Sawaii Miyu, who portrayed Usagi/Sailor Moon in the live action series in 2003-2004, has recently been starring in a musical adaption of the classic fairy tale Snow White. The musical production of Snow White began its eight day run on July 16th. Miyu has also been spotted in a Box Corporation program to celebrate the company’s 30th anniversary. http://www.sanspo.com/geino/news/100717/gnj1007170501003-n1.htm

Fans of Aya Sugimoto (PGSM Queen Beryl) will definitely want to check out the new feature length Kamen Rider movie “Double Forever: A to Z/The Gaia Memories of Fate”, where she will be appearing as a guest character named Maria S Cranberry. The movie was recorded with 3D technology in mind, making it the first feature length movie of the 3D Kamen Rider series. The movie will hit theaters on August 7, 2010. (http://www.japantoday.com/category/entertainment/view/aya-sugimoto-to-appear-in-3-d-kamen-rider-movie)

Ayaka Komatsu (Minako Aino/Sailor Venus) has been busy lately promoting a new movie called “Neck”. The movie, which was assembled by Shirakawa Professional, is a hybrid of both horror and comedy as it details the twists and turns of a group of junior college students.(http://www.moviecollection.jp/news/detail.html?p=1379)

Rina Koike (Sailor Luna) has also landed a new role as the main heroine in the detective drama production “Akechi Three Generations”. Right now in Japan, Koike can be spotted making some public appearances to support her new acting role, alongside her current co-star Tanabe Seiiti. http://journal.mycom.co.jp/news/2010/06/27/008/?rt=na

Finally, no PGSM news update would be complete without some Keiko Kitagawa sightings. The live action Sailor Mars actress was recently a presenter at the 12th annual Taipei Film Festival, where she was greeted with huge support from her Taiwanese fan base. Keiko admitted to being nervous about the presentation on her blog, and she was relieved to have finished it successfully. Keiko can also be caught starring in a new Fuji TV drama called “Lovers Of The Moon”. http://www.cinematoday.jp/page/N0025561 Apparently the recording schedule for the show was gruelling – Keiko stated on her blog that she was getting as little as 2 hours of sleep at night.

2009 has been a significant year in the world of Sailor Moon. Hard to believe, but it has been 5 years since PGSM has come to an end. Many fans of PGSM have continued to follow the careers of the cast members since the show has ended, and there is some recent news to report.

Keiko Kitagawa Rumored to be Dating? and is Cast Once Again!

Once again, the cleanest idol in Japan’s industry has been the subject of tabloid fodder once again. This time, she is rumored to be dating another star – actor Tomohisa Yamashita, who is a year older than her. The two starred together in the drama Buzzer Beat, and also went to the same college (he was a year ahead of her). They have been spotted out and about holding hands. On November 21st, he performed his first solo concert show (“Short But Swell”) at Yokohama Arena. Fans can read a review of the concert in English here – he even performed a rendition of Michael Jackson’s Thriller! One of his songs is titled Daite Senorita and after the concert ended, our poor Sailor Mars was bombarded with reporters asking if she was Tomohisa’s senorita. She snapped back at then and said they were just friends who sometimes go out to dinner together. Poor Keiko just can’t catch a break, can she?

Kitagawa has continued to obtain acting roles in the wake of the success she has earned playing Sailor Mars in PGSM. Kitagawa will portray the role of Rie Saito (a number 1 hostess) in the TBS drama Hitsudan Hostess. The story is somewhat based off of Saito’s personal life, as the title character becomes deaf at the age of one due to an illness, and she rebels against her strict parents. Kitagawa’s new role will require very little dialogue, making this one of her most challenging acting roles to date. The two hour long episode is based off of a best selling book by Rie Saito, of which Keiko is a big fan of. Keiko is looking forward to utilizing her skills in calligraphy and writing – skills that she obtained in her childhood.

Kaori Moriwaka Writes Hit Song!

