BREAKING NEWS: GP Publishing Considering More Sailor Moon?

Just hours ago, the Sailor Moon manga was revealed to the public at Lucca Comics and Games in Italy. While details are just starting to surface in the press, one item piqued are interest! The Italian manga and anime community Nanoda reports that one of the representatives at the presentation from GP Publishing (it was either Francesco Meo or Baboni Luca) said that depending on the success of Sailor Moon, GP may decide to publish the artbooks. Looking at how successful Sailor Moon is already in Italy, we think that the manga should have no trouble selling (our Italiano Moonies are going to purchase all of them, right?). The two representatives also thanked Mediaset's Fabrizio Margaria for their revival of the series, and both made special mention of how well the show is doing in the ratings since it began broadcast on Italia 1 in August. Fabrizio also mentioned again that this current broadcast also has significantly less censorship than the first broadcast many years ago. We will be keeping an eye out on the news in the next few days for what else happened at this presentation!

How Many Moonies Will There Be on Halloween?

We here at Moon Chase believe cosplay is just as good on Halloween as it is at conventions, and that you are never too old to have fun dressing up on Halloween! Are you dressing up as Sailor Moon for Halloween? Are you carving a pumpkin with a design related to Sailor Moon? Are you putting your Sailor Moon dolls in Halloween costumes for display (or using them in your house as part of Halloween decor)? Do you have any special Sailor Moon Halloween memories from when you were younger? We here at Moon Chase would like to share your Sailor Moon Halloween photos with the rest of our readers! Send us an email at moonchasers@SPOOKYAWESEOMENOSPAMTAGREMOVEMEgmail.com with your photos and a description of your work by Wednesday November 3rd, and we will have them up on the site by the end of next week.

New Sailor Moon Manga to be Previewed at Italian Expo!

In Lucca, Italy, there is a very interesting event happening in just a matter of days. Lucca Comics and Games is an annual expo that both functions as a pop culture convention, as well as a trade show for companies. Fans attending will get to have a small taste of what it is like to be at much bigger media market events such as MIPCOM when they go through the trade show venues! At this event, editors and publishers will be making presentations about upcoming titles and franchises. The new Sailor Moon manga will be making its debut at Lucca Comics and Games 2010 on Sunday, October 31st at 2PM at the Plaza Ducale. The "King of Sailor Moon Licensing" in Italy, Fabrizio Margaria (Program Director at Mediaset), will be on hand for the big reveal. We hope that our Italian readers will be out there in full force in their Sailor Moon cosplay to let us know how it goes! Buona fortuna Sailor Moon - all of us want to see you continue to succeed!

An Update on the Situation Involving the Impostor

Hey Moonies, Sailordees here with a major update, which we are posting to you all since there’s been some buzz that we are neglecting the site. There is a VERY big reason why I and The Me have not been able to do much – and that is, the infamous impostor. Earlier this summer, we received a tip from someone who knew of the impostor. This person could not believe what the impostor did, and they passed on an important contact to someone who they thought might be able to help us. We got this contact last June while we were still speaking with the impostor, who at the time had told us several times that he had told the woman in the photo what had happened, but came up with every excuse in the book as a reason for why he could not tell her how to remove the images. In July, he ran away from the situation once again leaving his mess for us to clean up. We must have gotten those images removed from 6-7 different sites over the summer. They were not our images, we didn’t own them, but once we presented that we had evidence to some of these sites of Jamie’s ownership and his pleas to get them down, they were removed. This tired us out (and we are pretty sure it tired out the representative of Linda Ballantyne as well).

In the beginning of September, the impostor struck again with fake profiles on both Facebook and Windows Live, and strained for time, we were forced to take action again. Once again, we worked hard with her representative to get these images removed, and we tried again and again to contact the impostor to take ownership since it should have been his responsibility to clean up his mess. Again, he refused to get back to us. We got the profiles removed, but there were still two images of the blonde in question available on the internet. The Me and I have been working together as a team on this – he has been writing the letters to the hosts etc. to get the images removed and I have been in contact with all the other important people in this matter.

