Canadians, Please Support Local TV!

This article is just for our Canadian readers. By now you’ve probably seen one of the several commercials CTV is running about saving local TV stations, and tomorrow is a national day of action. We here at Moon Chase encourage you to get involved! Still a little confused about what’s going on? We’re going to break it down for you.

For at least a decade, local TV stations such as CTV, Global, A-Channel, NTV, and CBC have been in trouble. Cable and Satellite TV providers in Canada transmit local TV signals, however none of the sometimes astronomical fees you pay each month on your bill go back to your local station. These stations have largely had to rely on revenues from advertisers on the air and on the internet, however it is just not enough and every local TV station is facing a crisis as we speak. Twice in the last few months these stations have all appealed to the CRTC asking for Cable and Satellite TV providers to pay them a fee-for-carriage (essentially the companies have to pay the stations for retransmitting their signals and programming), but unfortunately the CRTC has denied their requests. Currently in the United States, there is a fee-for-carriage system and cable providers have the right to drop a TV station if they cannot come to an agreement. CTV is also calling for a review of how cable and satellite companies bundle and bill customers for channels in an effort to protect consumers. CTV has stated that they do not want the customers to pay, the want the companies to pay.

On a side note , think about your cable bill. You pay a rental fee each month for a digital box just to access regular cable, and it’s likely that you have a few theme packages added to your extended cable so you can enjoy many of the current TV and movie hits (Movie Central, The Movie Network, Super Channel, and The CW all come to mind). And most providers in Canada charge you extra per month if you want a box that has a personal video recorder included. Some cable companies in Canada don’t have the technology in place where one box can power all the TVs in your house. So if you have two televisions, you need two boxes, etc. You would think that the cable company just gets revenue from your box rentals, and the rest goes to the channels you pay for. However, that is not the case with local TV stations. Only specialty channels get anything back from your cable bill.

Tomorrow, CTV and A-Channel stations across the country will be having an open house. There will be teams of tour guides showing the public how local TV is made, and they will also show you all the departments in the station. The stations will also have old clips, milestones, and memorabilia from the past on display. There will also likely be petitions to sign, and contacts handed out for your local MP and other noteworthy people in Parliament to contact. Furthermore, CTV Newsnet will be airing a 2 hour live special starting at 1PM Eastern with footage from the day’s events at all 16 CTV and A-Channel stations having open houses. For more information, visit CTV's campaign site, and choose your local station from the map.

As of this writing, CTV is the only station which is rallying up public interest of this issue. I’m sure at one time or another we have all needed CTV’s help in our communities to get the word out about certain events - I know last year that was it not for a TV appearance for a biology expo that I was involved with, we would not have had such a successful turnout. Over the years they have been around helping out for local charity events as well - and their news personalities have always been great to deal with, always going above and beyond to make sure they have every detail.

Readers, if you can attend their open houses tomorrow, please do. If not, please write Prime Minister Stephen Harper , the CRTC, and the Minister of Heritage, James Moore. Local stations are such an important part of Canadian television and they need to be saved!

BREAKING NEWS: Funimation Asks About Possible Redub of Sailor Moon

Special thanks to our seasonal writer Starcat and her buddy Furu for bringing this to my attention just a few minutes ago!

Funimation's Blog The Funimation Update posted a survey yesterday asking for fan inputs about new series in Japan. One of these options is a possible redub of Sailor Moon. Fans, please VOTE SAILOR MOON. However, we would encourage you leave your opinion on the facts we are about to present to you at the bottom of the page in question 5. We have provided you an image of where Sailor Moon is located in the survey (Questions 3 & 4)

- Funimation would likely use their own dub artists for the show. We here at Moon Chase really don't want to see this. The VAs of the original dub in Toronto all worked really, really hard to make the characters who they were and they really put Canada on the map for anime dubs. The show was also one of the big spark plugs that started the whole anime boom in the late nineties. To lose the majority of this cast would be devastating. These are voices that we all grew to know and a few of them have even expressed interest in returning to their roles if there was a redub or lost episodes dubbed. Now, let's look at Pretty Cure. Toei is collaborating on the dub with Ocean Studios, and this partnership has produced wonderful results. Every episode that we have watched brings a happy tear to our eyes because this really is a dub to be proud of , hardly any cuts have been made. And it brings a sad tear to our eye because Sailor Moon never had this chance.

So please, if you want to see your old familiar voices have another chance at your favorite character in Sailor Moon, let Funimation know at the bottom who you enjoyed and that you would want to see a redub featuring the old stars.

