Karin Takahashi, Sailor Saturn, will not be returning for the next Sailor Moon musical

Sailor Moon Un Nouveau Voyage DVD - Sailor Saturn

An announcement has been made on the official Sailor Moon site stating that most of the cast of the Sailor Moon Amour Eternal musical will be reprising their roles for the next musical which will be taking place in the fall. The exception to this is Karin Takahashi, who was also Sailor Saturn and Hotaru in the Un Nouveau Voyage musical, who will not be returning for the next musical. I thought she did a great job in the last couple of musicals and am sorry to see her go. (Update: The new actress who will be portraying Sailor Saturn is Mirai. I was originally confused by the statement thinking it meant she will be announced in the future, as Mirai is the Japanese word for “future”.)

Sailor Moon Un Nouveau Voyage Musical - Professor Tomoe and Hotaru

Returning cast members include Hotaru Nomoto as Sailor Moon, Yume Takeuchi as Sailor Mercury, Karen Kobayashi as Sailor Mars, Kaede as Sailor Jupiter, Rimo Hasegawa as Sailor Venus, Shuu Shiotsuki as Sailor Uranus, Sayaka Fujioka as Sailor Neptune, Mikako Ishii as Sailor Pluto, Airi Kanda as Sailor Chibi Moon, and Yuga Yamato as Tuxedo Mask. We don’t have any specifics about the musical at this time but it seems only logical that this 5th in the recent set of musicals would cover the Stars story arc of the Sailor Moon manga. With the musical taking later this year there is always the chance of other cast changes between now and then, but for the moment only one change in casting is anticipated.

The Sailor Moon Amour Eternal musical will be performed at Anime Matsuri in Houston in April

Sailor Moon Amour Eternal poster for Anime Matsuri

The first ever North American performance of a Sailor Moon musical will be taking place in Houston Texas during the Anime Matsuri convention in April. The news of this special performance of the Sailor Moon Amour Eternal musical was posted on the official Sailor Moon site and Anime Matsuri site last month. The specific date of the musical performance has not yet been announced but it will be during the convention weekend which takes place from April 7th to the 9th at the George R. Brown convention centre in downtown Houston, Texas. This may be a slightly modified version of the musical as the entire cast will not be present. At this time only the Sailor Guardians and Tuxedo Mask, with the exclusion of Chibiusa, will be in attendance. Notice that the poster specifically made for this event features all regular cast members but Airi Kanda who plays Chibiusa.

Fumio Osano aka Osabu aka Osa-P

In addition to the musical there will be many Sailor Moon themed guests. This includes Fumio Osano, Osabu, who is best known as the editor of the Sailor Moon manga. Also appearing are voice actors from the English versions of Sailor Moon Crystal and Viz’s new dub of the original Sailor Moon anime Cristina Vee, who plays Sailor Mars, and Christine Cabanos, who plays Sailor Saturn.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Amour Eternal Musical - The Sailor Team

Confirmed guests for the musical are Hotaru Nomoto, Sailor Moon, Yume Takeuchi, Sailor Mercury, Karen Kobayashi, Sailor Mars, Kaede, Sailor Jupiter, Rimo Hasegawa, Sailor Venus,
Syu Shiotsuki, Sailor Uranus, Sayaka Fujioka, Sailor Neptune, Mikako Ishii, Sailor Pluto, Karin Takahashi, Sailor Saturn, and Yuga Yamato, Tuxedo Mask. Also attending are dancers Risa Kawamura, Yoshimi Hidano, Ayano Nagasawa and Ayumi Sagisaka.

Sailor Moon Un Nouveau Voyage musical DVD review

Sailor Moon Un Nouveau Voyage DVD - Packaging - Front

The Sailor Moon Un Nouveau Voyage musical was released on DVD in Japan on February 24th. This is the third in the current set of musicals covering the Infinity arc of the manga which introduces us to Sailor Uranus, Neptune and Saturn as well as the Death Busters. This is a Japanese only DVD which is region 2, so if you are looking to drop 6450 yen, about $57 US, on this to import it, realise you won’t be able to understand what anyone is saying unless you speak Japanese. This is a two disc set which includes the full musical on the first disc and some special features on disc 2. I bought my copy from Amazon Japan, though you can also get it from other retailers such as CD Japan.

Sailor Moon Un Nouveau Voyage DVD - Booklet - Cover

The packaging is quite nice, with the cover featuring the musical’s poster. A special booklet is included which includes character descriptions and lyrics to all of the musical’s songs.

Sailor Moon Un Nouveau Voyage DVD - Packaging - Inside

The first disc, as I mentioned, is the musical itself. The run time is 2 hours and 36 minutes. It’s quite a long musical but this also includes some extra performances after the curtain goes down and some words of thanks from the cast, due to this being a recording of the final performance of the musical. Lots of crying!

