Hey Moonies! We’re catching up on several sightings and this is the first of a multi-part update!

Kotono Mitsuishi and Akira Kamiya Judging Next Generation of ANISON singers!

ANIMAX’s ANISON Grand Prix singing contest is starting up again, and NHK in Osaka are starting their pre-preliminary rounds as we speak. On May 5th, at NHK’s BK85 Spring Wonderland festival, a 5-judge jury will hear successful applicants sing and choose their top 15 to move onto the Osaka Preliminaries later this summer. Included on this jury are Kotono Mitsuishi (Sailor Moon) and Akira Kamiya (Professor Tomoe). Mitsuko Horie (Sailor Galaxia) will also be performing during a special concert in the second part of this competition, and HIMEKA herself will also be performing as well. Mitsuko and Akira will also be judging a second Anison contest on June 6th – the Anime Song Rush at Tokyo’s Yomiuri Land Open Theater East. Good luck to everyone entering these competition in Osaka and Tokyo!

(Big image of everyone together)

Kotono Mitsuishi Performing Drama CD Live!

The popular Japanese manga Brocken Blood is getting a drama CD adaptation! But instead of only releasing the drama CD on May 12th, the cast members are also going to perform it live sometime in August. Fans will have to enter a lottery once again to get a ticket, but it sounds like it will be worth it, especially when Kotono is playing Yomodo Shihoden, a magical girl who is one of the heroines in this series.

Kakyuu in New Eden of the East Movie!

Sakiko Takmagawa (Princess Kakyuu and Elsa Gray) reprises her role as the multi-faceted AI Juiz in the latest Eden of the East Movie, Eden of the East 2: Paradise Lost. The premise of the series is very similar to the movie The Matrix, and fans can read an almost full synopsis of the movie here. In the second movie, her character is spread out among four, so it will be interesting to see if she changes how her voice sounds. There is also a second Seiyuu in this movie, Nobuyuki Hiyama. He had two minor roles in Sailor Moon as Yosaku Eda and Tsunawataro, but has a much bigger role in this movie as the hacker Yutaku “Pants” Itazu. This will be released by FUNImation in 2011.

We’ll cap off this part with a few convention appearances this summer!

☽ Keiko Han (Luna), Chika Sakamoto (Yaten Kou/Sailor Star Healer), Kappei Yamaguchi (Artemis in PGSM) and Yasuo Yamaguchi (Producer) will be appearing at this year’s Animazement from May 28th-30th.

☽ Nobuyuki Hiyama (Yosaku Eda and Tsunawataro) will be appearing at this year’s Anime North on the same weekend!

Tales of Festival Tickets are On Sale!

For those of you planning to be in Japan on June 5th and 6th of this year, you could have the opportunity to see Masaya Onosaka (Jadeite, pictured left) and Hikaru Midorikawa (Fiore, Ail/Alan, pictured right)! Tales of Festival 2010 tickets are now on sale, and those two seiyuu will be among a handful of stars from Bandai-Namco’s Tales RPG series appearing at the special 2 day concert. Hikaru played the characters Lion Magnus in Tales of Destiny, and Judas in Tales of Destiny 2. Masaya played Zelos Wilder in Tales of Symphonia and Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World. Tickets went on sale earlier this month and are going for anywhere from 4800 Yen to 7800 Yen ($53-86 USD). There aren’t too many details out about this event yet, but it looks like it will be a lot of fun for Tales fans!

Queen Nehelenia Turns Nice in Cobra: The Animation!

Yoshiko Sakakibara (Queen Nehelenia) reprised her role as Armaroid Lady, Cobra’s android sidekick, in a two episode Cobra: The Animation OVA which aired on Japanese TV just weeks ago. The entire Cobra: The Animation series which stretches all the way back to the 80s, is finally being released on Blu-Ray beginning this April in honor of Cobra’s 30th anniversary! Fans can learn more about the OVA from Mania.com, and also watch subtitled episodes on Crunchyroll!

Some Seiyuu Involved in Ghoulish ParaPara?!

Wataru Takagi (Rubeus, an MC, and Kobayashi), Daisuke Sakaguchi (various supporting roles), and Machiko Toyoshima (Palla-Palla and various supporting characters) are part of an enormous cast doing something special for popular Japanese ghost story franchise, GeGeGe no Kitaro. The cast happily volunteered for a special CD filled with their singing, and dancing – they are all going to be doing GeGeGe-themed Para-Para! They are all featured on the cover next to a monster with a giant eyeball for a head. This will be released on February 19th and looks like it will be a lot of fun!

