Thank You Moonies!

Yesterday morning, I called up Kodansha USA to thank them personally for bringing Sailor Moon back to North America on behalf of our staff and all our readers. I did ask if our survey report that we sent over a year ago was any help, and the representative told me that it was – and that the company was listening to what the readers had to say. Hearing that brought a smile to all our faces, and assured us that despite all the criticism we faced from many other fans and fansites out there, that our campaign was worth it! We could not have asked for a more perfect result with this license announcement, and we could not have achieved any of this without you fans! From our entire staff, we thank you fans for your support of Operation Moonrise through your survey responses as well as your letters to Kodansha! Your strength and courage helped to bring the manga back (and one day soon, we hope the anime as well). For those of you who were involved in Operation Moonrise, please celebrate – this is a true victory and a testament to the power of the Sailor Moon fandom! We would also like to thank Kodansha for their openness towards our report – the others we had sent them to did not warm up to the ideas and surveys we had to share as quickly. Running these surveys were a huge gamble at the time since it was done before many of the international announcements had been made, and we were unsure that anyone involved with Sailor Moon would take us seriously. But, we had to try, so we did, and we can’t thank you enough for your support! We look forward to bringing all our readers more exciting news from Kodansha in months and years to come.

P.S. Toei Animation is still trying to put things in Japan back together after the recent natural disaster. Please give them some time to return to working on Sailor Moon!

Operation Moonrise Manga Results

In light of the recent announcement from Kodansha USA, we would like to share the results from the manga portion of Operation Moonrise. We think fans will find the totals very interesting to compare with the announcement!

Question: Which Manga would you like to see published?

• A reprint of the original Sailor Moon manga translated by Tokyopop – 157 (30.08%)
• A retranslation of the original Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon manga – 310 (59.39%)
• A translation of the updated Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon manga –457 (87.55%)
• A translation of Codename wa Sailor V –452 (86.59%)
• I am also interested in reading Sailor Moon Novelizations published in the past by Smile/Tokyopop – 112 (21.46%)

The total number of respondents was 522 for this survey. This question was multiple choice, with respondents permitted to check off as many options as they liked.

And a graph of the results:
We are glad to see, upon consulting our survey results, that the recent announcement reflects what the fans have been asking for. We also hope our readers will enjoy being able to purchase the new graphic novels starting in September!

Behind-the-Scenes Update!

Hi everyone - I finally have a long enough stretch of free days to return to blogging on both Moon Chase and We Got the Solution. This post is just going to update everyone on what is happening behind the scenes.

☽ I am aware that the recent article out of South Korea needs to be changed, and that will happen possibly early next week. The article that we had referenced for this article had very confusing information and we couldn't get a hold of our regular Korean translator. In hindsight, we should have waited for that article to get a little bigger and popular so that we would have had more choices to read.

☽ Interviews are mostly on their way! I emailed everyone last night and heard from all but two of them this morning. They all told me that they are almost done! It wasn't a busy summer for just us at Moon Chase, but the Voice Actors as well! If not during this stretch of days, my next one is in a little over two weeks.

☽ Some of you have noticed that the Linda Ballantyne/Sarah Lafleur impostor has struck again on our Facebook page. One of the things that really drained us from May until July was dealing with him, and trying to get him to take responsibility for what he had done. I can tell you now that the impostor was a teenaged boy. We practically had to pry apologies from him to the actresses, but he refused even to sign his name to what he has done, only referring to himself as "The Impostor". We even believe that he has lied to everyone about telling the woman in the photos that her images are being placed under a different name. We asked him several times to get us in touch with this woman so we could have exchanged contacts between her and Linda's agent to hopefully get these images removed, but he refused claiming that the woman never wanted to talk to him again. Something seemed very fishy about this because in this day and age, who wouldn't want to have their images under a different named removed? He ran away from the situation, thinking that it would go away. It was then that we put two and two together and a single file name gave us a big hint about who it might be - his mother! While this boy is a teenager, he is old enough to take responsibility and after he refused to do anything more, we told him the photos were his responsibility to get rid of. And, they spread all the way to Facebook, among other social networking sites. We tried recently to tell the impostor once again he needed to take care of this immediately, but we think he has blocked our emails. We are currently working with representatives of Linda Ballantyne to get this taken care of as soon as possible. He has put us all through the ringer. Even though it's been several months since this ordeal began, we hope that justice can finally be served.

