Senshi Minus One Reunite With Naoko!

Naoko Takeuchi invited Kotono Mitsuishi, Aya Hisakawa, Michie Tomizawa, and Rika Fukami to her house for a New Years’ lunch. Emi Shinohara was probably also invited but wasn’t there. She posted a photo of everyone enjoying champagne and wine! From left to right in this photo: Rika Fukami, Naoko Takeuchi, Aya Hisakawa, Michie Tomizawa, and Kotono Mitsuishi. She writes:

Super Gorgeous!

This is a New Years Party at the house of the original author of Sailor Moon, Naoko Takeuchi~

Aya Hisakawa, Rika-chan Fukami, Michie Tomizawa and I had a wonderful lunch with Naoko Takeuchi!

It was too fun!

It was too delicious!

Do we ever get tired of talking about Sailor Moon?
Mitsuishi was in the best spirits after all that champagne and wine!

Kotono is so cute – and this is definitely a rare look inside Naoko Takeuchi’s house! It sure looks pretty regal to us – we wonder if she themed her house to be Princess Naoko’s palace? Did Yoshihiro Togashi take this photo?

The Seiyuu Also Invaded a Shopping Arcade!

The Shinmachi Shopping Arcade to be exact! The Machi★Asobi Vol 2. Exhibit opened in the arcade in January, featuring all sorts of anime and manga memorabilia from drawings, to autographs, and costumes. Some of the seiyuu involved with Sailor Moon had autographs that were featured in this exhibit, and they included: Michie Tomizawa, Rika Fukami, Mika Doi (Queen Serenity), Emi Shinohara, the late Kaneto Shiozawa (Prince Diamond), and Megumi Hayashibara (Himeko). Some Sailor Moon movie posters were also featured as part of the exhibit. To see more pictures, click here!

Going back to Kotono…

Kotono also appeared at a special press event for Kokkeko-san a little over two weeks ago with the entire cast of the show (she is front row and center, holding the Kokkeko-san doll). This article features an interview with them, and Kotono had a lot to say about her role! She spoke about how Kokkeko-san is a lovely mother who just wants the best of her kids, and just like many other mothers, has to deal with a husband who doesn’t always help her. She thinks that this is a great cartoon for mothers and children to bond to watching it together. She enjoyed and sympathized with this role, being a mother just like Kokkeko-san! All of the cast also wished that they had moms like Kokkeko-san! Kotono ended the interview saying how much she loved the arts, and asked for all mothers to watch it with their children.

Emi Shinohara Plays Piano For Peace!

Besides using the power of thunder to save the world, did you also know that Sailor Jupiter plays the piano? This is one of many talents listed on her official agency profile, and we were a little surprised to learn of this sighting! There is a piano that has traveled all over Japan, and is known for being a symbol of peace. This piano survived the bombing at Hiroshima, and has a very interesting story behind it (and we can even share it with you in English)! On January 23rd, a special concert was held at the Cultural Information Center in Hanoura, Anan City, in Tokushima, Japan. The piano still holds small amounts of radiation and shards of glass throughout its lacquer, but the piano tuner who restored it (Mitsunori Yagawa) commented that those who hear how good the piano sounds, they cannot tell that it was part of such a horrific event. Emi Shinohara accompanied singers at this concert which played to an audience of 300. This piano is one of four pianos which survived the bombing, and a different one that Yagawa has restored will be making its way to New York City later this year to mark the 9th anniversary of the September 11th attacks and International Day of Peace. There was even a special part of the concert where some very talented 7th graders played the piano as well. We have featured an image of Emi Shinohara accompanying soprano Miki Furumoto above.

Hear Sakura Tange in Video Games!

Sakura Tange is probably most famous for playing Sakura in Card Captor Sakura, and well known for singing that show’s theme song. She also had a small role as Miharu Akiyama in episode 139 of Sailor Moon SuperS. Fans of Sakura can hear her voice in two video games this month! The first is Fate/Extra, where she plays Saber, the lead female warrior. This was not met without controversy as she is playing a role once played by Ayako Kawasumi. Fate/Extra is the fourth game based on the popular Fate/Stay Night series. The second game that fans can hear her in is Konami’s Love Plus Valentine, which was just released last week. She plays Rinko Kobayakawa, a first year high school student. This game is a dating sim that is all about being in love when you are in high school!

