Merry Christmas Readers!

The entire staff of the Moon Chase Blogs Network wishes all of our readers the best of the Holiday Season! This was a huge year for us and we wouldn’t have persevered with our ventures without our readers! In May of this year, we began the first part of a campaign to bring Sailor Moon back to the North American market, which lasted around 6 months. We can now tell you that the reports are currently making their way around important people, and we want to thank every reader that participated in the campaign for their support. Your voices are being heard and both companies are very aware of how much we all want the show back! In July of this year, we expanded from Moon Chase and added We Got The Solution, a blog devoted to the TV show Flashpoint. Though we may not always have time to keep up with our blogs, we are forever grateful that our readers come back to read when we do get around to posting! We want to thank the stars and crew of both shows for their support, and to congratulate you on your milestones this year! We wish you all the best and continued success in the New Year! Thanks to all of the sites around the world who have linked to stories that we have posted, and we only hope that we can continue to keep up the good work! And last but not least, a special thanks to all of our staff’s family, friends, and colleagues who gave us that extra kick of support when we needed it most – it means a lot to each of us!

Warmest wishes for the Holiday Season,
The Staff of The Moon Chase Blogs Network.

Breaking news - Chieco Kawabe announcement!

Chieco Kawabe Ochi Announces Pregnancy

Chieco Kawabe Ochi, who has portrayed Sailor Mercury in the Sera Myu musical events as well as Naru Osaka in Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, has announced on her blog that she is pregnant with her first child. You can view the entry at http://ameblo.jp/ochichieko/entry-10413490558.html. This child will also be the second for Masato Ochi, a renowned TV producer who Chieco married in 2008. Before posting the news on her blog, Chieco broke the news to her husband by making a child's lunch box for him consisting of Shirataki sliced beef, vegatables, tofu, rice and a soft boiled egg (which you can view on her cooking blog at http://oixi.jpochichieko/archive/141). During her blog entry, Chieco states that while she has been packing her husband's lunches for quite some time, the thought of packing her child's lunch "swells her imagination". Prior to the official announcement on her blog, some of Chieco's friends have noticed that she was pregnant - fashion designer Ayano Fukuoji (seen in this picture) recently commented to Chieco about her growing stomach.

The child is expected to be born sometime in the spring of 2010. Chieco has previously stated on her blog that her marriage to Masato Ochi has led to newfound happiness in her life, and that she is now looking forward to having a new person in her family.

New Sailor Moon Boxset User Photos!

Hey Moonies,

One of our readers, Sean, has sent us photos of his 20th Anniversary Boxset DVDs!  He also reports that unfortunately the packaging is the only new thing about this boxset that's new.  The discs seem to be the same as the last printing, which means they have not been remastered, just repackaged.  This is disappointing to hear, but at least the packaging is very attractive!

Ochiba Wolf was also kind enough to let us feature her images as well! Don't forget to visit her blog if you like them!

PGSM Winter 2009 Update Extravaganza!

2009 has been a significant year in the world of Sailor Moon. Hard to believe, but it has been 5 years since PGSM has come to an end. Many fans of PGSM have continued to follow the careers of the cast members since the show has ended, and there is some recent news to report.

Masaya Kikawada Goes to Vienna!

Masaya Kikawada (Motoki Furuhata) co-hosted a documentary about life in Vienna, Austria, along with Japanese actress Yoshino Kimura. Yoshino appeared in the movie Sukiyaki Western Django (which is not a movie that is everyone's cup of tea). In the documentary, Yoshino sought to discover what made life comfortable in Vienna, and also met with the conductor of the world famous Vienna Philharmonic (Rainer Kuchl). Masaya took another route and learned about how the people live in Vienna, and visited lots of markets and taverns. http://www.blogger.com/%3Ca%20href=">Producer Yutaro Mimuro was quoted that he aimed to look beyond the history and tradition, to discover why the people of Vienna had such a richness in life. While we were unable to find any pictures of Masaya in the documentary, we did find an entry on his official blog with a picture of him in the Vienna airport. He said that he was having a fun time and was sad that the final scenes were going to be shot that next week. It was an experience that he will never forget!

New Voice Role For Ayaka Komatsu!

Ayaka Komatsu, who recently portrayed Minako Aino (Sailor Venus) in the live action version of Sailor Moon, is turning towards voice acting for her latest role. PGSM fans might want to check out a movie called Goey-ETO, which is an adaption of a one-off manga chapter in the June 1998 edition of Weekly Shonen Jump. The story is centered on the relationship between male and female rabbit like aliens. In this movie, Komatsu will be voicing a male character named Shibushige.

