One of my favorite toy lines as a kid was M.U.S.C.L.E., which stood for Millions of Unusual Small Creatures Lurking Everywhere! Unfortunately, there was little to no story given to these bizarre two inch figures. One must look to its Japanese origins from the series Kinnikuman (literally ‘muscle man’) to really understand what M.U.S.C.L.E. was all about. That is why today is K for Kinnikuman.

Kinnikuman started as a manga in 1979 and would continue until 1987. It would eventually become a popular anime series around 1983. Along with the anime was a massive merchandising launch that included eraser toys in the shape of many of the characters from the series. These erasers were called Kinnikuman Keshigomu. Children shortened the name to Kin-Keshi. If you are looking for information on M.U.S.C.L.E. or Kinnikuman figures, you will have much better results using this shortened term. The Kin-Keshi would be licensed by Mattel and released domestically as M.U.S.C.L.E. with little to no background except for a small comic strip on the back of the 28-pack of figures.

Kinnikuman was an oafish superhero that was not very super. He was less of a second-stringer and more of a fifth-stringer. The series started out very comical as a parody of Ultraman, though as far as American audiences might be concerned, it was more of a Popeye meets Dragonball Z meets the Tick. Kinnikuman would power up by eating garlic. The more garlic he consumed, the stronger he became as noted by the garlic meter on his forehead. Not only did he become stronger, but he also wreaked worse of garlic. Many bystanders would run away as he came near because he smelled so terrible. When he ate a certain amount of garlic, he would turn into a giant musclebound wrestler about 40 meters tall. He was also able to fly, propelled by his terrible gas.

A great many of the characters introduced in the series were actually fan created characters that were submitted to the creators of the manga. The children would receive credit for their creations in the chapter they were used. It certainly bred a wide varienty of friends and foes for Kinnikuman to interact.

Kinnikuman quickly learns that he is in fact the prince of a distant planet called Kinniku. He is joined by the emissary sent to retrieve him, Meat. Meat eventually sticks around and becomes Kinnikuman’s sidekick, even if he is the only one with any brains. The two would soon meet the American hero, Terryman, who would join them on several adventures and at times also played a rival to our main character.

As the manga progressed, we were introduced to more Choujin (supermen) and Kaijuu (monsters). Eventually a tournament was held to determine the world’s greatest Choujin. The Choujin Olympics introduced characters such as Robin Mask from England, Ramenman from China, Brockenman from Germany, Skyman from Mexico, and Curry Cook from India. Kinnikuman was entered into the competition as the representative of Japan.

The series is not without its faults (aside from its incredible campiness). Since this was among the manga that came out prior to its popular exportation to other countries, the stories can be pretty insensitive to other cultures. One example of this is Brockenman, the German Choujin in the Choujin Olympics. He is dressed as a Nazi SS soldier complete with the SS symbol on his collar and a swastika on his arm. His special move was releasing a poison gas on his enemy while they were down for the count. Another moment I would think questionable was the use of a phrase by the goofy Kaijuu, Skullduggery. When giving one of his cohorts the codeword to begin their scheme of the day, he used the codeword that kicked off the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Niitakayama Nobore (literally “Climb the New High Mountain”), which was the Japanese name for Yushan, or Jade Mountain in Japan-occupied Taiwan.

The manga, while being completely goofy, also had moments of terrible violence. In one instance, Terryman was stabbed in the forehead with a pair of scissors by a Kaijuu and bled profusely from the wound for the rest of the match. At another point, Ramenman literally ripped one of his opponents in half during an extreme submission move, killing him. The match was not televised in the manga like the others and was only covered by radio because the two competitors were known for their ultra-violent tactics in the ring.

If you are looking to read some of the original manga, you can find that here.

