Place: Aiia Theatre

Placement: Row 10, Seat 42 (middle, far right)

First, I swore I wasn’t going to buy merch and am SO glad they had so little on offer ;; I bought the pamphlet (which is basically a double sided poster, one of the main image and the other side being info with pics of the different teams) and the light stick.

Second, the show isn’t sold out. Sure, it started a little early (7pm) but it was a Friday night and opening night of a mega popular franchise? Strange for it not to have been sold out, especially since the theatre isn’t that big. (For reference, I was in row 10, seat 42, and the seat next to me was empty, as were others around me). There have been a lot of events and new merch recently though, so I can understand.

They’re also still selling tickets at the door, and are giving out freebies. Little bookmark things of the Inner Senshi with manga art (one of each Senshi, randomly given). They’re quite nice! Another enticement is different events happening after each performance. On opening night they randomly selected about twenty people to have photos with the cast. There is also a high five event on other nights, and it looks like they give out goods on other nights.

The show is VERY dialogue light. As in, there is maybe five minutes worth of dialogue the entire show (not including the live performance part). And that’s incredibly generous. This is understandable – this show is only doing two showings in France, so the effort to translate would be a lot. It’s not cost effective. The audience also more than likely knows the story. The story is the first arc, hugely condensed. I think it worked quite well without a whole lot of dialogue. The cast had to work that much harder on facial expressions and their body language to make up for not speaking.

The show is 80 minutes long. There is no interval. After the play part, there is a song part.

Now, onto the show!

We start off with Queen Beryl and her minions. She’s controlling them and their dancing. Like, SeraMyu is great and I love it, but there is still part of it that’s stuck in years gone by. This is very modern. I don’t really know or care who Takahiro is, but he did a good job! The music and dance throughout the performance is really good! It’s very modern. Perhaps because it was opening night, sometimes the music felt too loud. Not in a good way, but in a it sometimes makes the cast hard to hear way.

Anyway, they’re dancing, kinda like cool zombies? The scenery changes on a screen behind them, showing the battle for earth. Kunzite appears and shows off his sword before taking command of the troops. Unfortunately, the sword was almost dropped… We see a screen of Usagi running – it’s kinda clumsy and ugly, but it reminds me of the live action show, which I’m very fond of, so I can’t be too harsh on it. Beryl then attacks this screen, and we come to earth, present time.

Usagi yells about being late and runs through the audience. Her entrance is GORGEOUS! Why? She’s got glitter in her school bag, so as she runs, glitter is flying everywhere. It’s super shojou and anime. Very simple and cheap, but literally everyone was smiling. I feel bad for the staff who had to clean it up though haha

She stumbles on stage and drops her brooch, and keeps going. Mamoru picks it up, teases her and as she grabs it, they start to remember their old lives. Of course, that’s weird and Usagi’s late, so she grabs her brooch and goes. They part, but then stop, turn to look at each other, and are about to go back to each other when the music starts and sends them on their way. An instrumental version of Moonlight Densetsu plays. As it plays, it shows the characters and gives their names – interestingly, the names are Romanised instead of being in katakana, and the images shown are manga panels. It makes sense not to use the live images, as there are three teams, but I wonder why they choose manga over anime. I honestly think it was a great choice though.

We get a brief scene of Sailor Moon fighting a monster. She’s dodging and crying, but she also fights back. She also cheers for herself when she gets a good hit in, which is super cute. Makes her a very human character. Tuxedo Mask does save her and gives her a chance to fight back, and she runs off after him.

It’s time for school! Miss Haruna makes her appearance~ Honestly her look is iconic (the pink suit) and I love that they brought her back. The students do a dance as they start their daily routine and test results are returned. It’s pretty cute, though too long for me to care about. Usagi rushes in, gets scolded, realises she doesn’t have her textbook, is scolded again, isn’t able to share with her friends, steals Haruna’s book, and joins in on the dance while doing all of this.

Of course, things are going fine until everyone is suddenly infected with Dark Energy (a la Kunzite lurking in the corner). Cue zombie dancing again. This, again, went on slightly too long. It wasn’t particularly good, and the costumes were a little tacky – essentially the stage was mostly dark and certain parts of the zombies/infected people lit up (glow in the dark socks and so on). Usgai basically runs around screaming for a while until Tuxedo Mask comes to save her. Understandable – she doesn’t want to hurt her friends or transform in front of everyone.

Unfortunately, Tuxedo Mask dropped their cane and stepped on it, almost falling. She caught herself really well, so props to the actress there. (I believe it was this scene – could have been the arcade scene)

She fawns over Tuxedo Mask again and after the day is saved, class is over. Everyone leaves as Usagi daydreams with these ridiculous heart eyes. A scene that reminded me of the theme park episode from the 90’s anime – they have a sort of carousel thing going on, and it’s very fairy tale like. It was very nostalgic to see it and remember the old anime.

Afterwards she meets up with everyone who scolds her for being late. They sing about how they met – a very cute and sweet song. Then suddenly we’re in Harajuku!

This part is sort of odd if you live in Japan. Since this production was made for showing Japanese culture abroad, for the Japanese audience, this didn’t have a lot of meaning for the home audience. It was also horribly outdated. The gothic Lolita outfits were ugly and super outdated, and I don’t really associate Harajuku with gothic Lolita. Nowadays it’s a variety of different looks and it would have been super nice to see a variety of styles shown, as well as styles that are from this decade ;; The outfits that the Senshi changed into were ugly clown like outfits and I hate them too.

