Sailormoon 🌙 — Complete!

This is the home thread for reading through the series 美少女(Pretty)戦士(Guardian)セーラームーン(Sailormoon.

Discussion threads

🏰 第一期 ダーク・キングダム編
🌑 第二期 ブラック・ムーン編
👨‍🔬 第三期 デス・バスターズ編
🎪 第四期 デッド・ムーン編

:star2: 第五期 セーラースターズ編

Volume information

I’ve put together a spreadsheet listing volume covers, chapters, and page numbers.

There are separate tabs for each release, showing volume covers/numbers alongside the chapters and currently-planned reading dates.

Why I’m reading this series

Expand for why I've chosen to read Sailormoon in 2020.

This series a holy grail both for me to read to completion, and for me to read in Japanese.

Alongside “Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind” and “My Neighbor Totoro”, “Sailormoon” was one of my first introductions to anime, and also my first to manga. However, I’ve only read about the first third of the series (English re-translation).

I’d like to finally read the whole series, and I’ve wanted to be able to read it in Japanese for a long time. I’ve previously owned most of the original manga volumes in Japanese, and currently own the updated reprints in both 単行本/tankoubon and 完全版/kanzenban sizes. I’ve failed at past attempts to read it in Japanese.

What is this series?

A group of middle school girls gain the power to transform into “pretty guardians” who fight against monsters threatening the Earth. It’s a shoujo manga with nice art style, and the story has magical girl and sentai elements to it. It’s had various adaptations, including two separate anime series and a live action series.

How difficult is this series?

Expand to see difficulty.

Browsing through the first chapter, I’d say having a solid grasp of N5 and N4 grammar, and knowledge of casual and colloquial speech, is a minimum for basic understanding with minimal trouble. If you’re not quite there yet, this is a good opportunity to learn!

Here are a few sample pages:

How do I join in?

Rather than a formal book club, this is more of a scheduled reading with discussion threads (to be added). Feel free to read along and ask any questions you may have, so long as they’re not from chapters ahead of schedule. (Questions on prior chapters are fine!)

Where can I buy it?

Expand for details on buying.

Search your manga retailer of choice for 「美少女戦士セーラームーン」. If it says 完全版, that’s the larger-size pages (more expensive). If not, then it’s the regular tankoubon size page (less expensive).

Below are the covers for the first volume, shown in relative size to one another. Subsequent volumes use a similar cover art style as the first volume for each release. Any one is fine to buy, as they contain the same 60 chapters[1]. Side-stories are mixed within the tankoubon and kanzenban releases, but the shinsouban release puts them into their own separate volumes.[2]

[1] The original release has 52 chapters, but longer chapters were broken up in later releases resulting in a renumber 60 chapters. The content is unchanged.

[2] There is one side-story missing from the tankoubon release.

Pricing

Expand for pricing information.

Kanzenban

The most recent (“kanzenban”) release packs 300 to 400 pages per volume, across 10 volumes, with larger-than-normal sized pages. This is the only release you’ll find digital.

It’s going to be much cheaper if you go digital. That’s ten volumes at ¥858 each, totaling ¥8,580. This is roughly:

  • USD: $79
  • GBP: £60
  • EUR: €72

Physical, you may find some sellers with the whole bundle for as low as ¥6,000 plus shipping, but that may be for shipping within Japan only. Buying individually and not counting shipping, volumes go for ¥1,650 each, for a total of ¥16,500 (plus shipping and applicable taxes):

  • USD: $152
  • GBP: £116
  • EUR: €138

If you’d like to try reading the series, but are unsure if you’ll like the manga, or want to read all the way to the end, you can buy just the first two volumes of the kanzenban release, and that covers the first self-contained story arc (the “Dark Kingdom arc”) of the story. Although its ending does point the series toward arc two, you can end reading here feeling satisfied at having read a whole and complete story.

Shinsouban

The other route to go is the shinsouban release. This release has normal-sized pages and a page count probably closer to 250 pages per volume. Each volume is listed at ¥539. The main story is fit into ten volumes for ¥5,390 (with two volumes of side stories, bringing the total to ¥6,468).

