What Do Queen Serenity and Queen Metalia Have in Common?

Posted 2016-03-05

Filed under Articles, Dark Kingdom, Language, Supporting Cast

Queen Serenity and Queen Beryl

Whether you look at the anime or manga or even the live-action series, despite how important they were to setting up the story behind the Sailor Moon series, Queen Serenity and Queen Metalia both get incredibly minor roles with very little explained about their past or motivations. What’s worse, the Serenity name is passed onto her daughter, Princess Serenity, who then passes it on to her daughter, Princess Usagi Small Lady Serenity. But is there more to these characters than meets the eye? I think so, and that’s what we’re here to look into!

Queen Serenity

Starting with the Serenity line, it’s fortunately pretty easy to track down the meaning and history behind her name, though most of it is probably connected more to Princess Serenity / Usagi more-so than her mother. The most obvious and meaningful connection is the Greek myth of the relationship between Selene, the moon goddess, and the mortal Endymion.¹ This gets us partly to the name “Serenity,” though we have one (or possibly two!) other sources of inspiration, all inspired by the Greek connection to the moon.

We all know that Ms. Takeuchi had a strong attachment to astronomy during her developmental years and did a lot of research when making the series, so it should come as no surprise that Usagi’s royal name would be connected to a basin on the Moon, the Mare Serenitatis — or, in English, the Sea of Serenity.² This is also, incidentally, where the Moon Kingdom was said to be located and where the Sailor Team head in both the anime and manga to consult with the memory of Queen Serenity among the ruins of the Silver Millenium.

Naturally Occurring Selenite and Crystal Tokyo

So then, what is this third possible reference? Though less of a connection to the late Queen Serenity herself, there seems to be a strong implied connection between Neo-Queen Serenity, Crystal Tokyo, and the mineral known as selenite.³ Selenite is most often clear, though can appear white, pearl, or a variety of other colors depending on impurities. Most notably, it often is found in columns and in tubular designs, not much unlike the designs of the Crystal Tokyo Palace and the Silver Crystal.

Queen Metalia

Chrysoberyl (Alexandrite)

Like the Four Kings, the connections to geology are a lot more obvious with the Dark Kingdom. There are two notes about the dual monarchy — Queen Beryl and Queen Metalia — that are not obvious at first glance, however. First off, while the most obvious connection with Queen Beryl is to the gemstone beryl.⁴ However, it’s a little more complicated than that. You see, the Japanese word for queen is 王女 (oujo; queen) though Ms. Takeuchi tends to write the titles (e.g., princess, queen, etc.) out phonetically, such as クイーン (kui-n; queen). However, the titles for both Queen Beryl and Queen Metalia are misspelled in Japanese, and are written as クイン (kuin; no meaning). Why is that?

Well, it’s to give it a double meaning. While it still sounds reasonably close to queen (and is treated canonically that way), it also looks similar to クリソ (kuriso; chryso). So actually, Queen Beryl’s name is more strongly connected to chrysoberyl.⁵ Just by looking, you can see that this stone much more closely matches the color scheme associated with Queen Beryl, so it’s pretty clear that this is more likely a closer source for her inspiration than normal beryl.

That means that the chryso- connection probably also remains true for Queen Metalia as well, since her name is also written in the same (misspelled) manner. Since here’s no substance known as metalia, we can rule out any special connection there other than it simply being a reference to metal, but with the chryso- prefix attached,⁶ it modifies the meaning to the metal, gold.

What that ultimately leaves us with is the villain, an evil queen born of hatred from the sun and named in honor of the mineral gold fighting against the Silver Millenium, ruled by the queen of the moon.

The Forces of the Dark Kingdom

Though we never did learn as much about the motivations behind Beryl, Metalia, and the formation of the Dark Kingdom (outside of the musical, of course!) as I would have liked, it’s nice to know that Ms. Takeuchi went through quite a bit of effort to put a little more detail into their names than you’d initially assume. I have to admit, she’s pretty tricky!

