Sailor Soldiers Assemble!
It’s amazing how stupid this question sounds on the surface, but when you stop and get down to it, it’s actually a lot harder than you’d think to count all of the canonical Sailor Soldiers. The biggest impacting factor on answering this question is your imagination what you’re willing to consider canon in the Sailor Moon universe.
As much as I’d love to write a long intro and drag this out, we’ve got a lot of discussion ahead of us, so let’s get this started!
That’s a lot of Sco… err… War… Gua… Soldiers?
Before we get down into the weeds on who does or does not count, since we’re going to be using this term a lot in this article, I’m going to address the obvious question up front: what do you call Sailor Senshi in English?
So while there are many options for what you could call them – Sailor Scouts, Sailor Warriors, Sailor Soldiers, Sailor Guardians, Sailor Senshi – I typically prefer to stick to Sailor Soldiers, and that’s what I’ll be using here.1
All right! Now that terminology is out of the way, onto the question.
So, as I mentioned, how many Sailor Soldiers there are is dependent upon what you’re willing to consider canon. Just the manga? That’s easy. Include the anime? This is getting surprisingly more difficult. The live action drama? Okay, that changes things. The musicals? Well now you’re just being rude.
But you don’t just want to hear me ramble about how complex this is, do you? No, you want some numbers! And numbers you shall get.
First off…
The one’s you’d expect
Solar System Sailor Soldiers (Anime)
These would be, well, your canonical Sailor Soldiers. The first ones that probably come to mind when I ask you to name the main cast.
- Sailor Moon
- Sailor Mercury
- Sailor Mars
- Sailor Jupiter
- Sailor Venus
- Sailor V?
- Sailor ChibiMoon
- Sailor Uranus
- Sailor Neptune
- Sailor Pluto
- Sailor Saturn
Whether Sailor V counts as a separate Sailor Soldier is an interesting question, thought I ultimately wouldn’t. You could argue that she was simply Sailor Venus in disguise, or that much like the connection between Sailor Moon and Super Sailor Moon, Sailor Venus is simply a powered-up version of Sailor V.2
Subtotal: 10
Sailor Starhealer… and the rest
Exosolar System Sailor Soldiers (Anime)
So now we have those Sailor Soldiers that are from outside the Solar System. You’re probably still familiar with all these characters, so that’s good at least!
- Sailor Chibi Chibi
- Sailor Starfighter
- Sailor Starhealer
- Sailor Starmaker
- Sailor Starmaker’s Forehead?
- Sailor Galaxia
- Sailor Iron Mouse
- Sailor Aluminum Siren
- Sailor Lead Crow
- Sailor Tin Nyanko
This list is again pretty straight forward. Sailor Stars introduced a lot of extrasolar Sailor Soldiers into the story, both on the side of good and evil.
Subtotal: 19
The Sailor Quartet
Manga-only Sailor Soldiers
This is where the number really starts to explode. To an even greater extent than the anime, Ms. Takeuchi went a bit Sailor-crazy and started making a whole bunch of heretofore unseen Sailor Soldiers.
- Sailor Cosmos (?)
- Sailor Kakyuu
- Sailor Ceres
- Sailor Pallas
- Sailor Juno
- Sailor Vesta
- Sailor Heavy Metal Papillon
- Sailor Lethe
- Sailor Mnemosyne
- Sailor Chi
- Sailor Phi
- Sailor Mau*
- Sailor Chuu*
- Sailor Mermaid*
- Sailor Coronis*
- Sailor Chaos*
At first I was a bit unsure how to count Sailor Cosmos, since you have the whole Sailor Galaxia ⇔ Sailor Chibi Chibi ⇔ Sailor Cosmos weirdness going on in between the anime and the manga. Since we discounted Sailor V as an alternative of Sailor Venus, it makes sense that something would go on here. But ultimately, I think we’ll count Sailor Cosmos precisely because we know so little about her.
The ones marked with asterisks either were referenced in the manga or appeared as shadows. Even if they didn’t technically appear in the series proper, though, I’ll still count them.
