tachi ni Naritakute or Wanting To Be Together With You which is a cover of the first ending theme for Sailor Moon SuperS, which seems fitting here. This particular version is performed by Sailor Moon veteran Yoko Ishida.

There’s a brief post credits scene which shows us Hotaru and gives us a hint at what we’ll see next!

All around I enjoyed the first film, despite some sort of odd pacing that isn’t really meant to be told in movie format. I might have preferred to see this as a series of episodes which would have had a slightly longer run time but perhaps the animation wouldn’t have been as good in that case. This movie looks great and is a considerable improvement on what we saw in the first 26 episodes. It’s very difficult for me to think of this as one single movie as I was able to, along with every else who first saw these films on Netflix, watch both parts at once. If I saw this in theatres would I have been annoyed at having to wait until the next part? I don’t know. In Japan the time between the two films was barely more than a month.

What did you think of the movie? Let us know in the comments! I’ll get to posting a Part 2 review at some point.

Keep reading for more screenshots from this film.

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A new Sailor Moon Eternal clip focuses on Sailor Mercury, Mars, Jupiter and Venus

Posted on December 23, 2020 by Adam

A new Sailor Moon Eternal clip has been released and it includes a mix of new footage and some we’ve seen before leaving me wondering “Have I seen that specific pose before or is it just superficially similar we saw a few weeks ago? Was that from an HD clip or a postage stamp sized image with SAMPLE stamped across it?”. This clip focuses on Ami, Rei, Makoto and Minako. We see some new footage of them in civilian and Sailor Guardian form and some attacks. You can watch the clip embedded below.

Sailor Moon Eternal Part 1 hits theatres in Japan on January 8th and Part 2 will follow on February 11th. There has not been any official news about a release outside of Japan though the speculation is that it will be streaming on Netflix at some point in the future.

Keep reading for more images from this clip.

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Watch the new music video for the Sailor Moon Eternal theme song Moon Color Chainon featuring the Sailor Guardians’ voice actors!

Posted on December 18, 2020 by Adam

A longer video showing the Sailor Moon Eternal theme song Moon Color Chainon which includes the voices of the Sailor Guardians singing has been shared on YouTube and the Official Sailor Moon Site. You can watch the video embedded below.

This is different from the full length video which was shared earlier this month. That was the Momoiro Clover Z version of the song. This version, which is the one included in the Eternal Edition of the album, is still sung by Momoiro Clover Z but joining them are the voices of the Sailor Guardians from Sailor Moon Crystal. That includes Kotono Mitsuishi, the voice of Sailor Moon, Hisako Kanemoto, the voice of Sailor Mercury, Rina Sato, the voice of Sailor Mars, Ami Koshimizu, the voice of Sailor Jupiter, and Shizuka Ito, the voice of Sailor Venus. We had gotten a preview of this version of the song in a very short clip which was released in October. This is a longer version but at a minute and a half it is still a short version of the song with the full version being about three and a half minutes.

All four members of Momoiro Clover Z as well as the five voice actors appear in this video. The close up shots are all of the members of Momoiro Clover Z while the shots of women standing in front of a brick wall with a TV screen are of the voice actors. You can tell who is who by the colour of the border around the image and of course the character shown on screen while they are singing.

The video also includes clips from the Sailor Moon Eternal films. Some of it is new and some of it we’ve seen before. I’ve included some screenshots of the new footage in this post.

Sailor Moon Eternal Part 1 will be released in theatres in Japan on January 8th with Part 2 following the next month on February 11th. Though no date or specifics have been announced it seems likely that the English version of the films will be streamed on Netflix.

Keep reading for more screenshots from this video.

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Here are more images of from Sailor Moon Eternal Part 1

Posted on December 5, 2020 by Adam

Some new images of Usagi, Chibiusa, Mamoru, Ami, Rei, Makoto and Minako were released earlier this week. Though these haven’t been posted on the official Sailor Moon site they have been seen elsewhere online. I originally saw these on Instagram when they were posted by Sailor Moon Collectibles who mentioned she had seen them on animate Times. These images were shared in three different posts, the first showing Chibiusa and Usagi, the second showing Ami and Rei and the third showing Makoto and Minako.