We had decided a month ago to act on this tip from someone who knew of the impostor and sent several emails to the contact. On October 4th, we finally got an email back from this contact saying that he had spoken to the impostor about what he had done, and that that we were to contact him with all the places that needed to contacted and that he would ensure that the action would be taken. We also feel that we (as well as the fans, and everyone else involved) were lied to. The blonde woman in his photos was (as we guessed) his mother, and this was the first she was hearing of this. Nearly a year after all of this began. We cannot imagine her grief at this time, having only learned small glimpses of the situation. The tone of the email emphasized with our situation, and feeling for his mother, I spent a few hours one night writing a personal ten page letter to her outlining everything that her son had done, how we found him, details on our dealings with the representatives of both actresses implicated by this scandal, and how this had affected our site. I also included excerpts of emails where he lied claiming he had spoken to her about the images, but had refused to pass on any contacts to get them removed. We knew that he was lying then, because what sort of person in this day and age wouldn’t want their personal images removed from the internet? While I didn’t suggest what happened to him, I ended the letter hoping that those around him would ensure that he had learned his lesson, so he would not do something like this again (or if he did, that he would take responsibility to clean up his own mess).

Well, now we feel duped. We must have worked to get rid of content related to this little prank on around ten websites. We had started fraud requests on one of the two images, and we had passed on the relevant ticket numbers to the impostor to write a simple message saying that he owned the image and it needed to be taken down. He never did, because we never saw his messages added to our service ticket. Fortunately, our records of everything that happened as well as relevant emails from the impostor taking ownership of what had happened were enough to remove this image. But, there is still one left and they will probably want the real owner to come forward. We will try to get this image removed this week, but once again we feel that we have failed everyone involved by not getting this taken care of fast enough. Again, we would really appreciate some sort of sign from anyone involved with the impostor that he has sent a message to the very last host of the image.

It is because we consider Linda Ballantyne and every other voice actor that we have dealt with an extended member of our Moon Chase “family”, as well as how heartfelt we felt for the woman in the photos, that we continued to fight to get these images removed so that Linda could be identified with the correct face, and not that of another woman. We don’t like to see our friends get hurt, and we will do everything we can for them. While we have not heard back from the woman in the photos, we can only imagine that she would really appreciate it if anyone who has either posted or saved an image of her to their machines or websites would delete them and destroy all copies of her image. Remember this little rhyme:

If Linda is Blonde,
you’ve been conned!
But no one can forget,
that the real Linda is a brunette!

as a general rule when trying to decide if an image you see associated with her name is legitimate or not. One of the reasons that we are trying to remove every image is so that people don’t see them and spread them around even more – then we can directly point any new ones that show up back to the source of the images (the impostor).

We would also like to thank the reader (who chooses not to be identified) for getting us this contact, which we hesitated to act on until the situation got desperate. We were worried that we would be turned down like we had been so many times before in trying to resolve this situation. Without your help, this woman might have never known that her image had been spread on the internet without her consent. We thank you for being brave enough to contact us and help us in our time of need.

To our colleagues, the representatives of the actress, and especially the fans, we sincerely appreciate you sticking by us every ugly moment of this scandal, and we once again promise that we will never, ever, let this happen to our site ever again. There are times that we feel our reputation has suffered as a result of this prank that was played, but reading your words of support and kindness have always meant the world to us.

To the impostor – what you have done was very cowardly and despicable. You lied to everyone around you about contacting the woman in these photos, and we only hope that you felt ashamed when she found out about your pranks months later. You have forced us to waste precious time to clean up your mess, while you continue to go on with your life happily. Have you learned your lesson, finally? Or will you do this again in another couple of years?

Happy Birthday Sailordees!

Hey Moonies!

Today I'd like to take a moment to wish Sailordees a very happy birthday, and I hope you'll all do the same!

Without our brilliant Editor-in-Chief, this blog simply wouldn't exist. She gives her all to bring you guys Sailor Moon news from every corner of the globe, and I count myself extremely lucky to be able to work beside her. Her passion for Sailor Moon is unrivaled by anyone I've met, is the driving force that motivates us all.

Please join me in saying:

Happy Birthday Sailordees!

Sorry, I can't actually tell you how old she is. It's a secret. XP

Of NYAF and Bootlegs

Unfortunately, coverage of New York Anime Fest didn't pan out so well this year- namely because your friendly neighborhood Sailor Venus-obsessed blogger kind of got ill during the con and had to leave early in the weekend. Nevertheless, I did attend the con for a few hours, and have a few tidbits to share that may be of interest to the Moonie faithful.