In September of this year, popular J-Pop singer Maki Goto (pictured) released a new album with her new collaboration featuring her record label Avex, popular radio station J-Wave, and Japanese social networking site Mixi. She called the collaboration (and the album) “SWEET BLACK” because those two words describe perfectly the positives and the negatives in the life of today’s women. The album has 8 tracks, featuring unique collaborations with people like Japanese reggae star BIGGA RAIJI, mangaka Erika Sakurazawa, and Japanese rapper Ken the 390. The song TEAR DROPS, featuring the singer KG is a sad and beautiful song, and has a connection to PGSM – Kaori Moriwaka (Ikuko Tsukino) wrote the song! This is a little different since we’re normally used to hearing rockier tunes from her! Fans can watch the video here, and read a lyrics translation here.

Two Rival Fashion Magazines Get Together For a Fashion Show That Thunders! and Jupiter Speaks Up.

Excuse the horrible Sailor Jupiter pun! Mew Azama was one of a handful of CanCam magazine models chosen to appear in a special fashion show with rival models from ViVi magazine that was sponsored by Sony Ericsson. Sony Ericsson was launching the S002 “THE SUPER FIT” which is a phone being marketed as the worlds smallest “WanseguKeitai” (or “oneseg” cell phone capable of mobile TV). The fashion show took place on December 1st at Tokyo’s JCB Hall, and some of the fashions modeled had a “sexy santa” theme. Fans can check out more pictures here – and Mew is sporting a new, shorter, haircut! She’s the one in the beige gown pictured here! It’s a relief to see some pictures of Mew in classier clothing compared to the ridiculous things she sometimes wears as the weather girl on NTV’s Zoom! Saturday.

And speaking of which: Mew Azama was also featured in a Hochi Sports (part of Daily Yomiuri) article!  For the first time, she speaks of her role as a weathercaster on NTV’s Zoom Saturday!    She made her debut on the show over a year ago in October of 2008.   She was anxious since she didn’t think that she was good at public speaking, but got serious and took lessons!  It was a struggle, but she persevered!   When she first started, even though she had her script memorized, she kept stopping because she was so nervous.  She would often fear she would forget something on her cheat sheet when it would be taken away from her and she worried that people could tell that she was in a hurry.  Sometimes she would have to wake up at 2 or 3 to get to her shoots on time, and sometimes she couldn’t operate on a couple hours of sleep!  Now she is fully adjusted to her schedule and she is also getting used to this just like she had to for her early morning modeling shoots. 

We’ve featured a few of her strange costumes on this blog before, asking fans to caption the photos!  But her fans in Japan have come to love her costumes, and also the clothing she wears on the show.  She even talks about her outfits on her blog.   She looks forward to doing more in 2010, and hopes to be an anime seiyuu too.  Our fearless Mew can accomplish anything she puts her mind to, with a little perseverance!

New Idol DVD and a Strange Dream for Rina Koike!

PGSM’s youngest star has another new idol DVD out, this time co-starring two other young stars, Yui Koike and Aya Koike. Despite sharing surnames these three are not closely related in real life, but they play sisters in the movie. Rina also made mention of a strange dream she had involving Michael Jackson. As best we can tell, she dreamed she was on a plane that crashed in a jungle in the Amazon, and Michael Jackson came riding in on a blue throne set on an elephant and brought two other people to rescue her. After Rina had the dream, she called her friend and she said it was all in her head. An interesting dream indeed!

Gundam Character Astrology Book!

Keiko Han (Luna in the anime and PGSM) has a new book out, “Fortune Telling of Sune” Written from the perspective of her character Lalah Sune from Mobile Suit Gundam. The book is illustrated by Hideki Ohwada, author of a Gundam parody comic and is meant for Gundam fans to enjoy!

Rina Koike (PGSM Sailor Luna) was recently appointed ambassador to the city of Oyama in Tochigi prefecture where she was raised. She received a letter from the mayor at city hall, and she was chosen as ambassador because of her love for the city and her happiness.

She says: “I am glad to be elected as the ambassador to this city I love, Oyama.  I will work hard for Oyama and will try to get to know as many people as I can!”

