¤ Toms River Library will be holding it’s annual Bookfest on September 27th! This year’s theme is “Something’s Cooking at the Ocean County Library: The Bookfest with Literary Taste” and will feature authors whose works had something to do with food! For a list of authors attending, click here! The festival’s Kitchen Sensei will be serving a bunch of anime inspired snacks, including some that take after Sailor Moon. We’d love to know what they are, if any of you are attending please let us know what they served!

¤ Variety just posted an article outlining the History of Anime. They mention Sailor Moon as the highlight of 1995 : “Sailor Moon” airs in the U.S. Since much of the audience are young girls, it helps expand the image of anime from being a male-oriented media to something both sexes can enjoy. 1995 also saw Cosplay’s beginnings in North America! It’s a good article, but we’d have liked to have seen something about anime’s distribution. It’s one thing to talk about what titles were hot, but not the struggles that have had to been overcome when releasing anime to stores. Our Japanese readers can check out the story in their own language here –をクリックしてください!

¤ This NPR article talks about the rise of American Mangaka. We particularly liked the lines at the end : “It was inevitable that talented children would grow up and turn their beloved comic books and Saturday-morning cartoons into treasure — sweet revenge for all those times they were told to put Sailor Moon away and turn the television off. These kids aren’t just all right — they’re brilliant.”. Though, Sailor Moon has inspired lots of people in all walks of life, that’s why we’ve got our Special People reports!

Hey Moonies, I have a little time with my temporary solution to the laptop woes, so I’m going to draw your attention to this quickly! Recently, Canadian fans may have heard of CBC losing the rights to use the original Hockey Night in Canada theme song to CTV. The CBC still has a program to air, and has taken a novel approach to finding a new theme: let the fans create their own, and let everyone vote for their favorite! Michael Kulas is Katie Griffin’s (Sailor Mars #1) husband and has supported this site in the past. He is well-known in Toronto’s indie music scene for his work with the legendary band James, and also for his solo tunes. He also produced Katie’s first album in 2003, Kiss Me Chaos (it’s really good, every reader should check it out!). He has entered a few tunes in the contest, and it’s up to fans to rate them high so hopefully CBC will pick one of them as a finalist! The winner of the contest will receive $100,000 , and half of the royalties. The other half will go to supporting those aspiring hockey stars in the minor leagues! For those of our fans who have been following the Anthem Challenge, please consider Michael’s tunes! Here come the links!

Hockey Night Forever
Hockey Night Forever: The Score
Every Day is Hockey Night (30 seconds)
Every Day is Hockey Night (Full Version)
The Enforcer

And blogging on this site reaches new heights: from a hotel computer -_-‘. I just read in this morning’s Globe and Mail that a truck carrying some important and expensive video equipment used for Flashpoint was stolen! You guys can read the story here. This is truly sad, and if any of our readers in the Toronto area see a big truck with some video equipment, please call the authorities! This show holds a special place in all our readers’ thoughts because of the connection to Sailor Moon, and it’s truly sad to see something like this happen after four years of hard work to get this show on the air!

OT: Moonies, I was able to find the time to work on 2 short posts in under an hour (a new record!) so this week is not entirely lost! Now onto the big news…

Flashpoint has just been picked up for a second season by it’s Canadian network, CTV! In a press release this morning, the network announced it had ordered another 13 episodes to go into production in early 2009! We really hope the cast and crew gets a break after the first season ends – they have all worked really hard to make this show the hit that it is! It has consistently scored over 1 million viewers each episode in Canada, and even survived the Olympics! This release came out just days after the first season wrapped shooting! Susanne Boyce, President, Creative, Content and Channels, at CTV Inc. commented “Viewers have embraced Flashpoint and we are answering their call for more. The cast and creative team have delivered a series that not only entertains with high-intensity drama but with heart as well.” In a joint statement, executive producers Anne Marie La Traverse and Bill Mustos said “We’re extremely proud to have this opportunity to bring more of our homegrown stories to viewers in Canada and around the world.” We knew right from the start that this could have been something big – and we continue to be so proud of everything Stephanie Morgenstern (Sailor Venus #1) and her husband Mark Ellis have achieved with their creation! Here’s to many more! As of this writing, there has been no word if CBS has picked it up for a second season. We will keep you posted once we find out!

EDIT: (Tuesday) The Globe and Mail is reporting CBS greenlighted the second season, however we’re a little skeptical as no one else has reported this.

We have a couple Sailor Moon sightings in music to present to you all!

The first one comes to us all the way from South Korea. Drunken Tiger is the most popular hip-hop group in the country, and has built up their own crew of many different artists. I first caught wind of this band while listening to Pop Goes Asia many years ago. Their music combines so many different styles, including R&B, and Reggae, and in my opinion I think the majority of their songs put a lot of current rap hits in North America to shame. The song Mission Impossible, was a collaborative effort between a few members of their hip hop crew, The Movement (think like Eminem and D12) and was featured on a collaborative rap album, 1999’s DaeHanMinGook. This album is very difficult to find nowadays. The members featured on this track are Tiger JK (the frontman of Drunken Tiger), DJ Shine (then co-frontman of Drunken Tiger), Thanos (formerly of rival group Uptown), Tasha (Korea’s leading lady of Hip Hop and Tiger’s Wife), Carlos Galvan and Steve Kim (of rival group Uptown), and rapper HeeSung. Thanos referred to Sailor Moon in his part of the song, and we have uploaded a short clip of his verse for you. Keep your ears open and listen for “leavin’ ya whole paltoon lookin’ cartoon like sailor moon you need to sail on we wail on wack emcees that trail on”. For those of you who do find this song, there’s a bit of language in it that’s been left out of the lyrics, so don’t listen to it if you’re not old enough ^_^. Rest assured, the clip we have posted is clean. Drunken Tiger and the Movement are still around, their 7th album Sky is the Limit was released last year, and Tasha released her third album Yoon Mi Rae after a long hiatus also last year. Tiger and Tasha were also married in secret last year and had their first son, Jordan earlier this year. I recommend readers give this band a listen if they want to hear something different, and they do rap a lot in English so it’s okay if you don’t understand Korean. To listen to the clip we have uploaded, click here.

We also decided that after the Matsuricongoers got to have a listen to Toru “ToFu” Furuya’s (Tuxedo Kamen) song, that we’d stop leaving the rest of you all in suspense. We uploaded the first verse up until the end of the chorus for you all to listen to from his song about Tuxedo Kamen’s eternal love for Sailor Moon, Everlasting My Love. Click here to check it out!