Book Review: The Incredible Untold Story of Sailor Moon

Now it's time for another new series of posts I wanted to do, and that is the book review section where I take a look at a book regarding cartoons and animation.'

Our first review will tackle the latest book about Sailor Moon.  Written by Theodore Jefferson, The Incredible Untold Story of Sailor Moon talks about how important Sailor Moon is when it first came out in North America.

First of all, there is no denying how important Sailor Moon is in the anime industry.  This anime had all 5 characters being the heroes as girls saving the world.  Sailors Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, and Jupiter, and later Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, Saturn, and Sailor Mini Moon were a group of guardians sworn to protect the Earth and their princess of the Moon Kingdom, Sailor Moon.  This was a major hit in Japan, and even in North America, Sailor Moon had a major influence in young girls.  So why not add some more icing to the cake as to how important Sailor Moon is.  That's what the book supposedly attempts to do with the renewed interest in the series now that Crystal has come out.

This book starts out kind of funny.  It talks about a brief history of anime, but then it turned into a history of fandoms and the fandom of fantasies such as Dungeons and Dragons.  The point...."this is how Sailor Moon is HIGHLY influences" as the book somewhat tries to argue.  And to be fair, that's not an exact quote, I'm just summarizing the idea.  While I'm sure stuff like that inspired the industry as a whole, I'm very sure this wasn't the MAIN REASON for Naoko Takeuchi to create the manga Sailor Moon.  The book then talks about the English adaptation and how it became "the #1 show".  To be fair, there are some facts that in later years the show had success on Cartoon Network as part of Toonami, and to be fair again, the book at least said that when it first came out in America, it bombed due to bad time slots in syndication.  However, I must argue that even though Sailor Moon was a hit, it wasn't a MONSTER hit like Pokemon or Spongebob.  I never recalled a lot of merchandise.

Speaking of merchandise, the book also goes off saying how Sailor Moon helped Marvel when it needed it most.  I got news for you, the book hardly mentions the heroine in that chapter.  It just says that Sailor Moon toys and books were selling and it helped the company out of bankruptcy, but when it went into details as to how, I never saw a true explanation as to why and how it was Sailor Moon.  I think it was Spider-Man if you ask me because that was the name that showed up the most.

Then we go into another connection....Disney.  The book claims that "Disney at one time owned Sailor Moon because it was a DIC show which Disney owned at that time."  Yes it's true, DIC was owned by Disney (hense the Inspector Gadget movies).  However...Takeuchi still owned the characters of Sailor Moon and Toei who produced the anime licensed the show to DIC.  Disney only had home video rights to the show.  Girls....sorry to spoil your fantasy or the book's fantasy that Sailor Moon was the first "Disney Princess" in terms of modern day licensing.....she isn't.

There was one thing the book did do right and that was talking about how Sailor Moon did very well, and then all of the sudden, until recently, she went away.  This was because there were management changes.  Two companies where handling the same property (DIC and Cloverway), and Takeuchi got full control of her characters back.  So once some contracts ended, it was all over.  I will argue that if Sailor Moon stayed that she would be somewhat mainstream.  Not a monster of a franchise, but enough where you can go to the store and find some merchandise.  Even now with Viz having the rights, you could go to your favorite anime store of something similar and find Sailor Moon stuff there.  I'm not here to say that Sailor Moon was never popular, nor am I discouraging anyone to watch it, but what I do see in this book is that everything is far fetched.  It also doesn't help that, despite all factual, the book goes into so many tangents it's hard to keep up.

Finally, the conclusion the book seems to make is that Sailor Moon should have been and still could be if the cards are played right as big as Marvel, Harry Potter, DC, Star Wars, Star Trek, etc.  The book backs this up by saying the Disney Princess line was highly influenced by Sailor Moon as was stuff like Monster High, some of the Marvel stuff, DC Super Girls, and even Harry Potter.  Folks.....there are no quotes in the book that can prove that.  And there isn't even a mention of the Barbie doll if I can remember.  THAT'S the influence.  And why Marvel Movies?  Why Harry Potter?  That's apples and oranges.  It makes no sense.  Again...no quotes from ANYBODY saying "Oh....Sailor Moon was the reason we made all those Spider Man movies."  And don't get me wrong, Sailor Moon is my favorite anime, but I'm a realist.  I simply cannot see Sailor Moon as the base of today's entertainment industry.  I just can't.  I'm sorry.

This book is nothing but a biased argument with very little proof of the pudding.  It's like reading one of those long PDF files a major university professor created to make his or her own arguments.  Some people love or want a series or franchise to be obnoxiously out there like Star Wars.  I have problems with that.  I like a lot of things, and when you do that, you overshadow everything else (yes it's true...look at last Christmas with the new Star Wars movie...that's all everyone talked about).  Never before have I gotten so angry after putting a book down.  This is the first time.  I must sadly not recommend this book due to the bias and very little facts.  Go buy a book from someone who as done research and/or was there to work on Sailor Moon. Skip this one...there are still plenty of resources left to learn about this anime.

Alvin and the Chipmunks Knock offs: The Nutty Squirrels

This new series of blog posts talks about groups that were formed with the success of The Chipmunks.

That being said, The Chipmunk Song by David Seville was a huge success that everyone (as always) wanted to cash in on it.  Don Elliot and Alexander "Sascha" Burland formed The Nutty Squirrels.  The concept was like The Chipmunks except they did smooth jazz.  Their first album featured Uh-Oh parts 1 and 2.  Part 2 peaked at #14 making it a top 40 hit in 1959.

