Is It Christmas Already?! Toy Roundup!
There's been so much activity in this department recently we thought it would be best to present an overview of
what's been going on.
First, the really big news is that Bandai in Japan is producing new "Sailormoon" products. The new toys received their
first public showing at the Tokyo Omocha Show '99 (Tokyo Toy Show '99). A few months later they were presented to higher
scrutiny and market testing at a Sera-myu Fan Appreciation Show. Bandai conducted surveys of the fans' reaction to the new
line. We've been told that the standout items were the new plush dolls of the Inner Senshi which were over 1 meter tall
with changeable clothing (and a suggested price of 100,000 yen)!
Meanwhile, signalling the end of the world as far as we're concerned, DiC Entertainment has asked for fan input on their
toy licensing. (Write to them, if you dare!) We kinda like our own idea of a "Sailor ReBoot" collection (which only Irwin
Toys could produce if DiC and Mainframe were willing to get less of a percentage). Email DiC if you'd like to buy this
item!
Our friends over at SOS Australia (where it seems like they get no toys, no episodes and no features [What a great place to
live! We wonder if they have to eat dirt as well?) are trying to encourage Bandai and Irwin to make "Sailormoon"
merchandise available Down Under. We haven't investigated if their S.O.A.P. Campaign is a good idea or not but we are
planning to help them out with a very unusual email campaign concerning the series. (Look for it soon.) So far, the best
place for Australians to make purchases are from Online sites.
And it seems that everytime we feature an Online Site with some sort of highly-prized sought-after trinket they sell out
way too fast. The latest casualty is the Colossal Games site which had some of the harder-to-find Irwin
plushies. They have a few left, as does The Sailor Moon Specialty Store (which was discovered by Caroline Wyum, thank you Caroline)!
New Online Toy Sites have been springing up with alarming frequency. Most of them have not been worth mentioning--let
alone visiting. However, we did receive a very nice press release from Netoy (which we believe is supposed to be
pronounced, net-toy). They really made a point of selling (in their words) the hard-to-find "Sailor Moon" and "Dragonball
Z" toys but whenever we visit their web pages we see the same widely available items. (Maybe in the future they'll start
to get serious about this?)
And it bares repeating from time to time to watch out for pirated merchandise. Buying this stuff doesn't help anyone and
actually hurts our chances of getting more episodes dubbed (and dare we now say, subtitled?). Josh Galloway discovered these "Honey Babies"--uh huh, at "an inconspicuous dollar store in Corpus Christi,
Texas." Josh, these squeaky-clean senshis are anything but squeaky clean! They are the TOOLS OF SATAN!!!
Okay, so we overreacted. But they kinda came out looking that way on our scanner. Thanks, but no thanks Josh. (But thanks for trying!) |