Heya Jet! I know we're all kind of skeptical about Sailor Moon: Eternal but they announced the casting for Zirconia, and it's a plus size comedian/actress/singer named Naomi Watanabe and I don't have preexisting knowledge of her but she has an ADORABLE Sailor Moon cosplay in her casting announcement video (Youtube v=3idAv_VC) and a quick Wikipedia glance seems to indicate she's pretty rad. And regardless of how the movie itself turns out, I think that's super cool. Kay. Bye.
I do know of her! Getting to be part of Sailor Moon can only thrill her. I’m not sure how it really ... I dunno, matters, I guess.
At first I was thinking this was a live action thing, a new musical or whatever, and I was going to follow a thread that was destined to be VERY VERY LONG about how casting a plus-sized actress in the role of “wizened ugly old crone continually sassed by children with weird hair” wasn’t exactly an enlightened selection. NAOMI WATANABE FOR NEHELENIA YOU COWARDS**.
I would’ve said, if this had been about a live-action thing.
Luckily I doubled-checked myself before I wasted my entire morning, and see it’s a voice acting role in the next installment of Crystal. So now we’re to that “and...?” feeling. I’m glad she’s getting work, and in a franchise that she clearly loves! But I don’t see much of anything to pull out of this announcement, I admit. Since she’ll be doing voice work, her size is entirely irrelevant. It’s still Crystal, and while my problems with this version of Sailor Moon are vast and wide, the voice acting was never one of them.
So, yeah! Yay for her, but that’s about all I’ve got on this, sadly.
Except, do consider her as a live action Nehelenia, and lament with me.
(**) In this scenario that was in no way actually happening, I assumedthe Senshi were ongoing roles for their respective actresses. Otherwise, Naomi Watanabe for Usagi is the one true goddess-level casting and anyone who claims otherwise is wrong and should feel bad.
