We also spotted some more items available in Hot Topic’s e-store, including a Sailor Moon lanyard (by Great Eastern) and a blue rubber bracelet (also by Great Eastern) pictured below.

And now for some merchandising news that our readers may find a little more exciting. Moon Chase editor Sailordees found new Sailor Moon belts while shopping in store! These sealtbelt style belts are made by Buckle-Down and are on sale at Hot Topic for $26 each. We were emailed by a representative at Buckle-Down back in September to inquire about whom to contact for licensing Sailor Moon merchandise in North America. We pointed him in the right direction and now we can see the results! Congratulations on making it happen. I know I can’t wait to get one of these for myself!

You can buy the belt from Hot Topic’s website here.

FYI: Fans can also use hot cash coupons at Hot Topic until tomorrow to save $15 off purchases of $30.

A quick note from Sailordees: Also, Hot Topic has this button and this sticker.  The stickers are hard to find in the stack they have so an easy way is to look for a pale yellow back. Now when I got these for various holiday gifts for friends they were being sold singly for $3.50 each.  My Hot Topic was selling them in sealed 3-packs for $3.  Keep an eye out for these, Moonies! I now have everything Hot Topic has sold and whenever I have more time I will post more one sentence reviews.

Edit: Added better photos of the belt. – Emily

Edit2: added link to the belt for sale on Hot Topic’s website – Emily

The group’s premiere performance will take place in April 2012 in Hamburg. The premiere will take place on Saturday, April 7th at Theater an der Marschnerstraße, located at Marschnerstraße 46 – 22081 Hamburg beginning at 6 p.m. The premiere will include special guest star Yuuki Nanami of j-poprock.com singing in the show.

German fans can find more information about La Soldier’s appearances and performances on their website. We will also be keeping in touch with La Soldier and bring you more news about them in the coming months.

Sorry Moonies there weren’t any updates over the holidays. Not much has been going on and we’ve been busy preparing things we need to get going throughout this month.  More soon! Happy New Year – and 2012 WILL be a good year for Sailor Moon!

And we couldn’t let this actor update go unnoticed at all – Keiko Han (Luna in both the anime and PGSM, Queen Beryl in the anime) and her daughter Megumi are keeping it in the family! Both are currently appearing in Madhouse’s retelling of Yoshihiro Togashi’s (Naoko Takeuchi’s husband) Hunter X Hunter! Megumi is in the leading role as Gon Freecss, and Keiko Han plays Mito Freecss, Gon’s adopted mother. Megumi was challenged on the first day of recording; while she was working alongside her mother, she still felt some of the pressure from her! She also said that her mother was surprised that she chose to follow in her footsteps, and initially didn’t consider voice acting a career until after she had started university. Oricon conducted an interview with the two of them which can be read here!

Junichi Sato (Director for Sailor Moon and Sailor Moon R seasons) will be making his first American convention appearance! He will appear at Ushicon 2012 in Austinn, Texas, from February 3-5th. For more information, check out the con’s official webpage here!

Hot Topic just recently introduced a new purple Sailor Moon T-shirt featuring Sailor Moon, Chibi-Usa, and Luna-P (or Rini and Luna Ball for you dubbies). Sailordees’ one sentence review: like the design, appeals to the younger fan in me, wish yet again this wasn’t so see through. The Sailor Moon Raglan is also back in stock. Oh, and Hot Topic now has a Sailor Moon Hoodie! Keep your eyes on the site though, the product has just launched and will probably be in stock very soon (fans do not worry, you didn’t miss this). This is a site we have on our daily radar that we check every morning and evening, and the hoodie was not listed this week.

While Hot Topic was the exclusive launch licensee for the T-shirts, FYE is now testing the sales of the T-shirts in their stores now. We contacted a representative of Hybrid Apparel yesterday, and learned that the two will always have different designs for t-shirts. But, if this test is successful then there could be potential to have Sailor Moon shirts at other retailers in the spring. Fans can check out images of the shirts posted at Sailor Moon Fans on Livejournal.

We are not sure that FYE was a wise decision. FYE has only 440 stores nationwide, of which the vast majority of them are concentrated in Eastern states. Hot Topic has 634 stores that are balanced a little more evenly throughout the US. FYE also doesn’t sell their shirts online, and we all know what the demand for these shirts are. It is hard to know if FYE’s success will match that of Hot Topic’s.

For those of you who read Anime News Network and didn’t read the posting on our Facebook page yesterday, here’s our correction reposted here.

“For those of you who have read this week’s ANN Answerman, there’s a major inaccuracy posted. “Dumbing it down even further, it’s a tangled, messy legal nightmare.” The “legal nightmare” is OVER – why else are we seeing anime-related merchandise?! There are only a few hands responsible for working the agreements for each territory, and they have come into fruition one at a time. It took a long time for these hands to reach North America. It will happen soon, major strides began in September. Once again, we invite ANN to stop talking about the rights to Sailor Moon in such a negative light, because you’re not doing the series any good with your words.”

