It’s never too early to start planning some fun summer activities, like getting a group of friends together for a barbeque. If any of your pals have even a passing interest in anime, though, don’t bother inviting them to your get-together if it’s going to be on July 5. They’ve already got plans that day, even if they don’t know it yet, because that’s the day the new Sailor Moon anime premiers.
Yes, we’ve been told before that the newest animated version of anime’s most successful magical girl troupe was coming soon, and nothing come to pass. To give you an idea of how long the new series, titled Sailor Moon Crystal, has been in coming, it was originally announced as being part of the 20th anniversary celebration for the franchise, which started in 1992, meaning it’s now been 22 years since Sailor Moon’s debut.
It looks like the producers are serious this time, though. Voice actresses for the five Sailor Scouts have been cast (with veteran Kotono Mitsuishi reprising her role as the titular heroine), and an official premiere date and time have been set for Saturday, July 5 at 7 p.m., Japan time.
While this is the exact time slot that the original television series occupied during its broadcast run in the 1990s, there’s one key difference this time around. Fans’ won’t get their first chance to see Sailor Moon Crystal by flipping on their TVs, but by signing into video website Niconico, which will be streaming the hotly anticipated anime simultaneously around the world.
Just as the way fans consume anime has changed in the last two decades, so has the way animation is produced in Japan. Like many popular series of its day, the original Sailor Moon anime team produced one new episode a week, year-round, from 1992 to 1995.
Today, animated serials in Japan don’t run at nearly such a breakneck pace. The current norm is an initial batch of 13 episodes, broadcast at one a week. After that, the production committee will usually take a break to gauge how interested fans are in seeing more, with any continuation coming months, or sometimes years, later.
Sailor Moon Crystal, though, has enough clout that it can dictate its own biweekly schedule, with new episodes streaming on the first and third Saturday of each month.
Producers have yet to make any announcement regarding when, or even if, the new series will be shown on television. There’s also a possibility that as time goes on, Sailor Moon Crystal will move to an earlier or later time. Episode one seems to be locked in though, so if you need to get ahold of us on the evening of July 5, you’ll know just where to find us: in front of our PCs.