Hey Moonies – quite possibly some of the biggest Sailor Moon Seiyuu are on their way to North America! Animazement in Durham, North Carolina takes place May 23-25th of this year, and we were pleased to read (pictured from left to right) Kotono Mitsuishi (Sailor Moon), Keiko Han (Luna in both PGSM and the anime) and Akira Kamiya (Professor Tomoe) will be amongst their Japanese Guests! Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like any of us can make it but we encourage fans who are going to send us an email with pictures or movies along with whatever happened. If you have a video to upload and don’t have a place for it, we can definitely arrange for that (and we will still give you credit). This is an amazing and rare opportunity and we recommend fans who can go to this convention do try to make it!

EDIT: We missed one! Yasuo Yamaguchi, a producer of the animated version of Sailor Moon will also be appearing. Both Akira and Yasuo have been to Animazement before, and fans looking to read an interview conducted by fans with those two, along with Chika Sakamoto (Sailor Star Healer) should click here!

Hey Moonies! In contrast to my week early post last time, imeem ended up having some technical problems this weekend which delayed this batch of commercials. But, they’re back and so are we with your biweekly fix!

And, we have a treat for you this time! Another DoCoMo Keiko sighting!

Oops, forgot to mention she’s only cardboard. But she’s real in this one!

Puuchokun is just too cute not to show you~

And, one of the members of SMAP has been shrunk again, this time stuck in someone’s purse!

And, also in a picnic basket!

Best of the Rest:

☼ A trio of Biore products!
☼ A quartet of beer!
☼ Sony Cyber Shot Camera!
☼ Vidal Sassoon!
☼ Nike!
☼ Maybelline!
☼ Mario Kart Wii!
☼ VW Polo!
☼ A trio of treats from Glico!
☼ Asahi Cocktail Partner!
☼ C1000!
☼ Haagen Dazs!
☼ Lismo!
☼ Asahi Breakfast Bar!
☼ DHC Chilled Delicate Cream!
☼ Toyota Crown!
☼ Mintia Shock!
☼ SoftBank w/ Matt Damon!
☼ Butena Rock V!
☼ These pigs want you to eat pork!
☼ Sony Bravia TV!
☼ Volvic Bottled Water!
☼ SoftBank shows us everything their characters have been through!
☼ Schick Quattro!
☼ Sapporo Viva!Life!
☼ McDonalds Snack Time!
☼ Menicon Premio Contacts!
☼ Toyota Vanguard!
☼ Green Tea!
☼ Shiseido Anessa!
☼ McWrap!
☼ Uniqlo UT!
☼ Men’s Beauteen!
☼ SoftBank w/ Cameron Diaz!
☼ Eskimo Parm Bar!

New Rina Koike Interview!

Rina Koike (Sailor Luna in PGSM) sure is rising in the Japanese Idol World! She has released a few Idol DVDs , photo collections, appeared in a few shows and has learned all about being an idol from Yuuri Morishita. Now she is appearing on Kamen Rider Kiva as Shizuka Nomura, a preteen girl who learns how to play the violin from Wataru (who is this season’s hero). She gets very jealous of other women who are around Wataru, and is one of the few who knows his secret superhero alter-ego. Oricon has an Idol feature (the name of this feature has something to do with hatching golden eggs?!) every week, and two weeks ago Rina’s profile was featured! Rina always smiles, as you can see from the Polaroid that was taken above (which she autographed).

Some Highlights:

☼ Just because Rina is busy with her career, doesn’t mean she doesn’t have time for school! She is known to open up her books and study in between takes on her new show – it is a struggle to keep up!

☼ Rina was in the fifth grade when she got the role of Sailor Luna in PGSM. Rina was trying to become a young idol, and gave herself a year to make it big, or she was going to quit. Her only work was on a Junior Idol DVD that was not very popular, and commercials for Bandai and Tokyo DisneySea. After many failed auditions, her PGSM audition was to be her last one ever should she have failed. But she didn’t, and her star has only been rising since! To this day she believes she would not be where she is right now without PGSM. On a side note, we’ve read elsewhere that she would have rather played Sailor Chibi-Moon because her favorite color is pink!

☼ Rina was raised in Tochigi, but now balances her time between Tochigi and Tokyo. She was discovered when her parents took her out to Shinjuku on New Years’ Eve when she was in the third grade. They were out on a quick coffee stop while they were shopping when she was spotted by someone claiming he was a talent scout. Her father thought it was a joke, until he spoke to the president of the agency to assure that it was in fact real. Since then she has been traveling to Tokyo for auditions, photoshoots, and everything else that comes with being an Idol!

☼ Rina is so dedicated to school, that when Kiva started shooting before the beginning of the school year, she had her books with her! Sometimes when she has to wait for a long time, she forgets to study.

☼ Rina really liked shooting the transformation sequence for Sailor Luna. The directors would tell her how her hands had to be placed, but other than that, she was not afraid to prance around! She thought she had a lot of guts when she shot this part, and she really got to show her character!

☼ Rina may be growing up in Tokyo, but she still has her Toshigi charm. She loves to eat at the same Chinese Frying House that her Grandmother does, and the interviewer remarked that she had a very simple charm about her!