  • USD: $50 ($60)
  • GBP: £38 (£46)
  • EUR: €45 (€54)

The first three volumes contain the first story arc, and begin the second arc.

(If there’s a currency you’d like to me add, just let me know.)

What’s the pace?

Expand for pacing information

You can read at whatever pace suits you best!

Discussion will be paced at one chapter per week, with the first week spanning January 1st through 10th, then a new chapter starting every Saturday. Chapters are typically 44 pages long, requiring a consistent reading of six to seven pages per day. You’re free to discuss prior chapters in the appropriate thread.

Coincidentally, all three releases end a volume with chapter 49. Thus, I will likely design the schedule to aim for 49 chapters in 2020, excluding side-stories. The first 49 chapters are spread across the following volumes:

  • Tankoubon: Volumes 1–15 (except 11 which is only side-stories)
  • Shinsouban: Volumes 1–10
  • Kanzenban: Volumes 1–8

I plan to update the thread title to reflect the current week’s chapter.

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What a fabulous project!

Here on WK we now have so many books, so many fabulous bookclubs, so many great people doing so many amazing things… and this has got to be one of the most ambitious! What an achievement it’ll be when you finish! Seven volumes!

Wow, that is truly amazing. Do you have a possible end-date in mind?

Anyway, I’m seriously in awe. And wish you, and all those who read along with you, the very best of luck, and a lot of fun!

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Welp, I failed N4 last year, so I may be getting in over my head a bit, but I like this idea a lot!

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Although my scheduling is focused on my 2020 reading of the series, if I keep up a chapter a week without introducing any holiday breaks, the whole series can span a bit more than a year and a half. This is covering 10 volumes of Sailormoon (60 chapters + 10 side-story chapters) and two volumes of its “prequel” series Sailor V (16 chapters), which I’ll probably read afterwards.

I know I’ll be able to keep up this pace. Whether I’ll hit my other manga reading goals for 2020 on top of it…is another question. Sailormoon is my priority. We’ll see how it goes =D

Everyone learns differently, but I’ll recommend to anyone to try using reading manga as an opportunity to learn more grammar. I personally learn grammar better when I’ve encountered it a few times while reading a manga I enjoy. If you read along, you can ask any questions here, and I’ll at least be here to try and answer them. (And that helps me learn the grammar better, as well!)

One of the great things about manga is if you find it’s too difficult now, you can still come back to it later. My very first Sailormoon manga purchase was in the 1990’s. My youngest co-workers probably weren’t even born yet when I first attempted to read it!

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This sounds like a great way to start off the new year! I’ll try to follow along, too, though we’ll see how it goes with work. ^^;;

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If I can find it online then I might follow along with you! I haven’t tried a big reading project before, and since I already know the plot and such, this should be a great first one

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Is there any difference in the content of Sailor Moon 完全版 and the other? Experience with ARIA told me that the regular version is way easier to find at book off, and thus a much cheaper deal :wink:

I also liked Sailor Moon when I was watching it as a kid. That being said, I only saw a handful of episodes in random order (because French TV had no respect for anime), so I’m not super familiar with the story.

Finally, I probably won’t follow the pace and just read ahead :sweat_smile:

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The second tankobon release had some cleaned up artwork and minor updates like replacing a floppy disc with a CD, but nothing that impacted the story. As far as I know, no new chapters, no rearranged, no significant changes. I expect (don’t know for certain) that the kanzenban release to be the same as the updated tankobon, just a larger page size and more chapters fit into a single volume.

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Any idea how closely the anime follows the manga? I have been trying to watch the anime with Japanese subtitles as I get the chance.

Those sample pages definitely mirror bits of the first episode pretty closely, but first episodes aren’t always representative.

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Regarding the original animation, there’s a lot of deviation, but the series follows the basic outline. The separate Sailormoon Crystal anime more closely follows the manga in some areas, but has its own deviations.