Subtotal: 35
Some call her the Scrappy Doo of Sailor Moon…
Live-Action / Musical Sailor Soldiers
These are the Sailor Soldiers who appeared only in live-action versions of Sailor Moon – specifically, the tv remake from the early 2000s and the musicals. These are probably the most likely to be considered non-canon Sailor Soldiers since their stories really depart quite heavily from the anime and manga, but it’s still worth considering.
- Sailor Luna
- Sailor Astarte
- Sailor Theta
- Sailor Titanium Kerokko (Sailor Meet Kerokko)
- Sailor Pewter Fox
- Sailor Buttress
So of course, we’ve got everyone’s favorite love-to-hate character Sailor Luna, followed by the five additional musical-only characters. Since Sailor Titanium/Meet Kerokko both have identical costumes, personalities, and share part of their name, I’m willing to consider them the same character.
Subtotal: 41
You called? … actually, no.
Uncounted Sailor Soldiers
“BUT WAIT,” you say, possibly followed by several unpleasant phrases, “how come you didn’t count…”
And you’d be right. I did leave a few out. Specifically, I left out the Oppositio Senshi:
- Sin
- Nabu
- Nergal
- Marduk
- Ishtar
Though they’re referred to as senshi in the game, these characters aren’t connected to any planets or any celestial bodies, so I think we’re allowed to cut them out. Absent the name, in fact, they’re really no different than any other villain in the series, especially when you consider that they don’t transform.
Also, I left out…
- Tuxedo Mask
… because he’s not a Sailor Soldier. Yes, he has a Sailor Crystal. Yes, he’s the guardian of Earth. No, he’s not a Sailor Soldier. Of course, I’d be interested in hearing other opinions on this.
Who else is missing in action? The Parallel Inners!
- Parallel Sailor Moon
- Parallel Sailor Mercury
- Parallel Sailor Mars
- Parallel Sailor Jupiter
- Parallel Sailor Venus
Because, well, we never really see them do anything in the Parallel Sailor Moon manga. We also never hear their official names or see the colors of their Sailor uniforms.
Sorry, Sailor Guts
And last but not least, I left out the Phages – the monsters of the day of Sailor Stars. While they had the Sailor something moniker, I think it’s safe to say that they weren’t Sailor Soldiers by any stretch of the imagination.3 Oh, and there were also twenty-one Phages, so no one in their right mind would want to add them to the list.
Uncounted: 32
So, what’s the grand total?
If you ask me – which you kinda just did – I would say that within the general Sailor Moon canonical universe, there are 41 Sailor Soldiers. And that’s a lot more than I thought there were even when I started writing this article. If you’re more charitable than I and want to count all the ones I skipped, that brings us up to a a grand total of 73 Sailor Soldiers.
Sailor Cast
Now that we got all the numbers out of the way, where do you draw the line? Personally, as interesting as I find the musicals and the live-action show, I don’t really consider them a part of the same Sailor Moon canon. Even if some characters were different in the two series, I still think you can generally apply information from the anime to the manga (and vice-versa), except where it conflicts. But I don’t think that’s true for the musicals.
I’d be interested in seeing how these numbers change depending on what other fans think, though!
References:
- Then why, I hear you ask, did I use Sailor Senshi in the title? Because it’s more likely to help people looking for this article on Google. ↩
- Though I’d argue she’s less powerful than Sailor V, but who asked me? ↩
- I see you about to hit that comment button! You’re about to point out my obvious inconsistency in applying the “no Sailor Crystal, not a Sailor Soldier” rule here and yet not counting Tuxedo Mask even though he has one. Well, I’m not discounting that Tuxedo Mask could be a Sailor Soldier, just that in his present form, he isn’t. ↩
If I’m honest, I preferred it when things were regulated to just the planets/moons of the solar system (ignoring the whole Pluto controversy).
I felt that Naoko was opening up a whole can of worms with the likes of Star Seeds and a galaxy spanning Sailor order. It just came out of left field, and was not particularly that well thought out or executed.