Hey Moonies, we came across some wonderful mentions of Sailor Moon in English news. There’s even been a few for the What the Heck Were They Thinking? pile and hopefully I’ll get that up sometime soon. But for now…

Back in the Day, Sailor Moon Was Cool Enough to Have a Virus Named After Her?!

Ahh computer viruses. Those pesky fiends which have long been the bane of Windows users since it’s birth recently topped the million mark. We have a couple harmless favorites here at Moon Chase, the first being the BS virus, which when clicked on, displays an animation which appears as if a user’s entire hard drive is being deleted! The second one was actually put out by Coca-Cola, and when a user clicked on it, the CD tray would pop out and a pop-up would appear saying “Enjoy a Coke in your new drink holder!” or something to that effect. Some people didn’t get it for a very long time! The girls and technology blog Shiny Shiny posted a list of their top 10 best virus names of all time. Little did we know that in 1995, during the glory days of Sailor Moon‘s popularity in North America, a virus was named after our favorite superhero’s likeness. Die Hard 2 (The Unbeatable) Sailor Moon wreaked havoc on machines by very cleverly activating on June the 7th of each year with the message,

The University of Toronto has wonderful student newspapers – and we definitely recommend anyone in the vicinity go grab a copy of The Varsity or The Toike Oike if they can! They really are good reads! The Toike Oike published a story last month, “Where Are They Now?”, taking a humorous look at the whereabouts of some beloved characters from our childhood, including Captain Planet, Miss Frizzle, Bill Nye The Science Guy, and of course, Sailor Moon! According to them, Sailor Moon got pregnant at 16 with Tuxedo Mask’s child, and left the baby in shame at a Moon Kingdom church. She returned to Earth and gave up on saving the world. Then she turned to drugs, alcohol, and other unspeakable deeds to ease the pain of her troubles. Sailor Moon staged a comeback against the “Mega Super Scary Shiny Monster”, but was defeated. And now the Earth has been taken over by the evil “Darkness Kingdom”. We think Luna and the other Senshi would have done a good job of keeping Usagi in line and none of this stuff would happen! But who knows, really. Maybe Sailor Moon has been put under a sleeping spell until Naoko Takeuchi can decide what she wants to do with the character next!

A Very Original Idea For A Figure Skating Show!

When we read this, we had to add these skaters to our list of Special People! The Silver Wings skaters of Bonavista, Newfoundland holds an annual ice show each year. This year’s took place on April 1st, and was simply titled Do You Remember When? Coach Jamie Seaward chose the theme in her final show with the club. She chose music from all her years that she had worked with them. The youngest skaters skated to theme songs from Arthur, The Pink Panther, and Sailor Moon. Some of the kids even dressed up like these characters! The show served as a memoir of the years the club spent with Jamie, as well as bringing back happy memories of cartoon nostalgia! To these young skaters in the Canskate program, we salute you in your perseverance to become Starskaters, and are very honored that your coach choseSailor Moon to be a part of your evening! It looks like you had a lot of fun doing it!

A few fans have wondered what makes a person qualify for this category. It’s quite simple, really. Anyone who has used Sailor Moon in a project or as an inspiration in the name of their community is a member of Moon Chase’s Special People! Using Sailor Moon in a very creative way to enrich the lives of others or present it in a way that is original and unique keeps Sailor Moon in the eyes of the masses. We like to think that little things like this would look very good in the future should anyone have doubts of Sailor Moon ever being popular with the fans again in the case of a possible re-release. And, we think that these people are cool for what they did and though they may not get much recognition from people around them, we are happy to give them recognition among Sailor Moon fans!

Hey Moonies! Number 25 is coming at you a little early. I’ll be gone next weekend, so I’m giving the schedule a nudge over by a week. This update also marks the last of the leftovers, the commercials are now fresh and vibrant again!

Featured commercial number one is of the usual Softbank cast, but this time our favorite dog is not so much the main star!

And another Softbank commercial!

If Kirin founded a city, I think it would look something like this:

Finally, Soyjoy has a new flavor, but this actress doesn’t seem too keen on being the mascot, at least at first.

Best of the Rest:

☼ Panasonic Viera 920P phone!
☼ Casio W61CA Phone!
☼ A lonely girl calls home in this DoCoMo 2.0 commercial!
☼ Panasonic Blu-Ray player!
☼ A fashion magazine!
☼ Anime Music Collection!
☼ A slew of commercials from Shiseido: Elixir Superieur, Haku2, Tsubaki shampoo, Uno Scrub king wash!
☼ Sedes pain relief products!
☼ Sony W62S phone!
☼ More awesomeness from DoCoMo 2.0!
☼ Lux hair care marines!
☼ Yebisu The Hop beer!
☼ Quiksilver surf clothing!
☼ Butena Rock athlete’s foot spray from Hisamitsu!
☼ Suntory Awa’s Dry (Always hold onto your towel)!
☼ Spring Waltz Pachinko!
☼ Intel Core 2 Duo and Samurai!
☼ Contac 600plus!
☼ Sony Alpha350 camera!
☼ Freshers Business clothes!
☼ Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G!
☼ Karoyan Gush!
☼ Decotomo!
☼ T-UP from Toyoya!
☼ Kirin Nodogoshi-up!
☼ A roller coaster of unknown nameage!
☼ The colorful Honda Today Scooter!
☼ Men’s Biore facial wash!