Sailor Moon 2013 Anime News Roundup

*crickets*

*tumbleweed*

*crickets on a tumbleweed*

…yeah, we’ve really gotten nothing. What I said last summer when the news broke is about all we have still, though initial thoughts that Momoiro Clover Z’s song “Otome Senso” would be the new theme have been pretty much refuted, and, though they are set to sing the new anime’s opening theme, we do not know what that song will be. We have gotten a video of the group doing a live-action parody of the original opening for the third season of the anime, which is fun:

I don’t know if this means that “Moonlight Densetsu” will once again be the theme or not, but at least they’re keeping Sailor Moon (and their connection to it) fresh in the public’s mind.

A good place for information on the new anime (and any and all Sailor Moon media) is moonkitty.net which has this page set up to gather news and make reasonable guesses as to possibilities for the series. Anything that is a supposition is labeled as such, so don’t worry about rumors being started on the site and passed off as news. The webmaster (Brad, a really nice guy, judging by his YouTube videos) is a big moonie and he has never seemed interested in deceiving or tricking the fandom. The latest tidbit he’s offered via twitter is that the anime seems to have been delayed from its projected summer premiere:

Nothing really confirmed though.

Well that’s about it, unfortunately. The main reason I’m posting a news roundup with no news available is to remind everyone that I haven’t forgotten about this, it should still be happening, and to be careful with what you see online. Many people have posted supposed art from the new series and I want to remind everyone to be very skeptical of anything like that. As of right now, nothing that concrete has been released so anything you see claiming to be a new character design or a screencap from the series is most likely not what it claims to be.

For the time being we’re all just going to have to sit tight and make sure we check the sources on anything claiming to be news. It could turn out to be a Negaverse plot trying to steal your energy!

Nerd News: Disney Buys Lucasfilm!

Usually I spend an unfortunate number of hours on the internet. Today, with a ton of reading for class hanging over my head, I did the honorable thing and shut my computer and put my phone in my pocket and read about literary theory for an hour, totally unplugged.

My mistake. Imagine my surprise when I got to class and my classmate excitedly asked if I had heard about Lucasfilm. I hadn’t so I looked it up, and apparently Disney has bought Lucasfilm!

So here’s the deets:

• Disney has, pending any antitrust legislation getting in the way, acquired Lucasfilm (as well as Industrial Light and Magic, among other things) for $4 billion dollars.
• They hope to release a new film in the Star Wars universe by 2015.
• It seems that they’ll be operating in the same vein as Marvel, which is also owned by Disney, where they own them but basically let them do their own thing.
• They hope to release a new film in the Star Wars universe by 2015.
• George Lucas is turning over his executive creative control to Lucasfilm co-president Kathleen Kennedy, but will remain on staff as a consultant.
• They hope to release a new film in the Star Wars universe by 2015.

Here’s hoping that they proceed into the expansion of the extended universe rather than trying to continue adventures too close to the original Episodes… we don’t need any more Kingdoms of the Crystal Skull.

No word on what the 2015 film will be about yet, but they apparently hope to release a film every few years from now until forever, so buckle in for hopefully continuous Star Wars gratification for decades to come. It’s a brave new world, folks – call me an optimist, but maybe one day we’ll even get a blu-ray of the Star Wars that we used to know.

(via ABC News)

Hear George Lucas talking about it here:

Nerd News: Neil Gaiman Continues to be Awesome

We here at Lady Geek Girl and Friends have a continuing and unabashed love for all things Neil Gaiman, so we felt it was important to share this double-whammy of great things.

First of all, our buddy Neil won a Hugo Award (a prestigious award for greatness in the sci-fi genre) for the Doctor Who Series 6 episode “The Doctor’s Wife”, one of my all-time favorite episodes. (That’s the one where the TARDIS is in a lady, you remember.)

(Here’s the full list of Hugo winners, if you’re interested.)

The sleepy author himself, wielding his Hugo.

Secondly, it has been revealed that Gaiman will also be penning another Who episode, theoretically slated to fall in the second half of Series 7. (I say theoretically because “The Doctor’s Wife” was originally supposed to be part of Series 5, and was pushed back into 6 because of reasons, so ‘New Gaiman Episode’ may experience a similar fate.) Who’s got two thumbs and is super excited about this? This girl!

Nerd News: Goodnight, Sweet ‘Zine

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but in the immortal words of Lewis Carroll, “the time has come.” And, indeed, the time has come, after twenty three years, to say good bye to the market-changing Nintendo Power magazine. But don’t fret! There will still be a couple issues left before it ends, but exactly how many is uncertain at the point in time.

I know for me, Nintendo Power played a huge part in my childhood. My brother and I used to pore over each and every page repeatedly, waiting eagerly for the next issue to arrive. I actually memorized one specific issue (I can’t remember the number, but it had some fighting game on the cover of it) back in the day because of how many times I looked at it, all for a cheat code to Snowboard Kids. Plus, they had the best sweepstakes; I’m still bitter I didn’t win that guitar shaped like Zora-Link’s from Majora’s Mask.

More importantly, it exposed me to two of the jobs that I love doing: translating/localization and reviewing. I still hold firm that someday I will work for Nintendo to give back some of the joy that it’s given me over the years. Although I haven’t received an issue for a long time, its departure from the magazine stands will hurt my heart. I’m not the only one! This article by the fine folks at IGN also recounts some of its editors’ wonderful memories. Excuse me, I must have gotten something caught in my eye…

Do you guys have any memories of Nintendo Power? Any letters sent? Art created? Arguments caused by the stilted game ratings? Talk to me in the comments and let’s work up some nostalgia over issues gone by.

Literally Me: It’s So Hard to Say Good Bye

Nerd News: Rush Limbaugh Accuses The Dark Knight Rises of Political Propaganda

Rush Limbaugh’s delusions and paranoia have reached new heights by accusing The Dark Knight Rises of being a tool of political propaganda. He claims that Bane is supposed to make people think that Mitt Romney’s investment firm Bain Capital is evil in order to manipulate us voters into voting for Obama.

Check it out:

“Have you heard, this new movie, the Batman movie — what is it, the Dark Knight Lights Up or something? Whatever the name of it is. That’s right, Dark Knight Rises, Lights Up, same thing. Do you know the name of the villain in this movie? Bane. The villain in the Dark Knight Rises is named Bane. B-A-N-E. What is the name of the venture capital firm that Romney ran, and around which there’s now this make-believe controversy? Bain. The movie has been in the works for a long time, the release date’s been known, summer 2012 for a long time. Do you think that it is accidental, that the name of the really vicious, fire-breathing, four-eyed, whatever-it-is villain in this movie is named Bane? … Anyway, so this evil villain in the new Batman movie is named Bane. And there’s now discussion out there as to whether or not this was purposeful, and whether or not it will influence voters. It’s going to have a lot of people. This movie, the audience is going to be huge, lot of people are going to see the movie. And it’s a lot of brain-dead people, entertainment, the pop culture crowd. And they’re going to hear ‘Bane’ in the movie, and they are going to associate Bain. And the thought is that when they start paying attention to the campaign later in the year, and Obama and the Democrats keep talking about Bain, not Bain Capital, but Bain, Romney and Bain, that these people will think back to the Batman movie — ‘Oh yeah, I know who that is.’ There are some people who think it will work. There are some people think it will work. Others think — ‘You’re really underestimating the American people who think that will work.’” – Rush Limbaugh on his syndicated radio show

(via The Mary Sue)

Wow, Mr. Limbaugh I didn’t associate these two things in my mind until now. Romney can thank you for that. I only ever associated Bane with well, Bane, the Batman villain that was created in the 90′s. And who is exactly discussing whether Bane being used as propaganda against Bain is purposeful? I only ever heard this from you, Limbaugh, because other people are sane.

Seriously, at this level of insane rambling why is this guy even on the radio still? At the very least you would think some who is supposed to report news would do the barest amount of Wikipedia research before talking about something they clearly know nothing about.

Nerd News: Double Awesome News Edition!

So San Diego Comic Con is this weekend, so a lot of cool industry news will be breaking in the next two or three days. But here are two of the coolest things I’ve heard so far:

1) Legend of Korra has been officially renewed by Nickelodeon! And not just for a Book Two, but Books Three and Four! That means forty more episodes of Avatar-world awesomeness! (In fairness this isn’t an actual announcement from SDCC but… get over it.)

2) One of the biggest things that sci-fi geeks find themselves having a sad about is the cancellation of Firefly. Well, it’s not coming back, but the cast is getting a double-whammy reunion—they’ll all be together at Comic Con this weekend for the first time since, I believe, the filming of Serenity, AND they’ll be filming an extensive behind-the-scenes documentary called Browncoats Unite that will be airing November 11th on the Science Channel. Yay!

Shiny!

Nerd News: This Just In–Girls Play Video Games Too

A while ago, LadyGeekGirl chose the wonderful Anita Sarkeesian of Feminist Frequency as a webcrush and today it’s my pleasure to bring her to the forefront once more. She has started a Kickstarter (which, as of 10 hours ago, has met its $6k goal and surpassed it by about $153k!!) to fund a video series in which she takes an in-depth look at the portrayal of women in video games. As a woman that plays video games, this project is of great interest to me and I’m more than elated that she has been able to reach her goal. With topics such as “The Fighting F#@k Toy” and “Man with Boobs”, this series is sure to be not only highly educational, but also entertaining and full of Sarkeesian’s tongue-in-cheek humor.

However, all is not well in Kickstarter land. As to be expected, there has been an opposition to this project by a group of men who have taken it upon themselves to not only deface her YouTube page with hateful comments but also start their own fundraising project that goes over the misrepresentation of males in video games. This is not bad in and of itself, but it’s clear that its creators have put forth this project simply because they want to prove just how wrong and sexist (ha ha) Sarkeesian is being by exposing the very legitimate hatred towards women in games and, furthermore, embedded into our culture. Luckily, many denizens of the internet find this shit ridiculous and are firmly on Sarkeesian’s side and Sarkeesian herself has been handling the haters like a champ.

I will most certainly be looking forward to this series when it comes out, but until then watch what is perhaps one of the best responses to this situation.