Part Two will be posted a little later this week!

Here comes part two of our seiyuu update – Outer Senshi and Sailor Starlights!

Mika Doi (Queen Serenity) can be heard playing Kotoko Fujioka (Haruhi’s mother) in Ouran High School Host Club (one of our staff favorites)! She also played Queen Dessert in the last Pretty Cure Movie Yes! Precure 5 GoGo! Happy Birthday in the Land of Sweets, playing Queen Dessert*. The 2003 movie Levity was just released in Japan, and Mika is the Japanese dub voice of Holly Hunter’s character, Adele Easley.

Masako Katsuki (Sailor Neptune): She is used as the Japanese dub voice for Kim Cattrall’s legendary character from Sex and the City, Samantha Jones. It is very likely she will be used again for the upcoming movie sequel set to hit theaters this coming Summer. She is also the voice of Princess Rose in Gokujo!! Mecha Mote Iincho, a silly romantic comedy about a high school girl who tries to reform a trio of bad boys. She is teaching voice acting as well, and for those of you who want to see a more recent photo of her, here she is hugging one of her students! The student’s blog entry says that she is finding her acting classes tough, but that Masako is a great teacher! Unfortunately, despite our best efforts we were unable to find out what school she is teaching through.

Megumi Ogata (Sailor Uranus) continues to play one of her most famous roles as Shinji Ikari in the new Evangelion movies! She also sang at a concert celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Japanese music label Lantis. Lantis is a special music label since it specializes in anime and video game soundtracks. She began her performance in her voice as Shinji saying “The Pilot of Evangelion is Shinji Ikari!” and sang Silver Rain ~Piano Version~. She also debuted a new song at this concert, Silent Decide.

Chiyoko Kawashima (Sailor Pluto) retired in 2001.

Yuko Minaguchi (Sailor Saturn) has had a few roles in some recent anime. In Jigoku Shoujo Mitsuganae (Hell Girl: Cauldron), she played Nanami Kikuchi. In Hayate the Combat Butler, she played Nagi Sanzenin’s mother, Yukariko (another one of our staff favorite animes). In a recent episode of Detective Conan, she played Mina Eguchi.Yuko is also the third star of Sailor Moon to be a part of technology launch parties in Japan, next to Toru Furuya and Kotono Mitsuishi. Earlier this month, she took place in an event at Ikebukuro Sunshine City. At the “Windows 7 Lenovo Enhanced Experience” she demonstrated how to use the new Lenovo Thinkpad. She posted a photo of herself learning how to use the Thinkpad with an office staff member on her blog! Unfortunately we couldn’t find any photos of her at the event.

Shiho Niiyama (Sailor Star Fighter) tragically passed away almost ten years ago. She is still dearly missed by her family, colleagues, and fans.

Narumi Tsunoda (Sailor Star Maker) can be heard in the supernatural romantic anime Tayutama: Kiss on my Deity. She plays Toshie Takayama in this show about a high school boy who accidentally summons Goddesses in the forms of teenaged girls who want to be humans for a while! Toshie is the school’s director, who intended to destroy these ancestral grounds which the boy used to summon these spirits, thinking that they were useless.

Chika Sakamoto (Sailor Star Healer) leant her voice to an audio tour of a major exhibit about dinosaurs in a museum in Japan this summer. The exhibit featured dinosaur facts, models, and a few near-complete skeletons of over 280 species of dinosaurs!

Sakiko Tamagawa (Princess Kakyuu) is currently playing the mysterious girl Juiz in Higashi no Eden (Eden of the East). She is an advanced work of artificial intelligence that is a mysterious female voice which is connected to twelve special assassins in the series, the Selecao. The anime series ended last June, but two movies are set to be released, one on November the 28th, and the other sometime in January.

And as a bonus, Sailor Galaxia!

