Sailor Moon Season 5: Sailor Stars Voice Cast Announced
The new voices joining up for the fifth and final season of Sailor Moon have finally been revealed.
Sailor Stars, the fifth and final season of Sailor Moon, is kind of a big deal. The only season of the show never before dubbed into English due to its radical assertion that genderfluid people, you know, exist, it’s long been a subject of controversy amongst pearl-clutching moral guardians. Literally no one else cared. Pretty much everyone else loves the Sailor Starlights, this season’s rival/pseudo-antagonist faction to the Sailor Guardians, just as Tuxedo Mask and the Outers were in their introductory seasons.
And what’s not to love? A boy band that transforms into a trio of young women dressed up like cosmic, superpowered dominatrixes… dominatrices?… okay, maybe if I squint I can kind of see how some people might feel a little weird about their kids watching a team in action whose uniform consists primarily of glossy leather booty shorts and a matching bikini top. I… I get it. But they can get over it, because the Starlights freakin’ rule.
Precious little information has leaked about the VIZ dub of Sailor Stars. It’s been a long road with VIZ’s Sailor Moon dub and its releases, going all the way back to 2014, and release and casting info has typically dropped well in advance, but for this final season and the two home media releases that comprise it, we’ve learned precious little.
It was announced last November that Sailor Stars would be getting a spring 2019 release, with no further details until just a few weeks ago when VIZ revealed a release date of June 18th. It makes sense, being so close to Usagi’s birthday. It’s odd that the Powers That Be at VIZ dragged their feet in giving us a release date, but odder still that they waited so long to provide any casting info on the new additions to the ensemble. After all, recording may be a flexible art when it comes to scheduling but it still takes time, and either they rushed the recording of the final season (which seems unlikely) or they just sat on this info until the eleventh hour for… some reason?
In any event, we now know who the key players of this final season are.
Melissa Hutchinson (Yo-Kai Watch, multiple video games) will take the lead as Kou Seiya, guitarist and lead vocalist of the Three Lights and a forbidden love interest for Usagi once Mamoru heads off to study abroad. Seiya is also secretly Sailor Star Fighter, the leader of the Sailor Starlights.
Erika Harlacher (Kill la Kill, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders) takes point as Kou Taiki, the Three Lights’ bassist and the cool, calm intellect behind the Sailor Starlights in her guise as Sailor Star Maker.
Rounding out the trio is Sarah Williams (Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Sword Art Online) as the group’s snarky-bordering-on-bitchy keyboardist/keytarist Kou Yaten, who transforms into the cynical yet spiritually attuned Sailor Star Healer.
On the villainous side of things, a Sailor Moon veteran returns to the fold with a major promotion. Carrie Keranen, known best to Sailor Moon fans as the voice of the Xenian Flower from the Sailor Moon R movie, steps into the metallic boots of Sailor Galaxia, the ruthless and powerful leader of Shadow Galactica, the series’ final enemy faction.
And, of course, there’s Chibi-Chibi. Whether you find her cute or cloying is between you and your God, but either way it’s fitting that there will be a bit of cast doubling with Stephanie Sheh (Sailor Moon herself) lending her voice to this wide-eyed, heart-haired, Groot-vocabularied toddler.
There’s no word yet on the voice of Sailor Iron Mouse, the first of the Sailor Animamates to face the Sailor Guardians in Galaxia’s service, but since most of her teammates won’t show up until the second volume of Sailor Stars, it’s likely she’ll be a surprise and their casting, as well as that of Princess Kakyuu, will be announced ahead of the next and final set.
Sailor Stars, Vol. 1 covers the Episodes 167-183 of the classic 90’s anime. As with VIZ’s previous Sailor Moon sets, Sailor Stars, Vol. 1 will have a limited edition Blu-ray Disc/DVD combo pack, including a full-color episode guide inside a collector’s chipboard box, as well as a standard Blu-ray Disc/DVD combo pack, and a standard DVD release. All version are currently available for pre-order.
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Michael is a sci-fi and fantasy geek extraordinaire, opinionated critic, and founder of Metal Monkey Productions, a fledgling production company based out of North Hollywood. He had…