Collection Oddities: Sailor Moon Doll Pizza Scooter

At the height of it's popularity in the mid 1990's, Sailor Moon had a ton of merchandise released in Japan. We Sailor Moon collectors might think we're drowning in merch now (which TBH we are), but it was nothing compared to the mid-ninties. Out of this glut came a lot of weird stuff that really had little or nothing to do with the show itself. Many moon fans think Irwin pretty much cornered that "what the hell is this thing" market (the moon cycle comes to mind) But there were plenty of weird things released as well.  In that vein in Japan there was an entire set of Sailor Moon Pizza parlor items including outfits, the pizza parlor itself and this beauty, the official Sailor Moon pizza Scooter.

Pretty sure Chibusa is violating Japan's child labor laws

We have the pizza parlor as well (sadly we've not photographed it) but that seems like a more reasonable accessory. The girls do go on outings when the're not fighting for love and justice, a pizza parlor is a reasonable place for teenage magical girls to hang out in their off time. The pizza scooter on the other hand makes some weird assumptions. For example that somehow Usagi and Chibiusa somehow have time for a part time jobs presumably after school but before transforming into pretty soldiers in the evening, not to mention the fact the Chibiusa appears vastly underaged for normal work (we know she's 900 but the local labor board would probably be tough to convince).  Perhaps most alarmingly though it implies that Usagi would be competent at making pizzas without buring them and driving the scooter around to deliver them without crashing. My many years of familiarity with Usagi's character make that the an entirely unbelievable claim. Here it is out of the box:

Years of turmoil have left the Moon Kingdom in need of repairs so Princess Serenity takes on a part time job to help out

(Posed it with the Bandai Princess Serenity because it amused us). It comes with a helmet because safety is very important when you're as clumsy as Usagi is. This apparently works with the IR RPG toys but we don't really collect the old RPG toys so we haven't tested it out but it rolls along with manual power as well.  It's a pretty fun design though we especially like the crisis compact design on the front. What better way to blend in to populace as regular High School student/Pizza delivery girl than by plastering your current magical transformation item on the front of your scooter? Also notable the heart shaped sticker on the back with Suai and Chibiusa in it, is that the pizza parlor's official logo? If so does the Tsukino family own it?  If so when did this happen, who paid for this, and who wrote out the business plan? The mind, it boggles. So many unanswered questions with these old crazy sailor moon items. Otherwise the decorations are generic cute ribbons and stars, pretty standard for the sailor moon doll playset. Also the trunk opens for easy pizza storage, or maybe a magic wand or two in case the girls are attacked while on the job.

Overall this is a weird wonderful thing with no real reason to exist, so of course we love owning it and sharing it. Also if anyone want to sell us those pizza outfits (preferably NOT MIP)  let us know,  we'd love to complete our set.

~Stephanie

Don't forget to stop by our shop:

Top 10 Video Game Dogs

In honor of it being National dog day in the US we decide to put together a list of the top 10 dogs of video gaming. This list is presented in no particular order because it's really hard to decide who deserves more head scratches and squeaky steaks over anyone else.

The Duck Hunt Dog

You can't talk about video game dogs and not talk about this jerk. Today's games for kids would never feature anything that laughs at your failures, but the it was a different time and all us 80's kids are still carrying the bitterness and emotional pain from being taunted by this big bully. He's not likable but he is memorable.  

K.K. Slider: Animal crossing series

K.K. Slider AKA Totakeke, performances have been delighting animals and villager with his wide variety of Song stylings since the original Animal Crossing game. With every new animal crossing I knew I had to hit that first Saturday night performance to get my copy of K.K. Technopop (which like so many songs sounds entirely different preformed live than it does on the home stereo.) The Newer animal crossing games make it a little easier to get a hold of K.K. sweet tunes by letting you pick them up at your local department store, but regardless of how you get it, K.K. music makes the already delightful animal crossing world even better.

Dog: Fable II 

The Dog in Fable II is an ever present companion, pointing you to chests, dinging up trinkets and biting those no good bandits that seem to be swarming over every part of Albion. The Dog in Fable II is loyal to the absolute end and in my game I did something I almost never do in games which was make a more selfish choice affecting 100s of others just to keep him by my side indefinitely because I love him so much. There's a dog in Fable III as well and while I do love my dog he didn't inspire the same sort of devotion as the Fable II dog.

