A very old very unreliable rumour of a new Sailor Moon show is making the rounds on the Internet. After reading about it on my favourite Sailor Moon message board I tracked the source down to a Live Journal post which referenced many sources, all unreliable, some of which date back to May 1st 2011. The show would be an hour long and play on TBS starting October 23rd 2011.

I have no expectation that there is any validity to these rumours. I only post this here as the rumour itself may be of general interest if the news gets around the Internet. Since May there has been nothing resembling official confirmation from any of the involved parties. Almost every one of these actors is a Japanese pop singer, leading me to believe this is just a random wish list made up by some Japanese Pop music fan.

Here’s the full proposed cast of this new show:

Minegishi Minami from AKB48 as Sailor Moon	Serina from SDB48 as Sailor Mercury
Kotera Mari from Tsubomi as Sailor Mars	Akimoto Sayaka from AKB48 as Sailor Jupiter
Michisige Ayumi from Morning Musume as Sailor Venus	Massuda Takahisa as Tuxedo Mask

This is just half the cast. Keep reading for the rest of the people you’ve never hear of who are supposed to be in this show which will never exist!
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After an incredibly long hiatus the Sailor Moon manga will once again be available to English fans in North America. Kodansha Comic USA has announced the upcoming return of not only the Sailor Moon manga but also the book that started it all, the Sailor V manga.

The manga was originally published in English by Mixx, known now as Tokyopop, but has been out of print for years. The new release will be similar in format to the Japanese rerelease which had the books condensed from 18 books into 12, separating out 2 books of side stories. Sailor V will similarly be released in 2 volumes rather than the original 3. The books will feature the new cover art and occasionally modified art within it’s pages.

Sailor V is the precursor to Sailor Moon, published earlier, yet never previously available to English readers.

Keep reading for the full press release.

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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.
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Since the alphabet is the building block of our language, the Powet Alphabet is the building block of what makes us geeks.

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.

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Last weekend, many poweteers attended the ever exciting Anime Boston convention. (and subsequently became engrossed in the massive line waits for registration and pre-registration alike, but that’s neither here nor there) After the convention having come and gone, to keep my little brain from going into withdrawal after being thrown back into the mediocrity that is normal everyday life, I began thinking of just exactly what life lessons anime and manga have passed on to geeks like myself. (and are sometimes taken way too much to heart by more “enthused” geeks of the genre, in which case they should be put out of our misery)

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

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Although it’s all but unknown over here, Hirohiko Araki’s manga Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure has enjoyed a sizable following in its native Japan. A bizarre mash up of vampires, martial artists, fortune tellers, superheroes, and gangsters, Jojo is a story about the trials and tribulations of the Joestar family. A major focus of the series are the stands, psychic entities which grant their users powers. Much of the series has been inspired by music, as it features several characters who have been named after songs, rappers, and rock bands. The series has been divided into 6 arcs, each taking place in a different time period and centered around a different main character. Capcom produced a series of games based on the third story arc, in which Jotaro Joestar, his grandfather, and their allies travel to Egypt to defeat a vampire in order to save Jotaro’s mother from her own stand (don’t ask). Although they are fighting games, they are as far removed from Street Fighter as they get. The first game, Jojo’s Venture, was released in the arcades in 1998 and was bought to the PS1 and Dreamcast with exclusive features. In typical Capcom fashion, Jojo’s Venture received a championship edition-style update complete with new characters and features known as Heritage for the Future. A third game was released in Japan for the PS2, but never made it over here.
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It would appear that there’s more to reveal at the San Diego Comic-Con than just neat toys and teasers for comics. TokyoPop, which is the #1 publisher of manga and graphic novels in the US and the and the largest supplier in the world, has seen fit to team up with in a marketing partnership with the largest touring video game music concert, Video Games Live.

“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.

A very sexy review of the Cutie Honey movie and DVD.

Purchase either just the movie or the super lunch box set
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