Mitsuko Horie (Sailor Galaxia) sang at a special concert on November 15th, celebrating her 40th anniversary singing songs for anime (pictured). She shed a few tears during this concert! Also, the concert featured songs from her fellow judges from the ANISON Grand Prix panel, Ichiro Mizuki and Yumi Matsuzawa. Mitsuko also released an album last August commemorating her 40th anniversary.

*SPEAKING OF PRETTY CURE: it appears sometime last month, the show was pulled mid-run from YTV’s schedule. As of this writing, we cannot confirm why this has happened. There is a rumor floating around that the show may finish its run on Nickelodeon Canada, however we’re taking that with a grain of salt since most if not all of the programming on that particular channel comes from Nickelodeon. Pretty Cure probably wouldn’t jive with programs on that channel!

This is update night, and since there’s a lot to get to we’re going to keep things short! So a while ago, Toei’s Animated Cartoon * Comic service won an award at MIPCOM , an audiovisual media content market in Cannes. This service is unique, though a mobile subscription service, subscribers get sent a comic from one of Toei’s famous titles with comic bubbles over the characters head to tell the story of those episodic moments! For fans who were wondering, yes Sailor Moon is included!

Toei has just begun a promotion for the brand new Pretty Cure movie, as well as season 5 of the show. They are giving away 50 free parent-and-child movie passes, and they have also just added the last season, Splash Star, to their Ani BB service. Splash Star has a lot of connections to Sailor Moon, and even some Sailor Sightings have appeared in the past! They are: Kappei Yamaguchi (PGSM Artemis) as Floppy , Isshin Chiba (Kitakata – SS 137) as Currihan, Keiichi Nanba (Alan, Umino) as Moreunba, Mika Doi (Queen Serenity) as Saori Hyuga, Taeko Kawata (Momoko Momohara) as Princess Filia, Toshiyuki Morikawa (Yuu Kazama – S 115) , Yoko Soumi (PGSM Book Narrator – Ep. 5) as Asuka Suzuki, and Yuriko Fuchizaki (Cyprine) as Michiru Kiryu.

And today Anime News Network reported that Japan issued a formal statement of requests to the United States on regulatory reform and market competition a few days ago. They ask the government in “response to the network digitalization, the popularization of the Internet, advances in digital technology caused by the problem of copyright infringement,”to help them stop the illegal reproduction and distribution of anime online through peer-to-peer networks and video sharing sites. The Japanese Government finds the paths to litigation of these things too cumbersome and expensive, and they can’t keep up with all of them. In recent months we have noticed that most of the major studios now have anonymous forms that users can submit links to potentially infringing websites in an effort to make it easier for the studios.

And, this leaves Sailor Moon in a kind of odd situation. The series is popular, but we don’t think that everyone that would have liked to have owned a piece of it does. Secondly, it’s no longer easily available on DVD and we know of a lot of fans’ projects to upload the episodes onto video sharing sites or by other means to keep this series alive. It’s not licensed anywhere outside of Japan either, so it’s a gray area really. Aside from that though, we believe that fansubs are a good measure of what is popular with anime these days – and is probably a good indicator for distributors around the world to use when they are licensing series. Without it, you might think twice about picking up a DVD you might see at a store without having much exposure to it. We really admire sites like AnimeSuki which keep track of what’s been licensed and what hasn’t and that they step up to the plate to remove the links once a series has been picked up. A more realistic policy might be to stop (a little harder) the distribution of licensed series, which would mean that both Japan and the United States would have to be on the ball about these things. Popular video streaming sites that are Japan-exclusive, such as Nico Nico Douga, have a large amount of anime episodes that are streamed. We’ve even seen a few episodes of various dubs of Sailor Moon pop up on there. We do understand their concerns, because people in Japan have lots of different ways to obtain their anime and they really shouldn’t be streaming. We have a feeling that this is the real reason why they are asking for cooperation to control anime online.

And on a happier note, Anza Oyama(Sailor Moon in many Sera Myu Musicals) will be performing a concert with her Japanese Nu-Metal band Head Phones President at the 4th Annual Pacific Media Expo! The event is being held at the Hilton Los Angeles Airport and is America’s first major trade show dedicated to Asian-Pacific popular culture and entertainment media. If any fans are planning to attend this we would love to hear from you! The festival takes place from November 9th-11th.