Kinnikuman would get a bit of a revival in the form of Kinnikuman Second Generation or Kinnikuman Nisei. This series was imported to the United States as Ultimate Muscle around 2003 and followed the adventures of Kinnikuman’s son. The manga was also brought over and translated by Viz. Meanwhile, the original manga has never seen a domestic release stateside and considering some of its problems, it would have to be heavily edited if it was. As an adult, I can appreciate this series for what it is, but if I were a parent, its not something I would want my child to be watching. It is probably for the best that Mattel chose not to import the fiction with the toys. Most of us made up our own fiction for the toys anyway.

As for me, I’m still trying to track down a set of the Kinkeshi I had loved so much as a child. In the meantime, I’ll be looking for these babies during convention season:

If you are looking for more information on M.U.S.C.L.E., I recommend checking out some of the following sites:
Nathan’s M.U.S.C.L.E. page
Little Rubber Guys
The University of M.U.S.C.L.E.

Sailor Moon is not a building block of what makes me a geek. It’s the whole building, and whatever else makes me a geek is maybe a broom closet in that building. I first caught Sailor Moon on TV at age 17 back in 1995 when it was dubbed and playing about a billion times a week up here in Canada. This began my love affair with anime. People would tell me that Sailor Moon was a great gateway anime, and that when they would watch other stuff they would realize that it was only the beginning. Well that never happened for me. I’ve watched a lot of anime in my life, but I’ve just never seen anything that measured up to Sailor Moon. To me it is, without question, the greatest story ever told. So bear with me as I talk about that one element of geek culture that I truly have an unparalleled passion for.

I’ll be giving a full franchise overview for those not intimately familiar with Sailor Moon, but I’ll also try to thrown in some rare content that some hardcore fans will hopefully not have seen before.

Sailor Moon is probably best known as an anime, but like most well known anime shows, it began as a manga. Going even further back, the first story was about a young blonde school girl with who is approached by a talking cat with a crescent moon on it’s head and is transformed into a magic using crime fighter in a sailor uniform. That girl… was Codename: Sailor V.

Codename: Sailor V, the original “Sailor” manga was written by Naoko Takeuchi in 1991 and published in the magazine Nakayoshi. It then continued to run in Run Run for many years, continuing sporadically while the Sailor Moon manga was being published and even shortly after it ended. It featured the character of Minako Aino, who later joins Sailor Moon as Sailor Venus. Sailor V is more of a solo character than her more popular counterpart, continuing to thwart evil until such a time when she would fulfill her destiny of protecting the Princess of the Moon. With 15 chapters the manga was originally released in 3 compilation volumes, but later with it’s rerelease it was only 2 books. Though never translated into English, the French versions are still available on amazon.ca.

The story, as it goes, is that Sailor V was not marketable as an anime series. Instead a show featuring a group of girls, more similar to a Sentai show, was preferred. From this idea, comes Sailor Moon. Here we still have a girl and her cat but this girl is joined by a ton of friends, and needless to say, this story had an appeal which was appreciated by a very wide audience. The manga ran for a successful run of 5 years, ultimately having more and more characters joining and fleshing out the universe as the show went on.

Despite this simple superhero concept, Sailor Moon has a very rich mythos behind it. It’s the story of the Princess of the Moon, her group of 4 guardians and her lover Endymion with whom she shared a tragic past. Reincarnated in the present day, Sailor Moon, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter and Venus join Tuxedo mask and their 2 cats Artemis and Luna in fighting off the Dark Kingdom.

Sailor Moon is ultimately joined by her time traveling daughter from the future. A bratty kid who seduces her father, befriends a girl with the power to destroy the world and has a love affair with a horse. More characters join the story representing all planets in our solar system and when we run out of those, even a few dwarf planets get represented, and then some shooting stars. What began as a story of a girl defending the Earth from local invaders ultimately develops into an epic story so broad in scope that the fate of the entire universe is at stake.

With 52 acts originally compiled into 18 volumes, later rereleased as 14, this is a story that shouldn’t be ignored, assuming of course you can actually find a copy of it. While Japanese copies of either the original or rereleased (and slightly modified) versions of the manga are relatively easy to find, the English Viz translations are very rare, and very expensive. There was a French release which is what I cut my teeth on, and though it was available for a longer time, it is also sadly discontinued.