To the Impostor, if you are reading this - we told you this was your responsibility, not ours. Running away never achieves anything.

☽ And finally, Operation Moonrise! This report may be done much quicker than any of the last ones as a third of the charts are done right now. While I can't talk about the results specifically, we were all very impressed by the turnout of 1862 responses! Aside from the countries we had set out in our responses, the other category had 35 different countries represented and 19 different languages. It was also nice to see everyone's responses to censorship concerns to the two different age groups. Thanks to everyone for responding so honestly!

I think, that's everything. Look for a new post from me debunking probably one of the most offensive rumors I've read in a long time in a few days. Since there doesn't appear to be much in terms of general Sailor Moon news, what would you prefer to see first? Japanese Seiyuu, Sera Myu actors, or PGSM actors? Let me know what you want to see in the comments below and the top voted segment by Friday will get top priority! There is also a North American VA update in the works with some sightings that you probably won't believe!

Operation Moonrise Surveys are ALL OVER! THANK YOU MOONIES!

Thank you Moonies for your support of Operation Moonrise's surveys! We are now officially finished running all of our surveys - we think we have asked fans every possible question that could be of interest to everyone! Our final total for this survey is a whopping 1862 responses! This brings our grand total of responses since we began these surveys over a year ago to 4,727! We want to thank each and every Moonie for their support of this campaign, through posting links and helping us get the word out. This is our most successful survey that we have ever run, and we would not have done this without you!

(now it is time for all of us on the MC staff to take a much deserved rest)

Last Day for Operation Moonrise: Phase 5!

Hey Moonies! Here is your very last reminder to take our last survey ever for this site because today is the last day! Every Moonie that has not taken the survey yet should take it and make themselves count because, we have shattered records with this one. Our last survey (Phase 4) achieved a total of 1534 surveys. As of this moment, we have received over 1700 responses, making this one our most successful survey yet! If you have not taken the survey yet, please hurry because you only have until midnight tonight!

CLICK HERE TO TAKE THE SURVEY

Operation Moonrise Phase 5 ending soon

Hey Moonies!

We just passed our original deadline for Operation Moonrise Phase 5 survey, and we wanted to remind you that there are only two weeks left!

Our very last survey will end Monday September 13th at Midnight, so don't miss your last chance to add your voice to one of our surveys!

And don't forget, if you want to send your comments to Toei Animation, we still have their contact information in our forums! (You will have to register to view this info.)

CLICK HERE TO TAKE THE SURVEY

Operation Moonrise Phase 5: Deadline Extension

Hey Moonies!

As is traditional for our surveys, we are extending our original deadline for the Phase 5 survey two additional weeks. The new deadline is Midnight on Monday September 13th!

Some of our contacts have told us that the information we're gathering on this survey will be really useful and that these questions are just what we need! :)

We think you guys' opinions on these questions are so important that we want EVERY Moonie who possibly can to take this survey! Let's show these companies just how much we care about the series, the characters, and the story; and help them bring it back the way WE want to see it!

A BIG Thank You!

Hey Moonies! We'd like to thank every single person who took the Operation Moonrise Phase 5 survey on the first day and of course, everyone who has taken it since and will take it in the month to come!

Our very first survey had just 15 responses on the first day, and our second only 30. Phase 4 (survey #3) did much better at 72, but this survey just takes the cake! 221 surveys in just 24 hours! We're already past 300 at the moment!

We're confident we can reach our goal of 500 by the end of the weekend, but don't worry, the survey will still be available until Monday August 29th at Midnight, so keep those surveys pouring in! All together, we'll not only show our opinions, but just how many Moonies there are who still care and still want the series back!

THANK YOU!

Operation Moonrise Phase 5: Last Survey Ever!

CLICK HERE TO TAKE THE SURVEY

Hey Moonies! Welcome to the last survey ever for Operation Moonrise. We know we said that Phase 4 was going to be our last one ever, but we have a very good reason for this one (we can hear some of you groaning “Another Survey?” already). A few months ago, we sent our first report to a very interested network executive who was impressed! But the exec then suggested that if we were going to have an even bigger impact with the powers that be with this report, that we should ask a few more questions to enhance it. We took this executive's advice to heart, and put this survey together. There are only 14 questions this time around, and we are not including any space for comments (because we think we’ve gathered enough comments about anything and everything that fans have an opinion on for Sailor Moon). These questions are pretty short and there aren’t a lot of answer options for most questions, so we think this should take the average Moonie about 5-10 minutes to complete (maybe even less). These questions are specifically geared towards respondents who have watched and/or will be watching the series in English, but (as always) will welcome any responses from around the world. We will be splitting these results into two groups, one for those from English-speaking countries, and one for those from other countries.

