Last night at 6pm Pacific Time, 9pm Eastern Time, the Tokyo Otaku Mode web site began accepting pre-orders for the Official Sailor Moon Fan Club. This included allowing fans in Canada, the US and other countries outside of Japan to apply. Unfortunately the web site which hosted the Tokyo Otaku Mode store immediately became unresponsive and no orders were successfully processed. Unlike Kunzite I was not too proud to refresh the page for a few hours which caused long page loads followed by a series of “Bad Gateway” and “Gateway Timeout” errors and eventually 404 errors as the product page for the Fan Club registration was taken offline.

A message was sent out on the Tokyo Otaku Mode Twitter account stating that registration was closing and that it would be reopened at a later date. A full e-mail was later sent out to users who had previously asked to be notified of details about the Fan Club stating that indeed the site was down due to high traffic and that the fans would be able to sign up at a later, as of yet unannounced date, when they assure us that fans will be able to safely purchase their memberships. Fans who had signed up to be notified by e-mail will get some notification when this occurs. If you haven’t signed up for that e-mail notification yet you can still do so following this link to the Tokyo Otaku Mode site. The Tokyo Otaku Mode Twitter account has claimed that registration will be announced well in advance.

Read the full e-mail sent to interested users below:

Hello Sailor Moon Fans,

Thank you very much for your interest in the Official Sailor Moon Fan Club. We are sending this message to update on the current status of membership registration.

Registration for the Official Sailor Moon Fan Club was initially opened on September 23, 2016 at 6:00 PM (PDT). However, due to an overwhelmingly large show of support from the Sailor Moon fan community, our servers were brought down and memberships were not able to be purchased. We would like to offer our most heartfelt apologies for the worry and inconvenience that this issue has caused for everyone who waited for registration to open.

As a result, we have decided to temporarily delay registration until a later date when we are certain that fans will be able to safely purchase their memberships. If you are receiving this message, please be assured that we will contact you again once a new registration date has been decided.

Again, we would like to humbly apologize for the inconvenience that this has caused.
We hope to be in touch again soon with more details!

– The TOM Team
Let’s Enjoy OTAKU Life!

Fan Club membership will cost $58 US and last until June 30th. This will give fans a membership card, access to the Fan Club App for mobile devices and lip gloss fashioned after Sailor Moon’s original Transformation Brooch as well as the option to buy Fan Club exclusive merchandise in the future.

Update: Following issues with the site being inaccessible due to heavy traffic the Fan Club registration page was removed. A message on the Otaku Mode Twitter account noted that registration is currently closed but would be back at a later date.

The Official Sailor Moon Fan Club, previously only open to fans in Japan, has now opened overseas! For a limited time fans in the US, Canada and select other countries worldwide can pre-order a fan club membership for $58 US from the Tokyo Otaku Mode web site. I visited the site immediately after membership opened at 9pm Eastern Time and though I was able to load the fan club pre-order page the site almost immediately become unresponsive, likely due to load, leaving me unable to complete my purchase. Hopefully the traffic will reduce soon allowing users to get their memberships.

Being part of the fan club will give you a membership card, a lip gloss container fashioned after Sailor Moon’s brooch, access to the Sailor Moon Fan Club App for mobile devices and the ability to pay more money for Fan Club exclusive merchandise. The membership period will not last a full year. It will expire on June 30th 2017. This is likely because the Fan Club began in Japan in July of this year, and so the first year will run until June 30th. Though new memberships will only be accepted until October 22nd it has been stated that only a limited number of new Fan Club members will be allowed to sign up, so it is quite possible that registration will close before that date. If you are interested in signing up you would be wise to do so as soon as the web site lets you.

The 6th Sailor Moon Crystal Deluxe Edition Blu-Ray set was released on March 11th. It can be purchased on Amazon Japan and CD Japan. MSRP is 7020 yen, about $59 US dollars. If you’re thinking of importing this keep in mind it is in Japanese only and there are no subtitles. The disk will play in North American Blu-Ray players for this who still want to buy it. There is also a regular edition Blu-Ray and DVD that will be released April 8th, when vol. 7 is being released in a Deluxe Limited Edition set. The DVDs will not likely play in a North American region 1 DVD player.

