AQ : Rantings and Ravings

**Note: This is not a flame against DIC Sailor Moon. This is not a flame against those who want DIC to dub more episodes. This is solely criticizing the creators and leaders of the SOS page.

We all know about about SOS [Save Our Scouts]. We all know what it wants and what it's trying to do- to 'save' North American Sailor Moon and to get DIC to dub the rest of the series. We all know about its petition, and we've all seen the multitude of ridiculously huge SOS images cluttering Sailor Moon pages, all leading back to one single place-the SOS homepage: http://www.iwaynet.net/~sos/sos.html

First off, I'm glad to see it gives you the choice of one of two pages- graphics lite and graphics rich. I decided to load the graphics rich first. Let's see. Wow. This page took as long as most of our bad pages to load up- probably due to the million graphics and animated gifs floating around, as well as the fact that everything was apparently shoved onto one page... To the graphics lite page then. Hmm. Is it just me, or does the graphics lite page look exactly like the graphics rich page? Wow, you could even say it's the same exact thing with the same exact pictures!

I think this page would do well to actually make a graphics lite page... And to make their graphics rich page less intense. Shifting a lot of the 'extra' stuff onto different pages would help. Quite frankly, I see a lot of things on the pages that I don't truly care about- whether Sailor Moon is Satanic or not? Might be wry humor on the part of SOS but it's extremely time consuming on the loading time. Also cut down on the number of graphics and the animated gifs. They aren't necessary and anyone with a 14.4 modem will appreciate their absence. Some pages are, thankfully, fast loading. But others, like the "What are We Missing?" page and the SM merchandise page take forever. Over all, with regards to page design, I'm pretty disappointed. I've seen regular information pages with more professional airs to them; if I was some DIC business executive visiting the SOS page, I'd simply dismiss the group as a bunch of amateur kids way out of their league.

The info is also a good place where SOS could make improvements. If you've ever been annoyed by the scouts/senshi/soldiers mixup, or Usagi/Serena, Rei/Raye, Makoto/Lita bit, SOS is by far one of the worst pages to use this mixing technique. On some pages, we get good old Usagi. On others, we find Serena littering the page. And then we have scouts and soldiers and senshi all liberally used, even on the same pages. Please, if you're going to use 'senshi' means 'soldiers.' What _is_ the point of saying "Outer Senshi" and then use "Inner Soldiers," especially if you use the names Serena and Rini when you're talking about SuperS? Yeah, I have a problem with their "What Are We Missing Page," in more ways than one. The mixing thing is just the tip of the surface, more on that later.

SOS seems to also make a lot of generalizations. For instance, on the "What Not to Say" page [to Nay-oh-ko sensei], SOS makes the claim that saying DIC ruined Takeuchi's work is insulting "Team Naoko." "First, you didn't give the proper greeting; then you failed to introduce yourself and then finally you insulted Naoko Takeuchi's advisors to her face!" Their idea of a "proper greeting" is to say what they put on their "What to Say" page; but regardless, SOS goes on to say how Takeuchi's business partners basically care what Takeuchi says. Takeuchi has virtually no say in what goes on in the anime; hence, the differences in the anime versus manga. And their "What to Say" page has a lot of Japanese with poor pronunciations; irregardless, does anyone else find it mildly ironic that a page that wants to save DIC SM and uses scouts and the NASM names where they shouldn't be used is now teaching people to speak Japanese? If SOS really wanted to make Takeuchi feel welcome, wouldn't it be teaching the NASM watchers about the original anime and manga so they could admire her real work?

As for updates and info... SOS is pretty sad in its updating. Most of the 'hot' news articles from finding Sailor Moon mentioned in newspaper to "Queen Geena" and her live action Sailor Moon bit are seriously outdated. A lot of the links and articles are from 1997. It's already July 1998, mind telling us what's happening now? And I think we need more than a bit about how Sailor Moon must be "okay" for being written up in the TV Guide and how "Usagi could also pass for an Orthodox Jew" (that dang Usagi/ Serena thing again). The Cartoon Network thing is old- we've known about that for the past few months and a lot of us already have the 17 new episodes thanks to our Canadian friends. Any updates on how far SOS is in getting DIC to sub SMS? It seems to me that SOS is more concerned on convincing itself on ways that NASM is still alive, especially that section about how SM might have been mentioned in a Canadian song. SOS, you're here to inform fans and to try to make a difference, not to entertain them and make them pat themselves on the back with trivial matters.

All this plus the audacity of SOS to think that a lot of people buying Poptarts would save a TV show and its ever-constant ability to give itself all the credit in positive events circling around NASM, the thing that really gets me is the fact that an organization that wants to help SM viewers makes up ridiculous lies.

"Haruka and Michiru (Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune) share an interesting relationship that is rather unique by the standards of Western television. Throughout the series, the two are always together, and occasionally they show signs of affection for one another; they never kiss, but subtle indications emerge to suggest a deeper relationship."

Whether due to past lives, romance, or good friendship, the relationship of Haruka and Michiru is yet another sweet and entertaining aspect of the show, and fans of the original series devoutly hope that it will remain faithfully represented in any future dubbed episodes.

If this isn't the biggest crock of information I've ever read, I don't know what is. Source unconfirmed indeed. I did notice, however, that SOS added in the source unconfirmed bit from an earlier version and the 'debate' part (see http://topgun.cinecom.com/ditch/missing.htm); probably since SOS's previous version practically made it seem like this story was fact (and more than a few pages have taken this story to heart and added it in onto their pages including one of July's runner-ups), SOS most likely received a lot of flames (and well deserved ones at that) and changed this to save face.

SOS, a few questions for you. If you're not sure of the validity of this story, why are you putting it up? If you don't even have a source for a rumor that has surfaced only now, two years after SM has ended, why are you saying that this might be a correct interpretation? And why hasn't any other SM fan in the world found this same exact article and posted it up, credits and all? Why is it that this has never been found in the manga, in any Nakayosi, in the anime, or even in one of the Memorial books where quite often secrets are revealed? Why is there also an interview with Takeuchi in an Italian magazine that says that she did have Haruka and Michiru as lesbians? And would you also put up a story that claims "Sailor Moon is really be a man who got a sex change and was a product of two aliens, who turned out to be Kakyuu and Starfighter from the future!" if I sent it in, saying that even though no one's ever heard of this before, it might be true because I found it in some magazine that I don't remember the name of? (And how can you even expect to have NASM faithfully represent Haruka and Michiru's relationship if you don't even accept the true circumstances?) If you can give me any sort of reasoning that isn't full of BS, I'd be happy to hear it.

In the meantime, I've made the only possible, sane answer: this has 'made up crap' written all over it. Quite honestly, if there was never a reason to be disgusted with SOS, there is now. As it is, the SOS page also adds above that they feel it's a "disservice" that Grandpa was censored into being non-perverted since it doesn't expose children to the real existence of "adult sexual abuse." Then SOS continues to lecture that "most first-world countries are no longer in denial over the existance of this behavior." Gee... Is it just me, or does it seem like SOS is in serious denial over the possibility of two Sailor Senshi actually being lesbians? The horror.

One last question, SOS: Who's really doing the disservice here? Readers, you tell me.