For those of you wondering about PGSM and the Musicals, the companies are well aware of the level of fan interest for these so it is probably likely we will not have to run a campaign for these two other Sailor Moon related productions. The best we can tell you is that if you are interested in either of these productions, please write a letter to Toei Animation or Bandai Entertainment. These are posted in our forums for members to read. We have done everything we possibly could with the manga so now it is just a waiting game (unless we are asked again).

There are two very important questions in this new survey regarding content in Sailor Moon, and we need you respondents to seriously pretend that you are in these age groups again (6-8 and 9-14) and give us your honest opinion on which content you would find offensive as a kid or tween. This is crucially important should there be any sorts of edits made to the existing dub. The worldwide revival is both capturing the attention of the older fans who have loved the series since the beginning, as well as a new generation of younger “moonies”, and to better understand how to make this work, the powers that be will have a better idea of how to gear a future release with this information. Sailor Moon also will not be able to be as big of a success without the younger audience as they will be the ones who a lot of the toys and other merchandise will be geared towards (also remember that the majority of us who have grown up and are reading this site were kids once too when we discovered the series). If you think you are having a hard time answering these questions, it might be a good idea to see what is popular with kids and tweens around your neighborhood. Ask what sorts of shows they watch and do a little internet research into the contents of these shows, and this should help you figure out a good answer for those questions.

Also, a hotly contested issue among the fans is a possible redub as well as access to the existing version of the dub. We ask two questions about this near the end, and we ask that our fans answer these honestly. One of the questions involves the actors specifically, and we have gotten indications from many companies involved that either the old actors or new actors from FUNImation’s roster are pretty much the only choices that fans will have. We will also tell you that the vast majority of the actors on FUNImation’s rosters are also actors that appear on dubs from Bandai Entertainment as well as Section23 Films. Each company uses nearly the same pool of actors for their dubs and there is a lot of overlap. As of this writing, we are not going to bring in a pool of actors from Ocean Studios and ask for fans’ opinions on them, else we would have to re-run and re-do the first survey and we know that not many fans would be interested in that. The other questions we ask pertain to fans' first encounters with Sailor Moon, opinion on the episodes' divergence from the manga, and preferred timeslots on different kinds of networks. For clarification, we have provided some names of networks to make it easier for you to tell the difference between the types of channels. Please pay attention to what the question is asking before you answer them.

Other than answering these questions honestly and seriously, we have no other warnings or caveats to post about this survey! Click the link below when you’re ready! This campaign will be run until Monday August 30th September 13th at Midnight and we have a goal of 500 surveys. Thanks again to all of our readers for their support of our campaigns, and we are hoping that we can call an end to the major parts of our campaigns by October. Our letter writing campaign will continue to be active. And a special thank you to all of the companies for allowing us to be environmentally friendly with these reports and “going green” by accepting them electronically.

CLICK HERE TO TAKE THE SURVEY

Thank You Moonies For Helping Make Operation Moonrise Phase 4 Such a Huge Success!

Moonies, as of this moment the survey is closed. We have a grand total of 1533 surveys - much more than the 1100 we had hoped for! We want to thank each and every fan who responded to our survey over the last two months, from around the world. Moonies will always be there for Sailor Moon! We want to thank every site for their support and promotion of this campaign, and once we have more figured out we will contact you with a follow up.

As we feverishly sit down to work on this report now, we are under a time crunch. We cannot be specific, but Artemis came to our clubhouse office window and said with his flailing arms as he took over our computers, that something could be in the works for Sailor Moon in a matter of weeks, on this side of the pond. We were shocked at what he showed us, nonetheless! We can't tell you what this something is just yet, but it's put us under a time crunch we didn't expect at all. Also given this information, right now is a VERY GOOD time for those of you who have not sent in a letter in support of the anime to any of the companies involved to write one and send it off within the next 3-4 weeks. We're hoping to get this report done for one of the companies (the other one can wait for a while) in 2 weeks.

If you have not sent in a letter yet, suggestions on what to write and who to contact are here.

Last Day of Operation Moonrise Phase 4!

