Sailor Moon is taking two steps into the future, but it’s bringing an important part of its past along for the ride.

For all the hype that accompanied Sailor Moon’s return to the anime world with Sailor Moon Crystal, the magical girl reboot faded away without much fanfare. Crystal has been on hiatus since its last episode aired three years ago, despite still having plenty of creator franchise creator Naoko Takeuchi’s original manga left to adapt.

But just like its titular heroine shaking off a bout of laziness or cowardice, Sailor Moon is ready to return to fighting evil, and this time anime’s most famous magical girls are headed back not just into action, but to the big screen as well, as producers have released the first teaser trailer for not one, but two upcoming Sailor Moon theatrical anime!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZe5rDHiwe4

Collectively billed as Sailor Moon Eternal, the two-part film will cover the Dead Moon Arc, which was first seen in anime form in the Sailor Moon SuperS portion of the original 1990s anime. Sailor Moon Eternal will also be the first theatrical Sailor Moon anime since 1995.

Takeuchi is serving as supervisor on the films, while Chiaki Kon continues on from Sailor Moon Crystal Season 3 as director. The biggest news, though, is that the anime is once again changing character designers, and the new designer is also an old one, as industry veteran Kazuko Tadano, who handled character designs for the very first season of the ‘90s Sailor Moon anime and its immediate follow-up, Sailor Moon R, is coming back for the two Eternal movies.

Eternal’s change of format and character designer are likely good news for long-time Sailor Moon fans. Though Crystal has been billed as a more faithful adaptation of Sailor Moon’s manga source material, many viewers were less than impressed by Crystal’s pacing and animation quality, and also felt that the reboot’s character designs, which stick closer to the manga’s artwork, aren’t the best fit for animated storytelling. Eternal being a pair of movies should force the filmmakers to keep the story moving at a brisk pace, and Tadano providing the character designs, as well as serving as animation director, should make for more crowd-pleasing visuals, especially with theatrical feature-level budgets backing them.

While exact release dates are yet to be set, producers are promising both the first and second movies will premiere in Japanese theaters sometime in 2020.

Source: Comic Natalie via Otakomu
Images: YouTube/sailormoon-official
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