Following the release of the manga quite closely was the hit anime series. While the story of the 5 seasons generally followed the 5 story arcs as detailed in the manga, there were some considerable differences. As with a lot of manga adaptations, the source material was much shorter, so there became a need to add what is now generally referred to as “filler”. But this was 1992, and things weren’t handled as poorly as they are now. Rather than burn through a story and then add a whole filler arc, what was common in Sailor Moon was to add episodes within the story with random monsters of the week which at times could be tedious, but in other times actually allowed for much more story and character development than was possible in the faster paced manga.

In the first season we get a lot more depth into a lot of the stories, learning far more backstory in characters such as the 4 Shitennou, and generally having more individual focus on our main group of 5 girls. By the end of the first season, the show had passed the manga’s timeline, so the season ender was not as it was in the manga, and what followed at the beginning of Sailor Moon R was an even greater deviation!

Following the epic battle against the Dark Kingdom Sailor Moon and her friends, having lost their memories, face anime original alien characters named Ail and An, a pun on “alien”. This short 13 episode arc is disliked by some fans for not being manga based, but I enjoyed it and liked the alien characters quite a bit.

Once this story wrapped up we were able to follow the manga again with the wonderful ChibiUsa, bane of fans everywhere. I never shared the hate that a lot of people do for her, and quite enjoyed the Sailor Moon R story line. I’ve always been a sucker for time travel. Again with R we get more of a chance to explore the villain characters than we do in the manga equivalent story, though at this point we don’t get as much development on the main 5 girls. Sailor Moon still gets plenty of attention but with ChibiUsa around, the others just manage to get their token episodes everyone once and a while.

With Sailor Moon S, ChibiUsa leave briefly, and we get a bunch of episodes again focusing on the main group. Then ChibiUsa drops in again, and with the introduction of more Sailors from other planets in the solar system, the core group of girls takes the back burner again. While this series has some great elements, mainly the story of Sailor Uranus and Neptune, this is surely where people really start to get a hate on for our pink haired friend. Sailor Saturn shows up, never gets a transformation sequence, and gets nearly no exposure for what seems to be a great character.

With Sailor Moon SuperS, ChibiUsa becomes even more prominent, and anyone not having a love affair with a horse is all but ignored. Sailor Moon of course still gets focused, but Sailors Uranus, Neptune, Pluto and Saturn are straight up not in the season at all. In the manga they are still around, but for whatever reason this is not kept in the anime, which generally is more the story of the first season’s core group, than the story of the whole group of 10 girls as it is in the manga. Even with the group of girls widdled down, Ami, Rei, Makoto and Minako still don’t get all that much attention in this season. If Sailor Moon S started people’s hostility towards ChibiUsa, Sailor Moon SuperS was surely the nail in the coffin. While I enjoyed a lot of individual stories in this season, and did like what few episodes did relate to the overreaching arc, I felt there was much too much “monster of the week” focus in here. It was more so than any other seasons. The hilariousness of the monsters of this season made up for this a bit, but not totally.

Finally in Sailor Moon SailorStars, the 5th and final season, ChibiUsa goes from over exposed, to disappearing without a trace. Though featured in the excellent first 6 episodes which serve as what I can only really think of as a way of telling a part of the story which should have been told in SuperS in the first place, ChibiUsa simply leaves the show with no fanfare. This is of course in a sharp contrast to the 3 other times they build up to her leaving which either never happened or didn’t last long enough to matter. I have a considerable beef with the Starlights in this season. I just can’t stand them, and they distract from the main characters much more than even ChibiUsa did. Still, the end of this season is an excellent and welcome finale to a great series.

