Promises to be accessible to domestic and international Sailor Moon fans.
Given the franchise’s now generations-spanning popularity with fans both in Japan and overseas, a Sailor Moon-themed restaurant seems like it should be a slam-dunk success, especially with daily stage shows featuring the Sailor Senshi performing live for audiences. And so it was that Shining Moon Tokyo opened in an atmosphere of great excitement in Tokyo’s Azabu Juban neighborhood. There was no way that such a promising venture could fail, short of some sort of global catastrophe that not only took going out for entertainment and leisure traveling completely off the table, but did so for so long that no one could say when things would return to normal, but such a far-fetched scenario seemed laughably unlikely when the restaurant opened…in August of 2019.
Within a few months the coronavirus pandemic would begin, and by early 2020 it had made its way to Japan. While mandated restaurant closures didn’t take place in Tokyo, Shining Moon Tokyo was also a stage theater, and those venues were ordered to shut down. Shining Moon Tokyo had its final visitors in April of that year, and in July, still without the OK to reopen, made the difficult decision to close down permanently.
It’s hard to imagine a clearer case of an enterprise failing not because of any flaws in its concept, but simply because of bad timing regarding utterly unforeseeable events. So with pandemic protocols now a thing of the past and inbound international tourism to Japan booming, Shining Moon Tokyo isn’t just reopening, it’s coming back bigger than ever, with the announcement of the grand opening of the Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Shining Theater Shinagawa Tokyo.
The theater will be a renovation and rebranding of the Club eX venue within Tokyo’s Shinagawa Prince Hotel complex, located just a short walk from Shinagawa Station (which is located on both the Yamanote loop line that circles the Tokyo city center and the Tokkaido Shinkansen line that connects Tokyo with Kyoto and Osaka). The producers are promising a “spectacular” show featuring all 10 Sailor Senshi, and while the switch to a more dedicated theater format appears to mean that full meals won’t be offered, special Sailor Moon-themed drinks will be served.
▼ Early concept images for the theater’s interior
As many overseas fans of Japanese pop culture are painfully aware, it can be difficult for non-residents of Japan to get tickets for entertainment events in Japan. Some require an in-Japan address or phone number, and others only accept payment through Japanese credit cards or have stipulations that the purchaser’s name must match that of the ticketholder, preventing proxy purchases. However, the Sailor Moon theater intends to be traveler-accessible, with its website saying that tickets “will be available not only for domestic audiences but also for international tourists.”
The Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Shining Theater Tokyo is scheduled to open in April of 2026.
Source: PR Times, Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Shining Theater Tokyo official website
Top image: Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Shining Theater Tokyo official website
Insert images: PR Times, Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Shining Theater Tokyo official website
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