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

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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.

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Collection Oddities: Sailor Moon Silk Necktie

We have a pretty healthy collection of nerdy ties, because Jen loves stylish menswear and will rock a cool tie with an outfit whenever she can. Most of our collection of ties is Mario themed, but recently we had the opportunity to add one from Jen's favorite fandom, Sailor Moon.

 

This is an oddity for a variety of reasons. First, we've never seen another one in our 13 years of actively collecting Sailor Moon oddities. Second, it's a crazy pattern, I mean given the color palette it's most assuredly a bootleg/custom job but it seems a random mix of items even for a bootleg item. Third, it's really odd to have a Sailor Moon item that primarily appeals to men (not that there aren't plenty of ladies who look hot in neckties). We've known a wide variety of proud moonie men in our day, but it's no stretch to say that the Sailor Moon fandom is largely of the female persuasion. So it's kind of mystery as to who thought it was a good idea to make this. Was it one guy who commissioned a custom to show his moonie pride at business lunches and long meeting? If so why this is insane pattern? Was it a mass produced bootleg? If so why haven't we seen any others and why choose to make a bootleg of something so random? As we mentioned before there are male moonies, and there are girls who wear ties, but they're a tiny slice of the market. Also, the tie label notes it as 100% silk why waste a silk on a bootleg? Regardless of  it's murky history though, we're happy to have it and it manages still look surpsingly dressy:

Totally the perfect companion during boring business meetings and networking events.

~Stephanie

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Collection Update: NES Friday the Thirteenth Jason Action Figure Comic Con 2013 Exclusive

 If you've read our blog before it's probably obvious that our regular writers enjoy the NES Friday the 13th game, perhaps more than just about anyone else. We've reviewed the game and it's hack September the 27th and play them on a fairly regular basis. So when we heard the announcement that Neca was making a specialty Jason figure based on the NES release, delightfully inaccurate color palette intact,  we were naturally insanely excited. Unfortunately we're pretty far away from California, and couldn't really justify a trip there for a single awesome action figure (Naturally there are other things at Comic Con that would be awesome too but that's irrelevant to this story) Luckily Richard has an acquaintance that was going and was willing to pick them up for us. So a few days after Comic Con this handsome guy arrived in MN:

Obviously this isn't strictly a new collection addition since we've had him since August, but he's seasonally appropriate and certainly a cool rarity. Neca really did a fantastic job with this figure from a fangirl point of view. First up we've got the box:

I really like the NECA seal of quality

 The front of the box is a  pretty fantastic replica of the Original NES box with some obvious changes like the Comic Con logo, and replacing the Nintendo seal of quality.

The back of the box:

The back is less accurate to the game box than the front, but still extols Jason's many virtues. Since this is a collector's figure this also has a snazzy viewing window and inner flap:

That text should be on a stark black background but I enjoy the 8-bit cabin

 This is one of my favorite display boxes for any figure, the cabin background and on screen display graphics are just aces. Though you're not fooling anyone Neca, we know that's Mark. Also, while I feel that the "You and your friends are dead." text really belongs on the appropriate stark black background so you can really channel the nostalgic feelings of failure most of us associate with this game. The lake cabin is very visual appealing. But this is a figure not a box so we should explore what's in this fantastic packaging.

Here's Jason:

 Jason comes packaged with his trademark extra large machete and an axe, both of which glow in the dark for extra fun. I'm a little upset about the axe, in the game the axe is very short and looks more like a hairbrush. I would have much preferred the hair brush axe or just a tiny hair brush, that would have been ideal actually. His mask also glows in the dark (as do his feet and hands) and is removable:

Jason with all his accessories.

