Months of speculation have come to a close. Namco Bandai Europe has finally released some details about the Sailor Moon Nintendo DS game they’re developing for an Italian release. Sailor Moon: La Luna Splende, which could be translated to either “The Shining Moon” or “The Moon Shine”, is an adventure game featuring environmental puzzles that takes place in Molly/Naru’s dreams. Sight-unseen, this sounds like it could be similar to the Professor Layton series of games or perhaps the early Nintendo DS game, Trace Memory. For those who have never played any of those games, that’s a good crowd to be compared to.

Other pieces of info about the game are that each of the Scouts will have their own abilities, Tuxedo Mask is in the game, there will be 3 worlds(Jewel Palace, Mystery Castle, & Flower Garden) with 20-30 puzzles each, and that the Scout’s attire can be customized. The new planned release month for La Luna Spende is March and it will apparently be priced at €29.99(about $40). Sailordees will be importing and reviewing it for Moon Chase when it is released. Nintendo DS games(not to be confused with DSi or 3DS games) are not region-locked and can be played on any original DS or DS Lite. You can find Namco Bandai’s Italian press release below.

Press Release: [Namco Bandai]
Logo(Added Via Sailordees) Credit: [Italian Gaming Website, Press Start]

EDIT: More to share with you all (Sailordees here)! Lots and lots of screengrabs are available on several Italian sites (our image credits go to everyeye), and we are featuring them here for you as well. It looks like they have fused a simple RPG with some of the aesthetics from the puzzle games of Sailor Moon’s SNES days (S, SS, and Stars). And, we also have a cover image to share as well!

If you remember some time back, it was revealed that Namco Bandai Europe was making a Sailor Moon video game for the Nintendo DS set to come out in Italy later this year. Unfortunately, with the supposed by-the-end-of-the-year release date rapidly approaching, neither screenshots, nor a trailer have surfaced. We don’t even know what type of game it is. It could very easily mean that the game is going to be delayed.

In the past, Sailor Moon video games have been RPGs(Another Story on the Super Famicom/Super Nintendo), beat-em-ups(the arcade game), and fighting(Sailor Moon S on the Super Famicom/Super Nintendo) games. With no one knowing anything about this new Sailor Moon video game beyond the fact that it exists, I thought it would be fun to pose the question to you, the readers.


What genre do you want the Sailor Moon Nintendo DS game to be?

One of the genres from the above paragraph? An action/adventure game? Maybe a kart racer? Sailor Moon: Xtreme Beach Volleyball? Sound off in the comments section and let us know what you think. In the mean time, I’ll keep an eye out for anything on the mystery game and report back when something turns up.

Grab your pitchforks and torches, HxH fans, it’s that time again. Yep, it’s ANOTHER hiatus/suspension/whatever for Hunter x Hunter. The 26th issue of this year’s Shounen Jump will be the last appearance for the Manga for some time. Some sites(see here, here, and here) are even speculating as long as 2 years. But don’t go throwing yourself off of a bridge just yet. We’ve got a heaping helping of Togashi quotes to help take the sting off a bit. Enjoy!

Issue 20:

I’m sorry jump readers, I forgot to think of a comment to write here. 

Well… at least he’s honest about it.


Issues 21 & 22:

Everyone thinks differently, but this week’s Inumaru Dashi was too funny for this hunter-hunter to pass. 

Inumaru Dashi is a gag comedy series (think Shin-Chan) that appears in Shonen Jump. It’s about a teacher that is having a hard time teaching her first class because of one of her students, Maru-Kun Inu. Sailordees described it to me as a “read-this-at-your-own-risk”-type of series. So, read at your own risk.

Issue 23:

I went to visit my son’s classroom.  I want to do it all over again from grade-school.  Does no elementary school accept an adult who wants to come back? 

An adult going back to elementary school? I’m pretty sure Adam Sandler made a movie about that back in 1995.


Issue 24:

I had a very happy birthday.  I tried my very best *but had some bad luck (bachi ga ataru) trying* to endure it.

Issue 26:

I’ll come back soon. Everyone, please take care. 

And thus ends the record for consecutive volumes before a hiatus by Togashi. Look on the bright side, though, at least it wasn’t a ‘goodbye and thanks for everything’.

Name: Swim
Position: News Contributor
I Have Been a Sailor Moon Fan Since: 1995 or 1996

Favorite Episode or Movie: Episode 30 of the first season’s English dub–“A Crystal Clear Destiny”. I taped the Dragon Ball Z movie, “The World’s Strongest”, off of Toonami back in ’99 or 2000. When I watched the tape later, there was a Sailor Moon episode that got taped along with it because I didn’t know how to program the VCR’s stop-time. That episode would be the only regular access to the Sailor Moon Anime I’d have for the better part of a decade.

Favorite Sailor Moon Character: Sailor Mercury. She’s cute, smart, and the origins of my attraction to the “bookwormy-type”.

Other Anime or Manga I like: Anime: Trigun, Fooly Cooly, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Dragon Ball Z, School Rumble, and The Girl Who Leapt Through Time movie. Manga: Bleach, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Naruto from the U.S. Shonen Jump magazine, Rosario + Vampire, Cardcaptor Sakura, and Death Note.

Other tidbits: I was late for school on a regular basis because of watching Sailor Moon. I don’t regret it. The English theme for Sailor Moon usually gets daily playback from me because of its guitar solo. I don’t subscribe to the “change-everything-from-the-original-dub-back-to-the-way-the-Japanese-version-had-it” mentality for a Sailor Moon re-dubbing. I want any re-dubbing of the show to be a hybrid of both the English and Japanese versions.