Fans of the anime might appreciate this short featurette which shows the process behind animating Sailor Moon which was used back in the day when they still used actual paint to colour stuff. This is part of the bonus features for the season 1 volume 4 laser disc of the anime:

In additional to this 5 season long anime there were 3 excellent movies, each weighing in at a whopping 60 minutes. Sailor Moon R, my personal favourite, follows the story of a character of the same race as the aliens from the Sailor Moon R season. Though it has no basis in the manga, the second film, Sailor Moon S, is actually based on a lengthy manga story about Princess Kaguya. It is a favourite of many Sailor Moon fans because of this connection. The final film, Sailor Moon SuperS, is again not based on a manga story, and is a mix between the story of the pied piper and the Matrix, with a heavy candy and cookie sub plot, if such a thing were possible…

Sailor Moon’s popularity was very wide spread, achieving great success not only in Japan and to some extent in North America, but in countries all over the world. In fact, I’d say in the US, it seems to have been less popular than it was globally. Even Canada was much more exposed to it with Global and YTV playing the show multiple times a day during the first year it was on the air.

One of the Sailor Moon memorial discs included a bonus feature which was a comparison of 3 clips of Sailor Moon from other countries. Here they show it in English, Chinese and Spanish. While to an English person it may not seem intuitive that the English be presented as the foreign option, keep in mind this was a bonus feature on a Japanese laser disc not intended for round eyes:

The French dub was one I was also lucky enough to get to see growing up near Quebec. Check out the intro and a short clip of what that show sounded like:

The English dub was always dear to me, being the thing which first got me into the show. From a different time than more modern dubs, this one is full of changes to dialog and heavy editing for violence and other content. They even throw in some awesome scene transitions like in Transformers Generation 2. After the first 65 episode run, which was all there was for years, I had started to catch most episodes in Japanese, and generally don’t have much of a tolerance for anything beyond those in English. That being said, I do enjoy watching Stephanie “Sugar” Beard as ChibiUsa.

Sailor Moon had a large number of video games. Most of what I have played is on the Super Famicom (Super Nintendo), but there is stuff out on pretty much every system that was popular while the show was around. By far the most popular game amongst fans is “Sailor Moon: Another Story”. It’s a Super Famicom RPG with great graphics and gameplay. My main complaint would be the inconsistent difficulty level. You’ll get to a new zone and not be able to get by, and then after a bit of leveling everything dies one hit, but then you get to a boss and again can’t beat them. There were also a number of Final Fight/TMNT style side scrolling beat ‘em ups for the Super Famicom. A few puzzle games were also on the system as well as a Street Fighter clone 1 on 1 fighter. I understand the game mechanics of this fighter are such that it makes for interesting tournament play amongst expert gamers because characters recover from blocks so quickly. I’m nowhere near that level though. The Gameboy games I’ve played aren’t too great, and neither was the Gamegear game I tried. Finally, not necessarily a Sailor Moon game, but still of interest, is a game called “Panic in Nakayoshi World” which stars all manor of characters from Manga in the Nakayoshi magazine, including Sailor Moon.

Check out this compilation of footage from various games. There are more that I either don’t own or couldn’t find in my mess of a house, but this should give you a taste of what’s available:

Sailor Moon merchandise is something that’s always been very profitable. There’s a reason for which I don’t have more money than I do. Being a children’s show, the various toys were a huge deal. The live show which I’ll discuss later even had a plushie for Luna! All of the items in both the anime and live action show pretty much look like they were made to be toys. Convenient, no doubt, when the show can be riddled with nothing but commercials for Sailor Moon products. Check out this compilation of commercials that I pieced together from some Sailor Moon episodes which were taped off of TV back when Sailor Moon S was on the air in the fall of 1994:

Aside from toys there were also great things like art books. The anime had a number of art books with art from all seasons as well as the movies. The more coveted items are the manga art books featuring all colour art from the various issues of the manga. There were a total of 5 main art books as well as a rare materials collection. On top of these is the elusive Infinity art book. This book features art drawn by various people affiliated with the show from animators to actors to other manga artists who were friends of the author and artist Naoko Takeuchi. The thing which makes it so rare is that for an item that’s this appealing to fans, it was only given out as a very limited release to attendees of a specific convention. I foolishly paid 500$ for one but I have seen them sell for as much as 1000$ recently.