Chop: Grand Theft Auto V

I might be biased because I had a big silly Rottweiler as a young lady, but I really love Chop. He's cute, he does tricks, and he only attacks when someone is hostile towards Franklin first so you don't have to worry about him instigating fights (or making Rottweiler's look bad). So you can just have a nice day of playing fetch your silly dog without worrying about too many consequences. Chop can get injured he always respawns back at Franklin's ready for more playtime or possble to bite more jerks depending on what's going on. He even was the subject of his own out of game app while, we didn't use his app( because we didn't have phones that worked with it) it says a lot about how lovable chop is. The game features 3 distinct main human characters and not a one of them get a special app. I'd love to play fetch with this lovely boy in real life.

Parappa: Parappa the Rappa

Parappa's the title character of one the most quirky and original rhythm games ever released. Parappa is a dog made of paper who raps and is in love with a sunflower. I'm pretty sure that introduction alone should make just about anyone fall in love with him(or at least have a healthy interest), but if that's not enough, in the rain or in the snow he's got the funky flow, how many of the other dogs on this list could say that?

DogMeat: Fallout Series

DogMeat is by far the best looking follower you can get in the Fallout series which is in itself a pretty good perk, but he also takes commands well, scavenges stuff for you, and holds unwanted supplies all while not caring how particularly good or bad you are.  I personally couldn't bear to take him with me in FO3 because I couldn't stand getting him accidentally killed (the puppies perk didn't make me feel any better about it). Luckly in his newest incarnation in FO4 fixed he's cute, he's useful, and now he's unkillable too.

Rush: Megaman Series

Rush has been with Megaman since way back in 1990 and has been helping him reach greater heights ever since. Rush can transform into a springboard, a hoverboard, a submarine, a bike and a spaceship to name a few. If it's not enough that Rush is basically the world's cutest transformer he can also junction with Megaman making him stronger than ever. He's definitely a robot's best friend

Hewie: Haunting Ground

Hewie is Fiona's partner throughout the confusing and disturbing psychological world of Haunting ground. Fiona is prone to sudden uncontrollable panic when faced with a castle full of people who want to kill or molest her and Hewie helps keep her alive while she's blindly running into walls or corners. In addition to keeping Fiona alive when under direct threat, Hewie also helps with puzzles and goes exploring in Fiona's stead. Hewie does require some training to be at his best, but he's overall a very good boy and Fiona wouldn't survive without him.

Angelo: Final Fantasy VIII

Angelo, Sant' Angelo Di Roma formally, who in spite of the name is a lovely lady dog, is one heck of an asset in battles. As part of Rinoa's Combine limit break she offers some of the most useful skills in the game (assuming you've found and read he Pet Pals magazines). Her better than average dog tricks, are pretty much the only reason I ever bothered having Rinoa in my party any longer than necessary. Frankly the game would have been better if Rinoa was wholesale replace by Angelo.

Brown: Rule of Rose

After she rescues him from some unquestionably evil children, Brown becomes the companion of poor hapless Jennifer. He stays at her side as she tries to navigate through a series of confusing and dangerous tasks dictated by the Red Crayon Aristocrats who are tormenting her while she's also trying to navigate a mansion full of freaky monster children and the occasional even freakier adult. Needless to say it's pretty rough for poor Jennifer but Brown makes her life a bit easier. Brown doesn't actually attack anyone (or maybe anything is a better term for those enemies) but he does provide a good distraction allowing Jennifer to get in a good whack or two or escape depending on the situation. He's also able to hunt down precious healing items and tradeable items that make a big difference in how well Jennifer survives. You save Brown's life and he never forgets the favor staying loyal companion throughout.


So that's our list, if you haven't played any of the games these digital doggies appear in we suggest you rectify that immediately, but before that if you've got any real life dogs hanging around give them an extra head scratch and dog biscuit in honor of their special day. And also because I can't make a top 10 list and stick to just here's my lsit of honorable mentions:

Honorable Mention:
These dogs are still great just not in my top list:
Mira from the Silent Hill Series
All of the dogs from Nintendogs
Dog from Secret of Evermore
Diamond Dog from MGSV, Dog from Torchlight,
Dog from the Bard's Tale(2004)


~Stephanie

Don't  forget to stop by our shop:

Collection Update: Sailor Moon World Coloring Book and Printable Coloring Pages

We love to color, it's a fun and relaxing way to spend some free time (which is probably why it's a trend lately).  Of course it's always extra fun to combine hobbies, so we were really happy to recently add this Sailor Moon coloring book to our collection:

Sailor Moon World Coloring Book

We're referring to this as a coloring book but it's more of a coloring pad, it flips open at the top and has single images on each page. This has some really cute unique images in it too for example:

Adorable Ami and Rei Coloring page

It's really unclear what the heck those two are doing, Rei's getting Ami ready for her wedding maybe? They're in a fashion show? Whatever is happening, it's a lovely image and has a lot of options for creative coloring. There's also some less fanciful images like this one:

Haruka and Michiru coloring page

This cute little image of Haruka and Michiru, is a little more standard in terms of how they're portrayed but is still really, really adorable.

