”In the name of Mars, I’ll chastise you!”

Hello Kitty has a well-deserved reputation as the hardest working character in Japan, earned by nature of her lengthy list of creative collaborators. But while it’s usually Kitty-chan her partners can thank for their projects’ extra attention, for her next endeavor Hello Kitty is teaming up with someone who’s got an equal level of star power…or maybe we should say moon power.

2022 marks 30 years since the premiere of the Sailor Moon anime in Japan, and to help celebrate that milestone, the franchise is teaming up with Sanrio. As part of the project, Sailors Moon, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, Venus, and Chibi Moon are each getting a Sanrio sidekick. Sailor Moon, naturally, is paired with Hello Kitty, while Chibi Moon forms a duo with My Melody.

▼ We suppose the they could have preserved the mother/child pattern by pairing Sailor Moon with My Melody’s mom, but that’s a whole other issue.

Each of the Sailor Senshi appears in their Super form from the Sailor Moon Eternal anime movie, given a bit of a cosplay twist as an extra salute to the Sanrio side of the collaboration. As can be seen above, the illustrations for Sailor Moon and Chibi Moon are accompanied by the famous “In the name of the moon, I’ll punish you!” line, but it turns out the other Senshi get English versions of their own fighting phrases too.

▼ Sailor Mercury and Cinnamoroll
“Douse yourself in water, and repent!”

▼ Sailor Mars and Kuromi
“In the name of Mars, I’ll chastise you!”

▼ Sailor Jupiter and Marron Cream
“I’ll make you feel so much regret, it’ll leave you numb!”

▼ Sailor Venus and Pompompurin
“Allow me to punish you with love!”

As for the logic behind the pairings, there’s a physical resemblance between Chibi Moon’s hairstyle and My Melody’s ears, and Venus’ blond tresses are a pretty close color match to Pompompurin’s yellow fur. Mars and Kurumi both have an independent toughness that can sometimes be considered as crossing the line into meanness, while Jupiter and Marron Cream have a shared love of cooking and flowers. There doesn’t seem to be any special significance to the Mercury/Cinnamoroll combination though, aside from them both having blue eyes, unless it’s something else that requires Mercury’s genius-level intellect to perceive.

None of the specific merchandise pieces for the collaboration have been revealed yet, but with neither Sailor Moon nor Sanrio ever having qualms about producing anything fans could want, there’s likely to be a flood of cool and/or cute stuff coming when the line goes on sale this summer.

Source: PR Times via Nijimen
Images: PR Times
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Follow Casey on Twitter, where he’s glad to see Marron Cream chose the best Senshi to team up with.