Sailor Moon R: The Movie

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.

Voice cast

Production

The film was created by much of the same production staff as Sailor Moon R, with Kunihiko Ikuhara directing, Sukehiro Tomita writing the screenplay and Kazuko Tadano handling character design and animation direction.

Ikuhara later described love as the film's central theme. He had noticed the frequent use of flowers as imagery in the television series and decided to use them in the film as a representation of love. According to Ikuhara, Fiore initially understands love as something in which the affection one gives should be returned equally, while the story gradually distinguishes this from the more selfless form of love represented by Usagi and her relationships with the other Sailor Guardians.

Ikuhara said that although the film was made primarily for children, he did not want to simplify its ideas for its young audience and instead wanted to give viewers an experience that would surprise them. He also used the theatrical format to attempt techniques that would have been impractical on television, including an approximately 20-second sequence without dialogue or sound. Ikuhara regarded the placement of the song "Moon Revenge" during the climax as particularly important in directing the audience's emotional response toward supporting Sailor Moon and the other Guardians.

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 2017 theatrical re-release was screened at more than 300 theaters across the United States and included the North American theatrical premiere of Make Up! Sailor Guardians. 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.

Commercial performance

The theatrical programme comprising Sailor Moon R: The Movie, Make Up! Sailor Guardians and a short film based on Tsuyoshi Shikkari Shinasai earned ¥1.3 billion in distributor rentals. According to the Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan, the programme ranked seventh among domestic Japanese films in its 1994 annual rankings.

Legacy

The film played a role in the casting of Megumi Ogata as Shinji Ikari in Neon Genesis Evangelion. Ogata, who voiced Mamoru Chiba as a child in Sailor Moon R: The Movie, later recalled that Evangelion director Hideaki Anno personally approached her during a Sailor Moon staff trip and asked her to audition for the role. Retrospective accounts have attributed Anno's interest in Ogata to her performance as the young Mamoru in the film.

The film has retained a prominent reputation among fans of the franchise. In 2020, it ranked first in the favorite episode category of NHK's All Sailor Moon Anime Grand Poll, ahead of episodes from across the television anime and the other theatrical films. The film's insert song "Moon Revenge" ranked third in the poll's song category.