She was introducing far to many characters by this point, which as a result meant development was being spread incredibly thin.
The Starlights for example, felt somewhat pointless and forgettable in the grand scheme. Likewise the Quartet just seemed to exist so Chibi-Usa could have her own Inners. And Cosmos…*Shrugs*
There was just too much happening in such a short space. To say nothing of (annoyingly) culling the entire supporting cast.
And as you said previously. The concept of dark Senshi was overall handled better by the Oppositio. Shadow Galaxia for me, came across as no different to any of the previous villains. Who by this point had become stale and monotonous.
This was certainly a case of where more is not better. If I wasn’t charitable, I could say that Ms. Takeuchi really was just kinda phoning it in for the last season and there was a significant drop in story cohesion, sense, and general respect for the universe.
=D BUT SINCE I’M A NICE GUY, I won’t say that.
Instead, I’ll say that she tried to tell way too epic of a story in too little time, forcing her to constantly cycle new characters in and out, leaving her with too little time to tell their stories.
Personally, I think 10 senshi was fine. 13 if you want to include the Starlights.
I actually liked the idea of having other senshi appear later on. The Sailor Quartet is a bit… odd…? That group didn’t make much sense. I like them, though!
(Can you explain the Sailor Starmaker’s Forehead? What is that?)
I’ve never seen the musicals or played the games. But it seems like there are so many types of senshi that I personally can’t limit them to what we see in front of us. There’s a whole galaxy of potential sailor soldiers. I would have liked to have seen a more conclusive ending to both anime and manga, especially since a lot of questions were left unanswered.
I really like that Ms. Takeuchi tried to tell a really epic story in Sailor Stars, and you could really feel it ramping up into something huge. But the payoff at the end was really lacking — basically, she built up an exciting-sounding story, but then tied it off too quickly without having told even a tenth of what was hinted at. To be honest, I think a much smaller story would have been a nicer way to end the series.
As for the Sailor Starmaker’s forehead thing, that’s just a joke in reference to the fact that Taiki has… well, a large forehead. Taiki is a decent character, but I can’t help but feel the art direction went terribly wrong, especially in the anime.
Admittedly, I tend to be highly critical of Naoko’s prose. But there was a lot going against her at the time, which led to the storyline suffering throughout its run.
This is why I personally feel they need to make at least one more arc to provide a decent closure to the series, be it an anime or movie. Then more unnecessary remakes. We have more then enough versions of the Dark Kingdom now.
Nice recount. I agree with everything. I can’t comment much in the Sailor Stars explosion because I have not finished the manga yet -I know, I know…- but I liked the idea of Sailor Scouts everywhere in the Galaxy, having Sailor Senshi only at the solar system seemed a bit close minded.
And I loved the whole killing/stealing stories of the Anima mates. So much stories like Star Wars can be taken from it, even if Naoko made a mess while introducing them.
And the Star Lights, it always bothered me their outfits were not sailor fukus but at the end, I loved their originality.
Ps. Sailor Luna hater here. She was a simple marketing product with no powers. And I hated her immature behavior, Luna was supposed to be a woman, a trainer, like a house keeper, not another brat like Chibiusa. But I liked that Naoko designed her 🙂
I also dislike Sailor Luna but only because it really doesn’t work. It definitely doesn’t make sense that she’s a child. But, the character is cute.
If it was a spin-off story, or it was Sailor Diana, I’d probably be okay with it. But trying to shoe-horn Luna in as a little girl super hero also in the Sailor Moon universe? It just didn’t work…
It was clear she was meant to be an expy for Chibi-Usa. I remember some interviews with the cast who expressed surprise, and originally thought it was going to be her.
Perhaps it was a desperate attempt done to improve ratings. The second half did seem to flounder a bit on where it was going.
“A bit”? You are far too generous. I don’t think that it was bad by any stretch of the imagination – I’d still watch it – but the general feeling I got from Sailor Stars was always one of “… are we done yet?” It lacked a lot of the passion and epicness (epicosity?) that I think Sailor Moon needs to make it the quality show it was.