New RPG Gives Characters the Chance to Have the Voice of Ryotaro Okiayu!

Square Enix’s Concerto Gate Forte, a sequel to the hugely popular MMORPGs Cross Gate and Concerto Gate, has a very special item in it that players can collect. For two weeks as part of a special lottery, players could collect the “Power of Words Candy” and their character would be able to speak with the voice of one of 3 seiyuus. One of those is Ryotaro Okiayu (Tiger’s Eye and various other supporting characters). The other two voices that fans could win are Jun Fukuyama (best known as Lelouch Lamperouge from Code Geass) and J-pop singer Nana Mizuki. Concerto Gate Forte has proven to be popular among Japanese game players for its very interesting art style: it combines 3D characters and maps with hand drawn map elements!

New Doraemon CD Features An Old Favorite…

Mitsuko Horie (Sailor Galaxia) is featured on a special Doraemon movie theme album! To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the first Doraemon movie, a special 2CD album is being released with the best-loved theme songs. Mitsuko Horie’s “Aozora-tte Iina” from 1988 is featured on the compilation. To hear the song, click here!

..As Does a New Gundam Album!

Or rather, old favorites! On February 24th, a limited edition boxset with 145 Gundam songs will be released as a nice touch to the 30th anniversary celebrations which began last year. Chieko Honda (Tellu) and Megumi Hayashibara (Himeko) will be singing Tokyo Boogie Night on Disc 10: Another Story. The Boxset also comes with a 272 page book with a Gundam timeline, interviews, and comments on the music. This is quickly selling out on many online stores so Gundam fans who want a copy of this should go find it quickly!

And To End, Lots of Kikuko Inoue!

Kikuko Inoue (Princess Rubina, Reiko Aya/Sailor Aluminum Siren) is sure up to a lot these days! On February 2rd, she will be appearing at a special “Kodansha Comics Afternoon Festival” for a radio interview that will later be streamed online through NicoVideo. For more information on this event hit the Afternoon Festival blog here! Kikuko’s voice can also be heard in a dating sim: Vector’s Book Of Love. Kikuko plays a high school student in this dating sim for men. This is a dating sim built just for the mobile market, and men who want to play this game can try it for free. We can’t find too much more about the nature of this game (if there is any hentai/ecchi themes involved). The last place that you can hear Kikuko this month is on a CD of music to accompany the popular Zero na Tsukaima series called Nemurenai Fantasy. This CD is full of character songs and dialogues, and is a must for any ZnT fans!

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!

Columbia Records in Japan will be releasing a second volume of favorite anime theme songs next month! Our Favorite Anime Songs 2 will be released September 18th, and will be in the HQCD format (no special player required). Included on this release are songs from City Hunter, Dragon Quest, Dragonball, Yawara, and DALI’s rendition of the Sailor Moon theme song, Moonlight Densetsu (Moonlight Legend). Fans may recall that DALI’s rendition was used for the first two seasons. Another person involved with Sailor Moon makes an appearance on this album – Mitsuko Horie’s (Sailor Galaxia) performance of a memorable song from Candy Candy is also featured! the entire tracklist is listed below, and fans who are not in Japan can purchase it from their favorite Japanese online retailer.

1. Theme from Lupin the Third – Lupin the 3rd
2. City Hunter – Love doesn’t disappear – – City Hunter
3. Miracle Girl – Yawara
4. I’ll Give You Romance – Dragonball
5. Believe in Dreams – Dragon Quest
6. Hello Sadness – Maison Ikkoku
7. Youth – Touch
8. Blazing Kinnikuman – Kinnikuman
9. Galaxy Express 999 Theme – Galaxy Express 999
10. Moonlight Legend – Sailor Moon
11. Riding the Boat of Dreams – Captain Future
12. Light Year Dream – Spaceship Sagittarius
13. 10% Chance of Rain – Miyuki
14. Ro Ro Ro Russian Roulette – Dirty Pair
15. I Caught Mr. Sun in a Bucket – Chie the Brat
16. Genius Bakabon Theme – Genius Bakabon
17. Gatchaman’s Song – Gatchaman
18. Tomorrow’s Joe Theme – Tomorrow’s Joe
19. Yuke! Tiger Mask – Tiger Mask
20. Open Road – Dog of Flanders
21. I Love Tomorrow – Mitsuko Horie
22. Babel II Theme – Babel II