Rina is the 32nd ambassador to be named to the city and is, at present, the youngest. We wish her well in her task, both in Oyama, and at the Olympics!

On August 9th, the new Kamen Rider movie based on the Kamen Rider Kiva series was released. Kamen Rider Kiva: King of the Castle in the Demon World features Rina Koike (Sailor Luna in PGSM) reprising her role as Shizuka Nomura. There was a press conference along with a concert in Tokyo on August 7th, and Rina attended as well as the rest of the cast. The conference also confirmed that many cast members from Kamen Rider Den-O would be making cameos in the film. The cutest part we read in this article had to do with the movie’s theme song chanteuse, Nanase Aikawa of the band Crimson-FANG. She has a 6-year-old son who over the lunch hour at school tells all the other kids proudly that his mom sings the theme song. He is a fan of Kamen Rider but an even bigger fan of his mother! A reporter asked Ms. Aikawa why her son wanted to see the movie to hear her song rather than to see the heroes, and she responded with a laugh saying “That’s always a good thing!” Hey, if any of our moms were popstars and singing the theme song to a movie, we wouldn’t care about the stars either! We don’t know much about this movie except that our heroes are facing Kamen Rider Arc, the alter ego of a Death Row inmate. He is aided by minions from the Legendorga and the Kamen Rider crew is in for the fight of their lives! We know we have a lot of Toku fans out there so if any of you happen to read more about the plot, please let us know!

New Rina Koike Interview!

Rina Koike (Sailor Luna in PGSM) sure is rising in the Japanese Idol World! She has released a few Idol DVDs , photo collections, appeared in a few shows and has learned all about being an idol from Yuuri Morishita. Now she is appearing on Kamen Rider Kiva as Shizuka Nomura, a preteen girl who learns how to play the violin from Wataru (who is this season’s hero). She gets very jealous of other women who are around Wataru, and is one of the few who knows his secret superhero alter-ego. Oricon has an Idol feature (the name of this feature has something to do with hatching golden eggs?!) every week, and two weeks ago Rina’s profile was featured! Rina always smiles, as you can see from the Polaroid that was taken above (which she autographed).

Some Highlights:

☼ Just because Rina is busy with her career, doesn’t mean she doesn’t have time for school! She is known to open up her books and study in between takes on her new show – it is a struggle to keep up!

☼ Rina was in the fifth grade when she got the role of Sailor Luna in PGSM. Rina was trying to become a young idol, and gave herself a year to make it big, or she was going to quit. Her only work was on a Junior Idol DVD that was not very popular, and commercials for Bandai and Tokyo DisneySea. After many failed auditions, her PGSM audition was to be her last one ever should she have failed. But she didn’t, and her star has only been rising since! To this day she believes she would not be where she is right now without PGSM. On a side note, we’ve read elsewhere that she would have rather played Sailor Chibi-Moon because her favorite color is pink!

☼ Rina was raised in Tochigi, but now balances her time between Tochigi and Tokyo. She was discovered when her parents took her out to Shinjuku on New Years’ Eve when she was in the third grade. They were out on a quick coffee stop while they were shopping when she was spotted by someone claiming he was a talent scout. Her father thought it was a joke, until he spoke to the president of the agency to assure that it was in fact real. Since then she has been traveling to Tokyo for auditions, photoshoots, and everything else that comes with being an Idol!

☼ Rina is so dedicated to school, that when Kiva started shooting before the beginning of the school year, she had her books with her! Sometimes when she has to wait for a long time, she forgets to study.

☼ Rina really liked shooting the transformation sequence for Sailor Luna. The directors would tell her how her hands had to be placed, but other than that, she was not afraid to prance around! She thought she had a lot of guts when she shot this part, and she really got to show her character!

☼ Rina may be growing up in Tokyo, but she still has her Toshigi charm. She loves to eat at the same Chinese Frying House that her Grandmother does, and the interviewer remarked that she had a very simple charm about her!