Host Club Drama for Takeshi!


Masu Takeshi, who portrayed Rei's father in PGSM is currently starring in a host club drama called "Rondo Of The Wind". This soap opera is part of Tokai Fuji's "TV's Night Indigo", and its start date is January 5, 2010. In this drama, a successful female editor loses her husband and her job due to an embezzlement accusation, leading her to decide to manage a host club. The female editor and her co-workers work together as a team of detectives in an attempt to restore her reputation.

Keiko Kitagawa Rumored to be Dating? and is Cast Once Again!



Once again, the cleanest idol in Japan’s industry has been the subject of tabloid fodder once again. This time, she is rumored to be dating another star - actor Tomohisa Yamashita, who is a year older than her. The two starred together in the drama Buzzer Beat, and also went to the same college (he was a year ahead of her). They have been spotted out and about holding hands. On November 21st, he performed his first solo concert show ("Short But Swell") at Yokohama Arena. Fans can read a review of the concert in English here - he even performed a rendition of Michael Jackson's Thriller! One of his songs is titled Daite Senorita and after the concert ended, our poor Sailor Mars was bombarded with reporters asking if she was Tomohisa's senorita. She snapped back at then and said they were just friends who sometimes go out to dinner together. Poor Keiko just can't catch a break, can she?

Kitagawa has continued to obtain acting roles in the wake of the success she has earned playing Sailor Mars in PGSM. Kitagawa will portray the role of Rie Saito (a number 1 hostess) in the TBS drama Hitsudan Hostess. The story is somewhat based off of Saito's personal life, as the title character becomes deaf at the age of one due to an illness, and she rebels against her strict parents. Kitagawa's new role will require very little dialogue, making this one of her most challenging acting roles to date. The two hour long episode is based off of a best selling book by Rie Saito, of which Keiko is a big fan of. Keiko is looking forward to utilizing her skills in calligraphy and writing - skills that she obtained in her childhood.


Kaori Moriwaka Writes Hit Song!

In September of this year, popular J-Pop singer Maki Goto (pictured) released a new album with her new collaboration featuring her record label Avex, popular radio station J-Wave, and Japanese social networking site Mixi. She called the collaboration (and the album) "SWEET BLACK" because those two words describe perfectly the positives and the negatives in the life of today's women. The album has 8 tracks, featuring unique collaborations with people like Japanese reggae star BIGGA RAIJI, mangaka Erika Sakurazawa, and Japanese rapper Ken the 390. The song TEAR DROPS, featuring the singer KG is a sad and beautiful song, and has a connection to PGSM - Kaori Moriwaka (Ikuko Tsukino) wrote the song! This is a little different since we're normally used to hearing rockier tunes from her! Fans can watch the video here, and read a lyrics translation here.


Two Rival Fashion Magazines Get Together For a Fashion Show That Thunders! and Jupiter Speaks Up.


Excuse the horrible Sailor Jupiter pun! Mew Azama was one of a handful of CanCam magazine models chosen to appear in a special fashion show with rival models from ViVi magazine that was sponsored by Sony Ericsson. Sony Ericsson was launching the S002 "THE SUPER FIT" which is a phone being marketed as the worlds smallest "WanseguKeitai" (or "oneseg" cell phone capable of mobile TV). The fashion show took place on December 1st at Tokyo's JCB Hall, and some of the fashions modeled had a "sexy santa" theme. Fans can check out more pictures here - and Mew is sporting a new, shorter, haircut! She's the one in the beige gown pictured here! It's a relief to see some pictures of Mew in classier clothing compared to the ridiculous things she sometimes wears as the weather girl on NTV's Zoom! Saturday.

And speaking of which: Mew Azama was also featured in a Hochi Sports (part of Daily Yomiuri) article!  For the first time, she speaks of her role as a weathercaster on NTV’s Zoom Saturday!    She made her debut on the show over a year ago in October of 2008.   She was anxious since she didn’t think that she was good at public speaking, but got serious and took lessons!  It was a struggle, but she persevered!   When she first started, even though she had her script memorized, she kept stopping because she was so nervous.  She would often fear she would forget something on her cheat sheet when it would be taken away from her and she worried that people could tell that she was in a hurry.  Sometimes she would have to wake up at 2 or 3 to get to her shoots on time, and sometimes she couldn’t operate on a couple hours of sleep!  Now she is fully adjusted to her schedule and she is also getting used to this just like she had to for her early morning modeling shoots. 

