Category Archives: Musical

How Did Idol Culture Contribute to Sailor Moon’s Success?

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Filed under Articles, Inner Senshi, Musical, Real World
Did someone say 'idol'?

Did someone say ‘idol’?

While many would associate Japan’s fascination with idol groups with the meteoric rise to popularity of AKB48 and the many other groups, anime, and games that have spun off from the concept since then, Japan’s fixation on love for school-aged sweethearts actually goes back several decades.

But what does that have to do with our favorite Sailor-suited guardians of justice?

Well, as it turns out, idol culture played a pretty role in engaging fans and keeping them hooked. Today we’re going to take a look at the idols that created Sailor Moon as well as the idols the series in turn created!

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How Was Sailor Moon Affected by the 1995 Hanshin Earthquake?

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Sailor Sting & the Police

Sailor Sting & the Police

Though we often talk about how Sailor Moon has had a lasting impact on the real world, it’s important to remember that the series did not exist in a vacuum. Throughout the five years that it was front and center in society’s consciousness, the world continued to change around it — and not always for the better.

As many of you already know, prior to the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and subsequent tsunami, the Great Hanshin Earthquake that struck on January 17, 19951 was the largest-scale natural disaster Japan had faced in recent history.

What many of you probably don’t know, however, is that Anza and the other members of the Sailor Moon Musical — Seramyu — cast were in Osaka for their final performance of the season when the earthquake occurred.

Today we’re going to talk about the lasting impact the Great Hanshin Earthquake had on Sailor Moon and even on the story’s canon! There’s some interesting trivia here, so you may want to stick around!2

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Why Were There Two Sailor Chibi Moons in the SeraMyu Musicals?

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Filed under Articles, ChibiUsa, Musical, Real World
The rabbits just keep multiplying!

The rabbits just keep multiplying!

And by “two Sailor ChibiMoons,” of course I mean “two actresses playing the role of a single Sailor ChibiMoon, because having two Sailor ChibiMoons in the same musical would be ridiculous.” But since writing a good, concise title is such a challenge, I suppose we’ll have to deal with a little ambiguity.

Title issues aside, this is actually a question that’s been bothering me for quite some time now. While the young actresses taking on the role of ChibiUsa were generally pretty young, they were never quite young enough that it would have been a Full House-style situation and that the actresses simply weren’t able to remember all of their lines, right?

Figuring that there has to be something much deeper going on here, I finally decided that it was about time to dive head first into this mystery to solve the riddle of the dual rabbits.

I hope you join along, because this is bound to make for an interesting ride!

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Where is the Original Sailor Moon Musical / SeraMyu Cast Today?

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See that Mars right there? Yeah, we're not talking about her...

See that Mars right there? Yeah, we’re not talking about her…

Have you ever been sitting at your desk at work, trying desperately to give the impression that you’re actually busy and had that rogue thought run across your mind: “hey, I used to love [actress/singer/ballet dancer], whatever happened to them?”

Then hours later, you have no idea where your day just went.

That very thought is what inspired my original article on what happened to the live-action Sailor Moon cast, and I decided it was about time that I followed it up with an article about the girls of the Sailor Moon musicals. If you’ve ever wondered the same, stick around to find out!
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