Pizza Cats Review Newsletter

[Violet]

In this issue we're going to do a little internet archeology.  We'll be digging up some old abandoned SPC web pages.  Back in the middle to late 1990's, as SPC fans became active on the internet, it seemed like just about all of them wanted to have their own web page.  Some were good, some were great, and some kind of sucked.  At one point, I was able to find over 100 SPC web pages.  So what happened?  For the most part, people discovered that starting a web page was easy, but keeping it going isn't.  Some people just lost interest, some just didn't have the time for running a web page.  More recently, web forums like Edoropolis Emporium have provided fans a way to share ideas and information without needing to build a web page.  So why bother to look up these old web pages?  There's still a lot of good stuff on some of these old pages.  Here's a few I picked out.  Others just never got so far, have missing parts, have too many ads, or have just vanished.

SPC Online
http://www.edoropolis.org/spconline/
This wonderful page hasn't been updated since 2002, but it really has a lot to offer.  There are a few sections that were left unfinished, such as most of the voice actor information, and there are some outdated links, such as the now dead SPC Mailing List.  But it does have a great character section, and some nice fan art by the page's creator, "Lil' Polly".

Carla's Page
http://nickelback.host.sk/carla/
Was and still is the only Carla/Okara page on the internet.  It has a lot of obsolete links, but worth a visit for the Carla shrine.

Issarlk's SPC,KNT Page
http://membres.lycos.fr/rgilb/spc/index.html
Once one of the top SPC pages to visit, it hasn't been updated since 1999.  Issarlk was one of the first non-Japanese Pizza Cats' fans to acquire the KNT soundtrack CDs, and his page was once the exclusive source of information about them.  There's also some manga/doujin stuff, fan art, and even software (A Polly "window sitter" for Win95.  I haven't tested it on XP yet.)

Samurai Pizza Cats Homepage
http://www.two4u.com/pizzacats/
A lot of you probably didn't even have internet access back when this page was first built back around 1991-92.  It was moved to it's current host in 1996, and hasn't been touched since.  However, this web page is important to us, since it is not only the very first SPC web page, but represents the very beginnings of SPC Fandom on the internet.  Unfortunately, most of it's images are missing now.  They would be considered very low quality by today's standards, but for a while they were the only SPC pictures to be found.  The episode guide, although it has a few errors, was what all SPC fans went by for years.

P.U.R.R.I.N.G. Samurai Pizza Cats
http://www.edoropolis.org/spcvr/index2.html
You can tell this web page's owner is a fan of Francine, because she's at the top of his long list of character bios.

KonKon's SPC Page
http://members.tripod.com/~Yuurei/ninden/ninden.html
Aside from some basic SPC info, this page has a Big Cheese shrine, and even an interview with him.

Little Gravitation: The Pizza District
http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Towers/9607/pizzadist.html
This page was home to the rather ambitious and very incomplete "Completely Useless Samurai Pizza Cats Encyclopedia", a great idea that was just too much for one fan to do alone.

Guido Anchovy's Shrine
http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Pagoda/2177/
Although now cluttered by Geocities' excessive ad bar, this was a page dedicated to Guido.  It has Guido pictures, Guido quotes, Guido's weapons, and Guido's potential girlfriends.

Jonas Miles' SPC Page
http://www.geocities.com/jonas_miles/
This was the center of activity for SPC FanFic writers and readers, and there's still plenty to be found if you're looking.

Speedy's SPC Page
http://www.angelfire.com/hi/spcfans/index.html
Aside from being a good example of what a typical SPC web page looked like back when everyone wanted their own web page, you can find a lot of the pictures that were once hosted at other web pages here, including the ones missing from the first ever SPC page.

That Overflowing Bath of Wonder
http://endpo.0catch.com/spc/
One of my old favorites and I still hope it will come back to life.  This page gets lots of points for originality and design.

This Month's Pic
Merry Christmas Seymour!

Happy Holidays Everyone
See you next issue, next month, next year.
-Violet

[Mechadon]

Acrheology is right! These are the very sites that discouraged me all those years ago.  It was these sites that made me believe SPC was a dead.