First of all, if you've read any coverage of this con at all on other sites, then you've already read that NYAF basically got absorbed into the New York Comic Con. In retrospect, it should have been obvious that this was going to be the case, since NYCC is simply a much bigger con, however it's still kind of frustrating when you're looking for Sailor Moon cosplayers and everyone seems to be dressed as either Slave Leia or one of the Ghostbusters. While it's generally assumed that combining the two cons was financially smarter, for selfish reasons I miss the old NYAF; the con where walking three steps was not actually a half-hour project requiring serious planning. There were just too many darned people there.

There was no Sailor Moon panel (which, on the plus side, at least means that I didn't MISS the Sailor Moon panel), and I didn't see nearly as much Sailor Moon stuff at the vendors as I did at Otakon, although it's not really a fair comparison for several obvious reasons. Still, I did pick up a few cool SM-items from the few anime-themed vendors, and heard more than one person say "OMG I love Sailor Moon!" upon seeing a plush doll of the Odangoed One herself, so it wasn't a total loss.



Other than the great Sailor Moon up top, these were the only two other SM cosplayers I saw during my brief time at the con. While I feel bad that I wasn't around to capture more cosplayers, if the other galleries I've seen are any indication, there just wasn't a whole lot of SM cosplay going on *sniff.*


Note to those planning on going to NYAF/NYCC in the future (assuming the idea of being packed in like sardines with tens of thousands of your favorite comic fans of dubious personal hygiene doesn't scare you away), know this: NYAF is much looser on the bootleg situation than Otakon is.

I saw a bunch of Moon Cat plushies in about five different colors, including pink and lime green, but NONE of which were the right color to be Luna, Artemis, or Diana. Maybe there's a lime green cat in the manga...wait, how would we know? Naturally, I also saw bootleg DVDs of American TV shows and things- not a lot of them, but it still surprised me. Maybe the con is now just too big to police?



I actually thought that this was a bootleg as well, but Sailordees corrected me: that's right, "Sailor Cute" is legit!

I also got some SM trading cards that apparently came from vending machines in Japan which I believe are also legit:



Yaaay, tiny work-safe Sailor Moon art for my office! And as an added bonus, plenty of Minako!

So, all in all, a bit of an underwhelming con experience for me this time around, but hey, I now have my very own SAILOR CUTE. And I think that's special.

Chibi-Moonie Clothing Revealed!

Hey, Moonies! You may remember a recent article where we tabulated who was making what in Italy...well, the first pieces of merchandise are starting to surface. Italian Brands has just released their licensed apparel catalog for this season which features Sailor Moon! The line is all designed for young girls and is mainly tracksuits, sweatsuits and other activewear. The main color palette consists of navy blue, hot pink, white, mauve, and gray, and a lone green bandana. The line appears to be mainly cotton and/or jersey fabrics, which most moms know are kid friendly in the wash and wear department. We kinda wish that some of the shirts had some glittery shimmer accents to them.

Fans can visit Italian Brands' site here, choose either English or Italian then click 'Brands' and finally click the Sailor Moon logo! These are scans of the actual catalog leaves, so the scanned pages are out of order. We are putting them in order for you below.

This kind of catalog acts as a showcase for stores so that buyers can choose what products they want to order. It is important to remember that these are prototypes at this point and the final products to hit stores might end up being a bit different.

It's still exciting to see merchandise hit this stage of development and it gives us hope for the future of Sailor Moon around the world!

ALL IMAGES COPYRIGHT ITALIAN BRANDS 2010

Sailor Moon Industry News Europe: Fall 2010 Update

A lot has been going on with Sailor Moon in Europe in the last months, so let's catch up on the situation in the Moon Kingdom!