He never takes his mask off in game, but since Neca based this figure on their Friday the 13th part III figure they just used the same face. Here's a comparison shot*:

So now we know Jason looks cool, but what about the action portion of his action figure status, you may ask? Well he doesn't have a lot of points of articulation but he gets the job done but he's a pretty good poser we took a few shots with him and our other action figures:

Falling asleep while on Special ops at Camp Crystal lake was a bad idea Snake

The power of love and Justice is no match for the power of vengeful fury

Overall NES Jason is pretty cool. Sure he's basically a clone of Neca's Jason from Friday the 13th part III with glow in the dark parts, and a very purplish blue color scheme, but that color scheme matters when you love the NES game like we do.

~Stephanie

*Friday the13th III Jason figure image from http://www.basementoftatlock.com/

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Collection Oddities: Sailor Moon Curry Mix

With a show as popular are Sailor Moon there is going to merchandise all over the board including quite a range of food items from candy to canned pasta and a lot of things in between (like the selection of Japanese rice seasoning packets we have in the shop) but this is something a little rarer:

If you can't read Japanese and the picture isn't helpful enough, it's a curry mix.  This is the outerbox and inner pouch containing the actual mixture. This hasn't been used so the pouch is still full of liquid, we're nervous that it'll spring a leak if we feel it up too much so we're not sure if it's just sauce or a full on curry. As it's around 15 years old now we obviously had no intentions of actually trying it, but we do wonder what exactly makes it's sailor moon curry? Is it made of pure hearts and moon dust? Young girl's dreams and Pink Sugar? Rose petals and crushed spell scrolls? I could probably continue making ridiculous guesses but we'll probably never really know what makes it full of moonie goodness. What I can say though is that the art on the packet is super cute, the simplicity of the monochromatic line art is really appealing.

We've only seen this once so it's likely the there aren't still a lot of them floating around intact. So this is rarity as well as an oddity and we're happy to have it (until it explodes one day and covers everything in magical moon curry mix)

~Stephanie


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Collection Oddities: Vintage Mario Birthday Flag Pin

Throughout the years Nintendo has been there for you if you want to let Mario celebrate your birthday with you.  In our personal collection we have centerpieces, party horns, party hats, a cake pan and a gaggle of cards.

Recently we added this pin:

Right now it looks like a typical late eighties early nineties Mario item, but if you're sharp eyed you'll notice that Mario isn't just playing his own strange game of backwards foot hockey with that black puck, it is in fact a button. Pressing the button  is where the birthday part and some confusion comes in.

Pressing the button causes a a tiny "Happy Birthday" flag to pop up. If this was a stationary item, this would make a little more sense. You give it to your Mario loving friend they push the button and delight in their birthday wishes from everyone's favorite plumber. However this is meant to be worn. So do you buy the pin and wear on your friend's birthdays and invite them to push the button? Do you wear it on your birthday and communicate "happy birthday" to the world at large, because it's your birthday and you're gonna make sure it's happy for everyone you see? Or do you wear and push the button whenever you feel like you could use some upside down birthday greetings (assuming you're wearing it right side up on your torso in some fashion).

Clearly trying to wear this is only going to lead to  fashion confusion and heartache.  Luckily for us we keep it display in our collection, making it once again a stationary item and removing all those pesky "how the heck am I supposed to wear this questions."  Implementation issues aside,  it's a pretty fun item and fun way to add even more Mario to your birthdays.

~Stephanie


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Collection Oddities: Dr. Mario Witch Doctor Commercial Animation Cel

Almost our entire cel collection could be a collection oddity as they're one of a kind and while others might have similar cels, rarely will there be an exact copy. This cel though is rarer than most as it's from a commercial which by nature are short and even when fully animated don't have a lot of artwork available and it's from a commercial that's mostly live action. The animation section where this cel comes from  is on screen for less than a full second!

So here it is in all it's glory:

We don't want to know what Mario's plans for that thermometer are.

This is from the most well remembered of the 3 US Dr. Mario commercials, the Witchdoctor. Which I seem to remember also being a print ad. This is a really well composed shot considering that Mario spends part of his half second screen time squinting his eyes shut while stomping and we had previously bought a very rough sketch from that part of the sequence a year prior to getting this cel. We also have this cel and it's matching animator's sketch available for viewing in our cel gallery.  To check out Mario's brief appearance you can watch the commercial:

For obvious reasons we wouldn't have expected to get any art from such a short sequence let alone 2 sketches and a cel. We're incredibly happy to own such a unqiue piece of Video Game and Commercial History.

