Both the domestic and international "Pretty Guardians" official Sailor Moon fan club have opened orders for their third consecutive year! The actual membership period starts in July and you can order one any time up until June 30.

The bonus item this year is a first season communicator watch look-alike! The membership card design is on the left here:



Returning members also get a nice retro-Nakayoshi-style package:



The other benefits available to overseas fans are rather limited, but take a look at the list and decide for yourself.

You can get more info and order the international membership over at Tokyo Otaku Mode here:
https://otakumode.com/projects/sailor_moon_fanclub_3rd

Make sure to compare the two purchase options through TOM carefully. The discount they're offering for buying a TOM Premium membership as well may not be worth it depending on your currency and on whether you will truly remember to cancel the TOM membership before it rolls over XD. For me it's only a savings of $5 CAD, so I think I'd prefer to skip the TOM rigamarole and get it full-price.

I know a few of you bought memberships in previous years. Will you be signing up again? Why or why not? Anyone planning on signing up for the first time like me? Why or why not? (Personally, I'm just doing it for the communicator watch lol.)

I personally didn't enjoy having the membership and am one of the people who "returned" it. I was really annoyed that the items are mostly a lottery to see if you can even purchase the item. I also found that the "secret insider" information you were supposed to get was limited and leaked right away regardless so I kind of wondered what I was paying for exactly. There are very few items I like that are membership only, so to me it made sense to just pay a little extra for those few things through a reseller instead of paying to maybe be able to buy them.

This... I.... This is very tempting. I really want that communicator watch. I wear a watch daily and I've been looking into getting a new one for a while now and that one is really nice... I do have a question, for those who have been members before, after you pay the membership fee, is that all you pay to receive the bonus gifts, or are there extra shipping or other fees applied to that?

Also, I find it a bit odd that they would have a communicator watch be the bonus when one of the items being sold at the USJ Sailor Moon collaboration is also a communication watch, though of course the style is different...

Sailor Jupiter wrote:

I personally didn't enjoy having the membership and am one of the people who "returned" it. I was really annoyed that the items are mostly a lottery to see if you can even purchase the item. I also found that the "secret insider" information you were supposed to get was limited and leaked right away regardless so I kind of wondered what I was paying for exactly. There are very few items I like that are membership only, so to me it made sense to just pay a little extra for those few things through a reseller instead of paying to maybe be able to buy them.

I agree with what Jupi said 100% and I was also one of the people who ended up "returning" the membership. To add onto the lottery comment, if you were lucky to be chosen for the lottery, everything was crazy over-priced. For example, I recall there being a small white towel for $90. It had a pink(?) gray(?) outline of Princess Serenity on it. Totally not worth it in my opinion.

If you are new to the whole membership thing and you are debating on whether or not you want to buy one, please take a moment to read the following warning about TOM because I don't want anybody to go through the same nonsense that Jupi and I went through. First of all, I want to say that I was very disappointed with how TOM handled the membership situation. The memberships for international fans were sent out almost two(?) months late compared to the ones for the Japanese fans, and that was originally why I decided to cancel mine. (What's the point of having a six month membership when you are only going to get four months out of it, right? xD) Normally, TOM wouldn't have allowed the "refund," but because of the delay, they agreed to cancel the memberships. However, instead of giving us our money back or giving us in-store credit, TOM gave us an equivalent amount of their TOM reward points. Now this would have been okay, but TOM Points have an expiration date (30-45 days, possibly less?), and they are exempt from certain offers like free shipping. I ended up paying an extra $15-25 on shipping for a replacement item that would have been covered by a free shipping offer had I been able to pay in cash and not TOM Points. They also do not let you combine pre-order items with in-stock items. You have to check those out as separate shipments. So yeah. I am not a fan of TOM.

With all that being said, I really like the watch that is coming out with the new membership! XD If I see it being sold on Ebay, I might consider picking it up if it isn't insanely-overpriced. Hahaha!

I am part of team Boo TOM and Boo SM Fanclub for most of the reasons stated above. I had all of the same issues as Jupi and Andi described and cancelled my membership as well for that first year. I personally wish they would just create a separate international fanclub that would be more appealing to a non-Japanese audience. I know the whole lottery thing is very common in Japan when it comes to stuff like this but to me, it is a waste of money.

If I'm in the fanclub, why can I not purchase fanclub exclusive items? Why does it have to be based on luck?? There are not really very many extras as an international member other than bragging rights, the membership item and card (bracelet this year) and access to the club site (which is Japanese only btw and not everything is text so you can't depend on Google Translate, you'll need a Japanese speaking friend or START PRACTICING YOUR KANAS). Preaccess to tickets for events and stuff is useless unless you live or are going to Japan for said event (and how many people can actually afford that, that are fans).

If you want to waste $50ish on the membership, by all means do so, but I'd rather spend that money on other SM goods (or bills. gotta pay them bills).


There is no denying that the watch is gorgeous, however! If the membership didn't boil down to $50 watch where I don't even know the actual quality of, I'd totally consider it. It's super pretty...