However, it was a nice attempt in showing off a variety of Japanese things. For example, the girls do a bit of traditional dance (fitting for Bon Odori at this time of year) and also eat fairy floss (cotton candy) and crepes that Harajuku is famous for (at least on Instagram ;p). They also have the dancing with the light sticks, which… isn’t a Harajuku thing ;; More of an Akiba thing, but it’ll slide!

Usagi is separated from the group and ends up the arcade. Mamoru teases her for being so bad, and plays himself. He gets a high score and they high five, before they both remember they’re meant to hate each other. Kunzite is in a mascot outfit, shakes his bottom at Usagi who touches it and shows her a new game to play. I’m… not sure why this was necessary? I mean, it’s low key great, and bizarre, especially because Kunzite initiates it? I just… don’t understand it…

Mamoru is sucked into the Sailor V game, and keeps getting beaten up because Usagi sucks so much. He’s trying to get her attention but she’s too focussed on trying to win ;; She gets better in the second round and Tux is pleasantly surprised. He then promptly dies ;;; On her third attempt, Kunzite throws her into the game too.

The Senshi appear to fight. Their introduction song is honestly a fave of mine. I believe it (and all of the songs) are remixes of old songs (both anime and musical). If I find out which ones they are I’ll edit this post (I currently don’t have internet at home..). This scene is pretty good. Unlike some of the other dance scenes which drag, this scene, through song, tells about the characters and their powers.

Tuxedo Mask is taken away, and everyone is unsure of how to comfort Sailor Moon. I think it’s fitting that Venus is about to step in, but Mercury ends up talking to her first. And by talking, I mean singing Otome Policy. A lot of the performances are predictable in that they go by the order of which the Senshi appeared, so it would have been nice to have that shaken up a bit, but it’s not that big of a deal.

In Beryl’s world, Tuxedo Mask is possessed. Beryl is very pleased and they start to tango. The actress is wonderful – Tux is possessed, but isn’t fully under Beryl’s influence, so there’s point he tries to break free or doesn’t follow along. This was pretty believable! Beryl, on the other hand, is unconcerned – she’s in control and enjoying having the man she wants with her. Meanwhile, Kunzite lurks in the corner.

They teleport to Beryl’s world where they fight Kunzite and his creepy zombies. Honestly if someone aggressively danced their way at me I’d be terrified lol! Kunzite is super strong, and takes down all of the Senshi. Venus gets her sword and fights Kunzite, but they both remember their past. Beryl isn’t impressed and he ends up dead.

This scene was really touching. I felt a lot for her. They show Kunzite’s soul floating away, and her following it briefly, trying to catch it. She realises it’s no use. Everyone goes to comfort her, even though they don’t particularly know what’s going on.

They then have to fight monsters and Mask. Honestly, everyone except Moon and Venus should have been stronger than they were. Venus just got an unwelcomed flashback from her past life and lost her former boyfriend, so it’s understandable when she fails. Moon is fighting the love of her life. Everyone else felt a bit weak.

The Senshi end up dying, and Beryl kills Mask when he responds to Usagi.

Usagi is left with Beryl, and kind of… interpretative dances her feelings out? The start is a little long and messy, but as she starts to go from no confidence, I’ve lost everything, why try?, to I have to do this, I can do this… it’s amazing. She’s taking all of Beryl’s hits and throwing them off and is the strong Sailor Moon we all love.

Beryl tries to suck her up with her darkness, and Sailor Moon walks straight in. She comes back out with her new Moon Stick, glowing brightly. She beats Beryl and dies? But Tuxedo Mask brings her back with a kiss. The other Senshi return as well.

Unfortunately, Mask accidentally turned the Moon Stick back on ;;; I don’t think it really need to be turned off in the first place. (Especially because it looks very ugly and cheap turned off – it’s also silver, when I think pink would be better suited) But that marks the end of all the obvious mistakes. For a first try, it isn’t so bad! I think they could have been fixed easily, with perhaps a bit of design done differently.

From here, there are some quick bows before the song portion.

Song part

When it comes to singing, everyone was really good. However, Sailor Venus (Sena) stood out. Perhaps I’m a little bit biased, as Sena is the reason I chose this team over the others, but still. The others faltered a bit at times, or their mics weren’t properly in position, or their voices weren’t loud enough. Sena wasn’t perfect, but out of everyone, her voice was the clearest and most confident.

The songs were all really good choices. There were a few repeats of what was already in the show, most notably Otome Policy in a more pop version rather than the piano version from earlier.

Of course, I’m incredibly biased, but the best song was La Solider~ It’s honestly one of my favourite songs and I’m so so so glad they played it!

They left the stage to come back briefly for a few more songs. In between some of the songs were the dancers getting a bit of stage time, which was nice. Those girls do some really cool stuff, so it’s nice for them to get their dues.

Of course, everything ended with Moonlight Densetsu. Most the characters got solo or duet lines. This is the part where they ran around the audience, giving high fives. I was so close, yet so far T.T Buuuuut Sailor Venus blew me a kiss, so nothing else really matters haha~

We all got a little gift (clear bookmark?) and I got Moon. Some people in the audience were allowed to take pictures with the members. About twenty people I think? How lucky! I waited around with other fans to try and see the actresses as they left, but gave up in the end. It was a good night, and I’m really glad I went!

Summary

Enjoyable: 5/5

Worth the ticket price: 5/5

Re-watchable: 4/5

If this was sold on dvd, would I buy it: 3.5/5