The original anime is split into series as:

  • Sailormoon: Covers the Dark Kingdom arc with Queen Beryl and her four generals.
  • Sailormoon R: Starts with the “doom tree” series which is completely made up for the anime, then somewhat follows the manga with the introduction of Chibiusa and the Black Moon group.
  • Sailormoon S: I’ve sadly only seen the beginning (and some midway episodes) of this one, and haven’t read the manga counterpart. I was going to watch after reading its manga counterpart in English, but then I went digital with manga and stopped buying the series paperback. (It wasn’t available digital in English at the time.)
  • Sailormoon SuperS: I’ve only seen a few episodes, and haven’t read the manga counterpart.
  • Sailormoon Stars: I’ve seen this one in whole, but haven’t read the manga. Apparently it deviates quite a bit.

The anime has a lot of filler episodes, as well. I think the manga introduced Ami and Rei in the first few chapters, whereas the anime has a few extra episodes before introducing each.

(For anyone interested, back when Crystal came out, I did a screenshot comparison of the first episode with the original anime. Didn’t have a digital manga to include at the time.)

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This sounds good! And I can actually read the example pages which is nice! I’ll be visiting Book Off today :grinning:

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It will be probably too difficult for me, but I’d like to try. I found this on amazon:

is it the one?

Wow, I’m really tempted to follow along with this. Sailor Moon also has a special place in my heart. I have no clue if I’m even advanced enough yet to tackle it (don’t know what N level I would be), but if nothing else I learn fast! This looks like it would be good practice for light novels & games too.

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I don’t normally post, but I think I’ll try to follow along with this in the new year! So many of the old WK reading threads have been so helpful, so it will be great to have people to bounce things off of.

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I’ve just now updated the main post with this, but here are the various volume 1 covers:

Summary

Original Tankobon Release:


 
Shinsoban (Updated) Release:

 
Kanzeban Release:

Honestly, any one is fine. The first cover is the original release, which had 18 volumes. The second has updated artwork and packs more chapters into a volume for 12 total. And the third has larger pages (original monthly comic release size), and even more chapters in a volume totaling 10 books.

I don’t know if the side stories were rearranged any from one release to another, but they may have been.

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The level seems just right for me, so I think I’ll try this!

I’ve been trying to read よつばと! this year but I’ve getting caught up in other stuff haha. (as well as getting caught up in understanding every little thing :sweat_smile:)

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That’s the spirit! I have experience with this series being too difficult, but anything you read can be a learning experience. I and I’m sure others will be more than glad to help out with any questions on what’s being said and what grammar is happening.

I figured this would be true for a lot of people, which is what nudged me to do a reading thread =D

If you stick with it, the worst that can happen is end up taking a crash course in learning the most basic grammar that you’ll see all the time in everything you read =)

When I started writing up the post of this, I actually thought, “This would be a great thread to have for people to discover in the future as well.” I feel like as the WaniKani Community reads through more and more series, it’s becoming an amazing resource for people who are looking for something to read and learn with.

That’s one of those things that I do for some series, but not for others. The more I can infer, the less I worry about the details (although maybe I should worry about the details more!) I’m hoping to learn much more as I go through Sailormoon, so hopefully I’m understanding more and inferring less by the end of 2020!

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I found this link comparing the three versions:
https://comic-tool.com/4410.html

There’s no difference in content between the last two version, however the complete version has color pages, and is way more expensive (600 yen versus 1600 yen). That last point is probably relevant to a lot of people buying new.
Also, based on my experience with Aria, the complete edition probably does not have omake drawings under the cover. I didn’t see a mention of that in the link I posted, but I read in diagonal. It could be that there’s no such omake in the original anyway.

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Thanks for the link! I’ve been looking up chapter listings and comparing to see which volumes have which side stories. I may just focus on the non-side-stories for a 2020 reading schedule. I still have time to work out the details, as side-stories don’t show up until after after chapter 20 at the earliest.

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Seems like a great book club idea. Can’t say I’m the target demographic of sailor moon, so Ill watch from the sidelines.

I really like the book club concept here. I’d love to start one for one Manga series in particular that I own as lot of books of but I don’t see it getting much traction for a couple reasons. Have fun, OP!

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