Hello everyone! I'm sure you all know that there have been a lot of rumors and speculation flying around about the release date of the upcoming fourth season of Sailor Moon Crystal, especially lately, and a lot of the threads in this section have gotten pretty repetitive with a lot of rumors about release dates and such, some from potentially unreliable sources. So, I've created this megathread to serve as a major place where we can all discuss to our heart's content about anything regarding to the upcoming season!

Here are a few questions to start us off:

Artemis wrote:

• Are you looking forward to this upcoming season? Why or why not?
  
• What is the thing that you are most looking forward to or most want to see in this season?
  
• What improvements in quality of animation, story, etc. would you like to see?
  

Feel free to post your answers to these questions below! But they aren't required, of course, so any topic is fair game as long it specifically relates to SMC Season 4

ALSO, there has been an important update in regards to the upcoming season's release date! It was originally pointed out by user @VinR_Oct on Twitter and subsequently picked up by reputable SM websites like Miss Dream. The news comes from a post on the website of Marunouchi Toei (Toei Theatres) about Sailor Moon's 25th Anniversary and Usagi's upcoming birthday, which includes the sentence "「美少女戦士セーラームーンクリスタル」続編最新情報も!?", translating roughly to "Also, new information about the sequel to Sailor Moon Crystal!?"

So in other words, stay tuned for potentially some exciting SMC news when Usagi's birthday rolls around on June 30th!

I am totally looking forward to the season because it was my favorite arc from the manga and I'd like to see it accurately adapted in anime form. I won't complain, but to people who haven't read the manga and disliked SuperS, I think you should give this one a chance because it does have much to offer...or you can read the Dream arc of the manga, if you don't wish to wait.

Potential spoilers:

I've never really been one to judge animation critically, enjoying manga being translated into anime in general, but I liked the season 3 Crystal animation the best, because it feels like a nice compromise between Crystal's original animation and 90s animation.

I can't wait to see it

I'm definitely looking forward to this season! Like magic, I'm really excited to see a dream anime more similar to the manga. For what I'm looking most forward to... 

Spoiler:

As for improvements... I liked the animation style for season 3 better, and also how they were able to insert more comedic scenes, so I hope they keep that up! Oh, also! I'm also really excited to see the new OPs and EDs, I'd love if they continued with what they did in season 3 where they had multiple EDs focused on different characters. 

I also really really really want Saturn and Pluto to get transformation scenes.

I am so looking forward to this arc, it's not even funny!

Spoiler:

As for what the announcement might be at the end of the month, my guess is that we'll get a staff list and maybe a logo? I think it might still be a tad early to release a promo image, though I certainly wouldn't mind if they did that, hehe.

And I know this is super early and probably premature (after all, who knows how much stuff they'll actually make), but I'm already mentally savoring all the SMC season 4 merchandise that's gonna come out. My wallet is gonna cry when that happens, but it'll be awesome!

https://twitter.com/VinR_Oct/status/872483931236343808

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Admin Note:

This post has been merged into this topic from another topic because it is referring to the same material that this megathread was created to discuss (this is a link to the tweet that I sourced in the first post).

~Artemis

I just realized June 30th is this Friday! Yaaaay! Even though I've been pretty meh about Crystal, I do adore the Dream arc in the manga and I hope some of my fav scenes get nice animation scenes! Like the coronation, all teh chibiusa x helios stuff, the eternal henshin, Pluto and Saturn transformations!

I'm really really looking forward to the Dream Arc to be done in Crystal!

Spoiler:

Praying for news very soon!

I'm keeping my fingers crossed for news of some sort from the NicoNico live stream. But I'm not desperate or hopefully enough for something big to be awake at 3am PST to watch it. XD;;

2 Films instead of a season

Okay, from what I've seen, the next season will be 2 films, and not a whole season. I think the fact that it is two films instead of one, kinda makes me feel better about it. A film adaptation has to cut a lot because of time, so two films means more time available to adapt. I'm still a little uneasy with the news but I'm not condemning it until I actually see it.

Source:
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2017-06-30/sailor-moon-crystal-anime-4th-season-revealed-as-2-part-film-project/.118230

magic713 wrote:

Okay, from what I've seen, the next season will be 2 films, and not a whole season. I think the fact that it is two films instead of one, kinda makes me feel better about it. A film adaptation has to cut a lot because of time, so two films means more time available to adapt. I'm still a little uneasy with the news but I'm not condemning it until I actually see it.

Source:
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2017-06-30/sailor-moon-crystal-anime-4th-season-revealed-as-2-part-film-project/.118230

Wow! I was definitely not expecting that--I wonder why they chose this option instead of just continuing in a season format. Not that I'm complaining, though, actually I think that this is just what SMC needs, namely something to break the mold and attract a wider audience. For example, the people who didn't get invested in any of the prior seasons would be much more likely to watch a season in movie format rather than episode by episode, in my opinion. I'm excited to see how it will turn out!

This is a very interesting announcement. I wonder if they did this because overall it will actually be cheaper to make but they can put more time/effort into it since it'll be in a shorter format than an entire season? And since the announcement said theatrical that means perhaps they have more monetary backers? Honestly I can see the Dream Arc working as a movie considering the pacing of the manga and all. It may have even worked well for the first three seasons to have been movies instead of seasons.