That said, I still prefer Stars over SuperS.
Just wanted to say that Tuxedo Mask will never be a Sailor Scout, for the simple fact that Naoko didn’t want males as sailor scouts, which is why the Star Lights turn into woman instead of just transforming. Keep in mind what was popular at the time of Sailor Moon. One big thing: Power Rangers. And also at the time, most “superpower” shows (Magical Girl was not a genre yet) were males saving “damsels in distress” and Naoko said in an interview that she wanted a “all female team”.
Huh, I thought we were talking about Sailor Luna? :/
=D We were. I need to stop replying to comments at 7am right after I woke up and before my morning coffee.
Let me see * we have sailor moon ,sailor mercury, sailor mars ,sailor jupiter, sailor venus, sailor mini moon ,sailor Pluto, sailor Neptune, sailor uranus,sailor sailor saturn, sailor kakyuu,sailor star fighter,sailor star maker,sailor star healer, sailor pallas, sailor vesta,sailor juno,sailor ceres,huh sailor galaxia, sailor iron mouse, sailor aluminum siren, sailor lead crow,sailor tin cat ,sailor lethe, sailor mnymouth ,sailor chi ,sailor phi , sailor phones, sailor deimos , sailor parral moon, sailor chibi chibi ,sailor mini mercury, sailor mini mars ,sailor mini Jupiter, sailor mini venus, huh sailor mini Pluto, sailor mini Neptune, sailor mini uranus,sailor mini saturn ,sailor Selene, sailor luna, princess sailor moon, and finally sailor cosmos huh ,that’s all I can remember right now huh i hope that is all of them for right now
Pretty impressive off the top of your head!
If you don’t mind, I don’t think I remember a mini Pluto, Uranus, or Neptune. Were they in Parallel Sailor Moon? Been awhile since I’ve read that.
Maybe she’s confused with SD version of them?
She might be talking about those… tiny versions of the sailor guardians that appeared in the superS manga at the end?
Everyone (minus Moon) seeminly got a tiny version of themselves.
I think?
It’s been a while since I’ve read it. They only appeared like that one time.
This was so funny because the intro to this post is what I have been thinking about the whole time. I prefer the term sailor soldiers because that is what the character means in Chinese/Japanese is soldier/warrior (senshi). I did not like how they now decide that they are Guardians. Every new merchandise/release stating guardians just feels odd and out of place to me. I do not care what other people call it personally, but to me it makes more sense to call them sailor soldiers.
On the number of sailor soldiers in the sailor moon universe, I always though it was infinite based on stars/sailor stars. I thought they basically stated that there are many soldiers of different planets/celestial bodies or what not throughout the galaxy. At least that is what I interpreted it as.
Off topic: I do not care for any of the other soldiers except for the main 10 characters. Did not care for stars in the manga introducing all these sailor soldiers (starlights, etc.) and the dream arc for the sailor quartet. (one of the only changes I did like about supers). Tuxedo Mask is the guardian of Earth I guess because he is to Earth what Sailor Moon is to the moon, but as you said not an actual sailor soldier. Maybe since they do not have one they could give him sailor soldier status. I mean his cape thing is almost like the sailor outfit collar thing they have.
To be totally honest, I firmly believe this whole Guardians push is 100% because they don’t want to say that women are Soldiers/Warriors. You would absolutely never see them being so steadfast on one of the Super Sentai / Power Rangers series being called “guardians,” so I see no reason why they do it here.
I realize that it’s technically the official name in English… but it’s incorrect in terms of the Japanese, incorrect with all the pre-2002~ materials (back when the series was being actively developed), and… well, I think it’s rude and sexist. =p
They don’t GUARD. They kill. Especially in the manga, the Sailor Senshi can get pretty brutal.
Aaaand… that’s enough for my rant for today.
Mmm really think you’re all exaggerating feeling like being called guardian means they are less powerful, less cool, less everything. They can kill and still be guarding something, Pluto guards the time space doorway and who knows how many she has killed with her DEATH scream. I just think soldier or warrior would mean fire weapons or armor in many languages, so beig a guardian, IMO, does not make them less ANYTHING than any other warrior, male or female.
