Collection Oddities: German Sailor Moon Squeaky Toy

 Sailor Moon was massively popular all around the world and as a result there are some country exclusive items that were made in smaller numbers than any of the US or Japanese merchandise. Germany's Igel company released quite a lot of this small run, unique merchandise including dolls, plushies, figures and some other weird things.

This is somewhere between figure and weird thing:

                                                The Official Sailor Moon Squeaky Toy:

When we bought this we had no idea it was a squeaky toy we just thought it was a cute concept, kneeling moon and inquisitive Luna on a crescent moon base. When it arrived from Germany, we found it was made of soft squishy rubber instead of PVC plastic like we were expecting. Strange sure, but we were more interested in how it unfortunately seemed to have been painted by a very talented factory working who under normal circumstances would have made a beautiful figure, but was drunk while detailing ours. Naturally the not-so-stellar paint job was disappointing, but  it's nothing too odd in Sailor Moon collecting.

At some point we flipped the figure over and found the oddity. We noticed that there was a little hole in the bottom. A little hole that looks suspiciously like the holes in the bottom of our dog's squeaky toys. After a brief moment of disbelief at the concept we gave it a little squeeze...

Squeak Squeak

This left us both amused and dumbfounded. It's not like they just made a toy out of rubber and it happened to squeak as a result, there is a squeaker in it. Meaning at some point while this was being conceived there was a conscious decision made to enable a Sailor moon figure to squeak. Leaving us left to ponder for what or for whom is this item intended?  Is it a Sailor Moon toy for your dog?  For your Baby? Or did Igel just believe that Sailor Moon Fans everywhere were yearning to make squeaky noises? We thought perhaps the tag might give us a little insight into this mystery of who this toy was intended for, but what we found wasn't helpful.

The image might be kind of hard to read, but it says:
  
Mondstein flieg und sieg  

Which if you don't know German Translates to "Moonstone fly and victorious" at least according to both types of translation software we used on it. Which doesn't clear up any questions as to why there's a Sailor Moon Squeaky toy, but does present a host of new question regarding that Slogan. (In case you're curious the back side of the tag just has copyright information which is strangely in English). I suspect the slogan is probably just something that doesn't translate well, but we are looking at a Squeaky Toy after all. Maybe the whole thing is some sort of elaborate plot meant  to confuse. It's hard to say.


Some mysteries probably won't be solved in our lifetimes and for now we'll count this item and it's slogan among them.

It's mysterious, it's odd, and it's squeaky. We're thrilled to get to share it with you.

For those of you really really interested we have higher quality photos in our Flickr account.

~Stephanie


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New Sailor Moon Italian Trading Figures Review

We don't normally do reviews for things that aren't completely oddball, but we've seen precious little about these new Italian toys on English sites other than a smattering of pictures. So we thought we'd show off this collection cute little figures.

First up the box:

It came slightly less cute looking, but we set up as a display box, just how it would look if we were lucky enough to live near a store that sold them. The box comes with 24 blind figures sealed in individual bags so everyone you get is a surprise. each bag contains a figure, a puzzle card and a sheet showing the full line of figures.

The puzzle cards aren't really cards as such, they're printed on glossy card stock but they're about half the width of a normal trading card and have wavy edges. each card correspond to the figure they're packed with and one side has information about the character along with a small picture (all the info is in Italian so we have no idea what they say). The Back side of the card has part of a larger image on it and when you assemble them all correctly they look like this:

It's not the most exciting Sailor Moon image I've ever seen, but it's cute.

The figures themselves are like Japanese Gashapons. Most come in separate parts and require assembly. There are 12 figures in all (13 if you count luna and artemis as separate though they come together). Here they are in no particular order see them all after the jump: