From Jay: We have a pair of guest updates today by two readers living in Japan. Before we get to those, though, I wanted to mention two other things readers sent in on a similar theme of Sailor Moon references. First, reader Yatenkaiouh links us to this product which has a morph that looks curiously similar to Sailor Venus on the cover. Second, Yoshimoon sent this image from Shin Megami Tensei Devil Summoner. He notes, "After investigating a haunted hill called Kurisu-zaka in Ginza learn that the ghost appears during a full moon. When you arrive there during a full moon a ghost car attacks you, angered that you are messing with it. Before engaging it it says "In the name of the Full Moon I will punish you!""

Brant, a reader in Okinawa, has been looking for the show where he lives. Brant writes:

It was a nice, warm and sunny day today so I decided to take a walk to the place where a pretty good Anime store recently moved out. I was hoping that maybe, just maybe it was just a dream. I was walking down a narrow street today right outside Gate 2 of my base. I had chosen to take a street I've never gone down before. While thinking about how hungry I was, I happened to look up at some windows of a "Kumon" (public English teaching center) building and was surprised to see Sailor Moon and Luna looking back at me! I've been all over this entire island within my 2 1/2 years here and haven't seen anything Sailor Moon except for the occasional Gashapon figurines at a few rinky-dink anime stores that sell mostly USED paraphernalia! This was a rare find!

P.S. The good Anime store was closed... -_-'

Nice that he was able to spot that.

Reader Cordelia LeFay went looking for the show near Kyoto. She writes:

I am currently working and living in Japan. I work for one of the many English conversation schools, teaching Japanese of all ages. I live in a town that is five minutes from Kyoto! However, I work in nearby Shiga prefecture.

Since Sailor Moon is the reason I became interested in Japan back when I was a wee lass, how anime is perceived/appreciated in Japan really interests me. So, I thought I’d share a few observations with you all!

First, Sailor Moon. My first Sailor Moon spotting came when I was wandering around a tiny town called Yasu. I was in a stationary/office supply store when I spotted a small PGSM pad on a bottom shelf. I was really surprised! LOL

My second Sailor Moon spotting came when I wandered into my local video rental store. They had a whole section of VHSs devoted to our favorite Meatball Head and they even had VHSs of PGSM!! (Why VHS, I have no idea). The video store was also very interesting because while one half was video rentals, the other half was manga rentals! Too bad I can’t read Japanese. *cries*

I have also visited an anime store called Animate in Kyoto. It pretty much only has merchandise from the most recent popular anime---Fullmetal Alchemist, Ouran Host High School, Bleach, Gundam Seed etc. I was a little surprised here too---I didn’t see any hentai (I can usually spot that stuff at the local convience stores, although I’m not an expert on hentai!) but there was a whole wall dedicated to “boy love.” *giggles* There were even posters of a live action movie called Boy Love. LOL (But that’s not to say I watch/read a lot of yaoi---I guess you’ll just have to take my word for it!) I bought two small packets of stickers and I was disappointed to discover that anime stores are not much cheaper in Japan! The two packets cost me 800 Yen which is about $6 American dollars.

Since I have Japanese students, I can also ask them about anime. All the people I’ve spoken to remember Sailor Moon and they think it’s cute that I “used to” watch it. I’ve asked them what they used to watch and the most popular responses are Dragonball, Mobile Suit Gundam, Ultraman and Anpan-Man.  (Whomever can guess the ages and gender of these students, you get a cookie!).  I had never heard of Anpan-Man before, but apparently he’s a superhero whose head is made of bread. When he sees a hungry person, he rips off a part of his head and gives it to them to eat. LOL

In general, I find the presence of anime in Japan not much different from that of North America. You find Pokemon merchandise at McDonalds. You may not see a lot of shoujo anime in North America, but you’ll find Dragonball and Pretty Cure toys at the supermarket in Japan. I’ve seen some merchandise for Bleach and Naruto in the department stores. Although, on the other hand, the shoujo manga Nana is pretty popular in Japan, and its second live action movie is coming out this month at the movie theatre. So all and all, that’s what I’ve observed so far. I hope to share some more interesting stories with you all!

Many thanks to Brant and Cordelia for writing up their experiences for us. As big of an impact as the series had in Japan, Sailor Moon has been largely forgotten in the mainstream, so it's very nice when we can find remaining examples of the phenomenon.