☾ First, let's start off with some only-interesting-to-some-and-boring-to-others industry briefs. Toei Animation Europe (TAE) has been exhibiting at lots of different places, and is not letting the work of their brand licensors go unnoticed. At the first of these appearances at Brand Licensing Europe 2010, the animation giant hosted a special event where they handed out three awards honoring companies that they have worked with in the past year with the most success. Winning for Best Licensing Program was Backstage Licensing of Italy for their work with Sailor Moon. Best Promotion went to TFI Enterprises of France for their work with all the Dragon Ball franchises, and Best Involvement went to Plus Licens of Sweden for their work with all the Dragon Ball franchises as well as One Piece. Kanji Kazahaya, President and COO of TAE was grateful, saying: "We are very delighted to start with this first edition of Toei Animation awards for our European brokers... as a Japanese company, it is a great time to share our motivation and challenges with our European partners." We are so happy to hear of Toei Animation's continued successes in Europe! Next, they appeared at Hyper Japan in London from October 1st-3rd, and exhibited their Toei Animation Theatre where for the first time in years Sailor Moon was shown officially in English! Not the dub though. The first episode was shown with English subtitles alongside the first episode of Pretty Cure and Yes! Pretty Cure 5 (also subtitled). We are officially jealous of our London readers who got to attend the screening! And if that wasn't enough, TAE also exhibited their properties at MIPCOM in Cannes, France from October 4th-8th. TAE did not exhibit at MIPJr. this year (a showcase just for childrens programming).

☾ Sailor Moon continues to leave everyone in her moondust in Italy! Backstage Licensing reports that Sailor Moon has peaks of viewers nearing the 1 million mark, and an average market share of around 9% (if the words "market share" confuse you, read our article from last week). What surprised us the most was reading about the girls' 4-14 demographic in Italy (preschoolers, young kids, and tweens) where the article said that Sailor Moon was maintaining a strong appeal with a share close to 40%! Once again, odango-atama/meatball head continues to defy industry expectations.Not bad for an "old show" that is proving to be a timeless classic. Everyeye Italy pointed to a new interview on the Metal Robot Forums with Carlo Cavazzoni, Executive Director of Dynit Italy, which will be releasing Sailor Moon on DVD. Here, is a translation of the Sailor Moon portion of the interview:

METALROBOT: The following questions discuss the issues of the series "Sailor Moon".

METALROBOT: The news of the acquisition of the home video rights for the series "Sailor Moon" has now been confirmed through Dynit's website. Why was a series like this chosen to be added to the Dynit Catalog?

Dynit: The brand was relaunched on an international level, and there are many companies involved in this project in Italy, Dynit Home Video has acquired the rights for the traditional channels (video stores, comics, etc ...). It is a series that has been very successful, and which we hope will conquer a new generation.

7. Was the aquisition of the rights for this series complicated? How did it happen that for a long time, years, the sale of the rights of the series for foreign countries was blocked?

Dynit: We do not know what the motivations were, it often depends on the rights situation in Japan. Sometimes, just to boost yourself up you need to disappear for a long time.

8. METALROBOT: Can you reveal a few more details in type? Will the releases cover all of the series and movies?

Dynit: It will cover the television series.


METALROBOT: Will the releases have a redub or will there only be the original dub with subtitles faithful to the original series?

Dynit: We did not expect to redub the series, we acquired the home video rights of the original dub. The series will be unedited in its entirety, we are now working with subtitles.

METALROBOT: When will the releases be listed for sale on the home video market?

Dynit: We plan to release them in early 2011, in singles and DVD boxsets.

Fans in Italy who were expecting a redub, it appears that there will not be one. We are most surprised reading that the movies will not be re-released with the series. If we remember correctly, the fans loved the movies just as much as the series?! Here is hoping that there will be some hope for releases of the movies in the future. We were irked by Cavazzoni's comment about disappearing just for attention - this really wasn't the case at all. This is almost like all the rumors we read about Yoshihiro Togashi only going on hiatus to get attention for Hunter X Hunter. We can understand feigning off interviewers for keeping the real reason for the rights disappearing under wraps, but to say something like this even in the independent press, is pretty low.

Sailor Moon Producer Moves to The Web With New "Celeb-Toons"

When possible, we here at Moon Chase try to keep fans updated with where the staff behind Sailor Moon is today. This update focuses on Andy Heyward, the former CEO and founder of DiC Entertainment, which was the production company responsible for the first two seasons. Back in the 80s and 90s, DiC was the name in hit cartoons for children, with big shows like Inspector Gadget, Care Bears, Rainbow Brite, The Real Ghostbusters, the Legend of Zelda, Super Mario Brothers Super Show, and countless others. So, with such a legend in children's broadcasting, to studios back during the time that Sailor Moon first came along it looked like if DiC had a show, it would be a hit. Of course though, poor Sailor Moon did not have such a smooth run the first time - and fans can check out our first survey results which show how much the fans appreciated the work Andy did for the series. He only got 15% of the fans' votes! In 2008, the company was folded into Canada's Cookie Jar Entertainment, and Andy Heyward was left with (supposedly) nothing to do (as the article suggests).

