Last week, ICV2 posted an article saying that Toei was offering 200 refurbished episodes at MIPTV, which is underway as we speak. There’s a few things worth mentioning here. Not every market will be able to receive refurbished episodes (such is the case with Albania). The source of this is an ad in Total Licensing’s Spring 2010 issue which is featured on the left (since it contains sensitive contact information that fans should not make use of, we have cut off that part of the ad). And, this is an ad exclusively for the European market – and is probably not going to include the English language market because Toei Animation Inc. out of Los Angeles handles that (and not Toei Animation Europe). We can see there being some good news for France, Germany, Spain, and some other European countries possibly coming out of MIPTV. It does not appear that FUNImation or Navarre will have representatives there, but there will be reps from Corus (YTV’s parent), Cartoon Network, Viz, and Phase 4 Films (a distributor of Navarre in Canada) attending MIPTV. Keep your fingers crossed, Moonies!

Happy New Year Moonies! Here’s to a successful return of Sailor Moon for the rest of the world in 2010! News is a little slow, so instead of splitting these stories, I’m going to put them all together. Yes, we know that there is a lot going on in Italy right now but we are getting back into the swing of things after a much needed Holiday vacation. We promise a full post later this week!

Sailors Moon, Mercury, Mars, and Jadeite Appear in Last Crayon Shin-Chan of the 2009!

Crayon Shin-Chan continues to play on in the wake of creator Yoshito Usui’s death. New episodes will continue to be produced and broadcast for this season at the very least. On December 4th, the last episode of the year aired, and featured Kotono Mitsuishi (Sailor Moon), Aya Hisakawa (Sailor Mercury), Michie Tomizawa (Sailor Mars) and Masaya Onosaka (Jadeite). In the first episode, Shin-Chan and Nanako through a series of unfortunate events are stuck together on the train, trying to follow Matsumi Ageo (played by Kotono), who is going out with a different man (played by Masaya)! They end up following them to a farm, where the man tries to teach Matsumi about farming, and how to plow a field. Nanako, being protective and angry with Matsumi, steps in, and shows them both how to plow. The man is so taken by her, he falls for her instead of Matsumi, and this is the last thing Nanako wants! But, it turns out that they are not on a date after all and he just admires her plowing skills – he is married and has a child! Michie also appeared in this episode playing Ume Matsuzaka.In the second episode, Shin-Chan’s school was having a carnival, and his mother Misae, had to knit something to sell. Unfortunately, she could not knit very well and her scarf had many snags and loose loops in it. We think Aya Hisakawa played a parent in this episode, but it was difficult to discern which one she played! No one bought Misae’s scarf, but towards the end of the episode she left the stall for a moment. A dark figure came up to buy the scarf, and Misae was the happiest person knowing that her scarf sold! The next morning, Shin-Chan’s father Hiroshi left for work, and outside the house took out Misae’s scarf from his briefcase, and wore it. Aww, what a sweet ending!

Kotono also blogged sentiments about Shin-Chan last November. During a meeting of cast and crew of the show, they shared the first few laughs they have had for a very long time. She finds her role as Matsumi Ageo to be a challenge, but it is also a secret weapon for her because it inspires her to set a new high for her performances! She regrets never actually meeting Usui, but hopes to continue to play the role as best she can for as long as she possibly can.

More Sailor Moon Themed Cooking on the Way in Japan!

ANIMAX along with IMAGICA TV’s Food and Travel Network Foodies TV to bring fans a little something special. Starting in February, the two channels are going to present specials to show viewers the art of making Bento (Japanese Lunch Boxes) for two months. If any of our readers aren’t familiar with what Bento is, here’s the short of it: they are home cooked lunches that are sometimes comparmentalized with a few small Japanese dishes. Some people get especially creative with their Bento boxes, fashioning them around an anime theme. YTV also attempted something similar years ago on their website. Sailor Moon will be featured as part of this special series, but we don’t agree with how the press release has labeled the show’s popularity. They state that it is popular with mothers and daughters in their 20s and 30s. Most recently, we’ve noticed a surge in blogs of newer teenage fans (and boys as well) talking about Sailor Moon. We are pretty sure that the show is a lot more popular with other demographics than this release suggests. The press release notes that it is not a common occurrence for two completely different companies to collaborate together, and handle all of their PR jointly (ANIMAX is owned by ANIMAX Broadcast Japan and Foodies TV is owned by IMAGICA TV). It is thought that the two companies working together on something like this will do a lot to boost their image in the public eye. If we find any clips of these specials, we will try our hardest to post them for you all!

Togashi Adds More Detail to Hunter X Hunter Volume 27 and Returns to Jump Magazine!

The Togashi World Blog has posted some images of manga frames from the latest volume published of Yoshihiro Togashi’s Hunter X Hunter and has compared them to frames published in Jump Magazines. When fans see these, they will see that there is a lot more detail added to the frame than there was in the magazine before. Not only have fans noticed that the quality of the comics in Jump Magazine aren’t what they used to be seeing from Togashi, but the press as well. We could understand why some minor details might be added to a frame, but somehow this makes us wonder if Shueisha is pressuring him to churn out stories, and then after the issues are published he takes his own time to put more effort into the manga. We may never know what exactly goes on between Shueisha and Togashim but nonetheless, it is nice to see some new work from him on this popular series – who knows when it will go on the back burner again? Fans can check out the images here. In other Togashi News, in this week’s issue of Jump, Hunter X Hunter made its return, and Togashi’s message to the fans in this issue was “Happy New Year. Sorry to keep you fans waiting. My goal for this year is to draw as much as possible”. Fans can only hope to see Togashi’s work for more than ten weeks this year! We expect to see volume #27 published by Viz sometime later this year as #26 has just been released this week!