On a side note, we'd also like to have Roland Parliament also have at the very least some input in the production. He worked extremely hard given the pressures he had from Optimum Productions to make certain edits to the series, to direct what we think were the best episodes of the series. He went above and beyond his role as a director to make sure that he put out a high quality product, sometimes having the dub actors stay past their call times (by a long shot) just to get the right take on a line. He would come home tired after a long day of dubbing, and then watch the next day's episode in Japanese, and make notes. And then, this would all repeat again the next day. Sailor Moon was under a lot of pressure to put out 5 episodes a week!

- Funimation seems to have the vast majority of Toei's cards in their hands. Viz only has two Toei anime licenses - Boys Over Flowers and One Piece (which is actually in a partnership with Funimation). Bandai as far as we can tell has no Toei Licenses, and ADV has only one Toei license, Saint Seiya. ADV previously had the rights to Sailor Moon, and to make a long story short, they only got the rights to the subtitled version (and they received masters of poor quality) near the end of Sailor Moon's licenses for North America. And it's looking like I'm going to have to work on this Geneon article pretty soon, but they have been resurrected in Japan. If you are going to Animazement this is a major part of Moon Chase's presentation at the Sailor Moon Universe Panel! Funimation is in a special position as well because they are now streaming a lot of Toei's series for their on-demand service on their site as well (all subtitled). These include Air Master, Captain Harlock, Digimon Adventure 02, Fist of the North Star, Galaxy Express, Pretty Cure and Slam Dunk. So right now, it is looking like Funimation is the only option for a distributor for Toei at this moment.

We here at Moon Chase happen to have spoken to a lot of independent anime/comic book store owners who praise Funimation's vast selection, but they are not fans of their pricing strategies at all. Even some fans agree, with our own The Me finding the $60 price tag per volume of Ourah High School Host Club a little too expensive. In Canada especially, Funimation needs to really improve their distribution of anime across the country, not sending the bigger selections to only the bigger cities. This was the major issue with the release of the first two seasons - many Canadians simply did not have the chance to see ADV's release of Sailor Moon in stores until very close to the license expiry. It was a sad day that Canadians could not purchase a show which had its dub produced in their own country.

We encourage our readers in Canada and the US to also comment to Funimation about their pricing strategies and distribution, what they would like to see in their own cities.

- Last , but certainly not least, is the issue of the final season, Sailor Stars. We are all dying to see it, however it doesn't seem in these times that an unedited dub on television would air without any controversy. Sure, gender bending has done well late at night with the example of Cybersix, and Cartoon Network's Adult Swim block has been able to keep any objections to a dull roar, but Sailor Moon is a girls' superhero show, and many young girls back in the day did watch and love the show. It would be difficult to adapt some elements of the storyline towards the under 10 set. At this point, we would wholly support a straight to DVD release of Stars since that's the only way that we think it could be in North America and work. Ideally, we'd also support a dub which aired late at night on adult-centered animation blocks in Canada and the US, however we don't think that a dub aimed for young girls of that season could work.

Nonetheless, we have all waited too long for Sailor Stars, so please leave your opinion on the series with Funimation.

- Oh yeah, and there's a couple other series we love on this survey too. Hayate the Combat Butler 2nd Season continues one of our staff favorite comedies and misadventures of a teenage butler, and K-On! is a teenage high school slice-of-life comedy about some girls who join a club, start a band, and have to deal with a guitarist who is a complete space case. If you enjoyed Ouran as a slice of life comedy, then you'll love K-ON! too. Vote for these too if you can!

- And most importantly, be nice and informative when you write your comments. They are more likely to listen to well written comments rather than "OMG I LOVE SAILOR MOON PLZ BRING IT BACK ^_^". A higher up at Funimation could read that and say "Ok, we know you love Sailor Moon, but why do you want it back? How can we bring it back? What would you like to see?"

Once again, that survey is located here.

Fans, please join and watch our forums. In the next few days we will be planning a letter writing campaign, but we will not be posting any details on our blog posts. And we've got a few other things related to this that we have up our sleeves, so stay tuned. If any of you fans write any comments towards Funimation and would like to share them on the site, please send us an email!

And finally, we have a few words for someone else...

拝啓 武内直子:

いかがお過ごしでいらっしゃいますか。
セーラームーン全員女性。
北アメリカで別の機会をセーラームーンに与えてください。

月の名にかけて,
スタッフノMoon Chase.

ANIME! High Art – Pop Culture Around the World!

Since our last post about Sailor Moon's appearance at ANIME! High Art – Pop Culture in Beverly Hills, we've since learned a lot more about it! The exhibit has even gotten some buzz in Japan, with Ellen Harrington, the Director of the Academy saying that this exhibition is in their museum because ""Japanese animation is very popular in America. It has the most profound impact on various media in America". Special thanks to Frostrubin, who told us a little bit more about it and his involvement. The exhibit started in Germany, then traveled to Denmark, and now it is in Beverly Hills. And we have learned from ANN that it is headed to Belgium next! Frostrubin also tells us that he gave a lot of cels (not just from Sailor Moon) to the exhibition, but he is unsure which ones are being used.