Last year, a press release we came across during the early stages of our campaign told us that Andy was back in action with a brand new company creating webtoons cetnered around celebrities for kids. A few of our staff members questioned some of the ideas that were being tossed around (Gisele Bundchen will never come close to Captain Planet, and we would have gone crazy watching perfect Martha Stewart and her perfect crafts in cartoon form). In this weekend's USA Today, he is featured once again now that some of his cartoons have come to life. The article has the bit of an air of a "puff piece" to it, and we find it interesting that it drops the name Sailor Moon twice, without really mentioning how and why DiC didn't produce the movies or the 3rd & 4th seasons of the show. The video has a tiny glimpse of Sailor Moon as well - can you spot it in our shot above? We're pretty sure that while it was one of DiC's biggest successes, it was also one of it's biggest failures due to mismanagement. In the video on the USA Today site, he talks about how there is an opportunity for a strong girl's property in the wake of the imminent "death" of Barbie and Bratz. How many Moonies are with me that Sailor Moon could kick Gisele's butt any day? Who would you rather watch?

His new cartoons are cross-platform making apperances on the web, TV (on The Hub) as well as comics. While we admire Andy for choosing to start fresh, it's our opinion that the shows he's workin' on today don't have the same kind of appeal as the shows he worked on for DiC. Yes, we are in a recession but do kids really need to be learning lessons from Warren Buffet at an early age, or should we let their imaginations run through a world of fantasy for a few years while they still can?


(So the article sort of sanitized something with regards to the sale of DiC: there are many rumors swirling around Hollywood that his divorce to Evelyn Heyward as a result of an extramarital affair had something to do with it. One doesn't have to look too far on the web to learn about it. We also don't buy the comment about him never having worked so hard in his life - the cartoons he is working on now are only a fraction of what he did 20 years ago. We've known about this for a few years now but kept it in our Moon Chase files for pondering...Oh Sailor Moon, so many scandals behind your scenes...)

Korean Actress Dons Sailor Moon Cosplay for Drama!

Note: This article had incorrect information in it's former incarnation (our source was wrong). Now it is fixed and the old article has been removed.

Popular Korean actress Goo Hye-Sun dressed up like Sailor Moon to shoot some scenes for the upcoming drama The Musical to be broadcast on KBS. Hye-Sun plays a medical student who dreams of being a musical actor (and has failed 80 different auditions). Fans may know of Hye-Sun from her work in two Korean live-action adaptations of Japanese franchises: the very popular Hana Yori Dango (Boys Before Flowers) as Geum Jan Di, and from the upcoming Zettai Kareshi (Absolute Boyfriend) as Riiko Izawa. In a sailor suit and a long blonde wig, she waved her wand through a busy area of Seoul as they filmed. Her costume seemed ridiculous, but Hye Sun didn’t seem fazed by it and was cheerful and happy the whole time!

Netizens took photos and remarked that she looked like manhwa (Korean word for manga) had come to life, and that in a sailor suit they thought she looked pretty and cute. Some were really impressed by her transformation, while others mused “if only she really existed!” We think every Sailor Moon fan in their heart secretly wishes she did, too. Comedienne and Co-Star Park Hyung Lim also showed up and was full of envy when she said that Sailor Moon had been rediscovered!

Fans can check out some of the photos taken below, and a video on Pandora (when it wants to work, it wasn’t doing anything for us for over an hour).

NA Voice Actor Update: Emilie-Claire Barlow and Stephanie Beard

We recently received a tip about Emilie-Claire Barlow (Sailor Venus #2) appearing in a series of video interviews with Chris Potenza, her co-star in Total Drama Island and 6teen. In the various video clips, Emilie talks about her voice acting career and singing career. She mentions working on Sailor Moon quite a few times too, fans can see the videos on Youtube here: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, and part 5 (or watch the embedded videos below!). As mentioned in the video interviews, Emilie plays Bunny in the upcoming series Almost Naked Animals, which viewers can expect to see on YTV in the fall.

