The voice cast has been announced for the five inner senshi in Sailor Moon Crystal:

• Sailor Moon: Kotono Mitsuishi
• Sailor Mercury: Hisako Kanemoto
• Sailor Mars: Rina Sato
• Sailor Jupiter: Ami Koshimizu
• Sailor Venus: Shizuka Ito

Notable crew and other details:

• Director: Munehisa Sakai
• Character Designer: Yukie Sako
• Art Directors: Takashi Kurahashi and Yumi Hosaka
• Animation studio: Toei Animation,
• Series Scripts: Yūji Kobayashi
• Composer: Yasuharu Takanashi
• Theme Song: Momoiro Clover Z
• Soundtrack Producer: King Records

There is also some character art available on the official Sailor Moon website. We’ve included a few shots below for you.

More images and character information (in Japanese) are available here.

The new anime series will begin airing July 5th at 7pm in Japan, on NicoNico. It is said to not be a remake, but will be a new version that adapts the original manga.

Hey fans!

There have been some  small pieces of news we’ve been hearing about the new Sailor Moon anime, so we would like to include all the information here in an easy to reference post. (thanks to fans on our Facebook page for tips!)

Unfortunately we do not yet have a confirmed start date nor do we have an official title for the new series.

Crunchyroll most likely to stream the new Sailor Moon (tip from ステファニー チャールズ)

According to this article, Sailor Moon 2.0 was announced on Crunchyroll as having a summer 2013 start date (possibly a hint that they will be doing the streaming). Unfortunately, there is no date other than “summer” listed, with the other summer announcements falling under a header of June to August 2013.

Here’s a screengrab of the picture from Crunchyroll:

Not sure why the picture is cut off at the bottom, but it seems a little premature to announce the show on a streaming website without a confirmed title or start date. However, we have been suspecting that Crunchyroll would be doing the streaming, given their connection to Toei Animation.

(Edit: the above has been corrected to reflect that the linked article is a list of upcoming anime series, not necessarily series that will be streaming on Crunchyroll)

New Sailor Moon Anime is Delayed

According to multiple tweets by Fumio Osano, the new anime series is delayed (screengrabs of the tweets below)

If you want to read the tweets on twitter, here are the links to the conversation threads, based on the questioned asked:

• Any news on when it will start…?
• Will it come out in June/July? (tip by Chris Tenney)
• How much longer will we have to wait for more news?
• Can you tell us some official info soon about the new Sailor Moon?
• Has the new anime officially been delayed? (tip by Audra Peloquin)
• Will it be broadcast in winter 2014?

As you can see, Fumio Osano has indicted multiple times that the new anime is delayed. Although we are looking forward to seeing the new series, we’re not very surprised about this news.

In January, Sailordees reported:

[NDK in September 2012] helped me to finally meet a representative from Funimation I had spoken to over the phone face-to-face and have a good chat about what was going on with Sailor Moon. For those who are wondering why we still don’t have any of the anime yet, I have been told that there are still a lot of hurdles to jump through, and that it is going to take “more than a cheque” to bring the series back. As of then, the new series was not even up for license and was still very early in production.

and

In July, we all learned of the new Sailor Moon series on its way to the world next year. Here’s something you probably didn’t know though. While some fans thought that this article from 2009 had marked the start of negotiations for a new series, I can now confirm that this was purely a rumor back then and there had been no thoughts about anything new. Talks about a new series did not start until about 6 months prior to the announcement, and the success of the revival played a big role in determining if there should be something new. And it was only a couple of weeks before the event was announced to the public, that i’s were dotted and t’s were crossed. So everything with respect to this new series happened pretty fast. This was pretty surprising to learn, since back in 1997 when the series had ended in Japan, tensions had pretty much decided that episode 200 was it for the anime. We had also gotten the idea from our contacts that there was no hope for anything new in the last couple of years.

Sorry about the somewhat bad news, Sailor Moon fans. We will be keeping an eye on this, and looking out for any official information confirming when we can expect to see the new anime series. Until then, we encourage you to be patient. Hopefully the new series will be well worth the wait!

Edit: Added a link to the 2009 article referenced above.

Also, an important note – at the upcoming media marketplace shows (such as MIPCOM, Kazachok, etc.), Toei Animation is continuing to appear but Sailor Moon is no longer on their list of properties they are presenting. This means neither the original series nor the new series appear to be currently available for license.