Hey Moonies! Just a friendly reminder that today is your last day to participate in Operation Moonrise Phase 4. We have some exciting news about the campaign but we can't share what that is until tomorrow. We encourage everyone reading this to do the survey. Options will be limited for getting your voices to the companies involved once this survey is done! We have gotten so many more responses than we ever expected to get (we are in the mid 1400s as we speak), and if we haven't heard from you yet, you don't have a lot of time left. We've gotten responses from all over the world, and we are surprised at all the countries we are seeing in the "other" category!

The post is located here, and to go directly to the survey click here!

SURVEY DEADLINE EXTENSION

Hey Moonies!

Today was supposed to be the last day for fans to get in their surveys for Operation Moonrise Phase 4, but we're still a little short. We need 50 more from Canada and 40 from Australia and New Zealand. We think if we keep it open for another week, we can make our goal easily. If you have not taken the survey this is your absolute last chance. We want to get this report written and sent out by the first week of June.

To hit the post about the survey click here, and to go directly to the survey, click here.

Come on Moonies, we're on the last leg - don't let us down!

Operation Moonrise: Phase 4 update

Hey Moonies, The Me here, I was very impressed by the immediate turnout after my last call for survey responses. You guys are awesome! I just wanted to let you know how the numbers are standing now and where we still need help.

The US has a healthy 584 responses; The UK is squeaking by our minimum goal with 103; Australia and New Zealand could still use some help with 67 and 65 respectively; but Canada.. you guys still need a significant boost, you're only at 224. D:

So, we're calling on all of our Canadian readers to get anyone you know who hasn't already taken our survey to go do so and get that number up above 300, even 350 if you can manage, and I know you can!

We're doing our best on staff to get this accomplished. We all want to see Canada be represented to its fullest extent. It might surprise you to know that out of our five regular staff members, I'm the only non-Canadian of the group. It makes me feel a little like the outcast sometimes, which actually reminds me of a funny story involving two...

---

*Ahem* If I may interject my Right Hand Man’s post to speak to all my fellow Canuckian Moonies...

*Summons a one hundred member string orchestra to play O Canada*

Canadians, do you remember a time when you would come home from school and Sailor Moon would be waiting for you on YTV? Do you remember every canceled play date, music lesson, or that time you put off homework just to see what perils faced our Sailor “Scouts” that day?

Did you enjoy a can of Heinz Sailor Moon pasta when you would watch Sailor Moon after school?

Do you remember the excitement you used to feel when a VA would appear on the Zone even for only a few minutes to talk about Sailor Moon? How you would leap every time out of your seats every time they would perform one of their character’s most infamous lines in the flesh?

Or the times when you were just learning how to use the internet and you would visit Roland Parliament’s VoiceStars.net to learn more about your favorite character’s voice? Or later, that wonderful time when there was that “Sweet as Sugar” VA on the Zone all the time?

Did you go out and make your mom make you a Sailor Moon costume the moment Wal Mart started stocking those patterns from McCall’s? How many of you would shout MOON PRISM POWER instead of TRICK OR TREAT when you were out on Halloween night?

What about all those glorious Irwin Toys that did not make sense half the time (The Moon Cycle? What the kay cee ewe eff was that?) ? Those beautiful displays and posters at every toy store made every Canadian kid feel like it was Christmas every day?

Yes, there was one thing that united all of these things together, and that was that they were all made in Canada. Canadian voice actors are an endangered species these days when it comes to anime, but back in the day Sailor Moon helped put voice acting in Canada on the map!

Canadian Moonies, if you want to relive these moments and share them with a new generation of Sailor Moon fans, don’t forget that we are trying to bring the very last season back home where it belongs. Just because every other cartoon gets an ending doesn’t mean Sailor Moon gets the shaft! Get involved with Operation Moonrise Phase 4 today, and let’s tell the companies that Canada is not just a speck on the map of Sailor Moon. Canada made that show happen, and we can’t let anyone forget about that!

*Sailordees Away*

---

... and so it turns out that Hockey is the one sport I can actually stand in large doses. I guess I have more in common than I thought. Anyway, come on all you Canuck Moonies, let's show them that you care deeply about Sailor Moon and want it back!

OPERATION MOONRISE: PHASE 4!

Sailordees' first interview!

Hey Moonies, we have a special treat for you! A short while ago, our very own Sailordees was interviewed about Operation Moonrise by Twitter follower BlueSwim!

In addition to general details about the campaign and its reception, she reveals some very interesting details that Emily just recently discovered about how far your opinions have reached!