The civilian images mostly seem new. Some of these, including most of the transformed posed images, had been seen before though they previously had the Lawson Print Shop “Sample” watermark on them. Since those have been for sale at Lawson Print Shops since August many versions without the water mark are out there.

With the trailers mostly focusing on transformations and Sailor Guardian outfits it’s nice to get another look at everyone in their day to day clothes. What do you think?

Sailor Moon Crystal Part 1 will be released in theatres in Japan on January 8th 2021 with Part 2 following shortly afterwards on February 11th. There has not yet been any announcement of when and how the films will be released outside of Japan, though there is speculation that Netflix may be dubbing the movies.

Keep reading for more of these stills.

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Check out these new stills from the Sailor Moon Eternal films

Posted on August 13, 2020 by Adam

Update – 2020-08-14: The original post categorized these as a leak as I was not aware that these images had been posted to the official site.

A collection of 10 new stills from the first of the two Sailor Moon Eternal films has been posted to the Official Sailor Moon site. The post advertises a collaboration with Lawson convenience stores for a number of products. These 10 stills will be available from Lawson photocopiers. Though we’d already seen a couple of these, most of them seem to be new showing us single frames from animation which will likely be seen in Sailor Moon Eternal Part 1, which will be released in theatres on January 8th 2021.

Here’s a look at each still individually.

Super Sailor Chibi Moon and Super Sailor Moon posing. We had already seen this as part of footage which was already released so this is a higher quality image than the other samples.

Sailor Mercury posing during her post transformation speech. The pose is similar to past seasons but the designs are updated.

Sailor Mars posing. Again the same pose with new designs. Her wrist seems a bit less limp if that makes sense.

Sailor Jupiter posing. Her hair isn’t holding as well as it has.

Sailor Venus posing. Her finger seems to keep getting bigger.

Super Sailor Moon hugging a faceless Mamoru. We’ve seen this one already as well.

Pegasus and Chibiusa. Many have pointed out that Pegasus is pony sized in these films.
He does seem to be a bit smaller than what we’d seen in the first Sailor Moon anime, but Chibiusa’s size is a bit inconsistent in Sailor Moon Crystal. An earlier image of Chibiusa and Pegasus which we saw made him look much smaller.

Helios. We’d seen his designs but this is the first actual frame of him that we’ve seen.

Artemis, Diana and Luna. Luna’s eyes are now blue, while they were red in previous seasons. This may be so that her eye colour is consistent with human Luna who we will be saying likely in the second film which will be released on February 11th 2021.

The Amazon Trio. Striking a pose!

At this point we are certainly seeing more and more of the art style. While I would like to see more of it in action these stills give us a decent indication of what we’re in for next year. What do you think?

Source: Sailor Moon Thailand on Twitter

A new trailer and poster for the upcoming Sailor Moon Eternal film have been revealed

Posted on April 23, 2020 by Adam

A new poster and trailer have been revealed on the Sailor Moon official site! The poster is above and you can watch the trailer embedded below.

This confirms that the trailer which was making the rounds last month was in fact authentic. The trailer we see here, aside from some minor changes, includes all of the same footage which we saw in lower quality in the leaked trailer which we had posted about.

At the time I assumed the footage from the Sailor Moon S intro was some kind of placeholder but even that in fact was included in the actual trailer! The rest of the trailer gives us a look at Usagi, Chibiusa, Pegasus, Mamoru and the Sailor Guardians Super Sailor Moon, Super Sailor Chibi Moon, Sailor Mercury, Sailor Mars, Sailor Jupiter and Sailor Venus.

Also revealed today is that the voice of Pegasus and Helios will be provided by Yoshitsugu Matsuoka. He is a veteran voice actor who voiced Kirito in Sword Art Online and has appeared in numerous other anime series.

What do you think of the trailer? Do you regret calling out the terrible animation when you thought it was a fake? Let us know in the comments!

Keep reading for more screenshots from this trailer! These ones are of a higher quality than the ones which were posted last time!