It’s definitely open to the interpretation of the reader. But my opinion is still that they only changed it to “guardian” because they thought it was softer for branding it as a show for women.
Everyone is welcome to their own opinion, of course!
It seems the further Sailor Moon went on, the more higher ups wanted to tone down it’s more violent/dark aspects. Hence changes like that.
PGSM was more tame in comparison to the 90’s Anime, which in turn was certainly tamer then the Manga.
It’s definitely most noticeable in Crystal, due to it being a very direct adaptation. Yet takes out a lot of the more ‘mature’ imagery. But this could be largely down to Japanese censorship becoming more stricter over the years.
I always assumed it was Naoko herself who decided on ‘Guardian’. If not, then who did?
Perhaps it might have been best to just leave it as ‘Senshi’. Like how certain foreign words go untranslated, either because there’s no suitable equivalent, or it just phrases better.
Like how Usagi literally means Rabbit. And some versions did actually refer to her as ‘Bunny’.
Yeah, I’ve been annoyed with it sense PGSM. I mean, don’t the Japanese use 戦士 for soldiers in an army? I’m pretty sure I’ve heard it in a non-SM context. And while one could make the argument that they “guard” their planet, they do it by fighting! Heck, even Google translate says “warrior”!
The correct term for a military soldier is 兵士.
Obviously some interpretation is necessary in translation, but here are some dictionary definitions for “guardian” in Japanese:
Guardian (Jisho.org)
(spoiler – 戦士 isn’t on there)
And a dictionary entry on 戦士 (Jisho.org)
First: I think you have to take each canon separately. So for the anime Sailor Chibi-Chibi=Sailor Galaxia. But for the manga, Sailor Chibi-Chibi=Sailor Cosmos=Sailor Moon.
BUT. This is the stickler for me. In the manga, the Sailor Animamates are specifically confirmed as false Sailor Senshi. They do not have Sailor Crystals and were only given their powers through Galaxia’s bracelets. Out of the rest of her henchmen, only Lethe and Mnemosyne were confirmed to be genuine Sailor Senshi, so Chi and Phi are potentially false Senshi as well.
At first I was unclear about the Starlights, too, but I think they’re real Senshi from radial space bodies from planet Kinmoku, just like the Solar System Senshi represent their planets/asteroids, but actually protect Earth. But then why isn’t she Sailor Kinmoku?! Is Kakyuu a false Senshi?!
You know, now that you mention it, you have a really good point on the Animamates – they may not actually count here since they were false Sailor Senshi. But if I recall correctly, Sailor Tin Nyanko had the Sailor Mau sailor crystal (got enough “sailor” in that sentence?), so I think you may be able to count her that way. As for why I wouldn’t count her and Sailor Mau as the same, I think when a character is distinctly different (i.e., has a different name and design) you could count the same sailor crystal as two different people. For example, Sailor Moon and Sailor Chibimoon have the same crystal, but I wouldn’t count them together.
My best guess on the Kinmoku, Kakyuu, and Starlights issue is that there may be more celestial bodies involved than we assume. For example, there may be a planet Kakyuu, with satellites (or other planets) named StarHealer, StarMaker, and Starfighter, and they may be going around a star named Kinmoku. Japanese uses the same kanji – 星 (hoshi / sei; star) – to describe planets, stars, and other celestial bodies. So depending on how you want to break it down, there may be more places involved than we assume.
Another option would be Planet Kinmoku with three moons (Healer, Maker, Fighter), and they go around the star Kakyuu. But much like Sailor Moon, Sailor Kakyuu lives on planet Kinmoku.
I guess there’s billions of Sailor soldiers we’ve never had the chance to see in the manga, which is cool. However I wish Naoko had given the Starlights a minor role and focused more on developing the 10 main Soldiers and the Sailor Quartet. The Starlights were so boring imho
The Sailor Quartet in particular get nearly zero “screen time,” which was a real shame. Those characters had a lot of potential, and it was a chance to show ChibiUsa as a leader for once. But they never really got the attention they deserved.