Here in North America there was some more geeky merchandise in the form of a role playing game system and a collectible card game. I don’t believe the pencil and paper RPG system was terribly popular but the cards are pretty hard to get a hold of so there’s some kind of market for them.

After Sailor Moon came to an end in 1997 it slowly faded from the public interest as people who weren’t obsessed with it go, but then out of nowhere in 2003 came a great surprise, a live action Sailor Moon series! It was fitting that a manga and anime that was meant to emulate Sentai programs end up become a girl’s version of what is essentially a Sentai show. Though it never got any kind of North American release it was quite popular with fans. I was particularly happy to see my all time favourite animated female Sailor Mars be portrayed by Keiko Kitagawa who’s completely hot. The series began by following the manga very closely, but before long it became obvious it had become it’s own thing. While fan reaction varied I liked the show quite a bit and would recommend it to Sailor Moon fans who may not have given it a chance.

Now at this point I wish I could just point everyone to some easy to find collection where they could revisit all their favourite Sailor Moon stuff, but it’s just not that easy. For unknown reasons, international (meaning outside of Japan) rights for Sailor Moon are pretty much non existent. All previous deals for distribution were not renewed a few years ago, and so companies are simply not allowed to produce any Sailor Moon DVDs or books in English any more. This of course means a ridiculously inflated price for all old good still out there, making even the second hand market unfeasible for anyone not willing to spend a mint to get this stuff. This said, there are English only DVDs for the first 2 seasons, English subtitled DVDs for the first 2 seasons by ADV (missing an episode, and with horrible audio/video quality) and there are also bilingual DVDs for S and SuperS. These exist, but you’ll probably not be able to find anything but pirated versions out there. Sailor Moon SailorStars was never dubbed, but you can probably find some pretty great fansubs out there.

All this being said, Japanese merchandise is very much available. The manga and DVDs were all rereleased around the time of the live action show’s airing. If you’re really ghetto, you can probably get some cheap laser discs! The quality of these is about on par with the domestic DVD releases. The first seasons has a ton of extras on them that aren’t available even on the Japanese DVDs, so I recommend those big time. There are region 2 Japanese DVDs out there that are quite expensive, but of amazing quality. There are no subs on any of these releases, so someone not familiar with the show probably shouldn’t bother. A new rerelease of these DVDs is coming out soon, packaged in season sets for a bit cheaper than the other DVDs are. The discs appear to be the exact same ones with the same sparse features as the other DVDs, but the quality is excellent so that gets my recommendation. The movies were released in a discontinued box set, but those are available individually in Japanese DVDs as well. The live action series is also available in it’s entirety in Japanese only DVDs. So much to say, lots of room to waste your money here…

So what is the current state of Sailor Moon? Well to be honest not much seems to be going on. Still some releases in Japan but around the world aside from the occasional “Do you remember back when” kind of pop culture reference, people don’t really talk about this show which at a time was probably the most popular anime franchise on Earth. But don’t let that stop you! Keep on truckin’ moonies. Don’t ever forget about this excellent franchise.

For those of you who may be unfamiliar with online community known as Scans_Daily, it was a Livejournal-based grouping of comic fans who would post snippets of a wide-variety of comics, manga, and graphic novel scans and would generate vast amounts of comments and discussions. The largest rule was that no more than half an issue of a comic could be posted for the sake of legality, and this would usually prompt enough interest for people to go find additional scans of their own volition or to simply go buy a full issue of the comic itself. In time, the community grew, and what originated as a slash-focused scan-sharing niche became a bustling society of geeks sharing common interest amongst comics and the like. Even the likes of Neil Gaiman, Warren Ellis and Gail Simone kept tabs on the place.

Notice I said “Was“.

