Last night (US time) Nico Nico Douga hosted a live Sailor Moon event and, at last we have the cast announcements and character designs.

Tskino Usagi/Sailor Moon will be once again be voiced by Mitsuishi Kotono.

Mizuno Ami/Sailor Mercury will be taken up by Kanemoto Hisako.

Hino Rei/Sailor Mars is to be played by Satou Rina.

My beloved Kino Makoto/Sailor Jupiter will have the voice of Koshimizu Ami.

Aino Minako/Sailor Venus will be voiced by Itou Shizuka.

Also announced at the event is the lead cast for the second new Sailor Moon Musical, which will play in Tokyo and Osaka, and will include Chibi-Usa and Sailor Pluto (and, therefore, can be ID’ed as the second arc of the manga. ^_^)

Wrapping up PGSM news today, the Sailor Moon 20th Anniversary Memorial Tribute Album is getting vinyl releases, which is an interesting retro appeal to old fans.

The new anime will be streaming on Nico Nico Douga worldwide in 10 languages in less than 3 months….it begins July 5th, 2014.

All in all, I am pleased as punch at the choices. ^_^ These women are all very talented and all likely to give us amazing performances. I’m very much looking forward to the cast announcements for the bad guys!

Volume 5 of the Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Manga, Perfect Edition,  (美少女戦士セーラームーン) is amazingly chock full of…everything. New characters, secrets, cool moments, and, at last!, the Outer Senshi gather.

Yet again, the days of peace and tranquility after the defeat of the Black Moon are few. Usagi can be forgiven for wishing they’d continue. She and her friends are (or should be) studying for their high school entrance exams, when strange things start happening around town, all centered on a mysterious, elite school. In the meantime, Usagi is fighting off the arrogantly seductive famous race driver, Tennou Haruka, and is jealous to see famous violinist Kaioh Michiru flirting with Mamoru.

Total digression – some years ago I was staying in Tokyo on Tennozu Isle and suddenly realized that I was in the exact building where Haruka’s apartment would have been! There is a real Tennozu Isle, but no Kaiozu, Meiozu or Mugenzu.

Once again, I find myself flipping back and forth between anime, manga, musicals, and random media as I am reminded that both Haruka and Michiru are not particularly likable when they appear in the manga (unlike the anime, where they are captivating.) Haruka is way more genderqueer in the manga and I’m reminded again that Michiru and Haruka really are quite obviously a couple. It’s a little boggling to imagine in 1998, some folks just could not deal with the obvious and created elaborate fantasies to rewrite the narrative. (And, oh the drama when Takeuchi-sensei answered a fan’s question at Anime Expo and said they were lesbians.)

When Pluto comes back, she’s visibly different. Chibi-Usa recognizes it immediately. This started an interesting discussion, as I commented that seeing Pluto return after ostensibly dying in an earlier arc, might have clued Uranus and Neptune to the fact that maybe everything they thought was absolute might not actually be so. Of course, no one considers this. The oldest character in the book is, what, Setsuna at 23?

Outers and Inners are set against one another – even after the person they acknowledge as their future Queen asks them to work together. Kids. Sheesh. Can’t tell ’em anything. ^_^

But all this is set aside when first Sailor Saturn awakens and right on top of that, Mistress 9. Poor Hotaru, there’s so many people inside her head.

Ratings:

Art – The art is and always has been so wildly inconsistent as to practically be unratable, but boy can you tell when a color page is an artbook piece or a Nakayoshi color insert.

Story – 8 Best arc of the series, still.

Characters – 10 I love the Outers unconditionally.

Yuri – 9 Haruka and Michiru are so so so a couple.

Service – 4 Bits actually are service-y here and there.

Overall – 8

As Sailor Moon goes, this volume is a nail-biter. Which is to say I said “Yay!” a lot. ^_^

Thanks to Okazu Superhero Jye N. for his sponsorship of today’s review!

In all my many, many, many posts about  the Sailor Moon franchise, I have never before reviewed any of the manga or anime from the second arc of the series, the Black Moon arc – colloquially referred to by fans who remember the original anime as the ‘R’ season.

But, because this newest edition of the manga is a “Perfect Edition” and it is therefore unlikely to undergo any changes after, I feel as if I ought to at least comment. Before I get to the meat of the series, first of all, many thanks to Okazu Superhero Jye N. for sponsoring today’s review of Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Manga, Perfect Edition, Volume 3 and Volume 4 (美少女戦士セーラームーン)!

After the chaos of the first arc of the manga, in which 4 teenaged girls and one boy suddenly realize they have past lives, magical powers and destinies that come with karmic bonds, and who are suddenly tossed into a battle to protect Earth from a malevolent energy sucking being, they have about a page or two of relax and refresh time before something even stranger pops up. As Usagi and Mamoru kiss, a small child falls from the sky onto their heads, pulls out a gun and demands Usagi hand over the Legendary Silver Crystal.

Where the first arc is filled with the phantoms of the past, their past lives, past roles and past loves, the second arc is rooted in the future. A future that is likely to be destroyed, before they ever have a chance to live it.