We’ve featured a few of her strange costumes on this blog before, asking fans to caption the photos!  But her fans in Japan have come to love her costumes, and also the clothing she wears on the show.  She even talks about her outfits on her blog.   She looks forward to doing more in 2010, and hopes to be an anime seiyuu too.  Our fearless Mew can accomplish anything she puts her mind to, with a little perseverance!


New Idol DVD and a Strange Dream for Rina Koike!

PGSM's youngest star has another new idol DVD out, this time co-starring two other young stars, Yui Koike and Aya Koike. Despite sharing surnames these three are not closely related in real life, but they play sisters in the movie. Rina also made mention of a strange dream she had involving Michael Jackson. As best we can tell, she dreamed she was on a plane that crashed in a jungle in the Amazon, and Michael Jackson came riding in on a blue throne set on an elephant and brought two other people to rescue her. After Rina had the dream, she called her friend and she said it was all in her head. An interesting dream indeed!



Gundam Character Astrology Book!

Keiko Han (Luna in the anime and PGSM) has a new book out, "Fortune Telling of Sune" Written from the perspective of her character Lalah Sune from Mobile Suit Gundam. The book is illustrated by Hideki Ohwada, author of a Gundam parody comic and is meant for Gundam fans to enjoy!

Sailor Moon is back... In Indonesia?

We came across this interesting little gem and thought it was good for a laugh!  The Blowfish Kitchen and Bar is an upscale Japanese restaurant and lounge in Jakarta, Indonesia which boasts many performance events such as this one.

Although we can't find many details about the performance, we find it rather interesting that someone would create such a grown up production based around a popular cartoon show.

If any of our readers attended this event, we'd love to know more about it!

Liza Balkan Directs Little Shop

For fans in BC, Liza Balkan (Sailor Mercury #2) is directing Little Shop of Horrors, which will be on stage at the performance hall of the Canadian College of Performing Arts from Friday, December 11 through Sunday, December 13 with 2 pm and 7:30 pm performances. The address of the theatre is 1701 Elgin Rd, Oak Bay (in Victoria, British Columbia).

Liza arrived in Victoria mere days before rehearsals began, after working at the Stratford Festival this fall.

Liza told Oak Bay News that there is more to Little Shop than one might think. “People think Little Shop is a small show, but there’s so much happening that it’s quite large. It’s a funny, dark Faustian tale.”

And to The Victoria Times Colonist, she said that she is "going for the sweetness and the truth of these characters. There's so much heart and simple sweetness in the play."

Last year, Liza directed the college's production of 7 Stories. She has co-directed productions at the Stratford Festival such as The Trojan Women and All's Well That Ends Well.

Tickets are $20 or $15 for students and seniors, available at the McPherson box office or by calling 250-386-6121.

More Event Information From Press and Other Blogs

This is probably going to be one of the final updates from the newsmedia (unless other articles show up). CinemaToday had the same quotes from Kotono Mitsuishi in their article and didn't have anything new to say (except for a comment that HIMEKA felt like she was ready to die since she felt like she was in heaven seeing all the seiyuu!). But, that story did have a nice photo! In the next few days we're just going to have a post with all the photos from the event we have been able to find. That way, you fans can see them all in one place! TV Life didn't have anything new either, except for a quote which I think I forgot to translate in my previous article - Kotono joked that even when they are all fat and old, they would still be happy to have been known for a work that both adults and children can continue to enjoy forever and ever! AV Watch didn't have anything new either. I am going to save 2Chan for a whole other post, later. Now, onto another interesting blog entry I came across! This blogger also went to the event, and she featured a photo (which we have uploaded here for you today) of two flyers the staff handed out after the event was over, advertising the mobile site and the DVD collection release (featured above). This blogger waited outside the hall after the event, and all of the seiyuu and Naoko walked in front of her! She was so in awe that she didn't know what to say , and asked Kotono some dumb questions like "will this be broadcast on ANIMAX?" She said that she expected that it would be! We haven't seen or heard anything about any plans to air this on TV, but as soon as we find any footage, we promise we will post a copy! The blogger was so in awe of Naoko's presence, that all she wrote was that she looked beautiful in purple and that the Great Master had passed.

We've been noticing a few blogs have been slightly altering the pictures that we have posted and putting their own watermarks on them - it is a blog's choice to do so, however please remember that these photos came from news articles which we linked to and referenced in our posts. It isn't fair to claim them as your own! Also, it's okay to reference us when posting about this event, but please also give the Japanese sites and blogs credits - they are where this all originally came from!