If you're interesting in owning your own piece of video game commercial history we currently have several sketches and even a cel from the original 1983 Donkey Kong Cereal Commercial available for sale in our shop.

~Stephanie

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Collection Oddities: Mario Brothers Christmas Window Clings

 In 1989 Nintendo seemed committed to slapping the Nintendo seal of quality on every insane product they possibly could, including a surprising amount of home decor, so long as you count plastic and cardboard as decor. In that vein we bring you  these lovely Mario Christmas Window Clings:

We've seen a good number of Nintendo seasonal decorations and these actually pretty tame compared to some of the others.  There are a few points of interest here, it has 2 flurries from Mario Brothers 2, and I'm pretty sure I've never seen anything else with them on it which is pretty cool. Also, I never knew Mario was competitive skier in 1989, I mean sure he's an Olympian these days, but apparently he started training 20 years in advance. The most important thing to note though, why does Santa Mario have breasts? Seriously there's not another way to see that, what was the artist thinking? Regardless of Mario's out of place "endowments", this set is pretty cool and has a place of pride with our collection room decor.

If you're looking for a set of these to make your holiday decor extra special we have a set in our shop right now too.

~Stephanie

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Collection Oddities: Sailor Moon Sailor Vacation

 Today's crazy Sailor Moon item is straight from Japan, once again proving that it wasn't just Irwin or Chinese bootleggers who had insane ideas about what items do and do not make reasonable Sailor Moon toys and collectibles. With that in mind we present you Sailor Vacation:

All the fun of visiting the Moon Kingdom in one convenient box!

It's kind of confusing as to what exactly Sailor vaction is for, is it for taking on vacation with you? (it's not visible in our pictures but there is a litte plastic handle on top). Is it what the scouts would take on vacation with them? Is it supposed to give you the feeling of going on a a "Sailor vacation" without leaving your room? Honesty we have no idea, and the box doesn't seem that helpful.Admittedly as usual we have very limited grasp of Japanese, so we don't have any idea what the box says, but it looks like generic warnings and a parts list mostly. All we can really tell is that it's a box of stuff with eternal Sailor Moon and chibimoon getting a lot of face time.

Opening the box and examining the parts actually just confuses things further.

For your vacation you need a plastic tray with plastic coins and some Sailor bank tickets, which is just more fake money but in a paper pad form this time. These are the items that  actually make sense you would need money on vacation. What's less sensible is why you would need 4 different memo pads, a cardboard "pouch" (which is just a cardboard box with a flap and plastic handle) and an (unpictured) plastic whistle. I suppose there could be some sort of game using these items, but it;s pretty unclear and there isn't really a whole lot of items with text on them in the box leading me to believe that if it is a game you've got to make up your own rules.
 Also unclear is why poor Sailor Jupiter was excluded from the Memo pads even though the other inner senshi are accounted for. Perhaps she decided to skip the Sailor Vacation and went someplace more fun?

Quirky, unclear usage, questionable design motives and plastered with Sailor Moon characters, just the sort of thing we love adding to our collection.

~Stephanie


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Collection Oddities: Vintage Mario Halloween Mask

 One of our most infamous posts was our Legend of Zelda Link Halloween Mask. It's October again, so we thought it high time we horrify with some more Nintendo Insanity from 1989.  In addition to making our little green hatted hero of Hyrule, they also made everyone's favorite mustachioed plumber for children of the 80's to horrify their friends and loved ones on Halloween or any other occasion.

It'sa YOU! MARIO!

Like Link this is an official product tagged Nintendo of America 1989, has large souless holes for eyes and is a made of the same breathable plastic. It's a little better than Link though as it actually resembles 80's era Mario rather than a demented Leprechaun, and looks a little less horrifying on a human being.

Link still edges out Mario as being our favorite creepy plastic mask, but Mario is still a pretty fun and still creeps out our friends. However given the brittleness of the vintage plastic and the general uncomfortableness of an 80's plastic mask it's probably better left as decorative item than an actual usable mask.

We display our proudly next to our Link mask and someday we hope to add any more of these monstrosities Nintendo may have made. (we know in addition to Mario and Link ,there's Yoshi, but who knows what else might be out there)


~Stephanie

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Collection Oddities: Sailor Moon Crayons

 These Crayons are North American releases and are actually pretty rare, we'd seen them once back in 2000, didn't buy them then and regretted it a bit. It took us 9 years or so to track down another set for our collection:

There giant piles of Sailor Moon desk supplies available, pencil, marker sets, stationery, notebooks folders, etc. So strictly speaking sailor moon crayons aren't that odd. However, while we neglected to photograph it, these are really really lazy integration. They are really generic crayons, you know the ones that say "crayons" on the side, no makers mark or anything else. Additionally the box says 48 crayons, but only contains 12 or so colors.  So in a nutshell the sort of crayons they really aren't good for anything.

Basically the box art with Sailor Moon is the only thing that makes them Sailor Moon Crayons. In fact this would probably be better  referred to as the Sailor Moon Crayon box. Admittedly if we'd known it was just a lazily marketed crayon box, we might not have spent so much time looking for one, but we've got it now and holds a place of pride along with the rest of our insane Sailor Moon items.

~Stephanie

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Collection Oddities: Sailor Moon Pop-up Fan Keychain

 Don't you hate it when you're overheated and try to use your keys as a fan with less than stellar results? Well like so many things in life, Sailor Moon has you covered.

In the name of the moon I shall fan you!

This is a Keychain fan with a Chibi Usagi topper and says Sailor moon S across the actual fan part. As though having a fan at your finger tips at any moment isn't exciting enough this one also pops open with a quick release button. When heat strikes, hit the little button in the handle and BAM! instant fan cooling power. When the heat wave subsides, you just pop it back into the handle and it clicks into closed position, sleeping once again, awaiting it's time to be the heat avenger once more...

On a more serious note this is a cute item, and we do legitimately like it, but one does have to wonder who exactly needs a keychain fan with a quick action button as a functional item?

~Stephanie


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Collection Oddities: Sailor Moon Toothbrush Set

 This item really isn't that strange. There are a lot of character branded toothbrushes and have been for years (at least from the 70's that I've personally seen) so it makes sense that a popular kid's show like Sailor Moon would get them. Unlike some of the other North American items from this period they don't even look that bad.

 OK, so they don't look great either, but cute in their own way. It is a weird thing to collect though which is why these are in the oddities collection. Ours is almost a full set of  the senshi that were made, but they did make a tuxedo mask as well which we're missing. It seems likely most moon collectors have no idea that they could be brushing their teeth with the sailor senshi on a regular basis. Though honestly these are at least 16 years old, putting them in ones mouth is a horrifying prospect.

We've rarely seen these in other collections so they're, unique, if not rare.  We're happy to have them.

~Stephanie


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Collection Oddities: Sailor Moon Bath Salt Set

 There are a lot of Sailor Moon toiletries, toothbrushes, bubble bath, hairbrushes and more. In that illustrious tradition we bring you the Sailor Moon Bath Salts Set:

There are actually several sets of Japanese bath salts sets, but this one is our favorite since it has individual packets in their own box and each packet has unique images on the front and the back . The best one by far is Tuxedo Mask who takes his top hat and mask into the tub with him. Though the weird fish in with Luna is also an eyebrow raiser. On the subject of Luna, she must sort of fail at being a cat if she needs bath salts and a bath instead of just grooming herself normally.

We don't read much Japanese so we sadly don't know what scents these are, but we're pretty sure if we were to use these 20 year old bath salts, which we aren't because we don't want to be zombies, but we feel confident we'd end up Sailor fresh and ready to take on evil.

