Sailor Moon Musical Festival Chronicle – Event review

✦ What is Sailor Moon Musical Festival -Chronicle-? ✦

The Sailor Moon Musical Festival was first teased during Usagi’s Birthday Event 2022, and later confirmed to be held in November. It is described as a festival celebrating all previous musicals with a focus on the most recent “Beloved of Princess Kaguya” (“Kaguya Hime no Koibito”) musical. The festival was held at Shinagawa Prince Hotel Stellar Ball in Tokyo from November 17th – 20th, 2022.

✦ Cast:
– Sailor Moon / Super Sailor Moon / Usagi Tsukino: Riko Tanaka
– Sailor Mercury / Ami Mizuno: Kaon Maekawa
– Sailor Mars / Rei Hino: Rei Kobayashi
– Sailor Jupiter / Makoto Kino: Kisara Matsumura
– Sailor Venus / Minako Aino: Marin Makino
– Sailor Uranus / Haruka Tenou: Shinjyu Terada
– Sailor Neptune / Michiru Kaioh: Ayana Kinoshita
– Sailor Pluto / Setsuna Meioh: Chisato Minami
– Sailor Saturn / Hotaru Tomoe: Yuzu Ide
– Sailor Chibi Moon / Chibi Usa: Chise Niitsu
– Human Luna: MARISA
– Luna: Yune Sakurai
– Ensemble: Moeko Koizumi, Ayumi Ozaka, Ayano Nagasawa, Yuri Hirano
– Princess Snow Kaguya: Sayaka Okamura
– Tuxedo Mask / Mamoru Chiba: Riona Tatemichi

✦ Venue ✦

The musical took place at the Shinagawa Prince Hotel Stellar Ball, which was a in a part of the hotel that had lots of entertainment and shopping. There were no posters or banners anywhere outside to show the musical would be performed there, in fact, you had to go through the lobby of a movie theater to reach the Stellar Ball. Outside of the venue was a very unceremonious poster, just standing there looking pretty flimsy and alone. Took a few other pictures just to convey the overall feeling of the theater.

✦ Event Review ✦

This is a recap to the best of Cyn’s memory of the Sailor Moon Musical Festival -Chronicle-. In short: The musical has it’s own Kaguya Hime-adjacent narrative and is mostly focused on music. This story cannot be considered canon, specially since it’s not clear on when it actually happens in the main SM timeline. The order and choice of the songs don’t really work as context in the story either, they are only used to illustrate what’s going on. This musical is more of a parody and/or variety show, with loose story telling, self-referential humor, and small breaks in the middle they called “Ms. Frozen’s Colorful Audition” that featured different guests every day and were interviewed by Ms. Frozen/ Snow Kaguya. At the end of each musical they closed with even more singing and dancing during what they called “Special Live” segments that were a mix of Sailor Myu’s greatest hits!

✦ Story ✦

Things are as usual, the girls talk about school, about their grades and how Usagi flunked a test and is now grounded. Princess Snow Kaguya, clearly dressed up in incognito getup introduces herself to the gang as Miss Frozen. She is a producer in charge of a new shaved ice place and is looking for a star to appear in her advertising campaign, so its their opportunity to become famous idols. Minako is of course very happy to join and somehow all the girls including Mamoru are roped into the scheme. Miss Frozen mentions there are many people wanting to be a part of it, so she’s holding a Colorful Frozen Audition to chose a a star.

A few familiar musical numbers are sung including some from the Usagi Band, Three Lights, as well as Nogimyu themes. At some point the outers also join in the audition because they sense that something is going on. Luna sees all the girls in colorful clothes and having a great time and is a bit envious she cannot participate in the audition. Snow Kaguya sneaks up on Luna having heard her speak out loud, and tells her she can also be like them if she wishes. Luna is then turned human, given the name “Snow Luna” , and brainwashed to become Kaguya’s minion to try to steal the Silver Crystal from Sailor Moon.

✦ Special Guest Corner: During each of the musicals Miss Frozen brings out a special guest who she has been a producer to and have featured in any of the previous Sailor Moon musicals. Not all of the guests on the guest corner were the same as the musical corner. The guests were hosted as follows:

✦ November 17 – 1st show: Akiko Kosaka / ANZA
✦ November 17 – 2nd show: Akiko Kosaka / ANZA / Toshino Akamine / Misako Iwana / Emi Kuriyama / Akiko Miyazawa

✦ November 18 – 1st show: Tomomi Kasai / Cocona / Yui Hasegawa / Takae Obana / Hoshinami
✦ November 18 – 2nd show: Shu Shiotsuki / Sayaka Fujioka

✦ November 19 – 1st show: Reona Hayashi / Samejima / Yui / Kyoko Ninomiya / Mayuka Ida / Yuko Nakanishi
✦ November 19 – 2nd show: Yume Takeuchi / Karen Kobayashi / Kaede / Satomomo Hasegawa

✦ November 20 – 1st show: Satomi Okubo / Hyakuyo Koyama
✦ November 20 – 2nd show: Satomi Okubo / Meiku Harukawa (last-minute cancellation) / Saki Matsuda

I was able to watch three of the musicals, but I will only recap ONE of the guests because its the one I remember the best.

✦ Special Guest: Riona Tatemichi (Tuxedo Mask/Mamoru Chiba)

The musical guest for the November 17th evening show were the Bandai Myu era Inner Guardian actresses including ANZA. They did not have a spotlight during that day, they only performed a couple of songs and went through quick introductions and a short chat afterwards. And yes, it was completely magical.

But the spotlight that evening was for Riona Tatemichi. It’s important to note that while all other guests where dressed in casual clothing, Riona was actively participating in the concert as Mamoru, but has also interpreted a number of random characters throughout many of the musicals but the nature of this musical allowed Riona to act the complete fool. Absolutely hilarious.

During the guest corner Miss Frozen interviews the special guest and looks through a photo slideshow of their roles as they talk about memorable moments and what it was like to act in Myu. In Riona’s particular case, as she was interpreting Mamoru during this musical, they went about it in a hilarious self-referential way, speaking of Riona’s roles as if they were different people, and walking a very thin line between Mamoru vs. Riona and acting vs. character.

They showed a picture of Riona as Rubeus (from the 2014 Petit Etrangere musical) and she nervously talks about how he wasn’t a great person but was kinda just following orders from others. Next, a picture of Riona as Hawkeye was shown on screen and she explained that while she was fighting against the guardians, deep down he was a good person. Then, a picture of Riona as Taiki Kou/Sailor Star Maker appeared. Riona explains that in spite the animosity between the Starlights and the Guardians, they were also good people just trying to protect their Princess. Finally, clips of Riona as Tuxedo Mask during the Super Live in Paris, Washington and New York while Mamoru confirmed it was him fighting abroad. I cannot convey the chaotic energy of this interaction. It was great to see how much Riona shone through Mamoru.

After the special guest segment is over, the main story resumes. The Guardians catch onto Snow Kaguya’s plans, and begin to battle against her. Snow Luna, understanding that she has been tricked, has an internal struggle with herself (illustrated with an amazing duet between Human and Cat Luna). The Sailor Guardians gather their energy to help Sailor Moon transform into Super Sailor Moon and quickly defeats Snow Kaguya with a Rainbow Moon Heart Ache. Luna returns to her cat form and apologizes for what happened. The musical ends with all girls walking together into the horizon.

✦ Song List ✦

✦ Final thoughts✦

These are just some of my personal feelings after having watched the concert a few times. This concert was obviously made for myu fans, but it is so well put together that any Sailor Moon fan could enjoy it as it doesn’t involve that much story, just mostly singing and dancing. All Senshi uniforms were from the Princess Kaguya Musicals, which in my opinion are the BEST musical costumes! The shape of the skirts is perfectly aligned with the manga designs. The shoulder, elbow and hip rolls are pretty difficult to imitate in real life, but these got it right, not to mention the overall outfits had the right amount of shine and sparkle! Even their casual clothing was super colorful and perfectly personality matched to each Guardian.

✦ My personal standouts:

– Riko Tanaka (Moon): With her very sweet face, soft and elegant demeanor as well as her wonderful singing voice, Riko definitely embodies Usagi gracefully. We’ve had quite a few actresses interpret Moon in the last few years, from NelkeMyu to Shining Moon Tokyo, to the Super Live to NogiMyu, and this girl is way up there as one of the best Moons.

–  Marin Makino (Venus): She was a show stealer! She had so many funny moments, we all know how Minako loves the spotlight, so an entire musical about auditioning for a commercial is the perfect opportunity for her to do so.

– Chise Niitsu (ChibiMoon): Chise was one of the two actresses to interpret ChibiChibi in “Le Mouvement Finale” and just as we saw Airi Kanda grow into a teenage ChibiUsa, I was just as proud to watch Chise grow into ChibiUsa. She was SOOOO GOOOD and cute! You can tell she enjoys being on stage very much. Such professionalism at such a young age too. She mentioned she started at 6 and is now 11!

– MARISA (Human Luna/Snow Luna): During the “Beloved of Princess Kaguya”, Luna is in cat form (played by Yune Sakurai) for most of the musical and we only get a tiny bit of Human Luna towards the end. This time we had plenty of time to see Snow Luna in all her splendor. MARISA is an amazing classically trainer dancer and singer, so she was absolutely mesmerizing to look at! While the story is a bit silly and campy, she took her job seriously and delivered a complex and compelling new version of Human Luna we’ve never seen before. What a delight!

– Riona Tatemichi (Tuxedo Mask): And finally, yes, Riona. Her versatility, her energy, and her sense of humor are such a breath of fresh air after many years of having Yuga as Tuxedo Mask. Yuga Yamato is a complete master at her craft and I understand why Naoko personally chose her as Mamoru, but Riona is way looser with her interpretation and allows for a more relaxed, fun environment overall.

In conclusion, this concert was fun, lighthearted and made for die hard musical fans and for those who prefer a not so dramatic approach to the Guardians. I highly recommend watching it once the DVDs/ BluRays become available. We have a detailed shopping guide HERE with many links to pre-order! CDJapan has some Chronicle goods available as well.

✦ Japan Press Photos✦

✦ Japan Press videos ✦

Hope this recap is useful!

Review by: Cyn
Thx to: The Sailor Moon Musical section on Fandom.com for all their useful info.