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The cast for the Sailor Moon Prism On Ice show includes Anza, Evgenia Medvedeva, Kurt Browning and many more world class figure skaters

Posted on February 17, 2020 by Adam

The Sailor Moon official site has posted a lot of details about the upcoming Sailor Moon Prism On Ice show which was announced last summer. The event will be taking place June 5th to the 7th at the KOSÉ Shin Yokohama Skate Center in Tokyo. We had previously learned that Evgenia Medvedeva, a Russian figure skater and Olympic medalist, was going to be in the show. We now have confirmation that she will be playing Sailor Moon herself! An article at Oricon includes photos of Evgenia Medvedeva in her Sailor Moon costume! The rest of the cast includes Sailor Mercury, Mars, Jupiter and Venus as well as Tuxedo Mask. The villains are the Dark Kingdom’s Queen Bery, Jadeite, Nephrite, Zoisite and Kunzite. All of the above mentioned characters will be portrayed by figure skaters, most of whom are world class competitive skaters, from around the world.

Also appearing in the musical is Anza as Queen Serenity. Anza is best known to Sailor Moon fans as the first to play Sailor Moon in a Sailor Moon musical. She continued in this role for many years. The other special guest, who’s role is not mentioned, is Kurt Browning. He is a World Champion figure skater who was a well known sports celebrity here in Canada in the 1990s.

The show will also have a voice cast which includes the main cast from Sailor Moon Crystal. Only the Sailor Guardians currently have voice actors listed at this time. This could mean that the show will mainly feature those characters in spoken roles or perhaps the others will be announced at a later time. The details on the site list them as being the voice actors from the Sailor Moon Eternal films. As the Dark Kingdom specific characters will not be in the Sailor Moon Eternal films, they may not have been mentioned for this reason. It may also prove more complicated in booking voice talent from a previous season when there hadn’t been an expectation for them to be reprising their roles in the future.

Music will be by Akiko Kosaka, who has been involved with music in the original Sailor Moon anime, the Sailor Moon Musicals and Sailor Moon Crystal.

A full translated cast list in included below:

Sailor Moon/Usagi Tsukino: Evgenia Medvedeva
Sailor Mercury/Ami Mizuno: Satoko Miyahara
Sailor Mars/Rei Hino: Mirai Nagasu
Sailor Jupiter/Makoto Kino: Alissa Czisny
Sailor Venus/Minako Aino: Becky Bereswill
Tuxedo Mask/Mamoru Chiba: Andrew Poje
Queen Serenity: ANZA
Kunzite: Jason Brown
Jadeite: Takahito Mura
Nephrite: Dylan Moscovitch
Zoisite: Seiya Hashimoto
Queen Beryl: Shinko Sakamaki

Additional skaters: Youji Nakano, Shigeru Matsumura, Koichi Kobayashi, Kohei Yoshino, Yuka Kono, Takana Ito

Special guest appearance: Kurt Browning

Voice cast:

Sailor Moon/Tsukino Usagi: Kotono Mitsuishi
Sailor Mercury/Ami Mizuno: Hisako Kanemoto
Sailor Mars/Rei Hino: Rina Sato
Sailor Jupiter/Makoto Kino: Ami Koshimizu
Sailor Venus/Minako Aino: Shizuka Ito

Other staff:

Screenplay: Takuya Hiramitsu
Choreography: Yuka Sato, Benji Schwimer (Assistant)
Music: Akiko Kosaka, Lunar Eclipse Meeting

As I put the list from the official site through Google Translate some of the names that aren’t hyperlinks may be incorrect. I’ve included Wikipedia links when I found them to give some insight into what those athletes have done.

Are you excited for this event? Will any of you be making the trip to Japan to check out this show in June? Who are you most excited to see?

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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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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 Venus

Here’s more information on the planned Sailor V anime series

Sailor Moon Eternal Part 2 Review

Sailor Moon Eternal Part 1 review

A new Sailor Moon Eternal clip focuses on Sailor Mercury, Mars, Jupiter and Venus

Watch the new music video for the Sailor Moon Eternal theme song Moon Color Chainon featuring the Sailor Guardians’ voice actors!

Here are more images of from Sailor Moon Eternal Part 1

Check out these new stills from the Sailor Moon Eternal films

A new trailer and poster for the upcoming Sailor Moon Eternal film have been revealed

The cast for the Sailor Moon Prism On Ice show includes Anza, Evgenia Medvedeva, Kurt Browning and many more world class figure skaters

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