What is the Story Behind ChibiUsa / Small Lady’s Name?

Posted 2016-02-23

Filed under Articles, Characters, ChibiUsa, Language, Making Of

An Unreadable Poker Face

What’s in a name? That’s a question we’ve asked many times already, but it’s always worth taking another look at the characters we love just a little bit closer and see if there’s something more to find out about them in something as simple as what we call them. If you want to talk about name mysteries, ChibiUsa definitely has a lot to offer to the conversations — she has a pretty long name after all! Her official name is Usagi Small Lady Serenity,¹ though she’s typically referred to as ChibiUsa (Sailor Pluto, however, typically prefers Small Lady in the Black Moon Family arc) in order to avoid confusion with Usagi. So where does the Small Lady name come from?

Though Naoko has never officially remarked on this in detail, we can make some interesting inferences from what we know about language use in manga.

She’s not ‘chibi,’ and don’t forget it!

What’s interesting about the Small Lady name is that it’s already written either in roman characters as “S L” or written out in the Japanese phonetic alphabet, katakana, which is used for foreign words and sound effects.² Though at first glance, this may imply that there’s no deeper meaning to be had, but that leads us into an interesting use of language in manga: very often, authors will intentionally apply kanji to Western words (to give them context) or will read a kanji with a Western word. One of the more famous examples is the first appearance of Super Saiyans in the Dragon Ball manga. What we all know of as Super Saiyan can be written in Japanese as either スーパーサイヤ人 (su-pa-saiyajin) or as 超サイヤ人 (su-pa-saiyajin),³ though it’s interesting to note that 超 should be read as chou and cannot be read as “super.”⁴

So why all this talk about Dragon Ball? Well, it was an anime and manga contemporary to Sailor Moon so we know that the phenomenon was already common at the time and gives credence to the idea that there might be some deeper meaning to the Small Lady name. Fortunately for us, the options are pretty limited, but the most likely choice for a kanji reading for Small Lady is: 少女 (shoujo; lit. small lady / maiden)⁵ If that sounds familiar to you, well, it should: these are the very same characters used in the title of the series: 美少女戦士セーラームーン (bishoujo senshi se-ra-mu-n; Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon). An alternative literal kanji choice would also be 乙女 (otome; lit. small lady / maiden). You would probably recognize this word as the ending theme to the Sailor Moon R anime: 乙女のポリシー (otome no porishi-; Maiden’s Policy).⁶ More likely than not, the Small Lady name is in reference to the very term her mother, Usagi, used to refer to herself as a sailor-suited soldier of justice.

Usagi Small Lady Serenity

The story with ChibiUsa’s name is interesting in general due to the Serenity name connecting her to her mother and even down the line to her grandmother. Even more interesting is that she doesn’t seem to be given a last name (neither Tsukino nor Chiba), which implies that the people of Crystal Tokyo don’t use last names. It may be a small detail, but I’m glad to see that Usagi maintained her independence, even through marriage!

How Did the Youma of the Dark Kingdom Get Their Names? (Part 2)

Posted 2016-01-20

Filed under Anime, Articles, Dark Kingdom, Language

The DD Girls

Now we move onto the latter half of the first season of Sailor Moon and onto the youma serving under Zoisite. What’s interesting about this is that though we were generally granted our usual “one monster of the day” to meet the quota, for the most part these youma didn’t actually serve under Zoisite, but rather belonged to the Seven Great Youma, which had existed since the time of the Silver Millennium and were simply uncovered by Zoisite or the Sailor Team. Also rarely noted is that Queen Beryl herself also has youma which report directly to her, though to be honest, the structure of the Dark Kingdom is a bit hard to follow in the first place. Anyway, as we did in Part 1, let’s take a look at how the youma of the Dark Kingdom got their names!