I'm still hoping for some short story OVAs x-x

mangaka-chan wrote:

Unlike an episodic series, where animation quality can vary week to week, we might get more consistent/higher quality animation in a movie format. Also, I want to point out that a lot of one or two cour animes get compilation movies nowadays. If you think about it, if a studio can condense a 13 episode series into 2.5 hours for a movie, then getting two movies is kinda like having a 26 episode series condensed into two movies. Least we forget, SMC was only 13 episodes, and the manga Dream arc has roughly the same chapter count as the Infinity arc, so this is completely doable IMO. We might actually not be loosing that much material, if any, from the manga with the two movies format, and might stand to gain from this new set up.

That's what I'm thinking. So for example, while there's no manga counterpart, Digimon tri. films are individually over 80 minutes long and produce about 4 episodes a film. I think film formatting can work for this arc. Dream arc has about 11 chapters, and some of the early chapters of the Dream arc sometimes do not feature certain Senshi at all and a film format could work its way into allowing chapters to occur concurrently for time. So for example, Dream 5 and Dream 6 can occur at the same time with the focus going back and forth between the lead characters of the chapters.

magic713 wrote:

Dream arc has about 11 chapters, and some of the early chapters of the Dream arc sometimes do not feature certain Senshi at all and a film format could work its way into allowing chapters to occur concurrently for time. So for example, Dream 5 and Dream 6 can occur at the same time with the focus going back and forth between the lead characters of the chapters.

That's a good point too, though I don't know if they'll actually do that or keep the same one-character-at-a-time focus as the manga.

As for where they might split the two movies, I think they can probably cut off the first movie at the end of Act 38 (i.e. the Minako-centric chapter), and start the second movie with Act 39, where we see what the Outers have been up to.

If they do the movies for 2 hours each then they would have more air time for things. Hopefully not an hour and a half which would actually make it less. It would be nice seeing a consistent flow of things compared to breaking it down bit by bit. I believe the Dream Arc in the manga has way more differences than the anime compared to any of the other arcs.

Yeah, it would be nice to watch a good 2+hr chunk of animation than 20 some odd minutes of actual story animated per week. I also wonder if it's cheaper for Toei to do two movies rather than a one cour show. I heard a rumor that the disc sales for Crystal haven't been strong in Japan, so if they cut down on the number of discs they have to make for each arc, they're also saving money on materials cost.

I just had another thought after thinking about Digimon Tri: do you think the US/North American license for SMC season 4 would divide each movie up into four episodes? Personally, if an anime was originally released as one block I prefer to see it in its original format as one film.

@Ka-chan: The material cost thing makes a lot of sense as well. Maybe merch isn't selling enough either. Also, I can't imagine them doing four parts for a single movie. That would be too expensive.

Lust wrote:

Also, I can't imagine them doing four parts for a single movie. That would be too expensive.

It was only Crunchyroll that did that. They divided each Digimon Tri film into four episodes, for whatever reason (I don't think price is the reason? IDK...). I was just wondering if Crunchyroll once again gets the US streaming rights if they'll do the same thing to SMC Dream arc.

Swan Cat, what did you post? I don't see any words and am not sure if maybe something isn't loading correctly.

A movie? Hm, it worked for Digimon, but seems weird to do it now when the other three seasons were episodes.

Should Helios and Chibiusa get together in the season officially?  That would be cool!

Luna wrote:

A movie? Hm, it worked for Digimon, but seems weird to do it now when the other three seasons were episodes.

It is a little weird. But if they had to make two movies I can imagine that with this particular arc, it can work.

Aghhh, this actually really bothers me? I'll probably be fine with it when it comes out, but I really like looking forward to an episode every week (or every 2 weeks), so I'm probably gonna mope around for a bit... plus I like to have consistency, so it's sorda frustrating that they're choosing to do this at such a weird point rather than from the start... 
IN ANY CASE, if it improves the quality and flow of the story, as I hope it will, then I'm all for it, despite my current frustration. Makes me wonder how they'll deal with Stars though...

cardea wrote:

Makes me wonder how they'll deal with Stars though...

Straight to DVD OVAs?

I kid, I kid... (or at least I hope that isn't going to happen...)

I'm trying really hard to wrap my head around this? Unless they are doing it because it is one of the shorter arcs... it makes more sense to do it like the Madoka Movies I guess... I'm worried but at the same time hopeful that they are saving all of their money for the 2 arcs that got destroyed completely by the 90s anime... fingers crossed.

I was kinda disappointed at first, but I think it'll work out.

If the movies are 90 minutes, that'll equal to the right amount of episodes. I mean it'll be consistent animation quality, no filler transformation/attack sequences (maybe they'll have some like S1&2) and they'll be released in theaters so it might build some hype.

I think with a movie, there will be a lot of animation improvements. I think it would be interesting to see a Sailor Moon movie, that is the basis of an entire manga arc, versus a stand alone movie such as the SuperS movie, which is a gem btw.

Wait...they're only a series of movies now? There's gonna be a lot of cut plot. ;n;

I really hope this doesn't mean they're planning something worse for Stars.

Where do you guys think the movies will split? I have a feeling part 1 might end when Saturn awakens again or when Artemis turns human trying to save Minako.