The official Sailor Moon panel at Anime NYC hosted the largest-ever gathering of its English voice actors. Among the highlights was the cast’s discussion of their favorite moments of Sailor Moon Season 4, also known as Sailor Moon SuperS.
The panelists included Stephanie Sheh (Sailor Moon / Usagi), Kate Higgins (Sailor Mercury / Ami), Cristina Vee (Sailor Mars / Rei), Amanda Celine Miller (Sailor Jupiter / Mako), Cherami Leigh (Sailor Venus / Minako), Sandy Fox (Chibiusa / Chibimoon), Erica Mendez (Sailor Uranus / Haruka), Lauren Landa (Sailor Neptune / Michiru), Christine Marie Cabanos (Sailor Saturn / Hotaru) and Robbie Daymond (Tuxedo Mask / Mamoru). They were joined onstage by one of the newest cast members, Chris Niosi, who steps into the role of Pegasus for the fourth season, which sees the Sailor Senshi thwarting the Dead Moon Circus’ attempts to get their hands on the Golden Crystal.
Niosi described joining the cast as “incredible … and intimidating … and incredibly intimidating. I feel like now I’m settling into the character. I’ll be perfectly honest, I was very nervous doing this show. This is a huge legacy to live up to, and Pegasus is such an important character this season.” He laughed, “I was in the audience for the first Sailor Moon panel at AX 2014, and now I’m up here with you guys, like, what happened?”
The veteran cast members also shared plenty of their own memorable moments from working on SuperS. Daymond particularly enjoyed the ‘Feline Infidelity’ episode, “where they think Artemis is cheating, but with a human nun…? It’s very confusing. That’s why I liked it, because Mamoru becomes, like, gossipy Tuxedo Mask. He wants to defend Artemis but he’s also, like, ‘tell me what happened!’
“I like that there’s an entire episode dedicated to Rei walking in on Mamoru in the shower. There was a lot of character development in that episode,” Vee told the audience with a chuckle.
Miller offered up an example sure to tug at the heartstrings of Sailor Jupiter fans. “I don’t know which dance it was, there’s just like a dance because they have balls just... around town, I guess. I was that awkward kid in fourth grade, like awkwardly tall and boys wouldn't want to dance with me,” she said. “I love the scene where the guy stands [Mako] up, and then Mercury's like, 'I'll dance with you!' Like aww, two friends. It was just so sweet."
Niosi added, "We had an interesting scene where Pegasus decides to start opening up a little bit and speaks to Chibiusa through the little decoration she has in her room. And, completely innocently, not even thinking about it, she goes 'Oh, hold on, I've gotta change for bed.' So her clothes come off, and he's like 'Aagh!' I know a lot of people have obvious jokes about their relationship, but I actually think that Pegasus and Chibiusa are very, very sweet.”
“I was going to say that exact same scene!” Fox chimed in.
For Leigh, recording the episode where Minako goes on two dates at the same time (with two of the season’s main villains, naturally) stood out as particularly memorable. "That episode was so much fun, and she's running back and forth between two dates and there's this huge running montage. I remember the director said, 'we'll break this up, this is a lot of effort, we don't want you to pass out.' But I was like, ‘I want to do it all at once.’ So we did an entire 30-60 seconds of hyperventilating, different paces. And I felt fine,” she said. “But then the last three efforts, I started getting really dizzy, and everything went black. And [the director] was like, 'that was great!' And I said, 'gimme like five seconds to figure out where I am.' But yeah, that one time I almost passed out in the booth was great.”
The Outer Senshi are sadly absent from most of SuperS, but the inclusion of the television specials with the new Viz dub means we’ll still get to see a little bit of Neptune and Uranus. "My favorite part was when I was sick in bed, and Neptune nursed me back to health,” said Mendez, who plays Uranus, in reference to one of the newly dubbed specials. “But also, I was flirting with the nurse and she got mad and threatened me.” Yep, that sounds about right.
What moments from SuperS are you most looking forward to revisiting when the new dub hits stores in April? Let us know in the comments!