The only reason why Tuxedo Mask isn’t senshi is that he is a dude. Only girls can be sailor senshi Takeuchi said it herself that only girl can be sailor soldiers.
Yep! I covered that issue in an article here, What Information Did Naoko Share With American Sailor Moon Fans?.
Well this is a pretty complicated subject when considering Sailor Moon as a franchise and not limited to one medium or form. I think you did it best by kind of breaking it down to the different versions and there are many.
I have been a perhaps overly obsessed fan since I first saw a DiC dubbed episode when I was in 4th grade at 6:30 in the morning. I can’t remember the year but I believe it was 1998. What has been amazing about Sailor Moon has been discovering it over and over and over again since then. I won’t go into my whole history, but I have not had the pleasure of playing the game, Another Story, seeing much of the live action, or the musical, so I am very uninformed when it comes to those things. I guess I have been kind of saving those things so I never run out of new material and get bored with it.
Anyway so off topic. I really just wanted to say I appreciate the article and the thought put into it and couldn’t have come up with a better count myself and you obviously are more informed about the other forms I have not delved into so that peaks my interest in wanted to pursue them soon.
On another side note and this is probably a better comment on another blog, but I am so so happy a fan such as yourself shares the same practice as me with calling them Sailor Soldiers. One of the things about the word I like is the imagery it carries as it makes them sound as tough and strong as they are. I am just not a huge fan of “guardian” and I don’t like it even being used in the subtitles when I watch the new Viz translations now. It just doesn’t work for me but I guess I can see arguments for it but even so it just doesn’t jive well with me and every time I see the word I replace it with Senshi in my head or Soldier.
I like what another person posted and I have often thought of the same thing… why not just not rebrand them at all and just call them Senshi throughout the Eastern and Western cultures? It would have just made things easier… and to me cooler. I mean their attacks and henshin phrases are in English, why not have something to tie it into its Japanese roots. However, keeping the original names is a huge step in the right direction since it is so well thought out by Ms. Takeuchi but alas I digress too fat again, a comment better for another thread. So sorry!
I know that technically it’s supposed to be Guardians nowadays, but I just can’t get myself to buckle down and write it that way. Not only do I not think they’re Guardians in the first place (especially the Outer Senshi and Starlights — there’s exactly ZERO guarding going on there), but I think it’s dismissive that this team of strong females are “guardians” while every other sentai team ever are all “soldiers,” “warriors,” etc.
Also, back when I was first getting into the series, they were still being called Soldiers in the Japanese version, so I’m inclined to continue conforming to that.
Glad to know I’m not the only one!
Too fat AND too far… my bad, Hee hee!
Would Dark Sailor Mercury from the live action PGSM be somewhere on this list?
Hmm… interesting question! Personally, like the Sailor Chibi Chibi Moon = Sailor Cosmos/Galaxy (depending on if we’re talking manga or anime) issue, I would consider Sailor Mercury and Sailor Dark Mercury to be the same Sailor Senshi.
Just wanted to say that Tuxedo Mask will never be a Sailor Scout, for the simple fact that Naoko didn’t want males as sailor scouts, which is why the Star Lights turn into woman instead of just transforming. Keep in mind what was popular at the time of Sailor Moon. One big thing: Power Rangers. And also at the time, most “superpower” shows (Magical Girl was not a genre yet) were males saving “damsels in distress” and Naoko said in an interview that she wanted a “all female team”.
“You could argue that she was simply Sailor Venus in disguise, or that much like the connection between Sailor Moon and Super Sailor Moon, Sailor Venus is simply a powered-up version of Sailor V.
Though I’d argue she’s less powerful than Sailor V, but who asked me?”
New headcanon: because at that time, Minako was holding the line all by herself waiting for Usagi to be ready, Sailor V was granted a part of Sailor Moon powers until Usagi claimed them.
Is Astarte on this list?