This year, rather than settle for that mall calendar of field mice ("A 16 Month Treasure Trove of Nature's Busiest Housekeeper!"), why not hang something in your home, cubicle, or secret underground laboratory for world domination which reflects one of your more personal interests? We're talking about Toei Animation's 2001 Sailormoon Calendar!

In Japan, Sailormoon used to have her own anime calendar every year up until and including 1997. For the 1998 calendar Toei dropped the practice and then placed the characters on only one page which featured other Toei characters for the other months. But now, for 2001, Sailormoon has been given her own calendar once again!

It's pretty big, costs only 1680 yen and best of all-- you can only buy it in Japan! (Wha?!) They do this so their merchandise (Japanese) doesn't interfere with other merchandise (like DiC in English speaking countries). But there are all sorts of wonderful ways around this, like buying it over the Internet!

It's currently available at www.dokidokistation.com (owned by one of our members), The Place and at www.fujisan.com! (We hope other online companies pick-up this item as well. Please let us know and we'll list you too!)

A few pointers concerning www.fujisan.com's site. On their Main Page you will find a link to the English Language version of their pages. Once there, go to the "Quick Search" pull down menu and select "Calendar." Then, type in "Sailor Moon" in the regular "Search" field. Unless you follow these steps you may find it very difficult to find the Sailormoon calendar. The calendar is actually identified as, "Bishoujyosenshi Sailor Moon Year 2001" and is categorized as a "Year 2001 Try-X Calendar." It sells for 1680 yen or (in US Dollars only) $18.98. Californians have to pay an additional Sales Tax of $1.38. Shipping to the US via sea (which is very misleading as it will actually be shipped from a warehouse within the United States) is $3.97 for the first item, $0.99 for the second item and $1.29 for each item thereafter. Shipping to Canada (the rest of the world does not seem to exist) is US$7.99 for the first item, US$6.99 for each additional item. Before being able to complete any purchases the site will require you to establish an account with Fujisan--please have an adult or your legal guardian at your side!

Note to DiC: Rather than license calendars that will appeal only to the under 11 year set (okay, under 6) why not just get the rights to reproduce this one which appeals to everyone?! That one licensed to Entertainment Calendars, LLC (and designed by Capstone Studios) for year 2000 was so pale and washed out! Andy, save time and money and just reprint Toei's!

Subsequent to this story, DiC's Sailor Moon calendar (again designed by Capstone Studios) for 2001 was published. The DiC calendars, as of this writing, are available at Virgin Records and Suncoast. The DiC calendar is not as good as Toei's but it's definitely better than last year's!