Here, in his words, is the story of how his cels got in the exhibition!

"The exhibition organizers viewed my homepage and asked me, if I am interested to give cels for an exhibition. First I thought this is a fake
(someone wants to get cels for free ;-) but than I got more information ^^ The organizers visited me and had a look for the cels and choose
pieces that would be good for the exhibition. I am always happy to see cels from other collectors, so why not show my cels to others :-)
I think they asked me because there are not so many collectors around as in USA or Japan and I was nearby"


He also sent us exclusively a few pictures of the exhibition to share with you all in Frankfurt, Germany - and we have to say that they did a much better job of presenting the cels here than they did in the pictures posted from the US exhibition on ANN. You would have thought that since this is a celebration of anime's pop culture, that there would have been a little more effort in the decor of the gallery. We loved the futuristic pillars, the gallery backlights, section descriptions and the stars painted on the walls in the German exhibit! But the best news of all is that Sailor Moon is featured a LOT in this exhibition. Naoko Takeuchi, we hope that you know about this exhibition - Sailor Moon is still loved around the world, please bring it back!

Sailor Moon Projected on Floor in Beverly Hills. (Courtesy ANN)

Astroboy and Totoro Hanging Out in Frankfurt!

Large Section of Wall Devoted to Sailor Moon in Frankfurt!

Sailor Moon Hanging Out With The Girls In Frankfurt!

Something New is Something Old...

New (Old) Work of Yoshihiro Togashi Being Published!

It has been a little over 5 months since we last heard anything from Yoshihiro Togashi or his people regarding another return for Hunter x Hunter - we wish we had better news for you all! We can tell you that Viz has released one of the new volumes which was published last year in March (Vol. 25), and Volume 26 is due out in January of 2010. So, provided that Yoshihiro doesn't release anything between now and then (which at this point would not surprise any of us), the North American release of HxH has more or less caught up to their Japanese counterparts.

Yesterday, Shueisha announced that one of Yoshihiro Togashi's older works,Level E is going to be released as part of their Shonen Jump Remix comics at bargain prices and distributed at convenience stores. This series has not been licensed in English as of this writing. Level E was published in three volumes from 1995-1997, right between the end of Yu Yu Hakusho and the beginning of Hunter x Hunter. It's a sci-fi story about extra-terrestrials drawing a human into their strange intrigues. Earthlings are the last to know that there have been aliens populating their planet. One such alien, Ouji, crash lands on Earth on his way from the planet Dogra, and he loses his memory. He soon moves in with Tsutsui Yukitata, a first year High School student who is also living on his own. Tsutsui's life is turned upside down when he becomes the object of Ouji's torment. We couldn't find much else about this (save for some scanlations which we'll hint do exist!). However, it is the opinion of one fan that his art style was more realistic than his other works, and that it was a little grim. So far, we only have two release dates. #1 was released on May 18th, and #2 will be out on June 1st.

And another good piece of Yoshihiro Togashi news? Yu Yu Hakusho is coming to Blu-Ray in Japan , with the first of three volumes set to be released in October. Many news outlets are predicting it will be a hot seller!

Now, if only we could hear something good about Hunter x Hunter...

Flashpoint Season Finale Tomorrow!

Or today depending if it's Friday when you read this! We'll be done our work for Animazement really soon - and that's why there hasn't been many updates during the week. Anyway, Tomorrow/Today's Flashpoint will be the last one for a long time. The remaining episodes from what we have read will be used for a third season, which hasn't been set in stone yet so as of this writing we can't tell you how many more episodes there will be. We feel that the show is being cut short since we were promised 18 episodes in Season 2 last year by both CTV and CBS, and now it's down to 13. At the same time, we predict that these 13 + the 5 remaining episodes will likely make up Season 2 in international markets. It's really a shame that the international markets get all of the episodes intended for each season yet they are aired out of whack back home. And still no word of a DVD release. At this rate, we're going to have to look into importing the SRU from either Britain or Australia. It's our convoluted solution, akin to the lengths the team has to go through sometimes to solve a crisis! *Sigh* Canadians isn't this almost turning into the crisis with ADV's release of Sailor Moon? It was so sad that a show dubbed in Canada was not widely released leaving many fans having to go buy them online from US stores. And it's almost the same situation here. Nonetheless, please tune in tomorrow at the very least to see if Sam and Jules resolve their tension?

Flashpoint Will Once Again Dominate Fridays From Next Week!

