Sailor Moon R: The Movie

Sailor Moon R: The Movie
Theatrical release poster
Japanese	劇場版 美少女戦士セーラームーンＲ
Literal meaning	Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon R: The Movie
Revised Hepburn	Gekijō-ban Bishōjo Senshi Sērā Mūn Āru
Directed by	Kunihiko Ikuhara
Screenplay by	Sukehiro Tomita
Based on	Sailor Moon by Naoko Takeuchi
Produced by	Iriya Azuma
Starring	Kotono Mitsuishi Aya Hisakawa Michie Tomizawa Emi Shinohara Rika Fukami Tōru Furuya Hikaru Midorikawa
Cinematography	Motoi Takahashi
Edited by	Yasuhiro Yoshikawa
Music by	Takanori Arisawa
Production company	Toei Animation
Distributed by	Toei Company
Release date	December 5, 1993 (1993-12-05)
Running time	61 minutes
Country	Japan
Language	Japanese
Box office	¥1.3 billion

Sailor Moon R: The Movie is a 1993 Japanese animated superhero fantasy film directed by Kunihiko Ikuhara and written by Sukehiro Tomita based on the Sailor Moon manga series by Naoko Takeuchi. Produced by Toei Animation, it takes its name from the second season of the anime series, as Toei Company distributed it around the same time. It centers on the arrival of an alien named Fiore on Earth, who has a past with Mamoru and wishes to reunite with him, but is being controlled by an evil flower called Xenian Flower, forcing the Sailor Guardians to save Mamoru and the Earth from Fiore's destruction. The film stars Kotono Mitsuishi as the voice of Sailor Moon, alongside Aya Hisakawa, Michie Tomizawa, Emi Shinohara, Rika Fukami, Tōru Furuya and Hikaru Midorikawa. It was released in Japan on December 5, 1993, alongside a 15-minute short recap episode titled Make Up! Sailor Soldier (メイクアップ!セーラー戦士, Meikuappu! Sērā senshi; later as Make Up! Sailor Guardians) and an unrelated short film based on the anime Tsuyoshi Shikkari Shinasai.

Pioneer Entertainment released it in the United States on February 8, 2000. On January 13, 2017, Viz Media re-released the film re-dubbed and uncut for the first time in US theaters. The Sailor Moon R: The Movie redub also included the English dubbed 15-minute short Make Up! Sailor Guardians. It was later premiered in Canada on March 1, 2017.

It is the first film installment for the series, and was followed by two standalone sequels, Sailor Moon S: The Movie (1994) and Sailor Moon SuperS: The Movie (1995).

Plot

Make Up! Sailor Guardians

Usagi and Chibiusa overhear two girls talking about the Sailor Guardians after they see a poster. As the girls debate over the smartest, most elegant, strongest, and the leader of the Sailor Guardians, Usagi grandly claims those titles for herself. Chibiusa shakes her head at Usagi's delusion. Clips appear from the debut of each Sailor Guardian, and that girl's image song plays in the background. When even Tuxedo Mask has been mentioned, and the girls are about to leave, Usagi butts in on their conversation and asks them directly about Sailor Moon. The girls give a series of glowing compliments about Sailor Moon, but unlike their analysis of the other Sailor Guardians, they also list her faults. After the girls leave, Usagi sarcastically apologizes to the viewers for being a clumsy cry-baby and then bursts into exaggerated tears.

Sailor Moon R: The Movie

A young Mamoru Chiba hands a mysterious boy a rose before he disappears, vowing to bring Mamoru a flower in return. In the present, Mamoru visits the Jindai Botanical Garden with Usagi Tsukino and the Sailor Guardians. The stranger appears from the garden's fountain and takes Mamoru's hands into his own. Uncomfortable, Usagi tries to break the man's grasp from Mamoru but is knocked down. The man vows that no one will prevent him from keeping his promise before disappearing again. Mamoru tells Usagi that the stranger's name is Fiore (フィオレ, Fiore). At Rei Hino's temple, the Sailor Guardians discuss an asteroid that has started to approach Earth and on which Luna and Artemis have discovered traces of vegetal life.