Well, the first 26 episodes of the first season of Pretty Cure must have been a hit, since YTV has just picked up the other 23 episodes! Both Worldscreen and Animation Magazine have reported this, but we are anxiously awaiting word from Corus and/or YTV for official confirmation! The releases don’t say much else other than what the series is about. Nonetheless , we are all excited, and we wish the cast and crew of Pretty Cure the best of luck in the recording of these upcoming episodes! We also can’t wait to see the new episodes and see how the saga ends in English. As of this writing, we have yet to hear if any networks south of the border will pick this up, but we have a feeling that once this season is finished, perhaps one network will be brave enough to invest in a girls’ superhero show (see Toei, Sailor Moon can succeed on TV again if another show in the same genre can do it).

And what do we have here? We finally set up forums for this site after what seemed like an eternity! Happy belated 2nd anniversary, Moonies! Just make sure to follow the rules ok?

And, we have decided just for our readers in the United States who are DYING to see the Pretty Cure dub, to upload a selection of clips for One Week Only on YouTube. We recognize these clips are copyright The Ocean Group, YTV, and Toei, however we are only putting these clips up for preview purposes. We will remove them on Friday, March 19th.

☾ Opening Credits!
☾ First Henshin!
☾ End of the Episode!

Canadian Otaku, don’t forget to catch the show today and/or Saturday – it marks the debut of Will Wood’s (a VA who commented on our site earlier this week) character, Ferguson!

Three Cheers for Toei For Getting Everything Right!

I did a rough review this morning, running a subtitled episode against the dubbed episode on my television (not an easy thing to do!) and it’s posted after the jump.

All in all, there were less edits made in this first episode compared to the edits in the first episode of Sailor Moon. One of the hallmarks of Sailor Moon was the background music which was changed in entirety just for the English dub – the original music was all kept for Pretty Cure, and it sounds a lot clearer when compared to the DVD releases of Sailor Moon. From what we have learned, Toei is handling this series instead of 4Kids, much to the relief of fans everywhere! It seems though that promotion is running a little behind for the series. YTV hasn’t featured it in any newsletters in the last few weeks, and promotioanl pieces just started to hit the industry mags yesterday. The show wasn’t even promoted by its parent company in their March Highlights! So Canada, let’s try to be a lot more supportive with this effort from Toei and watch the show when you can okay? The quality of this dub will probably even satisfy you hardcore Pretty Cure fans! Toei has put subtitled episodes of the show for free viewing on Crunchyroll.

The new voices aren’t as cutesy as they are in the Japanese version, but they work! Barely any difference between the original and this one in terms of scripts. Opening titles changed slightly, and we love the girly punk theme song! They even used similar lyrics in some places to the original theme. Episode title screens still the same and the translation is close. They have kept the Junior High School Names the same. Looks like they have kept all the original music and it’s been mastered pretty well. Names have been changed into English, but that was expected. Hannah’s crush plays for the baseball team (instead of a kendo team in the original). They have certainly done a good job of adapting this to school life in the western world while still retaining most of the original’s lines. They made one change during the conversation on the train – in the original, one of the friends says that Hokona/Hannah and Nagisa/Natalie would work well together because Nagisa is popular with boys and Hokona is popular with girls. In the dub, she says that it’s “the best of both worlds” since Hannah is good at school and Natalie is good at sports. Playing it safe there, eh Toei? Again, an edit we understand completely (though we are kinda reminded slightly of the issues with Haruka and Michiru). Hannah’s dog is named Chuutaro! Another slight change in the scene where Natalie’s mom asks her brother to go check on her. In the original, there is a lot of noise and her mom asks him to go check up on her. In this one, she asks him to go up to tell her dinner will be late tonight. The writers got rid of Mepple’s end-sentence trademark “Mepo”! Pissard’s name is Pichard now. Somehow I can just picture Roland Parliament’s voice as being perfect for Mepple if he toned up his Melvin just a little! Fans will be happy to know that the henshin hasn’t been digitally altered in any way! And they have kept the whole Emissary speech… this is bringing back fond memories of Sailor Moon for me and probably will for the rest of us watching this show. Our monster of the day’s name isn’t that decipherable? Hakenna? It sure doesn’t sound like Zakenna. The voice is all warped. The name of the attack has been changed from “Pretty Cure Marble Screw” to “Pretty Cure Marble Twister”. “Mipo” is gone too. The credit screens are different than the Japanese. I don’t recognize any names in the credits with respect to Sailor Moon. The Ocean Group has produced this dub, and it is being recorded at Blue Water Studios in Calgary Alberta. The show is also only airing one episode a week (twice on Fridays, once on Saturdays). The episode previews have also been kept, and it’s nice to see the Toei Animation Cat at the end of the episode.