Tag: Stephanie Sheh

Preliminaries on ‘Sailor Moon Super S’

As Viz Media has released the uncensored Japanese version of the ’90s anime version of Sailor Moon with an English sub, I’ve been purchasing it on iTunes.

I previously reviewed the first half of Sailor Moon S, the third arc, but never reviewed the second half partly because I got busy with other things, partly because I lost the ability to take screenshots from iTunes, and partly because I had little to add to my review of the first part: the series takes some of the most questionable decisions of the manga, makes yet more questionable decisions in adapting them, and somehow spins gold out of what by rights should be a complete mess. It might be the best chapter in the saga.

Anyway, Viz has released both halves of Sailor Moon Super S, the penultimate series, as well as two of the movies, Sailor Moon R and Sailor Moon S. Both films had limited runs in theaters, but I only had the chance to see the first one.

I started out by purchasing this series on iTunes, and am still doing so. I’m currently puzzling out what to do about the screenshot issue, because I’d like to review them. I have the Japanese version of Sailor Moon Super S, but the movies I haven’t bought yet, mostly because iTunes appears to indicate that they’re only available in English, which makes me think that maybe I should shell out for the Blu-Ray so I can have them in Japanese. Stephanie Sheh, who plays Sailor Moon in the dub, does a passable job, but she’s also another minor celebrity who’s made a habit of making a fool of herself on social media, so I’m frankly uninterested in listening to her voice.

Anyway, what I’m saying is … Sailor Moon Super S is out, if you didn’t know that already. This particular series has historically been unpopular with American fans because it centers on Chibi Moon, who is not as well-liked in the U.S. as in Japan. I’ve only just begun it, but I’m so far enjoying it. I feel the need to revisit this section of the manga, since it didn’t make much of an impression on my memory and I’m unsure how utterly the anime has changed it.

 

Is ‘Sailor Moon R: The Movie’ Too Gay?

Featured image: Totally a real screenshot from the film and not some crazy cosplaying by GeshaPetrovich.

Sailor Moon R: The Movie, directed by Kunihiko Ikuhara. Screenplay by Sukehiro Tomita. Starring Kotono Mitsuishi, Aya Hisakawa, and Michie Tomizawa. Toei Animation, 1993. In limited release from Viz Media, 2017. Dubbed. Runtime 78 minutes. Rated PG.

We’ll get to the meaning of the deliberately provocative clickbait title of this review in a moment. But first, let’s cover the preliminaries.

So, I just saw Sailor Moon R: The Movie, the first North American theatrical release of a Sailor Moon film, courtesy of Viz Media, which now owns the North American distribution rights. The film originally came out in 1993 and runs a mere hour and eighteen minutes. I hope some other showings around the country are more successful than the one I attended, or Viz Media is going to go broke, and I don’t want them to go broke until they finish releasing the series. Continue reading “Is ‘Sailor Moon R: The Movie’ Too Gay?”