So go visit Cheap Ass Gamer and give it a read!

Sailor Moon Manga News From Japan!

And A Creative Manga Sighting in a North American Magazine!

Japanese complete series only manga retailer Mangazenkan just published their March sales rankings, and Sailor Moon was the 17th most popular series sold, surpassing Dragon Ball which was the 20th most popular! And for those of you interested in knowing their shopper demographics, 52.4% of shoppers were male, and 47.6% were female. Congratulations, Sailor Moon!

And in other manga news, fans may be relieved to know that it appears that the Sailor Moon manga has gone back into print. Before, the Kodansha store pages would read that the titles were out of stock and a reprint date to be determined. Now, they are linking to other stores which have an abundance of copies available. We're keeping our fingers crossed that this is a sign of better things to come and a return for the manga around the world. Each manga costs ¥460, which works out to $5 USD. The entire set from Mangazenkan comes to $60 USD. Not a terrible deal for fans who want the renewed edition of the manga!

And now, an update on Operation Moonrise Phase 4!


We're still making tremendous progress, Moonies! As of right now, we have 875 surveys in, but we still need your help! As we mentioned before, because Toei Animation Inc. of LA handles the worldwide rights of all their English-language properties, we would very much like to be able to represent all of the English speaking countries of the world, not just those in North America.

Our goal is to have at least 500 responses from the US, at least 300 from Canada, and no less than 100 from the UK, Australia and New Zealand. Right now, we are less than 10 away from our US goal, and the UK only has about 15 to meet this bare minimum, but Canada is just under 175 responses and Australia and New Zealand are both under 50! D:

Spread the word, and let's shore up these numbers as high as they'll go! We're especially counting on our Canadian, Australian and New Zealand readers to spread the word any way they can! Our contacts have been very receptive to our last two surveys and we hope to include as many fans as possible in this one! We've already surpassed the total from our very first survey, but that's certainly no reason to stop, send us your surveys and lend your voice to SAILOR MOON!

CLICK HERE FOR THE SURVEY!

We’ve Surpassed Our Goal!

But It’s Not Over Yet!

Hey Moonies! This weekend we surpassed way over 750 surveys for Operation Moonrise Phase 4! But, we’re not done yet. As you can probably tell from some of the things we’ve had to post lately, we’re really busy behind the scenes and we probably aren’t going to be able to get any of this report started until the beginning of May. We have also learned, that Toei Animation Inc. of LA deals with the worldwide rights of all of their English-language properties. This means, anywhere that the English dub is going to air in the world, they have to work with this Los Angeles office. Which, is where we have been sending our report. Before, we were under the impression that Toei Animation Europe alone handled the UK.

We need a lot more responses, specifically from the following countries – Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. We fear that while the surveys are mostly showing an American response, that if Toei Animation does not see interest in these other countries that it may not look too favorable to bring the series back there. It isn’t so much a problem with Canada, but when you’re seeing responses in the double digits for Australia, New Zealand, and the UK, it doesn’t look too good (these countries are all making up for less than ten percent of responses and we are hoping we can have that rise a little). Canada is currently representing under 20% and we were hoping to see that get to at least 30% of responses (it made up 35% of the last two surveys). This isn’t meant to deter Americans from taking the survey if they haven’t yet already, but we really need to see more fan representation from the other countries! We feel for you all having to suffer through limited DVD releases (although you Aussies got to hold on to them for a little longer than the rest of us). This survey is just as important to these other countries for a potential re-release as it is to the US. We need to show everyone involved how much everywhere else that got the English-language dub cares about Sailor Moon! Please, if you are in any of these countries, let your friends know about the survey. Don't be shy - everyone will remember Sailor Moon once you start talking about it!

The plan for the American responses is to specifically make charts for that part of the fandom with respect to the FUNImation channel and The Anime Network to give the companies a better picture of what the channel landscape is among the Sailor Moon fandom, since the other countries don’t have options for 24-hour a day broadcast specialty channels for anime. We have a good American sample size to work with already, but don't let that stop you from voicing your opinion.

Thanks for your continued support Moonies – it really means a lot in what is probably going to be our last big survey for Sailor Moon. In the future, it will probably be all left up to the letter-writing campaigns unless another surprise comes our way.

Operation Moonrise Phase 4 Update!

Hey Moonies!