Like all good things that straddle too close to the line of copyright infringement, Scans_Daily was not to last. Like all online fan-hubs, drama started. A regular poster of the community made the mistake of mock-threatening comic writer Peter David due to their dislike of the way his take on recent X-Force storylines were leading. Apparently, Peter David (or PAD as he’s sometimes called) caught wind of this and read the post for himself, taking what seemed to be over-serious offense to the under-serious remarks. Heated words were exchanged between parties involved. As fate would have it, the community was shut down a few days later due to TOS violations due to “someone” reporting the site for posting copyrighted material without permission. Fingers were pointed and excuses were made, but everyone pretty much assumed PAD was the culprit. PAD later came out saying he reported the place because he felt it was threatening his interests as a comic writer by posting free scans. (though he covers himself by stating that supposedly the plug was pulled before anyone could act on his complaints)

So, was Scans_Daily the voice of free-distribution and a paladin of comic book lovers web-wide, or the demon bane of copyrighted material and comic artists/writers everywhere?

For me personally, Scans_Daily got me interested in titles I’d never known about and had only passing desires to read, like ClanDestine and Birds of Prey. And then there’s the Army of Darkness comics I never would have seen short of torrenting if not to Scans_Daily. As an artist, I can see the point in wanting to protect your interests from being freely distributed without incident, but in my opinion this wasn’t the case. If anything, I believe Scans_Daily encouraged more comic sales than it hindered. (I personally need to find those Thundercat comics back not too long ago) If people wanted free comics, there are tons of sites on the web to get them at. Why go after an online community that actually frowned upon posting whole comics, and encouraged discussion and common interests amongst patrons? Was the copyright issue the real reason this got shut down, or because one individual’s pride got hurt?

Regardless, the crew from Scans_Daily still wish to bring comic goodness to the masses, though perhaps with stricter rules regarding posting so more finger-pointing and whining doesn’t happen anytime soon. InsaneJournal now hosts Scans_Daily 2.0, though this is likely a temporary home as there is a member cap. There is also NoScans_Daily on Livejournal, and both places seem to be splitting the difference in terms of the amount of stuff originally posted by the original Scans_Daily. Staff of the old S_D resolves that they will be working with LJ administrators in order to get the original place back up and running, though who knows when or if that will happen, and with what new safeguards put into place.

So of course, I had to write a compilation of such thoughts, and share with the world. Slight spoilers for some series.

“If it Looks Like a Girl and acts like a Girl – It’s a Guy”
Examples: Sailor Moon, Fushigi Yuugi, Angel Sanctuary

- This is one of the most well-known misconceptions to date in several classic anime and manga series. People can go entire series without realizing that one of their favorite girl characters is in fact a guy who knows his stuff in the cross-dressing field. (especially if it’s an American dub that will change the gender altogether) What Japan’s fetish for making extremely pretty guys dressing in drag is, anyone can speculate. Believe me; nobody will blame you if you happen to go a little gay for a pretty face.

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“The Bigger They Are, The Bigger the Sword You’ll Need”
Examples: Berzerk, Naruto

- Apparently the concept of “Large Swords = More Intimidating You Are” applies to many action and battle-oriented anime. While the idea of characters needing to compensate for something does come to mind, it is true that when seeing a buff and burly guy wielding a sword twice his height and girth, it’s kind of hard not to shat yourself. Just be sure that you’re the one with the larger weapon to better ensure that happens to your enemy and not you.

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“If a Girl Seems Innocent, She Probably has a Split Personality That Can Kill You”
Examples: Elfin Lied, Rosario + Vampire

- So you meet a girl, probably through more or less mysterious means. She’s such an absolute cutie and is so nice to you that you figured that she can’t possibly do any wrong. However, one swift bump to the head or the removal of a seal can turn your sweet angel into a super-powered psychopath who can and probably will hand you your ass at the slightest provocation. Best thing to do is to be nice to any strange extremely happy and sweet girl you may happen across in your travels. Especially if they have pink hair. That should be a red flag.

