Moon Chase Mother’s Day Special: Thanks Again, Naoko!

Today is Mother’s Day, and to our readers who are mothers, and the mothers of our readers, the staff wishes you a very Happy Mother’s Day! We also can’t forget about Sailor Moon’s “mother” (and mother of two herself), Naoko Takeuchi. Naoko, we also wish you a very Happy Mother’s Day, and will wait as long as it takes for a complete release of the Sailor Moon anime. For those of you in Japan, once again the orange Sailor Moon Carnations are in high demand for Mother's Day despite a decrease in their supply! You can spot them in this photo from the Chunichi Shimbun in the back, being packed by a florist.

On this Mother’s Day, we have a couple short Naoko updates to share. One is that last week, Sailor Moon Channel was updated to feature character profiles of all the Senshi (except for the Starlights), as well as a story page. The art on these pages is all from the manga. If there is enough demand from the fans, we may translate these pages beginning later this week (though we will always translate anything she posts on her front page, news, and photo sections).

The second update is that there was a small mention of Naoko Takeuchi in the Shenzhen Daily about a month ago. The article is a reaction to the Earthquake and how at the time it was unknown if many mangaka had survived (as well as rumors of their perish). It then took a happier tone and spoke of how anime in China is as popular as Chinese, South Korean, American, and Taiwanese dramas. The author also writes that anime is second-to-none compared to animation from the rest of the world. There is some mention of Naoko’s husband, Yoshihiro Togashi and the new animated adaptation of Level E, and his ongoing manga series Hunter x Hunter. His work will continue and never be forgotten. We’ll spare you of the descriptions of the other two paragraphs which are gossipy in tone, and lash out at him for taking the fans for granted. Naoko Takeuchi is named by this author as the greatest contributor to girls’ manga (which began in 1963), and was the mangaka who opened the door for Chinese girls to love anime featuring girl superheroes and romance (despite her limited repertoire of work). At first, girls 8-16 years old would be the only ones reading these comics, but slowly men and women now appreciate them. The author even goes on to say that the girls’ anime industry in Japan is the most widely used class!

Fans can check out our most recent translations of Naoko’s updates here, here, and here.