Anime’s greatest voice actress sounds incredible as Sailor Moon’s final foe.
The hype train for Sailor Moon Cosmos, the next arc of the Sailor Moon reboot that began with Sailor Moon Crystal, is picking up steam. Though we’re still a few months away from the premiere of the theatrical-feature anime, a brand-new preview has been released, and it wastes no time establishing that Cosmos is going to be going to some darkly dramatic places, with the fate of the world and the lives of the Sailor Senshi hanging in the balance.
It’s a treat for long-time franchise fans, and anime enthusiasts in general, to see Sailor Moon action sequences explode as they do in the trailer, with all the color and kinetic energy that the series’ now-established popularity and modern production techniques allow. But what really makes the preview special isn’t just how awesome it looks, but how amazing it sounds.
As we learned last week, Sailor Moon Cosmos has added some heavy hitters to its voice cast, including the legendary Megumi Hayashibara as Sailor Galaxia. Sailor Moon’s final foe, Galaxia is a rare case of Hayashibara, who’s spent most of her career voicing either fiery heroines or Evangelion’s almost catatonically calm Rei Ayanami, to play the primary villain in an anime, and her application of that range to Galaxia is genuinely unnerving.
“Such a beautiful light. Soon, this shining brightness will be mine,” Hayashibara/Galaxia declares as the trailer begins, later adding “Come to me quickly, Sailor Moon. This will be your grave,” in a chillingly gentle tone, before erupting in a joyously cruel peal of laughter.
Contributing to the treat-for-the-ears element is the presence of a background score filled with ominous tension, as well as a short snippet of the movie’s theme song, “Tsuki no Hana” (“Flower of the Moon”), performed by Daoko, all accompanying some eye-popping moving camera and animated pyrotechnic work.
Sailor Moon Cosmos is adapting what was the final arc of both the original Sailor Moon manga and 1990s anime, and it doesn’t look like there are any plans to milk the remake for longer than its source material, as the trailer’s on-screen text promises that this is “The final chapter of Sailor Moon” and that “Sailor Moon’s final battle begins.”
Sailor Moon Cosmos is being released in two parts, with the first hitting Japanese theaters on June 9 and the second on June 30.
Source, images: YouTube/sailormoon-official
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