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“Time Travel and/or Dimension Hopping is a Great Way to Make Friends”
Examples: InuYasha, Noein, Escaflowne

- Life got you down because you have no friends, or you have friends but they’re just not interesting enough for you? Well, all you need to do to remedy that is find the nearest time-space flux or enchanted ancient monument, and chances are you’ll find a portal to a strange and wonderful new place or time that you’re just bound to meet new people at and become very best pals with. Just keep in mind of what you may be leaving behind should you get permanently stuck in your new habitat, or that some other people may not appreciate you being there altogether.

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“If Surrounded by Several Horny Women, Never Take Advantage of Them.”
Examples: Tenchi Muyo, Rosario + Vampire, Saber Marionette

- God only knows why harems of sexy, sultry women always seem to fall for the clueless chump who’s too nice to take advantage of the “friendship’ he has with them. It can only be speculated that this is a hidden rule of the anime universe, and to do otherwise would cause reality to crumble on itself. So if you happen to be that poor hapless sap who’s in such a situation, it may be better to simply continue running away or playing dumb for fear of universal consequences. Don’t worry, the girls will continue to follow you no matter where you go and happily throw themselves at you.

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“When the World is Broken, Just Press the Reset Button.”
Examples: Wolf’s Rain, Rahxephon

- War. Famine. Disease. Ignorance of Man. Alien Invasion. Don’t worry; if the world happens to be on the brink of total annihilation and destruction of the entire planet and your race is imminent, you can rest assured that a hero or a secret mystical power of some sort will make it all better and back to the way things were beforehand. That way, you can make all new mistakes the next time around!

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“Prime Age to Draft Mecha Pilots is 12-16″
Examples: Gundam, Robotech, Zoids

- Apparently adolescence is the devised perfect timing for mecha academies and factions to start recruiting skilled and potentially powerful mecha pilots. Forget child labor laws and regulations: the pool of resources for powerful robot pilots cannot consider such things if it hopes to gain the future aces of the mech world. It would appear that in the mecha world, if you’re past the age of 21 and are still piloting, you’re either destined to die by the end of the series or will be pushed to the side in a grand display of upshowing by a pre-teen protegé. (Who also may end up dying by the end of the series! Irony!)

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“Life Threatening Injuries can be Solved with a Band-aid”
Examples: Cowboy Bebop, Dragon Ball Z, Ninja Scroll

- “Multiple bone fractures, internal bleeding, concussions, muscle tearing, first to third degree burns, deep lacerations, and any kind of puncture wounds? Those aren’t serious, really. No, you don’t need to go to the hospital, or even fancy the thought that you may bleed out or receive brain damage. You simply have to either use a thin bandage or even just apply minimal pressure with a free hand, and you’ll be able to last until at least just before the credits role. Chances are, you’ll even make it past that and can just brush yourself off after winning your battle and walk away into the sunset, just like in real life.

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“Gravity Does not Apply if you Have Giant Breasts”
Examples: Bleach, Slayers, Cutie Honey

- Needs no Explanation, other than it always applies to everything but.

This was the sixth and last game made with Capcom’s CPS3 board (seen in other games such as Red Earth and Street Fighter 3). Instead of the usual Capcom 6 button scheme, the game uses a simplified 4 button scheme. Three buttons are used for light, medium, and strong attacks, and the fourth button is used to activate the character’s stand power. The stands are kinda like a cross between Final Fantasy guardian forces and the dark force mode from Darkstalkers 3. It changes up a character’s movelist, increases their strength and defense, and adds new powers. However, not all characters work this way. Some characters, such as Holhorse and Chaka, wield their stands as weapons. Really, this makes it that the gameplay is dependent on each character. This tends to make gameplay unbalanced, but it is different from what Capcom veterans are used to. Characters you can choose from include, but aren’t limited to, a belly dancer, a cowboy with a gun stuck in his hand, an Indiana Jones-type character who wields an electric octopus, a dog, a killer bird, and a guy with strange hair who transforms his opponents into kids (by the way, if this attack is used on the Indiana Jones looking fellow, he’ll transform into a teenage version of himself). I only wish I could make up stuff like this even if I tried.

