Priceless

Prize Catalog Cover

Recently a fan, Jessie Martinez, claimed that there was now a Sailor Moon pinball game that you could win for free. WHAT??? (Thoughts of what such a game would be like swirled through our collective heads. Certainly with Serena/Usagi at the controls it would have to tilt instantly.)

Most of the time these sort of leads go nowhere but this one turned out to be true. Except the pinball in question isn't manufactured by Bally's but instead is constructed with plastic.

The Kathryn Beich company (a division of Nestle), services the fund raising drives of non-profit organizations. When volunteers for the non-profits sell enough Nestle products the volunteers can receive gifts for their hard work. Volunteers get to choose from a variety of prizes from a Kathryn Beich catalog.

Pinball Game

A recent catalog featured a "Handheld Pinball Game" which wasn't even identified as being from "Sailor Moon." However, not knowing the value of moonie merchandise, the company made the game one of the easiest to receive. All a volunteer had to do was to sell one box filled with Nestle products (probably chocolates--it maybe different products for different organizations) and they could receive the pinball game.

So finally here's a piece of merchandise you can't buy! (Better collect these if you can!)


Illedgible

Around the SOS treehouse we're aware of some of the irritation we might cause whenever we link one of our stories to Japanese webpages. We know that most of you can't read them--especially when there are Japanese characters (you know, the letters of their alphabet) which are outside of the regular html that translation programs can't decipher.

Merch from Official Site

But have you ever thought of what some of our Japanese members & readers go through? There's one page on Bandai's site that even they don't want to read and that's the new merchandise page! One of our own members recently complained in an internal memo, "There are so many new merchandise that I can't keep track of any more!"

Imagine that! Complaining that there's too much new merchandise! (Currently in the states, we have lots of VHS & DVDs to buy but no new merchandise.) But the Japanese merchandise is expensive. All those trinkets over the years can add up and take up valuable Tokyo apartment space!

The problem is that many Japanese fans may have been lulled into a feeling of complacency after "Sailor Stars" went off the air. With no new merchandise to buy they could take a break. They did, but no more.

So you English speaking people: Be thankful when you can't read it, can't buy it and can't afford it!




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