Zoisite

Yasha: This is the Japanese word for Yaksha,¹ a natural spirit appearing in Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist texts. The meaning behind the face mask and the monster form is in reference to the female and male yakshas, which were portrayed respectively as beautiful with round faces and attractive figures, or as fearsome warriors.
- You may recognize this name as being similar to the character Inuyasha, from the series with the same name. This is the same yasha being referenced.
Grape, Suzuran, and Housenka: Often referred to by Western fans as the “Plant Sisters,” though in the Japanese version they’ve been given no name other than the “Three Youma Girls.” Their names are clever plays off of flowers, but by using different kanji also spell out the names of their attacks, though unfortunately I can’t find any sort of deeper meaning behind Grape. As for the other two:
- Suzuran when written as 鈴蘭 (suzuran) means “lily of the valley,” but by using a clever word play could be written as 鈴乱 (suzuran) which means something akin to “bell disturbance” (harmonic disorder?). Her attack name is 鈴乱れの音 (suzumidare no oto), meaning something like “Sonic Disrupting Screech!”
- Housenka when written as 鳳仙花 (housenka) means a garden balsam, but the first part of her name can also be written as 砲戦 (housen), which is an artillery barrage. This is likely in reference to the fireballs she shoots.
Akan: This is a mix of the Japanese word あかん (akan) meaning bad, wrong, or something you shouldn’t be doing.² Also, あか (aka) can also mean red, which explains the color.
- As an interesting bit of trivia, this is the only time which any of the Four Kings other than Kunzite turns a normal human into a youma.

Seven Great Youma

Gesen: A direct reference to the Japanese word for arcade — ゲームセンター (game center), often abbreviated as ゲーセン (gesen).
Boxy: A Japanese pun which plays on both “boxer,” and the Japanese word for priest, 牧師 (bokushi).
Bunbo: Seeing as this youma was reincarnated as Ryo Urawa, one of the few characters to nearly match Ami in intelligence, and he’s themed after stationary supplies, his name — based on the Japanese word 文房具 (bunbougu; stationary supplies) — makes sense!
Binah: This is likely in reference to Binah,³ one of the ten Sephirah,⁴ which are considered to be the revelations of the Creator’s Will.
Rikoukeidar: The name is a play on the Japanese term 理工系 (rikoukei) for a person who is considered more logical (rather than artistic) or what we’d consider a science type. Makes sense considering the type of school Reika went to!
Jiji: This name is a double pun, based on the slang used to refer to an old man じじ (jiji; derived from おじさん, ojisan) and 獅子 (shishi), the basis for two 狛犬 (komainu) which appear outside Shinto shrines.⁵
Bakene: A play off of 化け猫 (bakeneko),⁶ one of the youkai, or ghosts/spirits, of Japanese legends.

A Bakeneko Youkai

Kunzite

Mitsuami: A direct reference to the Japanese word 三つ編み (mitsuami) meaning hair braided from three strands.
Shakoukai: A double pun playing on the term 社交界 (shakoukai) meaning social circle and 貝 (kai) meaning shellfish.
Blizzar: With all the hard work they put into names, I’m kinda disappointed that they went with a simple reference to blizzards here. I guess to Japanese speakers the reference isn’t so obvious, though?
Zoyrin Geller / Doyrin Geller: The Japanese pronunciation of this name isn’t even known among Japanese fans, much less among the Western audiences. One possible explanation is that the name is in reference to Solingen (pronounced with a Z in German and in Japanese), which is known as the City of Blades,⁷ which may be in reference to the ice skates.
- As a bit of trivia, Janelyn (the female member of the pair) is a reference to Janet Lynn,⁸ an Olympic American figure skater.
Papillon: From the French word for butterfly.
Oniwabandana: A reference to the 御庭番 (oniwaban),⁹ secret agents serving under the Tokugawa government as spies and security guards. The second half of the name is also a play on bandana.