The Playstation version includes 6 characters exclusive to the arcade version. It also includes a Super Story Mode, which includes minigames that re-enact key battles from series three. The Dreamcast version doesn’t include this mode, but it does include the extra characters from the PS version, as well as both Jojo’s Venture and Heritage for the future. There are also a number of unlockable characters and gameplay modes. Although more serious fighting connoisseurs will be put off by this game’s lack of balance, fans of the manga will no doubt enjoy this game. People who are unfamiliar with the series will find themselves scratching their heads, but they will do so while they enjoy the game’s off the wall action. The industry needs more anime and manga inspired games this unique. I wonder what Mr. Araki was using when he came up with this stuff, and more importantly, where I can obtain some of it.

“We are extremely excited to form this exclusive marketing alliance with Video Games Live,” quotes Marco Pavia, Director of Marketing at TOKYOPOP. ”There is strong crossover between manga fans and gamers. Some of our hottest manga is video-game based, including Warcraft, Kingdom Hearts, Devil May Cry 3, .hack, and Archlord. Forming this partnership with the sizzling Video Games Live concert series was a perfect fit.”

For those who don’t know, Video Games Live™ features the best music and exclusive synchronized video clips from the most popular games from the beginning of video gaming to the present, and tours the country in concert-style featuring music from popular games such as Mario, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Final Fantasy.

This partnership makes TokyoPop the exclusive sponsor for Video Games Live, and will be sponsoring shows for the world-renowned tour for the rest of 2007, including special promotions and giveaways for each stop in the tour. Exclusive live video of the concerts will also be featured on the TP.com website.

This, of course, helps bridge the gap between video games and anime/manga a little closer. With big-name games being released as manga and anime, such as the new Devil May Cry anime (and the manga which has been out for a while), this could help signal the beginning of a large-scale boom in game-based manga and anime being created in the near future. Shall we be seeing things such as Metal Gear Solid and Castlevania manga and anime on the horizon? We can only hope.

Who knows what kind of game play such a title could have in store or how it will use the Wii’s functionality but rest assured Powet.tv will be the place to get news on this title as it becomes available.

And no the game shown on my screen is not the Sailor Moon Wii game but the Sailor Moon S fighting game for the Super Famicom.

Thanks to sailormoon555 from Genvid for the heads up.

Sailor Moon was based on a Manga series by the same name which began appearing in Nakayoshi in December 1991, 4 months before the premiere of the show, and ran for 52 acts over a span of 5 years.

At its prime Sailor Moon saw great success worldwide as it was broadcast and published in nearly every country in the world. In the mid 90s you’d be hard pressed to go very far without seing some sort of Sailor Moon merchandise. It was likely the most internationally widespread franchise of it’s time. Sailor Moon herself is one of the most popular fictional characters ever, up there with such greats as Santa Claus, Superman and Jesus.

Here in North America the show began airing on September 11th 1995 and despite a number of complications and interuptions finally had 4 of its 5 seasons released both televised and in a variety of home video formats. It was one of the first prominent anime series to find an audience in the west, especially in Canada.

More recently a live action version of the show was released starting on October 4th 2003 and running for 50 episodes which ended on September 24th 2004. This series was complemented by one live show and 2 direct to video specials which followed the series. While the live action series had only a moderate level of success in Japan it had little international appeal aside from fans of the original series.

Now 15 years later the show is older than our heroine was when we first met her and the phenomenon has pretty much completely passed. While like with anything there are still some hard core fans who continue to watch and discuss the series the world for the most part has moved on.

So let’s party like it’s 1992! Try to sit down today and watch an episode to try to keep the memory alive. I’d suggest watching the first episode to celebrate the occasion. A show like this is too good to be forgotten and the best way to remember just how great it was is to watch it and have it all come back.