Hey Moonies! We’re catching up on several sightings and this is the first of a multi-part update!

Kotono Mitsuishi and Akira Kamiya Judging Next Generation of ANISON singers!

ANIMAX’s ANISON Grand Prix singing contest is starting up again, and NHK in Osaka are starting their pre-preliminary rounds as we speak. On May 5th, at NHK’s BK85 Spring Wonderland festival, a 5-judge jury will hear successful applicants sing and choose their top 15 to move onto the Osaka Preliminaries later this summer. Included on this jury are Kotono Mitsuishi (Sailor Moon) and Akira Kamiya (Professor Tomoe). Mitsuko Horie (Sailor Galaxia) will also be performing during a special concert in the second part of this competition, and HIMEKA herself will also be performing as well. Mitsuko and Akira will also be judging a second Anison contest on June 6th – the Anime Song Rush at Tokyo’s Yomiuri Land Open Theater East. Good luck to everyone entering these competition in Osaka and Tokyo!

(Big image of everyone together)

Kotono Mitsuishi Performing Drama CD Live!

The popular Japanese manga Brocken Blood is getting a drama CD adaptation! But instead of only releasing the drama CD on May 12th, the cast members are also going to perform it live sometime in August. Fans will have to enter a lottery once again to get a ticket, but it sounds like it will be worth it, especially when Kotono is playing Yomodo Shihoden, a magical girl who is one of the heroines in this series.

Kakyuu in New Eden of the East Movie!

Sakiko Takmagawa (Princess Kakyuu and Elsa Gray) reprises her role as the multi-faceted AI Juiz in the latest Eden of the East Movie, Eden of the East 2: Paradise Lost. The premise of the series is very similar to the movie The Matrix, and fans can read an almost full synopsis of the movie here. In the second movie, her character is spread out among four, so it will be interesting to see if she changes how her voice sounds. There is also a second Seiyuu in this movie, Nobuyuki Hiyama. He had two minor roles in Sailor Moon as Yosaku Eda and Tsunawataro, but has a much bigger role in this movie as the hacker Yutaku “Pants” Itazu. This will be released by FUNImation in 2011.

We’ll cap off this part with a few convention appearances this summer!

☽ Keiko Han (Luna), Chika Sakamoto (Yaten Kou/Sailor Star Healer), Kappei Yamaguchi (Artemis in PGSM) and Yasuo Yamaguchi (Producer) will be appearing at this year’s Animazement from May 28th-30th.

☽ Nobuyuki Hiyama (Yosaku Eda and Tsunawataro) will be appearing at this year’s Anime North on the same weekend!

Here comes part two of our seiyuu update – Outer Senshi and Sailor Starlights!

Mika Doi (Queen Serenity) can be heard playing Kotoko Fujioka (Haruhi’s mother) in Ouran High School Host Club (one of our staff favorites)! She also played Queen Dessert in the last Pretty Cure Movie Yes! Precure 5 GoGo! Happy Birthday in the Land of Sweets, playing Queen Dessert*. The 2003 movie Levity was just released in Japan, and Mika is the Japanese dub voice of Holly Hunter’s character, Adele Easley.

Masako Katsuki (Sailor Neptune): She is used as the Japanese dub voice for Kim Cattrall’s legendary character from Sex and the City, Samantha Jones. It is very likely she will be used again for the upcoming movie sequel set to hit theaters this coming Summer. She is also the voice of Princess Rose in Gokujo!! Mecha Mote Iincho, a silly romantic comedy about a high school girl who tries to reform a trio of bad boys. She is teaching voice acting as well, and for those of you who want to see a more recent photo of her, here she is hugging one of her students! The student’s blog entry says that she is finding her acting classes tough, but that Masako is a great teacher! Unfortunately, despite our best efforts we were unable to find out what school she is teaching through.

Megumi Ogata (Sailor Uranus) continues to play one of her most famous roles as Shinji Ikari in the new Evangelion movies! She also sang at a concert celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Japanese music label Lantis. Lantis is a special music label since it specializes in anime and video game soundtracks. She began her performance in her voice as Shinji saying “The Pilot of Evangelion is Shinji Ikari!” and sang Silver Rain ~Piano Version~. She also debuted a new song at this concert, Silent Decide.

Chiyoko Kawashima (Sailor Pluto) retired in 2001.

Yuko Minaguchi (Sailor Saturn) has had a few roles in some recent anime. In Jigoku Shoujo Mitsuganae (Hell Girl: Cauldron), she played Nanami Kikuchi. In Hayate the Combat Butler, she played Nagi Sanzenin’s mother, Yukariko (another one of our staff favorite animes). In a recent episode of Detective Conan, she played Mina Eguchi.Yuko is also the third star of Sailor Moon to be a part of technology launch parties in Japan, next to Toru Furuya and Kotono Mitsuishi. Earlier this month, she took place in an event at Ikebukuro Sunshine City. At the “Windows 7 Lenovo Enhanced Experience” she demonstrated how to use the new Lenovo Thinkpad. She posted a photo of herself learning how to use the Thinkpad with an office staff member on her blog! Unfortunately we couldn’t find any photos of her at the event.