Here are the video interviews!

part 1


part 2


part 3


part 4


part 5

And now, on to Emilie's musical career. Her latest album, "The Beat Goes On," is inspired by the 1960's. It will be in stores on October 12th. Canadian fans can also catch her performing live on Canada AM on CTV on October 12th. Tune in at 8:50am to catch her performance, she will be on during the last ten minutes of the program. The CTV schedule is here, for Canadian fans who want to check when the show airs in their region.

On October 21st, she and her band will be performing live on JAZZ FM 91.1, at 7pm EST. the hour long show takes place in front of a live studio audience and will feature songs from her new album. Her official newsletter also notes that she will be interviewed by JAZZ.FM91's Ross Porter. Toronto area fans can catch the radio show on 91.1 FM. The station will also be broadcasting online via www.jazz.fm.

On November 26th at 8pm, she will be performing at Aeolian Hall, in London, Ontario. And, in December, at 8pm on the 15th, she will be performing at the Grand Théâtre de Québec in Québec City, Québec. Additional tour dates are available on her official website.


Stephanie Beard's (Rini #2) previously untitled project now has a name! Live with It is a comedic account of a 25-year-old guy's cancer diagnosis, and his subsequent struggle to beat the disease. (description from IMDb). Stephanie will be playing a character named Susan.

We also have minor updates for her other two upcoming films. In A True Story. Based on Things That Never Actually Happened...And Some That Did, her character is named Amanda. A new trailer is available in HD on Youtube here. We suggest only our older readers click through to watch due to strong language and mature themes. Stephanie appears in the trailer at 27 seconds in. In Not Quite College, her character is named Jessica. No official release dates yet for either film, but we will keep you posted.

Stephanie has also appeared in two episodes of the latest season of Weeds, which is described by IMDb as a "comedy about a suburban mother turned marijuana dealer." You can catch her as Fiona in episodes three and four of season six. Canadian fans can catch the series on Showcase or watch episodes online (episode 3, "A Yippity Sippity," can be seen here and episode 4, Bliss, can be seen here). Fans in the US can catch the series on Showtime Network. Showtime has the first episode of season 6 available online as well.

NA Voice Actor Update: Fall 2010

Hello readers! Lots of updates for you this time about the North American voice actors. They've been busy! Updates about Emilie-Claire Barlow and Stephanie Beard will be featured in an upcoming post.

We previously reported that Harvey Atkin (Bumboo/Pox) will be appearing in Barney's Version. This film has now premiered at Donostia-San Sebastian International Film Festival (Spain), Venice Film Festival (Italy), Toronto International Film Festival (Canada). It is scheduled to show at the Hamptons International Film Festival in New York on October 7th. Still no date for the theatrical release confirmed.

Dennis Akayama is also appearing in a recently released film. He plays Captain Hotaka in Resident Evil: Afterlife. Another installment in the Resident Evil series, this film follows Alice as she joins a group of survivors who want to relocate to a mysterious safe haven known as Arcadia (description from IMDb).

Sabrina Grdevich (Anne/Sailor Pluto #1) appeared in an episode of Rookie Blue, as Anna Vetter. In this episode of the police drama, a heat wave wreaks havoc on the city (description from IMDb).

David Fraser (Grandpa Hino) will be playing Karl Rove in the upcoming film, Casino Jack. The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, on September 16th and 17th. It is expected to show in theatres starting in December 2010. An official trailer is available here. He also appears in Covert Affairs as a supervisor in the episode entitled "Houses of the Holy." The show is a crime drama about a CIA agent.

Katie Griffin can be heard as Hikaru in Beyblade: Metal Fusion. Canadian fans may be interested to know that new episodes are coming up on YTV. We previously reported that Robert Tinkler (Rubeus) appears in this show as Gingka. We have also heard that more voice actors from Sailor Moon may be appearing in this series, so keep listening out for them!

Naz Edwards (Queen Beryl) will be appearing on stage in the upcoming musical The Drowsy Chaperone, which runs from November 11 - December 26, 2010 at the Performance Network theatre in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Ticket information is available here. Here's the description of the play from the theatre: "A lollapalooza of a musical to take you back to the dazzling fantasy of the 1920's - when stars had charisma, Broadway had romance and audiences had the time of their lives. You know the one... where the Broadway star wants to leave the show because she's fallen for an oil-rich lummox, so the producer hires a gigolo to woo the girl and put the kibosh on the nuptials? Winner of Tony Awards for Best Book of a Musical and Best Original Score, it's guaranteed to put a song in your heart! Featuring Naz Edwards (Little Shop of Horrors)."