Fiore sends his flower-monster henchwoman, Glycina (グリシナ), to Tokyo to drain the population's life energy, but the Sailor Guardians free them and destroy the monster. Fiore appears and uses a flower called a Xenian (キセニアン, Kisenian) before severely injuring the Sailor Guardians. Mamoru attempts to dissuade Fiore from fighting, but the Xenian controls Fiore's mind. After Mamoru intercepts his attack to save Usagi, Fiore takes an unconscious Mamoru to the rapidly approaching asteroid and begins to revive him in a crystal filled with liquid.

While inside the crystal, Mamoru remembers finding Fiore outside the hospital where he was staying after his parents died in a car accident. Mamoru had previously assumed that he had made up the boy as an imaginary friend. Fiore explains that he had to leave Mamoru because he cannot survive long on Earth's atmosphere; Mamoru gave Fiore a rose before disappearing. Fiore searched the galaxy to find a flower for Mamoru, finding the Xenian in the process. Seeking revenge on the humans for his loneliness, Fiore returned to Earth.

Luna and Artemis tell the Sailor Guardians that the Xenian can destroy planets by possessing weak-hearted people. Ami Mizuno discovers that the energy from the asteroid matches the flower monster's evil energy, deducing that Fiore has hidden there. The Sailor Guardians set out to rescue Mamoru. After the Sailor Guardians fly to the asteroid, Fiore reveals his plans to scatter flower seeds to drain humanity's energy on Earth. The Sailor Guardians fight hundreds of flower monsters, but Sailors Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, and Venus are captured. When Fiore orders Sailor Moon to surrender, she does so, unable to watch her friends suffer. Surprised, Fiore is persuaded by the Xenian to fuse with him and drain Sailor Moon's life force. Mamoru escapes and saves Sailor Moon by throwing a rose at Fiore's chest, freeing him from the Xenian's control.

The flowers on the asteroid disappear, but it changes its course to Earth. When Fiore announces plans to crash the asteroid into the Earth, Usagi uses the Silver Crystal to transform into Princess Serenity and redirect the asteroid. Fiore attempts to stop Usagi, but upon coming into contact with the Silver Crystal, he sees a vision that reveals to him that the rose Mamoru gave him as a child originally came from Usagi, who had brought a bouquet of roses to the hospital to celebrate her younger brother's birth. Stunned by this revelation, Fiore allows the Xenian and himself to be vaporized by the Silver Crystal's powers. Serenity, Prince Endymion, and the Sailor Guardians combine their powers to divert the asteroid away from Earth. The Silver Crystal is shattered, killing Serenity.

With the asteroid now safely drifting in Earth's orbit, the Sailor Guardians and Tuxedo Mask are devastated by Sailor Moon's death. The spirit of Fiore reappears and thanks Tuxedo Mask and his comrades for freeing him. Using a nectar-filled flower with Fiore's life energy, Tuxedo Mask wets his lips with the nectar and kisses Sailor Moon, reviving her, restoring her transformation brooch, and repowering the Silver Crystal. Fiore, reduced to the form of a child again, ascends to the afterlife to live in peace. As Sailor Moon awakens, she says she told them she would protect everyone. The Sailor Guardians smile through their tears and collapse into her arms.

Voice cast

Main article: List of Sailor Moon characters

Character	Japanese voice actor	English dubbing actor (Pioneer/Optimum Productions, 2000)	English dubbing actor (Viz Media/Studiopolis, 2017)
Usagi Tsukino/Sailor Moon	Kotono Mitsuishi	Serena Tsukino	Stephanie Sheh
		Terri Hawkes
Ami Mizuno/Sailor Mercury	Aya Hisakawa	Amy Anderson	Kate Higgins
		Karen Bernstein
Rei Hino/Sailor Mars	Michie Tomizawa	Raye Hino	Cristina Valenzuela
		Katie Griffin
Makoto Kino/Sailor Jupiter	Emi Shinohara	Lita Kino	Amanda C. Miller
		Susan Roman
Minako Aino/Sailor Venus	Rika Fukami	Mina Aino	Cherami Leigh
		Stephanie Morgenstern
Mamoru Chiba/Tuxedo Mask	Toru Furuya Megumi Ogata (young)	Darien Shields	Robbie Daymond
		Vincent Corazza Julie Lemieux (young)
Luna	Keiko Han	Jill Frappier	Michelle Ruff
Artemis	Yasuhiro Takato	Ron Rubin	Johnny Yong Bosch
Usagi "Chibiusa" Tsukino	Kae Araki	Serena "Rini" Tsukino	Sandy Fox
		Tracey Hoyt
Fiore	Hikaru Midorikawa Tomoko Maruo (young)	Steven Bednarski Nadine Rabinovitch (young)	Benjamin Diskin
Xenian Flower	Yumi Tōma	Kisenian Blossom	Carrie Keranen
		Catherine Disher