My dislike of Chibi-Usa is contingent upon two unrelated things. The first, and most pressing is my general dislike of children. ^_^ The second is entirely due to the excellent voice acting skill of Araki Kae, whose characterization was the equivalent of nails on a chalkboard. (Not that Araki-san’s voice was bad, just that all the whining was excruciating.)

And so, I have never reviewed the ‘R’ arc. There is no overt Yuri, although some fans more dedicated or desperate than myself have created elaborate tales around Sailor Pluto and Chibi-Usa, but then they also wrote stories about Sailor Pluto and King Endymion, and who am I to wag my finger at absurd fan pairings? ^_^

Two key things happen in this second arc – the rest of the Inner Senshi are basically sidelined for the story, as it revolves around new characters – Chibi-Usa, and the Mamoru and Usagi of the future, King Endymion and Neo-Queen Serenity on our side and the next set of gem-themed baddies; Rubeus, Emeraude, Safir and, amusingly for English readers, Prince Demando.  This trend will sadly continue for the rest of the series, until well into the next to last arc.

Secondly, we meet the first ‘Outer Senshi’, Sailor Pluto, who is originally drawn to be quite young, but sort of ages as the series goes on. Intentionally? It’s hard to tell.

After Crystal Tokyo is restored (we weren’t worried, right? This series is 20 years old. I declare it a “there can be no spoilers, it’s 20 freaking years old” zone) we find ourselves at what is actually my favorite of all the short stories in the series – and a moment when I completely lost my mind. The story follows Chibi-Usa at Earth school, making friends, meeting a vampire, then eventually defeating her with garlic breath. It’s really quite fun. But that was not what made me lose my mind.

I turned to the first page of the short story and suddenly realized that it was all in Japanese. “Man, people are gonna be pissed.” I thought, for some reason thinking that it was the English language edition I was reading. I totally fugued for about ten solid minutes until I suddenly realized that, duh, no, it was supposed to be in Japanese.  ^_^;

The final story is a tale about Rei, that is ambiguously empowering. She really doesn’t need a man, but is still not quite sure of it for herself. The pressure to want to be desirable actually cause a lot of woe for real girls, so in a sense I’m glad Rei has strength to put that fantasy aside, but kind of not glad that it’s an all or nothing for her. Ambiguously empowering lessons ahoy.

My last lingering thought on this arc before I never think about it again, was Prince Demando talked a lot, but wasn’t really a good leader, and that Big Bosses that are black masses with eyes are getting tired and oh, Jupiter is sucking on a Pocky, not a cigarette, in case you were wondering. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 8 I think the larger format and higher quality repro work well for the art
Story – 7 It’s magical girls vs mooks, bosses and big boss, with lots of trage-romance thrown in. And Chibi-Usa.
Characters – 7 I still wish the Inners had more of a role than being disappeared, but Sailor Pluto. (Seriously, Senshi of Time but she can’t use it for anything, bleah)
Yuri- 0
Service – 1 on principle and for folks who find it anywhere

Overall – 7 Not my fave arc, not my least favorite, but I still cried at the end. Such a fangirl.

I really like the new cover images, in which any and all gem-like accessories the Senshi are wearing look like shiny gems and not just like plastic blobs.

Content-wise, Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, Perfect Edition, Volume 2 (美少女戦士セーラームーン) is pretty much the straightest volume of any story ever written ever. ^_^

The Earth is being attacked by minions of the Dark Kingdom, and the remainder of Queen Beryl’s Generals are falling at the hands  of the Senshi AND the true identity of the Moon Princess is revealed at last, but if you were just flipping through the manga, you might be hard pressed to tell with all that “Mamo-chan!”ing going on. ^_^;

Usagi’s memories are returned and she is awakened as Princess Serenity. That also means she now knows that she and the Prince of the Earth were fated to be together (which she would have known if she just listened to “Moonlight Densetsu” duh). And Mamoru takes on the role of damsel for the series with gusto being killed kidnapped, brainwashed and stabbed…all by the end of Volume 2.

The formula of minion–>boss–>Big Boss–>>Boss Boss is well established here. We’d better get used to it, because it isn’t going away any time soon.

My last thought about the Generals is that it was better that they were defeated by the Senshi than by Queen Metallia. That always made me crazy in the original anime.

The art gets really busy from the point where they all visit the moon, and after we learn Usagi’s real identity, the story shifts further and further away from the rest of the Senshi to her and Mamoru’s tragic love story.

The end of Volume 2 closes what we think of the first season of the anime and ends with the fateful moment when a small pink-haired child ruins Sailor Moon and all of voice acting forever.  Also the inexplicable and simultaneously under-and over-used magic bag of LunaP.

Ratings:

Art – I really liked it. The repro is crisp as all get out. 8
Story – Messy, but who cares, really? 8
Characters – Ami, Makoto, Rei who? 4
Yuri – 0, The only thing even remotely “Yuri” if you worked hard enough at it was Minako and Ami cheek-to-cheek in  the Christmas-themed color insert.
Service – Still hard for me to parse. Can someone ask an 11-year old niece if anything made her heartbeat faster?

Overall – 8

My takeaway from this volume is this: THIS is why you do not put a cat in charge of your operations.