Haruka is a member of the Sailor Guardians, female supernatural fighters who protect the Solar System from evil.

Their relationship in the anime is different, as Haruka also refers to Usagi as "Odango", or dumpling, in the same way Tuxedo Mask does—as a playful nickname.

Although her relationship with Michiru Kaioh, or Sailor Neptune, is not implicitly sexual until later in the series, their romantic situation is referred to early on and generally understood by most of the metaseries' characters fairly quickly.

In the anime, however, the physical aspects of their relationship are limited to handholding, flirting, and sometimes even humorous implications, but generally remains circumspect.

[10] Haruka, Michiru, and Setsuna appear in Sailor Moon SuperS: The Movie, although this conflicts with the general timeline of the series in several ways.

Notably, they are more overtly friendly and helpful than they had been when they last met, and Sailor Pluto is present (which conflicts with certain events in the third series).

As a character with different incarnations, special powers, transformations, and a long lifetime that spans the Silver Millennium era to the 30th century, Haruka gains multiple aspects and aliases as the series progresses.

As she grows stronger, Sailor Uranus gains additional powers, and at key points her uniform changes to reflect this.

The first change takes place in Act 44 of the manga, when she obtains the Uranus Crystal and her outfit becomes similar to that of Super Sailor Moon.

As Princess Uranus, she dwelt in Miranda Castle and wore a deep blue gown—she appears in this form in the original manga Act 48, as well as in supplementary art.

They are also inspired by Western astrology, where the planet Uranus is associated with natural disasters, such as "earthquakes, tornadoes, typhoons and hurricanes.

She is given three major attacks in the series, and although they all have English names (like those of the other Sailor Guardians), each is also given kanji in the manga to denote the meaning to Japanese readers.

Creator Naoko Takeuchi has said that she was shocked by the changes made to Haruka's personality in the anime series, but that she was glad fans still liked the character.

[25] Initial drawings of Haruka are softer and more feminine than they would later become; she was originally intended to be involved in the all-female Takarazuka Revue, playing male roles on stage.

"[27] She also described such a figure as "the female best friend and the fairy tale prince in one," stating that she had wanted for a long time to include a character like this in one of her works.

Haruka is intended as an older sister figure for the younger girls populating the series, and as a counterpoint to Mamoru, Takeuchi's ideal man.

[25] In the anime, she is seen driving either a yellow or white 1968 Toyota 2000GT open-top (resembling the custom "Bond Model"), or, once, a 1990 montego blue Mazda Mx-5 Miata.

[citation needed] The kanji of Haruka's surname translate as "sky" (天, ten) and "king" (王, ō).

In 1995, Ogata won the 16th Animage Anime Grand Prix award for best voice actress, largely because of her work as Sailor Uranus, breaking up a 12-win streak by Megumi Hayashibara.

In the stage musicals, Haruka has been played by 6 actresses: Sanae Kimura, Nao Takagi, Asako Uchida, Akiko Nakayama, Shu Shiotsuki and Shinjyu Terada.

[37][38] Sanae Kimura regarded the betrayal of Uranus and Neptune in her last musical, Eien Densetsu kaiteiban, to be a very difficult scene for her and cried during it.

[41] She has stated that certain scenes involving herself and Yuhka Asami (as Sailor Neptune) were specially created just for the two of them, the song "Destined Couple" in particular.

In 1994, with fifty one choices, Sailor Uranus was the sixth most popular character, receiving over nine thousand votes more than Haruka, who was the tenth.

[48] In her response to an academic essay on Sailor Moon by Mary Grigsby, author Emily Ravenwood compared Haruka and Michiru's relationship with Zoisite and Kunzite's relationship explaining that "in both cases, the feminine and masculine attributes are highlighted with a heavy hand (deliberate display of stereotypes)."

"[49] In an effort to avoid the controversy that a lesbian character in a cartoon aimed towards a younger audience would cause, given the social mores, Haruka and Michiru's relationship has been censored in certain countries.

However, whether in an attempt to be more faithful to the original Japanese or through failure to edit consistently, several episodes of the former English dub retained a noticeable amount of their casual flirting.

[52] Viz Media and Studiopolis' English-language redub of the series in 2016 would address the censorship issue by restoring any deleted scenes and preserving the integrity of the original Japanese scripts.