Hot off the press conference and 20th anniversary celebration streaming on Nicovideo and for fans at France’s Japan Expo, the big announcement has caught us all by surprise! There will be a new Sailor Moon anime in 2013, and so far Kotono Mitsuishi and Toru Furuya are confirmed to reprise their roles as Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Kamen! And it will also be broadcast to all countries at around the same time. At this time we are unable to confirm who else will be returning, or which studio is going to animate it. This announcement was made by Japanese Idol Group Momoiro Clover Z, who performed Moonlight Densetsu in Sailor Moon cosplay. We will keep you posted once we know more! Be happy Moonies!

EDIT: Yes, Toei Animation will be producing this anime and idol group Momoiro Clover Z will be singing the theme song. We’d like to note at this time that Toei Animation’s copyrights, logo, or name were not mentioned at all on the official press release.

Via Sailor Moon World Italy (and some fans’ messages, thanks!), some new companies involved in merchandising have acquired licenses for Sailor Moon. These include two companies with US branches and one for France; Topps (Germany, Italy and America), Namco Bandai Games America, and Giochi Preziozi France. It is probably safe to infer that Topps will be releasing sticker books (and possibly cards), Giochi Preziozi France will release some (if not all) of the toys made in Italy, and NBGA is likely going to bring La Luna Splende to North America eventually. But, nothing is confirmed, and everyone should have waited for a press release. We have been advised from the companies to play it safe and wait for official word before posting anything like this, but given the criticism and heat we have had to face from some fans, we’re addressing it now as safely as we possibly can. We’ve featured a large photo below filled with cropped screenshots from Kazachok’s Web Guide.

What remains to be known (especially in France and North America), is if this is a sign that the release of the anime is imminent in either of these regions. There are a few other regions in the world that don’t have Sailor Moon either (Russia and Ukraine, to start). In a Japanese press release announcing the return of Sailor Moon to North America, Kodansha made note of how especially in North America, that without the release of the anime and other merchandise, that the manga may not experience the same “big boom” of the past*. We can’t speculate on the progress being made on the anime, due to certain statements made in the last 2 months from companies and representatives all around. We have to wonder if these new merchandising deals are some kind of a placeholder in between that will ultimately aid the anime when the time is right for it to return, while also tiding the release of the manga. Usually, the pattern in Sailor Moon licensing news has been anime first, merchandise and manga second. What do you think, Moonies?

*We had read this the day it was posted but didn’t post anything about it on Moon Chase because you fans were in such a happy mood and we didn’t want to damper the situation! Instead, we all discussed it amongst ourselves for a while and once again, wondered why Sailor Moon was having such a turbulent resurgence.

Mexican Sailor Moon fans are about to get a lot more Sailor Moon merchandise their way! Toei Animation Inc. announced some new Latin American deals for several of their properties. While there are no toys listed at this moment for Sailor Moon, there has been a licensing deal made with Doobalo S.a.de C.v. to make Sailor Moon socks. Does anyone else in North America feel like importing these and squeezing their feet into them to relive their childhoods? Also, thanks to facebook fan Jose Juan Hernandez for pointing us to this Sailor Moon teaser on Towers Entertainment’s website! The caption reads: “Coming Soon Special Edition on DVD Sailor Moon” Gotta love that brand new logo for the international revival. Speaking of new logos, Toei Animation Europe finally announced the return of Sailor Moon to Germany on their site, and posted one of our new favorite promotional images in the article which we have reposted above.

Toei Animation Inc. of Los Angeles launched three new series on Crunchyroll last week – Digimon Tamers, Interlude and Gaiking: Legend Of Daiku-Maryu. Free users will be able to watch 5 consecutive episodes of Digimon Tamers, and Gaiking: Legend of Daiku Maryu as they are posted each week, and one episode of Interlude per week until they are completed. All episodes are subtitled in English. It’s a little sad that the dub of Interlude is not up as it featured many stars of the English dub of Sailor Moon (and it was well done because Optimum Productions was not involved). Toei Animation has also launched the well-loved Toriko on Funimation.com and Hulu.

And on a sad note (but who didn’t see this one coming), Tokyopop announced last week that it was ending all publishing operations in North America. Though their translation and release of Sailor Moon was sub-par, we fans will always remember them for introducing us to the manga for the very first time. It is sad to see them go, but at the same time this day might not have come if they’d have improved their release quality.