Queen Beryl

Thetis: A clear reference to the sea nymph of Greek mythology of the same name.¹⁰
- One interesting thing about Thetis is that she’s one of the few youma who actually shows much personality and even interacts within the Dark Kingdom. She also was one of the strongest to appear until the Seven Great Youma.
DD Girls: Unfortunately, none of the individual team members have their own name, but rather are just known by their color. However, the group’s name is a reference to the Japanese all-girl pop group C.C. Girls,¹¹ and mixed in with the reference to the D-Point, where the final battle took place.

CC Girls Telephone Card

And there you have it, an in-depth look into the names of all of the youma as they appeared in the first season of Sailor Moon! I gotta admit it was a bit exhausting, but I’m happy to see that the producers of this series went so far out of their way to put so many hidden meanings in these one-shot enemies. Who’d have known!

[(1-20-2015) Edited to add: Thanks for the catch on Boxy and 牧師 goes to Sailormoon Canada on Twitter!]

How Did the Youma of the Dark Kingdom Get Their Names? (Part 1)

Posted 2016-01-19

Filed under Anime, Articles, Dark Kingdom, Language

The Many Faces of Morga

One of the many recurring themes that we keep touching on over and over in the world of Sailor Moon is the significance of names, and the minions of the Dark Kingdom are no different. The majority of their names are either directly related to the specific youma’s power, appearance, or the main character of the day in the episode, but quite a few of them actually have a surprising backstory behind them! So, without further ado, let’s take a look at the names of the youma as they appeared in the first season, separated by who they served under.

Jadeite

Morga: This is a hard one since there’s really no direct links in Japanese or English to her name, but judging by her appearance, the ga part of her name is likely in reference to 餓 (ga), meaning “to starve.” She also remarks in the manga that Naru’s mother is likely starving to death and locked up.
- Speaking of the manga, she’s one of the few “monsters of the day” who appeared in both the manga and the anime throughout the entirety of the Sailor Moon series, though she didn’t have a name in the manga.
Balm: A clever play off of the word “palm,” in reference to palm reading and, more generally, fortune telling.
Frau: Many people claim this is a play off of the Japanese word 振る (furu; to dump), but that doesn’t make sense in this context. Most likely it’s a play off of “flower,” in reference to the broaches given away that sap listerners’ energy.
Iguara: A pretty clear reference to an iguana, due to the pet shop which was opened and the design of the enemy.
- As an aside, he cute animals that smell all-so-nice in this episode, chanela, are an obvious reference to Chanel, the brand of perfume.
Kyurene: Spelled the same in Japanese as Cyrene/Kyrene of Greek mythology, a strong and aggressive female hunter.¹
Derella: Derived from a shortening of Cinderella.
Garoben: A play off of the Japanese term ガリ勉 (gariben) meaning to be fanatic about studying,² and probably in reference to all the students and how hard they were studying (and as a result, having their energy taken from them).
Ramua: An anagram of the Japanese word for “alarm” (as in, alarm clock). A – Ra – Mu = Ra – Mu – A
Kigaan: A play off of the Japanese word 祈願 (kigan) meaning prayer,³ which is typically offered up at a Shinto shrine.
Murid: “Dream” written backwards in Japanese. Do – Ri – Mu = Mu – Ri – Do

Ramua – Pretty Terrifying Makeup

Nephrite

Tesuni: An anagram of the Japanese word for “tennis.” Te – Ni – Su = Te – Su – Ni
Petasos: This is likely in reference to the ancient Greek hat known by the same name, petasos, in reference to the hat which Nephrite uses to syphon energy.⁴
Widow: Pretty obviously in reference to the black widow spider.
Kyameran: Could be interpreted either as: (i) An “n” added to the Japanese word for camera, or (ii) a contraction of “camera” and “man” to become Cameran.
Jumeau: In reference to the Bisque dolls⁵ which were popular in the late 1800s. A French company, Jumeau,⁶ was one of the most famous manufacturers.
Regulus: Direct reference to the star, Regulus.
Castor and Pollux: In reference to the stars and the characters by the same name in Roman mythology.⁷
- As an interesting aside, it’s said that the models for two of the staff at the animation studio appearing in this episode, Hiromi Matsuno and Kazuko Tadashita, are none other than Hiromi Matsushita and Kazuko Tadano (husband and wife character designers and animators working at Studio Live on producing Sailor Moon episodes at the time)⁸