[adam808]

Most of these were the pages that got me excited. I didn't realize before then that the show had an online or real life fandom presence. Of course, I didn't know much about how many fans of different things there were then. I'd never downloaded a movie or TV show, only mp3s. Issarlk's page was great for info on the KNT CDs when paired with Tigriss's section about it. Issarlk had the Japanese track titles while Tigriss had the translated ones (both romanized and English). Jonas Miles' page was cool, it had some RMs of KNT episodes and other goodies. Overflowing Bath of Wonders I'd like to see active again. Whoever created it, come drop us a line, we miss you!
I was most surprised that pages about SPC had been around for years. I wish I had done an Altavista search for pizza cats just once on it back in '98 or something. I'd have had fun.

[Slips]

Wow. This comes to show how much we've gone when it comes to the internet! But, it was a treat to see these web sites. Any fan site that is SPC or KNT related is my kind of website!

As for the monthly pic, don't get too excited Big Cheese, I think you've got a ton of coal in that stocking!

[SteC]

It's pretty cool how each of those sites vary in content - you'd look around each one for the best bit of information you'd want to find out. Like, which page has the most fanfics, which page supports what character, etc. It's all very humbling for the show having so many web pages dedicated to them! (*?*)

[NPC]

I visted some of those listed and several others not listed back around the time I found EE. Some of them had disappeared when I tried to find them again, but there are some still functional out there...

[Methid Man]

I remember most of those sites, yup. They were my only source of SPC/KNT info back then before we had reference sites like Wikipedia, RetroJunk and IMDB.com.

Although many of them have faded away, it's nice to see some are still hanging in there.

-- Sam the Methid Man

[KageReneko]

Those pages were who brought me back to the SPC world!! I really loved The End Game Saga from Jonas' Page but I just could get the first chapter...

[Alistair Erie]

I really miss those old pages.
And just to let you cats know, the Polly window sitter works just fine under XP.

[Violet]

New Episodes Encoded
I told you before that more episodes were being worked on.  Well, now Tsuneko has released 2 more high quality SPC episodes to start 2007 off right.  Number 16 "The Big Cheese's IQ Corral" and number 17 "Field of Screwballs".  Currently, these are available at Supersonic's FTP site at http://knt.shin-getter.net/spc/Tsuneko/
These episodes were made into AVI files by a new method Tsuneko is trying, and these look even clearer and sharper than the earlier episodes, which were already of very high quality.

Fan Fic Writing Contest
For any fan fiction writers or wanna-be writers who need an excuse to write something; Burke and Truro from Edoropolis Emporium have decided to hold a little fanfic writing contest.  This is a friendly competition, so don't be intimidated if you don't think you're the best writer ever.  There are a few rules: Keep the story as similar to the format of the SPC TV show, as possible. Any format (Script, story etc) and word length (within reason though. No novel-length stories please).  No Fan-created characters, with the exception of the 'Robot of the week' .  Entries must be 100% new material. Please refrain from posted pre-existing fan fictions, the deadline for submissions is midnight, on February 14th.
http://www.edoropolis.org/forums/index.php?topic=1215.0;topicseen

Translated "H" Doujin
For those interested in the part of Pizza Cats fandom that isn't really suited for "all ages", the Nihonbare board has uploaded some doujin comic pages created by Japanese fan artists, and now translated by Matsumoto, and edited by myself into English versions.  One thing that we didn't change is the layout.  The panels of the comic have to be read Japanese style, from right to left.  There are currently 3 comics translated, all from the doujin book "Manjyu".  Needless to say, these are "adults only", and are only available to Nihonbare members.  Nihonbare is an alternate Pizza Cats message board for topics not suitable for Edoropolis Emporium.

This Month's Pic
This animation cel with it's original background was used in the episode "Gaku! Mijime na Koon no Kami" which became "A Little Bit O' Luck" in the English version.

Happy New Year
January also marks the 9th anniversary of this newsletter.  Yay!  But we'll wait until next year before we make any big deal about it.  I'm sending this month's issue a few days early, since I might be too busy on Sunday.
-Violet

[felineki]

Very nice image this issue. Seeing scans of the show's cels is great enough, but I particularly enjoy the ones with backgrounds like this. There are so many details in those backgrounds that are easy to overlook when you're watching the show.

[KageReneko]

Needless to say, these are "adults only", and are only available to Nihonbare members. 

