Sailor Moon Musical – Le Mouvement Final, at a theater near you. That’s something worth getting up and going out for. And so, we did. In a small, adorable, old theater, in a town in my state I had never before visited, I found myself joining about 100 fans for the screening of the final Sailor Moon Musical. 

My relationship with Japanese live-action stage adaptations of anime is complicated. On the one hand, I sort of enjoy them (except for Blood-C The Last Mind – which is on Amazon Prime – and STILL didn’t end! /mumbled cursing/) and I sort of find them excruciating and ridiculous…and boring when the pacing is poor. Because the musicals have naturally grown up in the shadow of the engekidan, the female musical revue troupes like Takarazuka, they have a lot of tropes built in, many of which are hard-coded, like a tendency to be extremely heteronormative. As a result of all this, they can be wonderful and annoying or just plain dreadful. ^_^

Complicating things for this particular musical is a simple fact. I don’t much like Sailor Moon Stars. In the anime, Seiya’s a dick, Yaten is an asshole and Taiki’s a jerk. I don’t find them sympathetic at all. And the end of the story in every version is a train wreck. Takeuchi-sensei had no idea how to end it. So, with all this in mind, I arrived at a small town theater-with-a-marquee all ready to be vaguely irritated. ^_^; 

I enjoyed it very much. It wasn’t excruciating, as such things go, the pacing was surprisingly good for doing an entire season of anime in two and half hours AND they managed to make the Starlights much more sympathetic than I’d ever seen.

In fact, I’d go so far as to say, I actually liked Harukawa Meiku’s Seiya. If they had done this story in the anime, my relationship with Stars would be completely different. 

Of course the Senshi are delightful. Funny bits were funny, not cringe-y, although in several places I noticed the audience I was in laughed at different times than the live audience on the tape. Yamato Yuga in a tux is never a bad thing. Isuzu Coco as Galaxia was fantastic, with excellent “crazy eyes”. The Animamates did a very decent job with their roles – and the costumes were fantastic. It cannot be easy to render 2-D drawings in 3-D with real people. 

Staging was pretty good, and one of my favorite things about the musicals has always been the lighting effects which stand in for all special effects. They were a lot of fun, especially during battle scenes. (As an aside, it dawned on me that anyone who can make cosplay items that have their own Foley will be a millionaire. Capes that go “whoosh” and sleeves that go “pow!” when you punch would be brilliant.) Okubo Satomi, the woman who first played Sailor Moon in this series of musicals, returning as Sailor Cosmos was a really nice touch. We all enjoyed seeing the costume come to life. Kakyuu-hime had a lovely voice, but didn’t have staying power, so the end bits were a little painful. And Natsu Chise as Chibi-chibi was, dare I say it? Cute. She was cute.

But for me, the question was simple – would this be as Yuri as the anime? The answer was…good heavens, yes. I mean like crazy yes.

Haruka and Michiru are touchy-feely throughout the story. Forget dying together, they are all arms around shoulders and stroking cheeks. Haruka explaining her dislike for the Starlights became amusing when – among all other suspicions – Taiki had insulted Michiru’s lipstick color. Michiru got to use the line “Haruka doesn’t like popular guys” and also the “I’ll make it up to you later…in private” line, which made the anime worth watching. That scene was hot enough that the other Senshi all fan themselves and say “hot!” which the translators decided reasonably on as “Get a room.” ^_^ Shiotsuki Syu and Fujioka Sayaka do a great job of presenting a long-term relationship, with multiple affirmations of “as long as I’m with you…” often enough that it was deeply satisfying. Thank you writers of this musical, and Takeuchi-sensei for that. The world – well us, anyway – is more than ready for a Haruka and Michiru who are physically affectionate on stage. 

For the Usagi x Mamoru fans, there was plenty of love-dovey between them, including a wedding scene at the end. That scene, which included all the Senshi in wedding dresses (“Why?” Usagi asks. “Because we wanted to!” replies Minako. “They’re pretty!”) and a dream sequence, were strongly reminiscent of two recognizable images from the artbooks. 

Not the same dresses, at all, but we immediately went there in our minds, at least.

There were a few significant changes from the original story that I thought were notable. In this version, the Outers do not take the position that the Starlights are an enemy, but actually want to work together. That’s a major change – and a positive one, because I really hated that we re-played the “we can’t work together” thing from Sailor Moon S. Setsuna and Haruka instantly grok that the Starlights are Senshi when they touch Seiya in separate scenes. Haruka also notes that they are women passing as men, which is true to the manga and was Takeuchi-sensei’s original intent. (It doesn’t negate the validity of this story as a trans narrative, in any way. However we interpret the characters is valid.) I liked that the story was shifted from “They need our help, but are strangers, so we’ll fight them” to “We’re all Senshi, let’s help them” and Usagi only had to argue that the Animamates were also Senshi, we shouldn’t fight them, either. It’s a much-needed expression of maturity on all of the Senshi’s parts. I assume Takeuchi-sensei has been thinking about this for 20 years, so I’m very glad this was her decision.

The ending of the story was still a trainwreck, but at least it was a completely different trainwreck than ever before. So that was a thing.

There was a short “revue” portion, while Yamato Yuga showed off a number of different tuxedos and the ensemble sang “Koi Suru Starlight,” “Moonlight Densetsu” (I looked around to see if anyone else in the theater was singing, but only the two of us were) and ended on “Ai no Starshine.”

When the movie was over, I stood at the door to ask if people enjoyed the movie, and who their favorite Senshi were. Everyone enjoyed it, and the most popular Senshi in this crowd was Sailor Moon herself. 

We chatted with Allie and her boyfriend who had never seen a Sera Myu before. Allie explained how life-changing Sailor Moon had been for her when she saw it as a kid. Of course we understood. I asked the gathered crowd how many people had been fans forever and most hands went up. ^_^ 

Someone cleverly thought to grab a picture of those of us hanging out in the lobby!

It was a wonderful show and we had an absolute blast. 

Ratings: 

Overall – 9

OH, AND the theater was showing three young-people-, people of color- and LGBTQ-friendly movies: Black Panther, Wrinkle in Time and Sailor Moon Musical that afternoon. The place was full of young people and it was absolutely delightful.