Make-up! Sailor Guardians

Character	Japanese	English
Yui	Chieko Nanba	Carrie Keranen
Aya	Rumi Kasahara	Cherami Leigh
Garoben	Hiroko Emori	Megan Hollingshead
Katarina	Yūko Mita	Veronica Taylor
Queen Beryl	Keiko Han	Cindy Robinson
Alan	Keiichi Nanba	Wally Wingert
Queen Serenity	Mika Doi	Wendee Lee

Production

The film was created by the same production staff of Sailor Moon R, with Kunihiko Ikuhara as a director, Sukehiro Tomita as a screenwriter, and Kazuko Tadano handling the character designs and animation direction.

Release

Japanese release

The film was released in Japanese theaters on December 5, 1993.

The Japanese Blu-ray collection of the three films was released on February 7, 2018, with this film titled Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon R: The Movie.

English release

The film was first released in North America on VHS by Pioneer Entertainment on August 31, 1999, in Japanese with English subtitles. Pioneer later released the film to uncut bilingual DVD on February 8, 2000, alongside another VHS release containing an edited version of the English dub. Pioneer re-released their DVD on January 6, 2004, under their "Geneon Signature Series" line. The DVDs later fell out of print when Pioneer/Geneon lost the license to the film. The edited version was also shown on TV in Canada on YTV and in the US on Cartoon Network's Toonami block.

The English dub was produced in association with Optimum Productions in Toronto, Canada, and featured most of the original DIC Entertainment English cast reprising their roles. The edited version of the dub was censored for content and replaced the music with cues from the DIC version of the first two seasons of the anime; the vocal song "Moon Revenge" was also replaced with "The Power of Love." The uncut version of the dub was only seen on the bilingual DVD, featured no censorship, and all of the original Japanese music was left intact, with the exception of the DIC theme song being used. However, no DVD or VHS release contained the "Make-up! Sailor Soldier" short.

In 2014, the film (including the "Make-Up! Sailor Guardian" short) was re-licensed for an updated English-language release in North America by Viz Media, who produced a new English dub of the film in association with Los Angeles-based Studiopolis and re-released it to DVD and Blu-ray on April 18, 2017. It has also been licensed in Australia and New Zealand by Madman Entertainment. In addition, Viz gave the film a limited theatrical release in the United States, beginning January 17, 2017 in association with Eleven Arts. The redub premiered in the United Artists Theater at the Ace Hotel, where it retained just the original title of Sailor Moon R: The Movie, rather than the subtitle The Promise of the Rose. The theatrical release included the "Make-Up! Sailor Guardian" short, and was available in both dubbed and subtitled screenings. The film was screened in North American theaters again nationwide with one-day showings as a double feature with Sailor Moon S: The Movie in association with Fathom Events. Dubbed screenings were on July 28, 2018, and subtitled screenings on July 30.

Reception

Rebecca Silverman of Anime News Network gave the film's Viz Media dub an "A−". She praised the animation, stating that it was "several cuts above what we typically see in the TV series". She also praised the film for distilling the franchise's themes effectively, its soundtrack and use of imagery relating to flowers. Charles Solomon of the Los Angeles Times also reacted positively to the film's portrayal of the main characters' "sisterly friendship" and praised Viz Media's dub for not censoring Fiore's implied feelings for Mamoru, unlike previous English translations.

External links

• Sailor Moon R: The Movie at IMDb 
• Animerica review