As with other volumes the disk comes in a collectible box. This one features a silhouette of Tuxedo Mask on the cover. The cover of the disk itself has an image of Usagi and Tuxedo Mask on it.

Every set comes with a charm which goes on the charm bracelet included with volume 1. This release includes Sailor Moon’s transformation brooch. This is the second Sailor Moon item included as volume 1 had Sailor Moon’s Moon Stick.

A 24 page full colour booklet is also included. Amongst the pages are episode summaries, character art for Tuxedo Mask, the Shitennou and Reika, interviews with Yasuhara Takanashi, music composer for the series, and Kenji Nojima, the voice of Tuxedo Mask as well as a page by Fumio Osano, Osabu. Photographs of all pages in this booklet are included at the bottom of this post.

The contents of the disk aren’t terribly exciting. Two episodes are included as usual. This time we have Act 11, Reunion – Endymion, and Act 12, Enemy – Queen Metaria. Many fans took issue with the many changes in Act 12 hoping they would be corrected with the video release but this not the case. Sailor Venus still does not kill Queen Beryl. Sailor Moon still breaks Beryl’s necklace with the sword. The Shitennou still die. Kunzite still says something that sounds like penis. Most of the video releases have some minor updates to the animation. Though I did not notice any specific changes with these episodes it’s likely they are updated as others had been.

There is an audio commentary on this disk. I don’t speak Japanese so it’s hard for me to tell exactly what is going on or even who is present. I would seem that the voice actresses for Sailor Mars, Rina Sato, and Sailor Jupiter, Ami Koshimizu are present. There is also a man who’s identity I couldn’t figure out.

This set will likely appeal to fans with a lot of money or who feel they must have every bit of Sailor Moon on video. The video quality is better than the streaming version but is that difference really worth buying something in a language you can’t understand? I leave that call to you because at this point if you’re likely to buy this you probably already have the other volumes.

Keep reading for more images of the packaging including photos of all pages of the included booklet.

Bandai’s new Sailor Moon keychain capsule toys, also known as Gashapon, are now out in Japan! With these came inserts stating that two new keychains, Sailor Chibi Moon and Sailor V, would be released in February 2014.

Can’t wait that long? No problem. In January five transformation items will be released as capsule toys. The entire set can be preordered now from JList for only $22. The set includes Sailor Moon’s original transformation brooch from the first season, her Crystal Star Brooch from Sailor Moon R, her Cosmic Heart Compact from Sailor Moon S and her Crisis Moon Compact and Sailor Chibi Moon’s Chibi Moon Compact from Sailor Moon SuperS.

Here’s of photo of the capsule toy or Gashapon machines in Japan:

Unfortunately JList is no longer selling the keychains. If I find a new source for these I will update this post.

Photo credit: @motyatumu_0310 on Twitter and @ask03s on twipple via Sailor Moon Collectibles.

Bandai will be releasing a series of very nice looking very expensive Sailor Moon necklaces which are made to resemble some of Sailor Moon’s transformation items. From left to right on the larger image we have gold and silver versions of Sailor Moon’s original Transformation Brooch from the first season, a pink and silver version of the Crystal Star Brooch from Sailor Moon R and Sailor Chibi Moon’s Prism Heart Compact and Sailor Moon’s Cosmic Heart Compact from Sailor Moon S.

These are high end items! Like the rings we reported on earlier they are real jewelry. All are made of silver and some are gold plated. They’re sold at real jewelry prices! Each necklace is currently price at 12,600 yen which equates to about $125 US. Go ahead and get approval for that loan if you’re hoping to get all six! As you can see from the model wearing one these are quite small. No this is not a gigantic Japanese model wearing a life sized broach, they are about 3/4 of an inch in diameter.

Our baller readers may pre-order these items now through Bandai’s store. Keep reading for a close up look of all of the necklaces.

The staff at Sailor Moon News will happily accept gifts!

Source: Sailor Moon Collectibles