Great, finally a good thing about be an adult and the censure kicks my ass... Hey Vi, can you gimme a hand??

I never look the little links about the pages... -_-U

[BurkeWorld]

Sign up for the fiction contest!

Whoo! [/Shameless plug]

Burkey

[Mechadon]

Very nice image this issue. Seeing scans of the show's cels is great enough, but I particularly enjoy the ones with backgrounds like this. There are so many details in those backgrounds that are easy to overlook when you're watching the show.

Yah. That's some detail in that background. Even the pebbles have their own shadows.

[SteC]

Very nice image this issue. Seeing scans of the show's cels is great enough, but I particularly enjoy the ones with backgrounds like this. There are so many details in those backgrounds that are easy to overlook when you're watching the show.

Yah. That's some detail in that background. Even the pebbles have their own shadows.

How the passage gets darker from the long distance adds bonus points for the detail of the background. Thought I might ask; do you own the cel, Violet?

[Blackcat]

Samurai Pizza Cats Homepage was the first page that got a link in my site, that reminds me, I haven’t updated the links in ages-_-

You cant visit the “Foro de discusión en español de Los Gatos Samurai / SPC / KNT” on this forum to see a preview of the next update in the personages(Characters) section.

[Violet]

How the passage gets darker from the long distance adds bonus points for the detail of the background. Thought I might ask; do you own the cel, Violet?

I own many great cels, but not that one.  That's just a scan I've picked up somewhere in my years of saving SPC pics I find.

[Violet]

Eto Rangers Come to Edoropolis
Juuni Senshi Bakuretsu Etoranger ("12 Warrior Burst Eto Ranger") is an anime made 4 years after the end of Kyattou Ninden Teyande.  It is of special interest to Pizza Cats fans since many members of the KNT production team worked on this show.  Like KNT, Eto Ranger features animal characters.  In this case, the animals are not mecha like in KNT, but they represent the 12 animals of the Asian zodiac. Fans will notice a similarity between some Eto Ranger characters and KNT characters, since character designer Noritaka Suziki worked on both shows.  Unlike KNT, Eto Ranger was broadcast only on satellite TV, so it wasn't widely seen. (One reason why Eto Rangers merchandise is almost nonexistent)  The show has been translated and aired in Italy, Taiwan, South Korea, the Philippines, and South America, but no English version was made.  Fans are currently working on subbing episodes into English.  Because the 2 shows are so closely related, Edoropolis Emporium has opened an Eto Ranger sub-board for fans to talk about the show.

KNT Manga Translation
Daisensei and ElonNarai have been steadily translating and editing T. Souma's famous KNT manga.  This excellent manga has always been loved by Pizza Cats fans.  It picks up where the TV series ended and takes our cats on a new adventure.  Soon, English speaking fans will be able to enjoy it even more, since they'll actually be able to read it.  Only a few fans outside of Japan own a copy of this out of print manga.  But the pages are being scanned, translated, and edited into English.  Follow the progress at http://www.edoropolis.org/forums/index.php?topic=1103.msg13894#msg13894

Princess Preparations
My Spiffy Diffy Web Page, also known as Princess Vi's Internet Empire, will turn 10 years old this April, and I'd like to do some upgrading to mark the occasion.  If you have some suggestions on things you'd like to see there, please tell me about them.  I'm also looking for help with the Samurai Savings Time page, particularly in the character section, http://www.angelfire.com/ca/savespc/characters/index.html where I intend to link each character's name to a page with information about them.  And, of course, please let me know about any problems with the web pages.  My Internet Empire is big, it's hard for me to keep track of it all!

This Month's Pic
Is an old Bandai advertisement featuring KNT toys among other things.

See You Soon
Just a couple weeks until March, and I'll be back with a new issue.  Happy Valentine's!
-Vi

[felineki]

I still haven't gotten around to watching Eto Rangers yet, I need to do that.

As for upgrading your webpage, I've come across pictures of a few KNT doujinshi that aren't on your big doujin list (maybe you already know about them, but the page simply hasn't been updated to reflect this).

[Violet]

I know there's a few that I have but haven't added yet since I haven't updated it in a few months, but I'd like to see what you have.  Try to get in touch with me on AIM so we can compare notes.