BREAKING NEWS: More Details on Strategic Meeting Happening in Italy!

Hi Moonies! We had wanted to bring this to you sooner, but unfortunately the official website of Backstage was down all yesterday afternoon and evening and it just appears to be back up and running. We have the translations of each of the press releases below, but a quick note: to make it easier to understand, we broke up the sentences a little. Don't worry if there appear to be more sentences in our translation than the original, we have kept all of the original ideas in the article intact. It was just very difficult to understand and read if we left it the way it was! We've also got some brand new images throughout these articles for you to enjoy, and it turns out that what we thought was going to be a new logo last week, is in fact officially the new logo!

From Backstage Italia:

Sailor Moon Licensing Meeting

On Thursday, February 11th, the first meeting dedicated to the revitalization of one of the most beloved animated series will take place in Milan.

Backstage, in partnership with Toei Animation, is organizing a day dedicated to Sailor Moon, with the aim to bring together all of the companies involved and to make the revival of this Japanese animated classic which we will all see again on the small screen.

Speakers include:
Gianpietro Peia, C.E.O. of Backstage
Ryuji Kochi, Vice President Toei Animation Europe SAS,
Fabrizio Margaria, Program Director “Fascia Ragazzi” Mediaset,
Fulvio Albertella, Partner, CRA (Customized Research & Analysis),
Stefania Perletto, Licensing Director Backstage
Elena Grazioli, Responsible Brand Assurance Backstage

Anyone interested in participating in this meeting can register their membership by sending an email to mario.delpennino @NOSPAMbackstagelicensingMAPSON.com.

It doesn’t seem like Naoko Takeuchi is going to attend this meeting, however we can only assume that anything that these people want to propose has to go through her first, as is the case with the style guide. Maybe she will be a part of this meeting through conference calls? Seriously though, if anyone can attend and participate at this meeting, we’d be emailing him for an invite if we were an Italian Sailor Moon blog. We would love to have a chance to present our campaign results in the flesh at such a collaborative meeting!


A Much Longer Press Release From Licensing Italia:

Aspirations Growing on Sailor Moon!

Toei Animation, Backstage and Mediaset will talk about the new revival of the TV series and licensing of future projects for Sailor Moon.

After 10 years since its last broadcast on TV, the news of the re-launch of Sailor Moon has been circulating for some months now in the licensing sphere, and is attracting increasing interest from companies who hope to find a license in 2010/2011 for a strong female with a lasting presence on television.

Backstage strongly believes in the potential of this license. They undertook a deal during 2009 with Toei Animation, in order to obtain permission directly from the series' author, Ms. Naoko Takeuchi. She gave them the green light for the global media rights in the Italian market, including Television rights, publishing, music, merchandising, and theatrical releases. "We are very proud to have the license rights for the second time to Sailor Moon," says Gianpietro Peia CEO Backstage "and we're pleased with how we managed to handle the negotiation with Toei Animation. It is not easy to gain the trust of the companies from the Land of the Rising Sun, but thanks to the incredible work we have achieved with Dragon Ball, Backstage is now the reference point in Italy for the world of Japanese animation.

Mediaset also showed a sharp interest in the TV series, composed of 200 episodes and 6 movies (note – the three specials are considered to be movies in Italy), and has been trying to win the television rights for Sailor Moon program since last autumn. “I could not part with a series was such a historic part of Mediaset” says Fabrizio Margaria, program director of Fascia Ragazza with Mediaset. "After being gone for a long time from the small screen, I am very pleased to be able to rebroadcast this on our networks. And it will likely be that the episodes which will air this autumn will be all of the episodes in full, without the old complaints that now would appear anachronistic for the delight of all of the old fans!”

Toei Animation is closely monitoring the implementation of the development plan of the license. Italy is most certainly one of the main markets for Japanese anime in Europe, and business results in terms of licensing have always been extremely positive. "We're happy," commented Mr. Kanji Kazahaya, CEO of Toei Animation Europe "to entrust the revival Sailor Moon with Backstage. The Italian public, in fact, has always shown great awareness of Japanese animation, decreeing some of the biggest international successes in terms of merchandise. "

The expectations in terms of business results are very ambitious, Sailor Moon can count on a very broad fanbase of fans that are knowledgeable and affectionate towards the series, and this was confirmed by market research conducted recently by Research CRA Milan.

"With Sailor Moon, we are hoping to repeat her success just as we did with Dragon Ball," said Stefan Perletto, Licensing Director at Backstage, "The research we have confirmed that the property is highly favored with target adult women, now mothers, who discovered Sailor Moon first, but also on younger age groups. At the same time we note that the response of companies is very open to the license also because there seems to be no new strong female character on the market."

To create the optimal conditions for the use of this franchise by companies, Backstage requested and obtained the permission of the author to approve the Style Guide for Sailor Moon. The development of the new Style Guide has been entrusted to a team of creative Italians, coordinated by Elena Grazioli, head of Brand Assurance Backstage. With the approval of the author, they are finalizing the graphics of the first series. "The Italian companies will experience a gallery of new images and new poses for the development of their products," Elena Grazioli tells us.

To learn more about Sailor Moon, Backstage organized a Licensing Meeting which will be attended by Ryuji Kochi (Toei Animation), Fabrizio Margaria, Fulvio Albertella.

The meeting is scheduled for Thursday, February 11th at the offices of Milan Backstage in via Lombardini 10.

To participate in the Meeting and Licensing for information contact:

mario.delpennino@NOSPAMbackstagelicensingMAPSON.com mario.delpennino @ NOSPAMbackstagelicensingMAPSON.com

eleonora.peia@NOSPAMbackstagelicensingMAPSON.com eleonora.peia @ NOSPAMbackstagelicensingMAPSON.com

This one just seems to be patching together some quotes etc. from earlier releases, but this was a very well written Press Release about the meeting!

We can't wait to see more of these new images - hopefully we will see them used for promotion with a North American release too! These images are all copyright Naoko Takeuchi/PNP, Toei Animation, and Backstage Licensing.