Dear Chibi,

On the night of 6th July 2012, I heard one of the most exciting news of my life: A brand new Sailor Moon anime is being released next year world-wide. It is a complete reboot of the series and will be based on Naoko Takeuchi’s Sailor Moon manga and targeted at older fans.

I have never been so happy about a release.
I couldn’t sleep that night.
I was so so excited and giggly for the next several days.
Chibi can die happy :D (After she finishes the series!)

I decided to write this blog entry (although over a week late) to mark this occasion. I want to remember this feeling forever :)

Twitter went nuts that night. “Sailor Moon” was also trending on twitter and news spread like fire :D It was such an amazing feeling to be able to share with other fans :D

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Dear Chibi,

I wasn’t expecting to find much (if anything) related to Sailor Moon while in Japan, but I kept my eye out for them anyway :) As some of you may know, I don’t have much of a Sailor Moon collection.  I wrote a little bit about it here when I bought my first Eternal Sailor Moon gashaphon. Other goodies I own include the manga (Chinese), some VCDs, stickers/cards, gifts from HK and Sailor Moon cels.

Anyway, this entry isn’t about sharing my mini collection, but rather, the stuff I did manage to find in Japan and the stuff I bought :D All of these items are official and not bootlegged :)

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon (Live Action) Sailor Moon doll
(Bandai 2003) Second hand, box unopened.

I love this one so much :3  I’ve always wanted to own a Sailor Moon doll, and I’m glad this is the first “doll” I’ve ever had in my life XD (I never had any dolls as a child) I found this gem at a little old store in Mitaka on my way back to the station after checking out Ghibli Studio Museum.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon gashapon set (new) @ Golden Age in Akihabara

Golden Age sells some really really old stuff. The store is full of dust but that only excited me more XD I spent a good amount of time here going through boxes and shelves and finally came across these. These were new. yaaay. The store owner was really nice, and when I picked these up he informed me these were from the Live Action incase I was looking for anime versions. Of course, I knew that already but I appreciate how he informed me and not just try to sell his stuff. It was also in this store where I found a Luna P ball! More about that down below XD

Eternal Sailor Moon, Figure Maniacs Sailor Moon and Usagi (Sailor Moon World (Series 5) gashapon)

I was really happy to find the Figure Maniacs Sailor Moon. I love it so much and have always wanted her >w< The style is very different to the others and the detail is pretty amazing. I found her and Usagi with the ice-cream from the same store in Akihabara. I also found a Super Sailor Moon gashapon at another store but decided to pass since the store owner was nowhere to be seen >.>;; Usagi with the icecream and Eternal Sailor Moon actually come from the same series set :D

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Dear Chibi,

I finally got around to drawing a new Sailor Moon fanart :) A lot of my recent Sailor Moon related art has been in the form of comic strips (MoonSticks) or Chibi Dolls. It’s only when I realised the other day that my last proper fanart was from 4 years ago (Eternal Sailor Moon), that I knew it was time for a new one.

I really enjoyed the process of making this. It took roughly 12 hours from sketch to finish and I’m really happy with how she turned out. I hope you love it as much as I do.

For the first time, I took a bit of inspiration from the manga version of Sailor Moon (the wavy skirt, accessories etc), but drew her in my own style. It feels liberating :D

I think her legs may be a little awkward there, but hopefully it’s okay :)

Work-in-Progress:

Initial sketch/lineart at 100% size:

Base colouring:

Full colour at 100% view:

Dear Chibi,
A couple of weeks ago, I bought a Eternal Sailor Moon Gashapon off a Sailor Moon toy collector and finally received it yesterday! yay~

Although I own many anime figurines and some gorgeous PVC statues, I always felt a little sad inside knowing that I didn’t own a single one from Sailor Moon ~ which is my favourite of all time. Sailor Moon merchandise was extremely hard to obtain living in Sydney, and for years everything was out of print. I’m so glad this came up for sale~ now I finally have something to display my love for the show :D

Dear Chibi,

After many months of anticipation, Sailor Moon The Movie (Independent Short) was finally released on youtube today! I was at work during the time it was announced, but I managed to sneakily watch it since I couldn’t wait to get home first.

Here’s the movie for those who haven’t seen it:

My expectations for this was incredibly high, so there was bound to be some disappointments. Below are some of my personal thoughts on the film:

I quite enjoyed the first half of the movie during the Silver Millennium~ the visuals were quite amazing  for a low budget film. I was surprised when the Moon Kingdom came up.  I also liked Queen Beryl. She looked awesome with her costume, props and make-up, though her voice echoed so much it was hard to understand what she was saying. Endymion and Serenity’s voices also sounded like it was recorded in a room, and that took away some realism.

I liked the opening credits when the music “Story” started playing. I was particularly fond of the Disney-ish/cell-shade shot (below)- it looked like a painting. I’m not sure that was intentional but I liked it as a standalone.

The little references such as the Sailor crystals falling into earth was a nice touch.

The dialogue could have been improved; it was kinda cheesy (especially when Endymion was speaking to Serenity) and it felt unnatural. I didn’t like Prince Endymion very much, he came off as rather…aggressive/cold.

I liked Serenity, but I couldn’t warm up to Bunny as much. She came out really whinny and her “I hate my life” part seemed out of character. Personally, I would have liked to see more of her innocence/naivety, which is a huge part of Usagi’s original character. I really liked Melvin! He was funny and I didn’t expect Eric to pop out all of a sudden XD~ He is quite charismatic, hehe :)

Naru was okay, a little over the top sometimes but I enjoyed her interaction with Bunny. Like a lot of other fans, I thought it was a bit strange they kept her Japanese name, but everyone else had westernised name. I would have preferred “Molly” instead. As far as minor characters go, I didn’t mind her or Motoki. I didn’t like the two FBI characters though, since they’re not part of the Sailor Moon plot (I’m not familiar with Sailor V). They had a decent amount of screen time (for such a short film) which could have been spent on more character development on important characters.

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Dear Chibi,

My good friend Marcus recently returned from his month trip to Hong Kong and Japan, and brought back so many goodies =DDD

MTR Classic Anime Souvenir Tickets featuring new Sailor Moon artwork!! These include three souvenir tickets with the Inner senshi, a ticket holder, and key-chain. These were only available in Hong Kong for a very limited time and were sold out so quickly! I’m so happy he managed to get them :D Then again, he did line up for them the day they came out. Oh so awesome.

Look at that SHIIINNNNY card in the middle o.o These cards are so nostalgic… I still have the ones I collected as a child sitting in my draw.

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Dear Chibi,
Today I created a Chibi Doll of Avery Danielle as Sailor Moon in “Sailor Moon the Movie” (Independent Short). I really like their costume design and the mask make-up is a great idea :)

You can adopt the Chibi Doll (Miniature version) from Chibi Land as well as the original Sailor Moon characters :) Hope you like it! Have fun.