List of Sailor Moon characters
After the Codename: Sailor V manga was proposed for an anime adaptation, Takeuchi changed her concept to include ten superheroines who defend the galaxy.
The manga's anime, live-action, musical and video game adaptations feature original characters the production staff created rather than Takeuchi.
Takeuchi wanted to create a series about girls in outer space, and her editor, Fumio Osano, suggested that she add the "sailor suit" motif to their uniforms.
[19] In contrast, in the live-action series, she is a successful J-pop singer whom Usagi, Ami and Makoto are fans of and has poor health due to her anemia, causing her to choose to isolate herself from the other Guardians.
[6]: 212 After her long vigil guarding the Space-Time Door, she carries a deep sense of loneliness, although she is close friends with Chibiusa, who calls her by her nickname "Puu".
The Dark Kingdom (ダーク・キングダム, Dāku Kingudamu, called Negaverse in the original English dub) are the first set of antagonists the Sailor Guardians encounter, who appear in the first arc of the manga and its adaptions.
They are a terrorist group from the 30th century led by Prince Demand and based on the planet Nemesis, which provides them with the Malefic Black Crystal, whose goal of ending Neo-Queen Serenity's reign is being manipulated by the mysterious Wiseman.
[26]: Act 20 The Death Busters (デス・バスターズ, Desu Basutāzu, called Heart Snatchers in the original English dub) are the main antagonists of the "Infinity" arc of the manga and its adaptions.
Initially led by Kaolinite and Professor Souichi Tomoe before the resurrection of their true leader Mistress 9,[27]: Act 34 they are human-alien hybrids seeking to bring the alien creature Pharaoh 90 to terraform Earth.
The two older cats, Luna and Artemis, lived in the Moon Kingdom millennia before the events of the series and were advisors to Queen Serenity; the third, Diana, is much younger and was born on Earth.
In Japanese, Artemis is voiced by Yasuhiro Takato in the first anime adaptation, by Yohei Oobayashi in the first three seasons of Crystal, and Taishi Murata in the Eternal and Cosmos films.
Diana (ダイアナ, Daiana) is a cat, the future daughter of Luna and Artemis, who first appears when the Sailor Guardians travel to the 30th century in the Black Moon arc.
She is curious, eager to help and polite, always addressing Usagi and Mamoru with the Japanese honorific "-sama" and calling Chibiusa by her formal title, Small Lady.
They tracked Kakyuu to Earth and then Japan, where they disguised themselves as the male pop star group The Three Lights (スリーライツ, Surī Raitsu) and embedded their music with a telepathic broadcast to attract her attention.
[34] In the Italian dub, instead of changing sex, the team has six members, as the Three Lights summon their twin sisters instead of transforming, as the original depiction was very controversial in Italy.
Seiya develops strong feelings for Usagi, calling her odango, like Mamoru does, their attempts to forge a bond with her providing the primary romantic tension of the season.
In combat with a phage, Star Maker is the first of the Starlights to willingly allow Sailor Moon to heal the monster rather than trying to kill it themselves, because it had been a teacher who Ami respected.
In Japanese, Ikuko is voiced by Sanae Takagi in the original series and in Crystal by Yūko Mizutani until her death in 2016,[46] a role later taken over by Wakana Yamazaki in Cosmos.
Haruna intends to find a husband, which makes her an easy target for the Dark Kingdom during the first arc, and she often engages in seemingly childish things in this regard.
The "spring" part of her name becomes a pun in the context of other works by Takeuchi: Haruna appears in her earlier series, The Cherry Project, which features her sister Fuyuna in one of its side stories.
In the anime, she is badly injured in a fight with Chiral and Achiral, two Black Moon members, causing Chibiusa to go into a fit and unleash her latent powers at them.
[25]: Act 10 She tells the five Sailor Guardians of their past lives, which they begin to remember as she describes them, and that they must find Queen Metaria, who escaped the thousand-year-old seal placed on her and gone into hiding on Earth.
A fake Deimos and Phobos appear in crow form in the musical Sailor Moon S – Usagi – Ai no Senshi e no Michi, where they are portrayed by male actors in animal costumes.
[64] Helios (祭司エリオス, Saiji Eriosu) is the Guardian Priest of Elysion, a sacred land within Earth that protects it and was the original location of the Golden Kingdom before it rose to the surface.
He becomes close to Chibiusa despite her insistence that Usagi is the maiden he seeks, eventually revealing his true form and that Endymion's condition is connected to the curse Nehelenia inflicted on Elysion.
[68][page needed] Helios is assisted by the Maenads (メナード, Menado), two priestesses who guard a shrine in Elysion and escaped the Dead Moon Circus's curse by falling asleep.
[84] Sailor Moon has been described largely in terms of its characters; a sustained 18-volume narrative about a group of young heroines who are simultaneously heroic and introspective, active and emotional, dutiful and ambitious.
[91] Mary Grigsby considered that the Sailor Guardians blend ancient characteristics and symbols of femininity with modern ideas, reminding the audience of a pre-modern time when females were equal to males,[11] but other critics drew parallels with the modern character type of the aggressive cyborg woman, pointing out that the Sailor Guardians are augmented by their magical equipment.
[96] Jason Thompson found the Sailor Moon anime reinvigorated the magical girl genre by adding dynamic heroines and action-oriented plots.
Following its success, similar series, such Magic Knight Rayearth, Akazukin Chacha, Wedding Peach, Nurse Angel Ririka SOS, Revolutionary Girl Utena, Fushigi Yuugi and Pretty Cure, emerged.
