We previously announced that Sailor Moon R The Movie, recently released to theatres in North America, was coming out on home video April 18th. We now have a look at the box art for this release! The above image showing the cover art and the image showing a bit of the spine are on Right Stuf’s listing for the DVD. This is new art likely made by artist Marco Albiero who did cover art for many international releases of the original Sailor Moon anime. (Update: Marco Albiero has confirmed that he did not in fact make this cover) It includes Tuxedo Mask, Fiore and the Sailor Guardians. Some fans have some not terribly wonderful things to say about this art. What do you think?

The Blu-Ray version is also posted on Right Stuf’s web site but the cover art isn’t included. It seems likely that the image used will be similar.

Some fans have said that they’d prefer to have seen the original Japanese poster for Sailor Moon R The Movie used. An image of that poster is included above. This poster has the distinction of being included in the liner notes of a U2 CD.

Here’s a really old Sailor Moon reference that I wasn’t aware of until just recently. Sailor Moon makes an appearance in Jon Bovi’s 1996 music video for the song “These Days”. At one point the song shows a quick couple of seconds of Japan and at that point an image of some sort of Sailor Moon S machine is shown. I’m not sure what this is, pachinko, slot machine, pinball machine? My searches didn’t turn up anything particular so if you have an idea of what it could be, drop us a line.

This reminded me of another bizarre music reference to Sailor Moon in the CD inserts for U2’s “Best of 1990-2000″ CD release. This picture of the band in front of a large Sailor Moon R The Movie poster was likely taken during their 1992-1993 Zoo TV tour which was going on while Sailor Moon R was in theatres.

Check out the original Sailor Moon R The Movie poster and the music video featuring Sailor Moon below.

Sailor Moon appears at 2 minutes and 46 seconds. The embedded video below is cued up to right before this happens:

Thanks to Sailor Swifty from the Sailor Moon forums for catching this one!