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!

Weeeeee! Would you like me as a toy?

Speaking of Irwin, they've informed us that they're pushing the "Sailormoon" line a lot less in Canada right now and are concentrating more on the United States. So if you shouldn't find that certain special Irwin toy, chances are you're a Canadian and that box is headed South for the lower 48. And, as previously reported on our tickertape, Irwin is going to start marketing the "ReBoot" line in the United States this Fall!

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?)

The latest addition to toy sightings comes all the way from Muncy, Pennsylvania, courtesy of Antares Barr who (has quite a fan fic going on and) who found these embroidered iron-on patches at a local Spencer's Gifts. These are nice but we got to start saving up for those Pioneer Tapes and DVD discs for when they come out.

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!)