You are all amazing, you know that? In a little over a month we have amassed a total of 652 surveys! This means we are VERY close to our goal and we don't want to see any fans get left out. One of the common complaints we still get from fans in our inbox is that they never knew about this site or the surveys and they wish they could have gotten involved. Well, this might be your last chance since we are under 50 surveys away. We have heard from fans all over the world that just want to see the show in English, and we have gotten a lot of really great comments. We think, that the comments alone are going to make up the bulk of the report, possibly even more pages than the rest of the results themselves. If you have not completed the survey for Sailor Stars, please click here for more information!

Operation Moonrise Phase 4: Sailor Starfights!

To Skip This Background Post and Go Directly To The Survey Click Here! This survey will run until midnight of May 9th!

Change of plans – we’re scrapping a Japanese writing campaign because it probably won’t be very effective, given recent developments in Europe. Fans are better off sending their comments to Toei in English in Los Angeles, they are the ones that need the most convincing! This campaign has only been in the works for a little over two weeks, and below you'll see why.

Here are the recent, known developments that are causing us to change our course for the campaign. Everything that is airing in Albania is exactly the same way that it was before. At this point, it also doesn’t look like Albania is going to get their missing seasons, and this is only one reason why we are worried. Everything in Italy that will come to air will be exactly the same as it was before, with respect to the audio track. There will be some video censorship removed and possibly new openings with the new logo. This makes it highly unlikely that the English-language market will get a re-dub. This is both good and bad news. The good news is, that the vast majority of our readers who voted for the old cast in the first survey will be pleased! The bad news is, this is not looking like a good situation for a release of Sailor Stars.

Here's what we think is going to happen. But, given the very shaky nature of Sailor Moon's releases and distributions in the past, we could be wrong. By the very end of the year, or perhaps early 2011, a company will make an announcement that they have the license for the show, and that they are going to re-release everything that has already been released. At the earliest, we see this happening between March and October. The situation will likely be the same, no matter which company gets the rights. At this moment it looks like it might be one company over all of the current ones, but it is too early to say if it will be distributed among many companies (like it was with Geneon and ADV in the past). Given the nature of the video edits that were made in the English language dub, some may be re-edited and uncensored, but others may not be - remember, episodes were skipped and two were merged together. We really want Sailor Stars to be a part of this release, and we bet you do too. This is why we are starting a special campaign JUST for Sailor Stars.

We really need more numbers to really show Toei that Sailor Moon is a property worth pursuing in North America. We need to show them that it is NOT too late to release something that the English language market hasn’t seen, and that this franchise is still just as relatively (if not massively) popular as it was when it first debuted. Which is why we have created another survey. We’re going to run this for 2-3 months. Since these have proven to be more successful in getting fans to voice their opinions to Toei about Sailor Moon than our letter campaigns, this was the best option. We know you all want the show back, and that you have plenty of fighting spirit in you!

There are 16 questions, but they should go by pretty quickly if you read carefully. The main focuses of this survey are Sailor Stars, and some different questions about TV preferences. Please read each question, directions, and answers carefully. 90% of this survey will take 3-4 min to complete. The other 10% consists of space for you all to leave comments and questions about specialty anime channels. Please check to see if your provider (especially in the USA) carries any of these two channels - The FUNImation Channel, and/or The Anime Network.

We have to ask questions about these specialty anime channels specifically in this survey given the cases of Albania and Italy. The show is airing on premium specialty channels in both countries, though the case with Albania is a little different. There are only two cable providers in that country, and Digitalb (the one that offers the Bang Bang channel) is the bigger of the two, but only has around 100,000 subscribers. For a country of 3 million, we think that number is a little low so we’re still going to consider this a specialty channel for our purposes. In Italy, the show will air on Italia 1 in the Fall, and we're not sure if Hiro was picked to maximize profits, or to act as a guinea pig to test a smaller subset of the Italian public, or both. Both of these services (Digitalb and Mediaset Premium) are available throughout their countries consistently, and so are these channels.

This is not the case with the English language market. The United Kingdom no longer has a specialty anime channel, and neither does Australia, New Zealand, or Canada. The United States has two, The FUNImation Channel and The Anime Network. But, there’s a catch. These channels are not necessarily available in every area of the country (unlike Italy and Albania). We’re trying to be a step ahead and show the companies involved what their viewers’ preferences are. Do you guys want this on a premium specialty channel or would you prefer to watch Sailor Moon on a channel included on almost all cable providers’ programming lists like Cartoon Network, SyFy, YTV, or Teletoon? We want the fans to answer these kinds of questions so we can present your preferences to Toei. Unfortunately, these are the only two channels we can specifically ask for in this situation.