I was checking out the fanclub website, and one positive note is there is an english language option now! But yeah, if I do end up getting this, it will be entirely for the sake of the watch. I've spent that much on a watch before and since I wear it every day, it was worth it... I'm still trying to decide if this one would be worth it as well!

I totally agree that having a separate international fanclub would make more sense. Even if  the "fanclub exclusives" were just general Japanese products that are hard to get in other countries, it would still work better than this.

i typed this up a while back and just now found out I never sent it when I was closing out old tabs, lol

Brit-chan wrote:

There is no denying that the watch is gorgeous, however!  If the membership didn't boil down to $50 watch where I don't even know the actual quality of, I'd totally consider it. It's super pretty...

This was the merch for the 2016-17 fan club and it's metal. They look to be of similar material so that might be a good comparison.

Andalusite wrote:

If you are new to the whole membership thing and you are debating on whether or not you want to buy one, please take a moment to read the following warning about TOM because I don't want anybody to go through the same nonsense that Jupi and I went through.

THIS. Just adding my two cents here: I was also one of the people who canceled my membership once I realized that the membership perks really weren't worth it for me, and TOM's policy with reward points made me extremely angry. I have not visited TOM at all since I cancelled, and I don't think I ever will. Even disregarding everything with TOM, the whole lottery system I find very disappointing, and I definitely agree with Brit that a separate international fanclub would work out much better.

But I can't deny that the watch is super cute, especially a fellow watch-wearer myself! If it were cheaper I might consider it to wear for special occasions, but I prefer more practical everyday watches so I'm personally not willing to spend $50 for it.

Yay there IS an English version of the Japanese site now! The app is apparently still only with a bit of English here and there but ah that was a surprise I did not expect! Though interestingly, they just sent out a tweet that kind of looked like it was encouraging English fans to apply there for the membership directly? I'd have to try it to see if it works I guess....... Don't wanna end up not being able to receive goods though >.>.

Either way, I'm pretty set to get the membership this year. Despite what everyone has said, walking into it with eyes open is definitely helpful! Thank you everyone for sharing your experience! I saw a review from an old acquaintance of mine who got the first year lip compact and she was pretty happy with the quality, so I'm expecting the same quality with this. The watch I think is maybe $10-15 overpriced for me, but resale on eBay is gonna be something like double, no? So there's no way I'd pick it up there XD. I'll probably save it to wear on special occasions though... Like the LMF showing now announced near me fufufufu! Or basically anytime I'm not with my curious little girl ^^;;.

Oh, and cardea, from the site it's not totally clear whether you need to pay for shipping of the card & watch... The shipping is handled by another company but there's no further info about it -_-. I think it would be safe to assume we'll be paying shipping since it's so variable between countries that TOM is serving >.>.

The gift for the fanclub is very nice but it's expensive. I don't like that you have to renew it each year 

I think this is the year I will finally get the membership, do not care that i'm paying for the watch, is cute, and I don't have a watch.

I just gave these posts a good reading, and wow. It sounds to me like they may have dropped the ball for international fans in terms of, well, just about everything. What they should do is allow members to have access to a website via their membership number on their card-and THAT site should be where you could purchase exclusive items. The two out of six month wait is annoying (I thought you had to only renew every 12 months, not 6) and I hope another site/distributor picks up the membership distribution in the future. With all this information given, I don't think I could ever become a member until they clear things up.

To me it feels like they've been pushing the international memberships quite a bit more on the SM official twitter and especially so at Anime Matsuri a couple of weekends ago. They did release an English and Chinese version of the website which I guess is a nice. I haven't seen anything but it would be nice if they decided to add some easier to access perks for international fanclub members.

Cosmos-Hime wrote:

The two out of six month wait is annoying (I thought you had to only renew every 12 months, not 6)

Maybe? For some reason I recall the memberships needing to be renewed in June and not October(or was it November?). Whatever it was, it was not for 12 months because I know I complained at one point that it cost more than half of what I had paid for my year-long professional membership to the Mineralogical Society of America. XD

Maybe the membership for the club got changed to a full year later on because people complained about it?

Brit-chan wrote:

To me it feels like they've been pushing the international memberships quite a bit more on the SM official twitter and especially so at Anime Matsuri a couple of weekends ago. They did release an English and Chinese version of the website which I guess is a nice. I haven't seen anything but it would be nice if they decided to add some easier to access perks for international fanclub members.

I'm guessing because it didn't do so well last year? And I agree. It's a shame that they don't have better perks for international club members!

I noticed the huge number of social media posts they made regarding the site being available in English as well. But then I asked a question in their FB one and got no response so... Yeah, still definitely a "work in progress" here XD. But they really don't care too much. Apparently Sailor Moon brings in waaaay more money from domestic licensing/product sales than it does from the foreign market anyways... (At least according to this TuxedoUnmasked article...)

Still, I gave in and bought the watch ^^;. Shipping was included in the 7000jpy TOM price, btw. (I never did find out whether you could just sign up directly through the PG site though >.>.) If anything, it'll give me a chance to report back to you guys good or bad for this coming year's experience!