~Stephanie

PS We have this same set available in our store right now. If you buy them and decide to open them please let us know what they smell like.  :)

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Collection Oddities: Sailor Moon Bootleg Tea Set

  As we've noted before we generally don't deal with bootleg items, but every so often one is just so amusing or so out there we have no choice but to not only pick it up, but to share it as well. So here we have a lovely Sailor Moon "Tea Set"

The Made In China notification seems painfully redundant here, where else could this have come from?

It's hard to even know to where to begin with this thing. I guess I'll just start at the top. We have Sailor Moon and Sailor Chibimoon, who seem to be engaging in some underage drinking. Chibiusa clearly can not hold her liquor, if her dribbles down the front of the package are any indication. They could concievably be drinking something non alcholic, but most of us don't drink juice out of champagne flutes.

Next to our smiling inebriated Sailor Senshi we have the Official title of this item "Fun Tea Play Set." Now before I even start to point out the inaccuracies with that title, I have to wonder what sort of tea they have that's fun. I've had A LOT of tea, there are roughly 20 varieties of tea in our pantry just right now and none of them are fun. Tea can be delicious, it can be warm, it can be rich and it can even be complex, but it isn't fun.  There aren't too many people having wild tea parties. You have tea parties so you can dress up and eat little cakes, and they're fun in their own way, but it has little to do with the tea itself.

Moving on, this is a set of wine goblets, 2 forks, 2 spoons, and 2 plates, which is certainly a food serving set, but it's far from a tea set.  I mean you could maybe put cookies and cucumber sandwiches on your plates, though they're a little large for that, but tea doesn't go in goblets. That's just a non negotiable fact, if they were  the cut glass they're supposed to resemble and you put hot tea in it, unless you're having a tea part in a dimension where the laws of thermodynamics cease to apply, you're going to have a hot if not scalded hand.

So finally we've worked our way to the bottom of the package where over in the corner (though it's hard to see in pictures because it's under the packaging bubble) for reason that will never be clear, Santa Claus and 2 Reindeer are shown having a picnic...seriously. It's the big incomprehensible cherry on this crack item sundae.

Even for a bootleg this might be one of the most illogical sailor moon items ever even in the face of things such as the car pencil box and the Jupiter mini skateboard water game. So on one item we have underage drinking, FUN tea, a scalded hand and Santa Claus. It's glorious in it's own horrible way.

~Stephanie

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Collection Oddities: Resident Evil 5 Sand Globe

We don't normally  highlight things they have come out in the last decade, because A) They're not as fun, B) we mostly collect older stuff and C) most people on the internet have already seen it. However this is such a weird thing we can't help but share.

The Resident Evil 5 Sand Globe:

If any zombies get under this glass, we are prepared.

This was apparently a pre-order bonus. We bought RE5 with the special red xbox360 when they came out, but didn't pre-order for any fun bonuses :( So we bought this on the secondary market. Honestly though I'm not even sure which store it originated from.

It features an incredibly poorly painted Chris and Sheeva back to back guns drawn ready to take one the zombie menace. There's a resident evil 5 logo on the Sheeva side and a Capcom logo on the Chris side. though if I were Capcom I wouldn't have wanted to put my name on this. The painting on Chris and Sheeva is worse than a dollar store bootleg.

When you shake it up Chris and Sheeva are assaulted by a swirl of glittery sand. The sand is a fun concept as it's supposed to be Africa, there's not a lot of snow. However, they should have colored normal snow globe flecks the sand is pretty heavy and doesn't get good air time. It's mostly settled before even have a chance to put the globe back down. It does however make it look like it's drastically reduced their visibility fr a few seconds:

Why is the BSAA setting up camp in the east African glitter desert?

 Overall it's a shame the figures are painted so poorly otherwise though it's really cool item.  Just a bit strange, I can't image there'd be that many Resident Evil fans who also happen to think snow globes are awesome.

~Stephanie


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