The Return of Sailor Moon

If you’re a fan of the Sailor Moon then you know that a new anime is on its way. While we don’t have a release date just yet we do know that we are very excited about it (well I am at least!).

Sailor Moon is a magical girl anime from Japan which became vastly popular here in the US in 1995. The series created by Naoko Takeuchi debuted in Japan in 1992,  follows a clumsy, emotional teenage girl on Earth who stumbles across a cat named Luna, who can speak. Luna gives to her a magical brooch which allows her to transform into Sailor Moon, she then tells her she must find the rest of the Sailor Scouts so that they may fight for peace. As the series continues more Sailor Scouts are discovered, friendships are created, battles are fought, and love and peace prevails (but not without a little hanging on the edge of your seat, nail biting, action and drama of course). The series was great.

In the beginning Sailor Moon had a pretty crappy early morning time slot here in the US and was removed from syndication after the first 65 English adapted episodes broadcast. Leaving fans on cliffhanger, a popular internet campaign, Save Our Sailors (SOS) was born to save the series. The campaign was successful and with its help we gained access to the show again.

I’ve been a huge fan for years, I hopped on that train after watching one episode and I never looked back.  I mean my AIM screen name was, is, and always will be, MtblHead (Meatball Head), I have a pretty decent collection of Sailor Moon memorabilia, my High School Senior photo features my Sailor Moon collection (well and me as well, but guys, this photo looks like if belongs on awkwardphotos.com, seriously it’s that amazing), and I permanently inked my body with an ode to the series. Sailor Moon has its hook in me and it’s deep.

Sailor Moon ran from 1992-1997 had 5 Seasons, several movies, stage musicals, a live actions series, and countless memorabilia.  However, not all of it ran here in the US, parts of the series was cut, heavily edited, or never aired at all. It wasn’t super easy to obtain the uncut full series back in its hay day but with the internet it’s much easier now. Back in my day *shakes her old fist in the air* the only way to get a hold of unaired series was through VHS copies called fansubs, now get off my lawn!

Anywho…

When we watched the series we laughed, cried, we gasped along with each character, we sang along loudly with the theme song (English and Japanese, whether we knew it well or not!), we stuck a pose along with Sailor Moon, and most of all we wished we could all be magical girls as well and for a brief time Sailor Moon made is feel like we were magical.

Well that magical feeling is about to come back to all of us.

Many of us are excited for the new series, we all can’t wait for that magic again . Rumor has it the new series won’t be a continuation of the old but it will more closely follow the manga (Yes! The manga! Who here remembers MixxZine and Smile?……anyone???), but that’s all just hearsay right now. They have been very tight lipped on the series since the announcement of it’s rebirth in July.

So what do we know?

• Momorio Clover Z will perform the theme song. (new or old? we can’t say, word has not been released but it has been speculated that it will be new).
• The series will stream simultaneously online in all countries via niconico
• It will be subtitled in 10  languages and debut sometime this month!
•  Kotono Mitsuishi (voice actor of Usagi Tsukino/Sailor Moon) and Toru Furuya (voice actor of Mamoru Chiba/Tuxedo Mask) were in attendance at the 20th Anniversary celebration which could mean they are reprising their roles in the show but we don’t know for sure. (Fingers crossed!!!)
• The English voice actors will be reuniting for the first time this year at Anime Expo (does this mean they will be working on a full English adaption of the series?? we don’t know for sure but one can hope)

I’ll be posting as more information is revealed and look out for a character breakdown coming soon to get you up to speed on the who’s who in Sailor Moon.

In the meantime,

“Don’t forget to watch the new series!!”