Tracey Hoyt (Rini #1) can be heard in The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That! as Sally's Mom.

Sarah Lafleur (Sailor Uranus) appears as the title character in Taylor Warren, a 14 minute short film. It premiered July 25th at the Regency Academy Theatre in Pasadena, CA as part of the 2010 Action On Film Festival. (source: sarahlafleurfan.com)

Alice Poon (Catsy) can be seen in Devil, recently released in theatres, as Officer Choi. This PG-13 film is about a group of people trapped in an elevator who realize that the devil is among them (description from IMDb).

Alison Sealy-Smith (Amphibia) has now appeared in seven episodes Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures as Nurse Lydia. Although these episodes premiered some time ago, we only now have confirmation of her appearance in them.

Robert Tinkler (Rubeus), can also be heard in The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That! as Fish, Thing 1, Thing 2, and other characters. Fans can catch this series on Treehouse in Canada and PBS in the US.

Sera Myu Fall 2010 Update (Part 1): Heroes and Enemies!

Only 7 actors from the beloved musicals are moving and shaking in Japan, so here comes your first of two updates!

First, we'll start with the heroes!

Anza Ooyama Continues to Rock!

Anza Ooyama (Sailor Moon from 1993-1998) continued to rock all through Japan with her band HEAD PHONES PRESIDENT this summer. On their recent "Fuse the Soul" tour across the country, one of their featured openers came from this side of the pond! That band was Canada's Domenica, another metal band fronted by a female singer (Bekki). The band commended HPP on their facebook page, telling their fans to check out the band and that "they are definitely a live show to be reckoned with." On the last day of this tour (September 12th), Anza wore a gold bustier with a brown skirt that was a little hard to see in the dark, and she addressed the audience a lot.The writer of this article also noted that Anza has definitely improved on her emotional expression skills and provokes the audience to feel a whole range of different emotions during her concerts. At the end of the show, she wanted a photo of her band with the audience, and even invited Domenica to join them on stage as well! On September 19th, they also played at another event called "Abstinence's Door", which was organized by another Japanese metal band called D'erlanger. The band released a statement to the press saying that they were deeply and greatly moved to be joining such a renowned rock band on stage, and that they had hoped to connect with other bands that are pulling the rock scene in Japan with all of their sounds to have a great time! HPP also just released their latest album Pobl Lliw on September 3rd, and fans can listen to tracks from the album via the band's official MySpace.


Manna in New Horror Film!

Many fans probably remember Kasumi Suzuki as the cute Manna from Tanjou! Ankoku no Princess Black Lady. Well, she has grown up! She is now starring in a horror movie called Kai-Ki: Tales of Terror From Tokyo. The movie's world premiere was in Los Angeles last July, and has since been going around the indie circuit. The horror movie is the last of 3 movies based on the TV show of the same name, all telling different horror stories. This movie in particular has two stories in it, "Possessed" and "Nozomi", both starring Japanese idol Erina Mano (but our Kasumi stars right alongside her). "Possessed" is a story about a hiccuping epidemic among college students turning them into enraged, murderous, monsters. "Nozomi" is about a young girl that is haunted by a ghost that may hold the key to a dark family secret. All of the press surrounding this movie is surrounding Erina's debut, but we're pretty sure that this is Kasumi's first time starring in a Japanese movie that is making it big across the globe. While we couldn't find any comments from her in the press, we were able to find a photo of her from the Japanese premiere in Shibuya on September 4th! She is in the front row on the left... see how Manna has grown?

Kimi no Todoke Premiere Makes Waves in Japan (and Moves Sailor Star Healer to Tears)!