Sailor Moon Un Nouveau Voyage DVD - The Sailor Guardians

I realise I never actually did a full proper review of this musical when first played in Japan and became available to watch via fansub. I started writing one but put it off and at this point it’s so overdue it would be silly to release it. So much to say the musical is fantastic. It is faithful to the manga but still does its own thing enough to make it interesting. The new characters are great, as Haruka and Michiru have a great romance and Hotaru struggles with her illness in a very emotionally impactful way.

Sailor Moon Un Nouveau Voyage DVD - Usagi and Haruka

The musical is great. The quality of this DVD is not so awesome. As with La Reconquista and Petite Étrangère, the DVDs are standard definition with interlacing, 480i resolution. This is typical of older TV shows shot on video but for a musical which took place in 2015 it’s a bit disappointing. There is no Blu-Ray because there is no HD version that has been recorded. It seems like the best resolution possible is what is on this DVD.

The second disk has a lot of special features on it, of varying interest. As I’ve mentioned many times I don’t speak Japanese so a lot of these features don’t do me much good.

Sailor Moon Un Nouveau Voyage DVD - Special Features - The two Chibiusas Kokoro Kuge and Airi Kanda

The first featurette focuses on the two actresses who are playing Chibiusa, Kokoro Kuge and Airi Kanda. They show up out of costume for a quick introduction and then we watch half an hour of parts of the musical they are in. We seem to go through all of their scenes from the musical. I’m not really sure what the point of this is but here we are. This whole thing is about 32 minutes.

Sailor Moon Un Nouveau Voyage DVD - Special Features - The 5 Sailor Guardians and Tuxedo Mask

Next is an interview with the main group of actresses, that being the girls playing Sailor Moon, Satomi Ookubo, Sailor Mercury, Momo Koyama, Sailor Mars, Kanon Nanaki, Sailor Jupiter, Yu Takahashi, Sailor Venus, Shiori Sakata, and Tuxedo Mask, Yūga Yamato. They chat for about 45 minutes about various things. I really couldn’t give you any insight into the content of their conversations but they are extensive! Boy some of these girls have really short hair when not wearing those wigs.

Sailor Moon Un Nouveau Voyage DVD - Special Features - Outer guardians

Following this is a similar interview with the Sailor Guardians from the outer solar system, that being Sailor Uranus, Shuu Shiotsuki, Sailor Neptune, Sayaka Fujioka, Sailor Pluto, Mikako Ishii, and Sailor Saturn, Karin Takahashi. Again I don’t know what they’re saying, but one thing that caught my attention was how much Shuu Shiotsuki looks like Haruka. In the musicals all of the actresses wear wigs but her short blonde hair was quite like she looks as Haruka. This interview is about 18 minutes.

Sailor Moon Un Nouveau Voyage DVD - Special Features - Shuu Shiotsuki looks like Haruka

To wrap things up we go back to the stage. A sort of tribute clip is shown to the departing actresses who are playing Sailor Moon, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter and Venus. This makes them cry. Someone comes out to give them a piece of paper and more crying. They do a final number while crying. This is the crying feature. I may not speak Japanese but all people of this earth share a common language of crying!

Sailor Moon Un Nouveau Voyage DVD - Special Features - So much crying

Included with this disk is a 26 page booklet which includes characters bios and lyrics for all songs from this musical. I’ve included photos of all pages from this booklet at the end of this post.

You are surely wondering if this DVD is worth it! If you’re looking to watch this musical with English subtitles, you’d be better off getting the fan subbed version from Miss Dream. Of course this is technically piracy and does not support the musicals. Short of going to Japan to watch a musical yourself, something many fans have done, your best legal option to support this musical would be to buy this home video release. Keep in mind this is region 2, so you will need a region free DVD player to watch this if you don’t live in Japan. It is NTSC which will present other difficulties for those living in regions with PAL video standards. Despite the quality issues musical fans will probably appreciate having this. There are some nice features on here which fans may find interesting which have not been subtitled by anyone so this is the only way to get those. Naturally if you’re not fluent in Japanese you won’t get quite as much out of this.

Keep reading to see more images of the menus, packaging and photos of every page of the booklet.

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Check out the cast and poster for the Sailor Moon Un Nouveau Voyage musical

Sailor Moon Un Nouveau Voyage musical poster

Here’s a look at the new poster, and the full cast, of the upcoming musical Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Un Nouveau Voyage, which is French for A New Journey. We now have official confirmation that the musical will cover to Infinity Story Arc of the manga, and with this it will include the new characters Sailor Uranus, Sailor Neptune and Sailor Saturn in addition to other characters who appeared in the previous story arc.

With this new poster we also have the announcement of the casting for the three new Sailor Guardians showing up in this musical. Shuu Shiotsuki, who plays Sailor Uranus, is a veteran of Takarazuka Revue since 2004. Sayaka Fujioka, who plays Sailor Neptune, is an actress who has done a few TV roles. Karin Takahashi, who plays Sailor Saturn, is an established singer who has performed theme songs for a number of anime series. You can find out more about Karin Takahashi at her official blog.

Source: Sailor Moon Official Site Post 1, Post 2