Please answer this survey if you are genuinely interested in an English-Language version of Sailor Moon. Specifically, we want people from Canada, The United States, The United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand to answer this survey - but if you are from any other country and just want to see an official release of Sailor Stars in English, don't hesitate to fill this out too!

As far as your comments go, fans will only be allowed a maximum of 200 words for each survey. If it is a few more words that is fine (up to 210). If you have a lot more than that to say, please submit a letter to Toei. The survey will go by a lot faster once this is done, so we recommend that fans work on their comments ahead of time in a word processor. Then all you have to do is paste in your answer when that portion of the survey comes up. This question is the only one that is not required to complete the survey and is completely optional.

A few guidelines: please understand that now that the companies are taking the fans seriously, so you should use understandable grammar and spelling, and no netspeak. No cursing or flaming please. If you have something to complain about, do it constructively. Remember, executives WILL be reading this and if you want them to take your concerns seriously, please write seriously. Keep this as short as possible – the letter campaign is still ongoing. Talk about how badly you want to see Sailor Stars, and in your opinion if you think that it is not too late for an English release of Sailor Stars, or if your interest in the season has not changed a bit since you first saw it. Please, no mention of anything cast-related. This was ALREADY done in the first survey and the majority of fans voted for the old cast members to return over actors on FUNImation’s current roster. We don’t want to have a redundancy in the surveys and ask fans for opinions that we already collected and sent off.

Our tentative goal for this is 700 surveys. We need to set this high to have a real impact! Anything any fan can do to help get the word out about this one (since so many fans wrote in after the last ones ended saying they didn’t know about this) would be a big help. Please tell your friends and other Sailor Moon fans and get the chain started! We did have one incident with one website last summer who did not appreciate getting several e-mails a week from fans about the campaign. So please, do not pester any site over and over if they write back to you saying they are not interested. Out of deep respect for this site, we're not going to mention the name or link to it.

EDIT: Please wait until you see the thank you screen before you close the window (we added one yesterday) - Unfortunately your answers will not save until you see this screen!

CLICK HERE FOR THE SURVEY!

Operation Moonrise: Kodansha America Letter Writing Campaign, and a Special Surprise!

Hey Moonies! Just a quick heads up that Kodansha received the purple binder on Monday morning, so we're ready to start our letter writing campaign. We have posted the address and other relevant information in our forums, and you will need to be a member to view this - so if you haven't joined our forums, please do!

And for those of you that are and/or will be members, there's a special surprise also waiting for you in the campaign forums. Just think of it as a thank you for being a part of our forums and a chance to participate in something exclusive to our site!

Kodansha Results Report Finally Done!

Here you go Moonies! This is what will be arriving to Kodansha in approximately a week from tomorrow. I'll be waking up bright and early tomorrow morning and paying a visit to Purolator to get this binder going. This report is approximately 50 pages, only about a quarter as big as the reports we sent to FUNImation and Toei. 14 of these pages are just filled with your comments! Give us a couple weeks and the manga results will be posted alongside the other charts and results we posted earlier. We think you will all be pleased with how the fans voted. Once again special thanks to the fans for all of their patience throughout this campaign - you all deserve to celebrate tomorrow as a major part of Operation Moonrise is finally finished! Big thanks to each member of the Moon Chase staff too for all the help and support to put this together! And a very special thank you to my classmates and professor from last night. I am fortunate enough to take a class where we look at certain futuristic themes in anime. Yesterday I bought my Sailor Moon anime cel to class so the class could see what a real cel looked like, and appreciate the work that's put into bringing these cels to life on screen. As soon as I mentioned that it was from Sailor Moon, everyone instantly recognized the series warmly, and it seemed everyone had fond memories of the series to chat about as the cel got passed around. This was a pleasant surprise and it gave me a much needed motivational kick to finish this report after a very busy two weeks! I can't describe the happy feeling I felt when everyone recognized the series and spoke about it, but I one day hope that all Sailor Moon fans will be able to enjoy the series again and relive fond memories once again. I just thought I'd share this story to hopefully make some of you smile :).

I did speak to a representative from Kodansha this morning and they are aware of the resurgence of Sailor Moon. They are looking forward to reading this report! All of us wish this purple binder the best of success in bringing back the Sailor Moon manga!