The highly anticipated Kimi no Todoke (From Me to You) live-action movie finally premiered in Japan last week. Mikako Tabe (Yaten Kou/Sailor Star Healer from 2003-2004) plays the leading role of Sawako in this film alongside Haruma Miura who plays Shota (the guy she falls in love with). The press has been featuring stories about this movie for the last few weeks, and both have said that they were really proud of their work and this film, and hoped that the public would also be able to enjoy it. Mikako was also worried that she wouldn't be able to play the role, since after she saw the anime she wondered if any human could actually play these roles. At a test screening last week, both of them were asked what types of people they would like to fall in love with, and Mikako said she prefers guys that who have an abundance of knowledge, where Haruma said that he likes girls who are just like Sawako - black hair, with the motto to do one good deed every day. This screening was done for teenagers, and set in a classroom much like the one used in the movie, and everyone loved it! At the end of the screening, Mikako was moved to tears by the movie feeling touched by the music, and by the support so many had for her character. Mikako and Haruma were moved to tears again at the movie's premiere on September 25th at the TOHO Cinemas in Roppongi Hills! Mikako's eyes were red and swollen as she told the audience “I appreciate it all” in gratitude for the audience's support. We wish this movie continued success in Japan (and abroad too, since these movies are sometimes licensed for distribution here)! The movie's theme song "Reaching You" is performed by Japanese rockband Flumpool, and the single was just released a few days ago in Japan.

Tae Kimura Helps Out Some Very Special Causes (While Still Finding Time to Play a Rock Star)!

Tae Kimura (Fisheye) is still receiving a lot of buzz surrounding her movie from last summer, Tokyo Island (we covered this earlier here). And, she is also appearing at some events for some very special causes. On October 1st the famous manicure hotspot Nail Art Collection in Omotesando Hills, opened up a special auction as part of its pink ribbon campaign for breast cancer. Tae's nails are one of many celebrity nail works by the manicurist with all proceeds going towards breast cancer research. From November 26th-December 3rd, there will be a special Disability Film Festival which will feature her as a guest. Many Ghibli movies will be a part of this festival including Whisper of the Heart and The Cat Returns. Audience members will also be encouraged to express sound effects that are displayed in the subtitles!

Tae is also starring in a new drama special on WOWOW in Japan called Nazekimi. The first part aired on September 25th. Tae also has an upcoming movie next year where she plays an oddball divorcee who forms a rockband with 3 other moms at her kids' school! The movie is called Utahime☆ and the band will play "Smoke on the Water" at a school festival. Everyone had a lot of fun learning how to rock for this movie - and it looks like it will be a hit next summer!




Part Two features all men who have played the same role! It will be posted later this week. Who do you think is the character and which actors are we going to tell you about? Make your guesses below!

Sailor Moon Rising Way Above Industry Expectations in Italy!

Sailor Moon's TV ratings have surprised many in the entertainment industry as it has far exceeded any typical expectations! First, we'll show you what we mean in a table with whatever ratings we have been able to find so far through the Italian news at Ascolti TV.

Date	Viewers	Market Share
September 8th, 2010	563,000	6.68%
September 9th, 2010	570,000	6.65%
September 10th, 2010	522,000	6.76%
September 13th, 2010	736,000	8.40%
September 27th, 2010	952,000	10.71%
September 28th, 2010	703,000	8.30%
September 29th, 2010	620,000	7.54%
September 30th, 2010	917,000	10.76%

So, What Do All These Numbers Mean?

Here, is a short lesson on how to interpret ratings. Most countries (such as Nielsen in the United States), randomly select a portion of the population to have a special set-top box alongside their cable box to gather information about what the household is watching, who is watching, and what they think of what they are seeing. The number you see above under the "Viewers" column, is how many people with those boxes watched the show. The percentage you see next to that number under the "Market Share" column shows you what percentage of people were watching the show, out of all of the other people that were watching TV with those boxes at the same time.

Normally, a cartoon doesn't do very well in the ratings, usually scoring around 1%. Cartoons that are very popular usually start at around 3.5% and rise up. This is because usually children make up such a small part of the sample population. However, those numbers next to Sailor Moon are much, much, bigger than 1 - they are 6,7,8 and 10! This is huge for Sailor Moon, because it shows that it is likely not only children that are watching the show, but probably adults as well. And the final icing on the cake is a recent release at Kidscreen that shows Sailor Moon made the top 5 kids' program broadcasts in Italy! What we found didn't show us any age demographic ratings, unlike the ones we hunt down for We Got the Solution. If these are the results in Italy, who knows what the results might be around the rest of the world?

Fan Luigi Reda pointed out some amazing news to us on our Facebook page, and we were able to find much more through our radar that watches everything about Sailor Moon! Thanks Luigi!