Items Tagged With pop culture

Thanks to UndeadPrincess in the forums for the heads up.

A recent episode of Jeopardy had an anime category, among which the $1600 question was:

Sailor Moon made another brief cameo on Cartoon Network's Robot Chicken last Sunday. The full episode is available at the Adult Swim homepage.

 Another recent headliner is Anza, the first Sailor Moon actress of the musicals, who'll be performing at Pacific Media Expo next month

I would like to thank those of you who wrote in to tell us about this. It's sincerely appreciated. I apologize for the lack of updates and translations lately, we should get back on track shortly.

We’re trying out a new editorial column. It’s called “Ask the Editors.” We’ve always meant for the Soapbox to have regular editorial features, and this is a good way to get us to do just that. So send us your questions!

The first comes from reader Olajuwan Cobb who asks, “Do you think that there would be an American version of Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon (PGSM) or would it be too risky for any producer?”

This is a perfect question to kick things off because I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. Anyone who’s seen the recent “Transformers” movie might be doing the same. It was a real surprise- Hollywood did an amazing job of turning an 80’s cartoon into fun, engaging blockbuster. Its success bodes well for other cartoons to be revived.

The question, however, asks about a PGSM series, and a television show is in a different realm from a theatrical release. They have to think about ongoing production, advertisers, and dealing with networks that are tight on purse strings when it comes to children’s programming.

When Power Rangers was brought here many years ago Saban saved money by using Japanese footage for the action sequences; apart from the strange mix of film reel and videotape, it worked fine since the Japanese actors were costumed. They can’t do that with PGSM; every scene will have to be filmed from scratch.

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!""

We've come across another new remix of one of the Sailor Moon opening themes, this time of the North American theme. It's from a group called Osaka Popstar and is on their new CD. Their homepage isn't exactly well built but you can find more info about the CD if you look it up on iTunes.

The theme song  on their CD is only about a minute long so we're only offering a 15-second sample this time.

It's a punk-cover of the opening, which is interesting not for the cover of the song itself but because the band's drummer is Marky Ramone from the Ramones. As Jon put it to me, "18-year-old J-Pop girls I understand. [But] the drummer from the Ramones? What?"

Well, if anything it's another example of the extent to which the series has entered American pop culture. Before long we'll be seeing it on "Remember the 90s shows." Incidentally, stats on the iTunes page indicate that it's the top selling song off their album, which came out in May.

Hurricane Lohan '06 seems to have passed with little damage. This wasn't a storm of the magnitude of Davis '98 or even Sailor Moon X '01, but it was our first one in quite a while. I want to talk now not about the contents of the rumor, but about the rumor itself and reactions to it.

The thing that really amazed me about this story, and I think Chris at Anime News Network has covered it pretty well in some of his forum posts, is the power that one site had to spread a rumor that could have easily been checked, as ANN did.  All of a sudden five other rumor mill sites pick up the story that another person wrote, forums start talking, and meanwhile the only proof is a couple words on a blog which (and I don't know about any of you but) I'd never heard of before nor plan to visit after.