Shiho Niiyama (Sailor Star Fighter) tragically passed away almost ten years ago. She is still dearly missed by her family, colleagues, and fans.

Narumi Tsunoda (Sailor Star Maker) can be heard in the supernatural romantic anime Tayutama: Kiss on my Deity. She plays Toshie Takayama in this show about a high school boy who accidentally summons Goddesses in the forms of teenaged girls who want to be humans for a while! Toshie is the school’s director, who intended to destroy these ancestral grounds which the boy used to summon these spirits, thinking that they were useless.

Chika Sakamoto (Sailor Star Healer) leant her voice to an audio tour of a major exhibit about dinosaurs in a museum in Japan this summer. The exhibit featured dinosaur facts, models, and a few near-complete skeletons of over 280 species of dinosaurs!

Sakiko Tamagawa (Princess Kakyuu) is currently playing the mysterious girl Juiz in Higashi no Eden (Eden of the East). She is an advanced work of artificial intelligence that is a mysterious female voice which is connected to twelve special assassins in the series, the Selecao. The anime series ended last June, but two movies are set to be released, one on November the 28th, and the other sometime in January.

And as a bonus, Sailor Galaxia!

Mitsuko Horie (Sailor Galaxia) sang at a special concert on November 15th, celebrating her 40th anniversary singing songs for anime (pictured). She shed a few tears during this concert! Also, the concert featured songs from her fellow judges from the ANISON Grand Prix panel, Ichiro Mizuki and Yumi Matsuzawa. Mitsuko also released an album last August commemorating her 40th anniversary.

*SPEAKING OF PRETTY CURE: it appears sometime last month, the show was pulled mid-run from YTV’s schedule. As of this writing, we cannot confirm why this has happened. There is a rumor floating around that the show may finish its run on Nickelodeon Canada, however we’re taking that with a grain of salt since most if not all of the programming on that particular channel comes from Nickelodeon. Pretty Cure probably wouldn’t jive with programs on that channel!

This tenth entry is quite large, as we’ve found quite a few sightings of stars from the anime and the live action so brace yourselves!

New Keiko Kitagawa Commercials Soon!

Who would have thought that Keiko Kitagawa (PGSM Sailor Mars) would be one of the hottest stars in Japanese entertainment today? Her new drama Mop Girl is doing very well in Japan and now can be seen in commercials for several different products! Just recently NTT DoCoMo announced some new models of their FOMA 705i and 905i and that the cast of the DoCoMo 2.0 commercials from last summer will be returning to promote these new commercials. To refresh your memory, the DoCoMo 2.0 included such idol heavyweights alongside Keiko Kitagawa, such as singers Anna Tsuchiya and Tomoya Nagase. We are definitely going to keep our eyes peeled for this new set of commercials! We have also learned that Keiko Kitagawa is going to be one of the new faces of Coffret D’Or (Translation: Gold Treasure Box) , a new line of shimmering pink and champagne gold makeup from Japanese cosmetics giant, Kanebo. She was chosen along a few other women, because she represents the “elegance and beauty made ideal from the beholder, flowing from the inside out.” This one will be out in December, just in time for the holiday party season! We’ll leave you with this new shot we found of Keiko in a magazine.

An Almost Real-Life Tachikoma!

The Tachikomas are those poor, blue, underappreciated robots from Ghost in the Shell, who have always been there to follow orders from Motoko and Batou and have gotten them out of several sticky situations. But much of the series revolved around the Tachikomas developing their own “Ghosts” or personalities, and every episode had a humorous short featuring these loveable battle machines. In fact, these Tachikomas could probably make the perfect pet if they really existed! Come February of next year, this dream is going to become an almost reality. In Japan, Bandai will be releasing a mini-robot Tachikoma that you can install and hook up to your PC via a USB cable. The robot talks and lights up, and the CD-Rom comes with several games that you can play with your Tachikoma! And providing the voice for the Tachikoma is none other than the voice of the Tachikoma herself, Sakiko Tamagawa! Sakiko’s voice should be familiar to Sailor Moon fans, as she played Elsa Grey in S episode 106, and Princess Kakyuu in Sailor Stars. The robot stands almost 10 cm tall and will cost close to $120, so start saving now!

Kikuko Inoue in New Anime!

The romantic comedy Clannad just started in Japan and Pony Canyon held a big event where nine of the Seiyuu for the show came out to answer a Q&A from fans. Among these was Kikuko Inoue (Sailor Aluminum Siren, Princess Rubina) , who plays Sanae Furukawa in the series. There was a contest where fans had to draw characters and items from the show, and the winner received a case of ramen. The actors apologized for this sorry gift, but noted that this event was about having fun! They all talked about their work on the show and some commented on the exceptional quality of the animation. The anime is about a guy who encounters many girls with strange powers in a kind of dream world which somehow fuses with the real world. Kikuko is on the right in this picture.

