Spring Cleaning

By: CereCere

For the first time in months I thought up a lot of things I could write about. So I picked some of the shorter ones and threw them all into one rant!

Name Game

Over two years ago when we started this site things were pretty easy when it came to dealing with information from the English version of Sailor Moon. We use to simply say, "don’t mix the Japanese with the English" and "don’t use fandub information." While we still suggest that today, things have gotten a bit more complicated than that.

About a year ago we reported to you some of the changes Dic had made in the 17 newer episodes that contradicted what they had done in the first 65 episodes. Already, new problem, Dic contradicting itself. In the same article we told you how Irwin had released three new dolls, with English names, for Neptune, Uranus, and Pluto. While there was no guarantee that Dic would use these names if it ever dubbed SMS, we said we would recognize them, if anyone used them as English names for these characters on their site.

Lately, some new twists have been thrown in. We have gotten reports of MixxZine (The English comic publishers) giving Darien/Tux a last name, "Shields" [cough, cough, bleh!]. Also, we have now learned they call Pluto, Setsuna in their translation of the manga. (Thanks to all the people who wrote in to confirm this.) This of course contradicts the Irwin dolls. Are you confused yet? If you are, hang on tight to those safety rails, there’s more!

There has been a "Sailor Moon RPG and Resource Guide" book released by The Guardians of Order. They received a license to do the book from Kodansha, the Japanese producers of the manga. While they do credit getting some information from Dic, it is not licensed by Dic. Maybe even more important, MixxZine, the only "active" adapter of Sailor Moon in North America, isn't even mentioned! The book has some questionable information, in our opinion. It fills in the blanks, doing things like giving Japanese family names to the English first names where Dic left them out. For example, Serena Tsukino. Remember, the book is not officially recognized by either Dic or MixxZine, so they do not have follow what it says. We will try to overlook any page that uses information from this book, but we ask to draw your own conclusions before using the information on your page, because this could lead to yet more contradictions in information.

There is an old saying, "too many cooks spoil the broth". That is exactly what is happening in North America with Sailor Moon, too many companies are involved in making their own stuff up, contradicting not only each other, but themselves! Don't you think a little more time should have been spent by each company to try and consult each other a bit more?

WPR Explosion

Even though the surge of new SM Web Page Review Groups (SM-WPRs) has pretty well died down, people keep asking how we feel about it. For the record, we have always welcomed any new group, and do not mind the "friendly competition". However, the thing the newer SM-WPRs have to cope with is originality. There are so many of us now, making an original SM-WPR is very tough to do. Many of the new sites have come up with many fresh ideas, only to have someone else come up with very similar ones the next week. For a new SM-WPR to get noticed and therefore, have a chance at surviving, it needs originality. So who knows what is going to happen next to all of these new WPRs. All I can say is, if you are thinking of making a new SM-WPR page, take a long time to come up with something very original before making a final decision to do one.

Misconceptions About Us and This Site

There have always been misconceptions about this site. Some think we are heartless fiends who have nothing better to do than hunt down web pages. Others think we do not properly help anyone. Then there are a few who say we are not approachable when it comes to asking for help, or making comments and suggestions. Normally, we let these slide, we have heard them so often, but something this month made me decide too take a look at them.

Now, I could go on and on about why these misconceptions are wrong, but why? The people who believe them are probably going to miss this article, just like they missed all the other sections that disprove their misconceptions. Those sections we have spent days, months, and yes, even years developing. So why go on about them here?

All I have to say is look at these sections on our page and then decide if the misconceptions are true:

• Our FAQ, containing answers to Frequently Asked Questions.
• Our Page Tips Section, which includes tips we didn't just make up! Most of them we have collected from talking with and reading articles by many professional web page designers.
• Best Reviews and Second Look Reviews, just to show we do more than review bad pages, and we do give bad pages a second chance. Don't forget to check out The Archives and see all of those little "Improved" banners for sites we have given out. Some, we have done extra things for, to help them improve.
• Finally, our email address. I welcome anyone who has questions, or suggestions to use it. I check it daily, if possible, and always like hearing from people, answering their questions, and listening to what they think about this site.

May 17th, 1999

As usual any comment made on this page is that of "The Amazoness Quartet" or one of its members. Tripod has nothing to do with our opinions, etc, lalala...