This group had a major advantage over Alvin as they got an animated series FIRST.  This began airing in syndication in 1960.  Great right?  Well not necessarily.  The only thing that featured them was the opening where they try to re-create William Tell while the song Uh-Oh part 2 played as their theme.  Titled The Nutty Squirrels Present, the series actually showed off foreign cartoons.  So yeah....it wasn't successful and by the end of the 60's, The Nutty Squirrels have fallen into obscurity.

Here is the cartoon:

And here, give a little listen to Uh-Oh part 2.  

The top rare Pokemon episodes to search for

Everybody's searching for Pokemon on their iphones with the latest app, Pokemon Go.  Even some of the very rare ones and the most popular ones like Pikachu.  I....on the other hand.....am not very good at finding Pokemon on Pokemon Go (I claim it's because I play it the wrong way which is doing it safely).  What I am good at, however, is finding rare Pokemon episodes from the anime.  This is a list of Pokemon episodes that I deem very rare in no particular order.

1. Holiday Hi-Jynks

This special episode of Pokemon is your typical what I call "Kiss Saves Santa" special.  Team Rocket kidnaps Santa because one of his Jynks stole Jesse's dolly.  It is up to Ash and his friends to stop them and save Santa Claus.  While the episode itself is very corny (I remember this being on Kids WB myself), this episode had a controversy with the Pokemon Jynks who is accused of being racially offensive to black people.  This episode has since been off of reruns.  Besides pirates online, a 2006 release of The Indego League did include the episode, but the most recent release of the series has exiled it since.   

2. Beauty and the Beach

Nearly every anime had some kind of swimsuit episode (which would be consider fan service), and Pokemon was no exception to the rule.  This episode has Ash, Misty, and Brock at the beach crashing into someone's boat.  In order to pay for damages, Misty enters herself in a swimsuit competition.  If it can't get any weirder, Team Rocket enters the competition too with James wearing inflatable breasts.  It is obvious why this episode is harder to see because of the content used...even for a kids show.  This episode was indeed dubbed and aired at least one time on Kids WB, but removed the inflatable breasts scenes.  It is not on any DVD.  On Youtube, some Youtubers have uploaded the Kids WB recordings, and some even uploaded subs of the censored scenes.  One Youtuber reconstructed the episode using the best available source material, but has since been deleted.  You may find both versions on pirate sites (use at your own risk).

3. The Legend of Dratini

This is one of the most bizarre episodes of Pokemon I've ever seen for good reasons.  While the story itself is innocent enough with Ash going to a Pokemon Safari to get some rare Pokemon, its owner will indeed remind you of Clint Eastwood.  His use of intimidation is guns.  This is the only episode of Pokemon where someone uses a real life gun as opposed to a fictional ray gun or something cartoony like that.  Also, Meowth is shown at one point dressed up as Hitler.  Because of the use of guns and Meowth as Hitler, this episode has never been dubbed nor released in the US.  A few video sites have uploaded this episode in various qualities.  Sometimes it has different language subs or no subs at all.  Happy hunting trainers!!!!

 4. Pokemon Chronicles

This unusual Pokemon series is an on the side spinoff series which features the side characters such as Misty and Brock and also new characters as well.  The first 3 episodes were released as a movie, but were chopped into three episodes.  Some other episodes include special Pikachu Winter Vacation episodes.  Many of these episodes are bizarre in their own ways.  For example, Team Rocket is credited by peers as the good guys in one episode.  As interesting as the series is, it is the hardest one to see as it is not like the usual episodes that follow Ash and Pikachu,  These aired briefly on Cartoon Network, but the series is mostly available in the UK and Australia, who released all the episodes.  There is no official DVD release in the US.  In 2016, Pokemon's Twitch streamed these episodes as part of Pokemon's 20th Anniversary, but has not been seen in the US since.  Your best bet is to find these DVD's from the other countries for these shows.  

5. Electric Soldier Polygon

Was there ever any doubt to include this one on the list?  This episode involves Ash and friends stopping Team Rocket from interfering transportation of Pokemon to Poke centers.  They use a Polygon to help.  However, a virus killer begins targeting both Team Rocket and our heroes only to be stopped by Pikachu in the end.  This episode used INTENSE strobe lighting effects.  The worst one was caused by Pikachu.  That scene when originally aired in December of 1997 in Japan sent MANY Japanese kids to hospitals for epileptic seizures.   As a result, this episode was banned to never be aired again.  The earlier episodes were fixed to get rid of the problem, and Polygon was no longer allowed in the anime even though it was Pikachu's Thunderbolt that triggered the big strobe effect.  This effect used red, blue, and purple flashing at lightning speed.  It was never dubbed nor released almost 20 years later.  Recordings of this broadcast do exist.  Many Youtubers and video uploaders alike has uploaded the original episode uncut.  Some are subbed, others are not.  Until Pokemon Go, this was the only danger with Pokemon.  Watch at your own risk.

Honorable Mentions:  

Team Rocket vs Team Plasma
Road to Kalos

New Years Special XY

New Years Eve 2014 Super Mega Special

Destiny Deoxys 

Lucario and the Mystery of Mew

Pokemon XY: Mega Evolution Specials

All new Blog Live!!!!!

The new and improved blog is now live, and I am excited to get started on writing some of my opinions on the latest news and even the not so latest news.  Plus this blog will cover other things such as DVD and book reviews.  There are no restrictions....only the limitations as to what I want to write about....not just what's going on with the news.  The first blog entry should be coming up very soon.