Another Masaya Kikawada Interview!

We came across another interview Masaya Kikawada (PGSM Motoki) did to promote the latest Kamen Rider movie. He didn’t say anything too much different in this one compared to the last one – but he did comment on the gap between what was popular when he was younger and what is popular now! And he thinks it can only get even more complex in the future, especially the gap in his acting. He thinks he will do different kinds of acting in the future compared to what he is doing now. He loves acting in dramas but he is scared of acting in soap operas!

And Finally, Rina Koike is Making Her Way in The Idol World!

One of the more bizarre decisions made in PGSM was the humanization of Luna as a young girl (and a senshi). This character was annoying but almost everyone can agree that the actress who played her, Rina Koike, was very cute and talented. She is now 13 years old and is one of the top models at her agency, Very Berry Production. Rina was featured a few days ago on a show in a Pay-Per-View series where she learned about modeling from veteran Gravure (and adult magazine) Idol Yuuri Morishita. We don’t think she is really the right kind of model for Rina to learn from especially since she is a lot more reserved than others. We read that Rina didn’t really feel comfortable with the idea of modeling in her birthday suit. In around a week’s time, a short DVD called Her Friends Are Billion Year Old Ghosts is set for release. This DVD shows her playing the piano and telling some charming children’s stories. As of a couple weeks ago, she is also a voice of a character in Mobile Phone Girls, an anime that is just for cell phones starring some genki schoolgirl characters! The picture here is Rina at an announcement for this series last August.

Fifteen Entries already? It seems like only yesterday this feature began. This is probably our last week of “catch up entries” when it comes to commercials, we have 56 for your enjoyment! Of course since this blog is Sailor Moon related, we have to have this as our top pick of the week – a trailer for the new Aquarion movie in Japan! And it practically serves as a mini-reunion for the Sailor Moon Seiyuu as there are a lot of former ones in this movie! Leading this horde is Masaya Onosaka (Jadeite) as Pierre Vieira, and the others include Daisuke Sakaguchi (various minor roles) as Jun Lee, Mako Hyoudou (Amanju) as Otoha, Nobuo Tobita (Pupuran) as Jean-Jerome Jorge, Sakiko Tamagawa (Princess Kakyuu) as Sophia Belin, Toshiyuki Morikawa (Yuu Azama) as Touma, and Unshou Ishizuka (Sailor Chef) as Gen Fudou.

Online Videos by Veoh.com

And then there was also this notable from Fuji-Q Amusement Park!

Online Videos by Veoh.com

We have lots more , especially for you J-pop fans so here come the rest!
☼ Nerdy Teenagers in an Acne Commercial!
☼ Japanese Aflac Commercials 1 and 2!
☼ Canon Eos Camera!
☼ Ardepro Property Management!
☼ CEATEC Exhibition!
☼ Cell Phone Gaming!
☼ Coca-Cola is for sharing!
☼ Docomo 2.0 Commercial – we mean no offense to Toku Fans!
☼ Docomo 2.0 Office Commercial!
☼ Drewell Sleeping Pill!
☼ Dusters from Japan!
☼ e-ma Fruit Mints!
☼ Essential Damage Care with Honey!
☼ Suzuki Every Wagon!
☼ Fed-Ex in China!
☼ Jessica Alba says hello to fans and wants them to go see Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer!
☼ Realistic Toy Ferraris!
☼ Fujitsu’s Gong Show!
☼ A Green Juice Commercial that practically reads like an infomercial!
☼ Men’s Hair Massager!
☼ Haagen-Dazs!
☼ DJ Halfby!
☼ House Design Collection!
☼ Honda Stylish Package!
☼ Japan ETC!
☼ Jomo Energy!
☼ Let’s Dance Compilation!
☼ Lotte Acuo!
☼ WARNING MAY BE A LITTLE NSFW! Meganest!
☼ Men’s TBC Soccer!
☼ Minaqua!
☼ NEC with Intel’s Core 2 Duo!
☼ Nissan Note!
☼ Nissan Compact Cars!
☼ Nissay Life Insurance!
☼ Ora2 Stainclear!
☼ Panasonic Viera!
☼ Poscam Gum!
☼ Strange Recruitment Commercial!
☼ Puffy wants you to Fly Panda with ANA!
☼ Samurai Pachinko!
☼ Seazoo!
☼ Nissan X Chemical Brothers!
☼ Windows Mobile Smartphone!
☼ Soken Bicha!
☼ WARNING MAY BE A LITTLE NSFW! DJ OZMA’s Spiderman!
☼ Success! Medicated Shampoo for Men!
☼ Suntory Boss Rainbow with Tommy Lee Jones!
☼ Ayumi Hamasaki’s Latest Power Single, Talkin’ 2 Myself!
☼ UFO Ramen!
☼ Shiseido UFO Fiber!
☼ Princess Kaguya endorses Vitamin C Pill!
☼ Wonda Morning Shot!