So! Welcome to another one of my random ramblings! Dollhouse is over. For the next few months anyway. Due to it's abysmal ratings, we think that it is holding on to any potential future by a very thin thread. This means that Flashpoint will probably have a better chance of winning it's timeslot and perhaps even achieving that magical 2.0 rating more often. I will do a full fledged ratings post for the last two weeks, but for now I'd like to send out a huge congrats to the show for recovering from it's April 24th dip to 1.6/5 to hitting a 2.1/6 last week! I enjoyed today's episode and I look forward to resuming my summaries next week! And this time, I promise there will be one up at least by the end of the week!

However, something needs to be said about tonight's finale of Dollhouse. I think the only reason a good portion of its viewers ever cared to watch the show to begin with was because it was a Joss Whedon creation and many of us fans of his earlier work flocked to this one. Before we move on, I should mention that tonight's episode was written by Tim Minear, who wrote two episodes on another doomed series on Fox that The Me and I quite enjoy, Wonderfalls. I was rocked, shocked, and left on the edge of my seat. Watching today's episode was like being stuck in a terrible nightmare or being scared in a horror movie. Easily the best episode of the season, and many sci-fi bloggers who got to watch advanced screeners of the episode agree. Prior to tonight's episode, there were maybe 2 or 3 episodes that were almost worth watching, while the rest were too painful to watch. I'd almost say that it was as powerful as the end of Buffy. However, it's too little, too late. The show should have only stuck with a small pool of writers, cut back on a lot of the jittery banter that every character seemed to have in every scene, and really worked hard to make each character more serious. I also think a couple of the actors just weren't strong enough choices for their character - the biggest standouts for me are Miracle Laurie (November) and Enver Gjokaj (Victor). Amy Acker (Dr. Saunders/Whisky), Tahmoh Penikett (Ballard) and Dichen Lachman (Sierra) at times appeared to really be straining to portray their characters. Maybe it's a matter of their voices being too soft for such strong characters? Back to the pool of writers - roughly, by the numbers, there were 12 episodes of Dollhouse that made it to television, and there were roughly 8 writing "teams". In Flashpoint's first season when counting the first 13 episodes, there were 6 writing teams. More than that, the first three episodes were written by the same team (Mark Ellis and our trooper, Stephanie Morgenstern). It's my opinion at least that this helped to establish a base for the characters to work off of so that when other writers wrote they had a lot more to work with. The director through those first three episodes also remained the same. Dollhouse's first three episodes in comparison, had different teams, and different directors. It was almost as if this show was doomed from the start because of this inconsistency!

On the plus side, I do think that the idea of Dollhouse was a great one. I really think that if the show had a lot more organization behind the scenes and in production, it could have been a hit and may have a better shot at renewal. We think it's kind of funny that some sci-fi blogs (who will be unnamed) who agreed with most critics that the show didn't have a shot at being renewed early on, are now doing a complete 360, writing puff pieces and other positively-toned posts in an effort to make their voices heard to the powers that be to renew the show. Yes, tonight's episode was great, but looking at the big picture? The show did not consistently do well. In fact, the only thing it did consistently was lose viewership.

If the show is renewed (and there is a very slim chance in our opinion and most critics) it may be moved to a different night. Many blogs have expressed their opinion that Friday was always the wrong night for the show to begin with, despite the fact that Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles was the lead-in. On a much happier note, it's good to only have one thing to watch on Friday Night again!

Breaking News: Sailor Moon Meets Oscar!

Any Moonies planning to visit Beverly Hills this summer are in luck! The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will be displaying an exhibit devoted to Anime from May 15th until August 23rd. The exhibit is titled ANIME! High Art – Pop Culture and will feature 400 clips, animation cels, and character models from such great anime classics including Akira, Dragonball, and of course, Sailor Moon. We are so happy to see that Sailor Moon gets face time on the Oscar website that we just had to picture it twice! The exhibit is organized around many themes, such as shojo, shonen, early anime, Studio Ghibli, sci-fi, and fantasy. It will also include a portion devoted to manga and it’s relation to anime, and a special "Adults-Only" section which we’re pretty sure is devoted to things like ecchi and hentai. Admission is free, and this will be displayed in the Academy’s Grand Lobby Gallery and Fourth Floor Gallery. Please check the official site for hours and more information - and if any of our readers are planning to go to this please send us pictures! We’d love to feature them on the site for everyone to see!

From what we have read, this is a traveling exhibit and we are curious to see where it shows up next. We will keep our readers posted as soon as we know where it will be next! The exhibit is sponsored by the Goethe-Institut, Los Angeles, and is presented by the Deutsches Filmmuseum, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, in partnership with AMPAS. The Sailor Moon cel pictured on the AMPAS website appears to be from Frostrubin’s collection, as is the cel featured from Wedding Peach. He is one lucky fan for having part of his own collection on display around the world!