One problem with coloring books though, is that they're usually a single use item, you get to color each beautiful page once and never again. So with most of our collectible coloring books, we just never color in them and enjoy the line art. With this one we decided the images were too cute not to color, so we decided to scan them all so we can print them at our leisure and color them as many items as we want. Here's one of the finished results:

Makoto and Mina

Not the greatest photo of my finished page, but it's a really cute image and I enjoyed coloring it.

As we already scanned the whole book we decided to put the scans up on our site to share as printable coloring pages, so feel free to print and color the senshi along with us. :)

~Stephanie

Don't forget to stop by our shop:

Collection Oddities: Russian Sailor Moon Paper Doll Bootleg

It's been awhile since I've done and oddities post, it's not that we have any shortage of weird crap in our vast collection, its just that I've been devoting my time to other pursuits. However this has been sitting on my desktop for months gently reminding me that we have a little gem to share with the world. So today I bring you a Russian Bootleg Sailor Moon Paper Doll.

The stained glass dolphin gives it a special touch.

Here's the front cover which is also the front of the doll, which notably has no perforations or even thick lines for guidance you just have to be really good with a scissors. There's also some Russian text here but we have no idea what it says, my BFF's husband is Russian and I could have asked him to translate, but I unfortunately have a healthy sense of shame and didn't want to ask him to look at and translate this ridiculous thing. So for the time being it's a wonderful mystery and we can just pretend it says anything we want until someone corrects us. I'm content to think it says Katarina: Moon Sailor. So naturally the artist took some creative liberties with the Sailor Moon character design, shortening up her hair, giving her a blow up doll mouth and breaking the fingers in her right hand. I'd complain about her body proportions being seriously questionable, but I love Naoko Takeuchi's manga art and none of it would past and anatomy test so, I'll give that a pass as it's in the spirit of the original. Also as I noted in the caption there's a stained glass dolphin on it for no reason, I suppose it could the company logo, though if I made this item I'm pretty sure I'd take great pains NOT to brand it in any way, but to each their own.

Moving on, here's the back.

The visible hand lets us know she's a closet Trekkie who wants us to live long and prosper.

Unlike just about every other paper doll I've seen the back of the doll is on a totally separate sheet front he front of the doll. It also has no perforations or helpful outlines so you have to hope you manage to cut both parts out perfectly so you can stick them together. In addition to the back of the doll there are the strips used to stand her up which the maker has thankfully included some dotted fold lines on them and a little diagram. So even if you mangle the doll itself trying to cut her out, you know how to make her dismembered body stand up straight. There's also a lot of Russian text back here which we're guessing is mostly assembly instructions and looks to be some company contact information just in case you want to order more poorly executed paper dolls for friends and loved ones.

Naturally you don't want Katarina the Moon Sailor standing around in her bra and panties all day so she comes with several pages of outfits we didn't take pictures of them all just 2 pages worth.

First up some generic  everyday outfits:

Mangled fingers are always in fashion.

This is the standard sort of casual wear this book of paper dolls provides you with, right on the cutting edge of fashion forward looks for dowdy middle aged Russian moon sailors. More so than the lovely clothes themselves, the problem with these is the drop shadow around them. So now there are no perforations and no guidelines and there's a drop shadow around the clothes further confusing the cutting process. Do you leave in the drop shadows or do you cut them off? This paper doll forces you to make hard choices, they kind there's no going back on. More than simple fashion fun this doll set is teaching tough life lessons. If you can bring yourself and your scissors to make a decision on what to do about those oh so helpful drop shadows you can move on to another set of outfits.

It wouldn't be a Moon Sailor doll without the classic Sailor Moon outfit. This is the one thing the doll actually does well, with the exception of her gloves, it's a fairly accurate representation of Sailor Moon's classic fuku. The School fuku has some accuracy issues but would pass as Usagi's 5th season High School fuku.  The maker apparently put all their time and energy into making a decent looking Sailor fuku that would be nearly impossible to carefully cut out and use with the doll, bless them, truly.

So in conclusion this thing is pretty awful and unusable, what I didn't point out above is that it's all on flimsy paper not cardstock, and not even the thickness of most office paper, so even if you happen to be one of those people who do really beautiful and delicate cut work your doll isn't going to stand up under it's own weight and will likely blow away if someone walks by it. However like all of the crszy pieces in our lovingly curated collection we like it for all of it's insane imperfections. When you spend thousands of dollars on your collection sometimes it's nice to throw a few dollars at something that's not so serious and just makes you laugh at the sheer absurdity of it.

Don't forget to stop by our shop: