Alt.fan.sailor-moon
The alt.fan.sailor-moon newsgroup (also known as afs-m) was established by Ken Arromdee on July 25, 1995, several months before the Sailor Moon anime began airing in English for the first time. Its subject matter is "Sailor Moon animation, manga, and merchandise."
The control message which began the group reads in part:
I'd like to get this group out and propagated _before_ the US version of the Sailor Moon series starts up (which should be this fall). Sailor Moon is currently popular among Japanese animation (anime) fans, but the series is going to be dubbed and receive a merchandising push as big as the Power Rangers.[1]
afs-m History[edit]
In the 1990s and into the early 2000s, afs-m differentiated itself from other community resources such as the Sailor Moon mailing lists for being a completely open forum for Sailor Moon news and discussion. Since the group was unmoderated, it had its share of spam and trolls, but also spawned many famous memes such as "Mamoru is Setsuna" and "Serena Gravey," as well as the group fanfic known as the "Otaku Wars!."
At its high point, particularly during the period when the Cloverway dubs were airing, afs-m would reach post-counts of hundreds per day. With the development of internet forums, however, and the general decline in the use of Usenet newsgroups, afs-m was no longer the resource it once had been.