And while we are still talking Sailor Moon politics: Italy isn’t getting the Artbooks. We don’t know any more details about this, but we do have a lot of questions. Did GP publishing ever have the rights, and did they say that they would publish them ahead of any contracts being signed? Were they pulled suddenly by Naoko Takeuchi/PNP? Did they disappear for the same reason that there will be no new toys there this holiday season? On the North America side, we can tell you that the companies are aware of fans’ demand for the artbooks. Until we hear a definite no, we will keep trying. And as far as the Mexico DVDs go? We haven’t been able to keep up with this – but please do your part to support Sailor Moon. Mexican Moonies, let us know if sales are still dwindling (Hey Cycyn, could you be so kind to send us an email to tell us what is going on? We miss you xoxo).

On the bright side, Sailor Moon’s trip to North America should have the absolute and complete go ahead to purchase her plane ticket very close to Christmas.  There should be news in 2012!

Edit: Here are some better pictures of the T-shirt designs being sold at FYE. Photos provided by Hybrid Apparel.

Image Credit: Hot Topic

In Hong Kong, MTR began selling the last of their Classic Anime Series Souvenir Ticket sets on Sunday. The last set features Sailor Moon characters with the new branding! For $105 HKD ($13 USD), riders can get the entire set of all 3 souvenir passes, a specially designed ticket holder, as well as a keychain. Each pass is valid for a single ride on or before November 30th, and the pass will be returned to the owner as a souvenir.

In Japan, Naoko Takeuchi has drawn a new Chibi version of Tuxedo Kamen to be animated in 3D for an RPG! He will be making an appearance in Level 5′s “Girls RPG Cinderelife”, an RPG where a player will be able to experience aspects of a typical girl’s life from work, to fashion, to shopping, and even a little dating. The really interesting thing to note on this screengrab we have featured for you is that Naoko Takeuchi PNP is the only copyright listed – so this is being done independently of Toei Animation or Kodansha (which is probably why this is a new drawing). Reprising his role as the voice of Tuxedo Mask is none other than the original voice himself, Toru Furuya! Fans can check out a trailer here and the official site here. The game will be released in Japan for the Nintendo 3DS sometime next year.

And who watched Saturday Night Live? Did anyone notice Anna Faris dressed up as Sailor Moon Cherry Cherry Rock and Roll? The skit this cosplay appeared in was “J Pop America Fun Time Now”, and Anna appeared at the end as Jennifer, a fan who had the largest anime video collection at Michigan State University. While this wasn’t the greatest skit, it reminded us of every otaku we have met that has pretended to know everything about Japan. Fans can watch this episode online at Hulu in the USA or later this week at Global TV’s site in Canada.

We have more merchandise news for you. Great Eastern has added more Sailor Moon products to their website.

Currently available products include playing cards, keychains, wallscrolls, pin sets, a cell phone charm, a memo pad, a notebook, and a binder.

And products soon to be available for purchase include more keychains, a handbag, a tote bag, a sticker, buttons, more pin sets, wallets, wristbands, earrings, drawstring bags, jewellery, an iPhone 4 case, another cell phone charm, a magnet set, a hardcover notebook, and postcards. See below for a sampling, or visit Great Eastern’s site to see the full offering.

Keep your eyes peeled on iTunes tonight for a new app from Kodansha USA! While Toei Animation has embraced mobile technologies for Sailor Moon in Japan, the manga still remains out of print in Japan (and is unavailable digitally from Kodansha). We can’t say for sure whether Sailor Moon will be included in the future, but we encourage the fans to check out the other great titles from Kodansha USA in the meantime!

Oh, and I have some big news for you all from Emily (who contacted our contact at Hybrid Apparel last weekend)! The mens tshirt was finally shipped from Hybrid Apparel to Hot Topic and should be in stores in a week or so! The mens sizes at Hot Topic are a lot more forgiving than the womens, so hopefully everyone can fit into this one!



And Finally…

As if that announcement wasn’t enough, we have a new interview on the way! John Stocker has been a director of cartoons from all over the spectrum, but he will be best known to fans as the director of the 3 Sailor Moon movies, as well as the S and SuperS seasons. We are delighted to have this opportunity! Fans are limited to two questions each, but please don’t ask any questions that everyone is probably going to ask (what was your favorite episode and/or character, will you return for Sailor Stars etc.) because those are already on our master list. Remember, don’t feel like you are limited to just asking about Sailor Moon since he has worked on so many other shows as well. We will set the deadline for getting your questions in to 12 AM on November 1st. Leave your questions and a name we can credit you with as a comment here, on our forums, or send us an email at moonchasers@NOSPAMPLZKTHXgmail.com with “John Stocker” in the subject line. Do not leave your questions on our Facebook page as they will get lost easily. We will not be going through those posts and looking for fan questions.

Oh yeah, and we are keeping our fingers crossed. A week ago we got an official sign that things are moving in a very positive direction for something. Stay patient, Moonies.