Castor and Pollux

This takes us all the way through the first half of the original season of Sailor Moon, but it’s already getting pretty long, so I think we’ll need to hold off for part two until the next time around. Next up, we’ll be taking a look at the youma which service under Zoisite and Kunzite, along with the Seven Great Youma themselves and those that served directly under Queen Beryl. There’s plenty of more trivia to be found!

Read on to part two here!

What Does Rei’s Name Mean?

Posted 2016-01-14

Filed under Articles, Characters, Language, Rei Hino

What’s in a Name?

As anyone who’s started out on the massive undertaking of learning Japanese can probably tell you, there are three different writing systems used in Japanese: hiragana, katakana, and kanji. Hiragana and katakana are nearly identical except for their usage – hiragana is used for native Japanese words, while katakana is used for words of foreign origin or for sounding things out (such as onomatopoeia). Kanji is used in conjunction with hiragana¹ to add context and meaning to words or names.

The reason why this is important is that Rei’s name not only lacks any kanji associated with it (to be fair, both Usagi and Makoto’s names are typically written only in hiragana as well), but it’s also written in katakana, the system usually reserved for foreign names. Considering that we can be pretty sure that Rei’s not foreign (especially when you consider that Grandfather Hino is about as Japanese as they come, running a Shinto shrine and all), that leads us to the interesting question of why Ms. Takeuchi would choose to write Rei’s name in this manner. So, why did she?

The Mysterious Miko and her Birds

While Ms. Takeuchi has never officially commented on this issue, it’s most likely that her reason for choosing this style is precisely to draw attention to Rei’s name. You see, since Japanese lacks uppercase letters and it doesn’t look so good in bold or italics, one Japanese strategy to emphasize a word or text is by writing it in katakana. For example, this strategy is often employed in video games or manga when robots are speaking. It gives the reader a sense of unease and draws attention to the text, the same way an English writer may put something IN ALL CAPS.

How does this all play out for Rei? Well, it gives the reader an impressing that something just isn’t quite right about this priestess girl and a sense of mystery to her. It also leaves it up to the reader as to which kanji they want to attribute to Rei, depending on what they believe her personality is. Though Usagi and Makoto are written in hiragana, there’s really only one meaning possible for either of their names: rabbit and truth, respectively. Rei, on the other hand, has several prime choices, all of which could be read the same. For example:

玲 = translucent, brilliant, clear ²
麗 = beauty, lovely³
霊 = spirit, soul, ghost⁴

So by writing the name in katakana, Ms. Takeuchi is in a way able to attribute all of these meanings to Rei, all without actually saying any one in particular.

As one final note, it’s worth mentioning that the Chinese adaptation didn’t have the luxury of spelling out names phonetically and actually did have to choose one of the above. The localization there went for 火野麗 (the second one above),⁵ though it seems there are several other characters used occasionally by fans. Who knew that how you write the name could mean so much!

Why Isn’t Minako’s Name Associated With Venus?

Posted 2015-12-10

Filed under Articles, Characters, Language, Minako Aino

Sailor Venus and Her Forlorn Namesake Planet

One of the first things anyone with even a passing interest in learning Japanese will notice is that the names of all of the (inner) Sailor Soldiers is that their names follow a pretty noticeable pattern. Even if you haven’t studied Japanese, you’ve likely read about their names and explanations thereof in countless numbers of profiles online. For the sake of a quick summary, the Japanese no (の) serves as a possessive and can mean something similar to “of” or signify ownership, much like ” ‘s ” in English. In this way, the last name of each of the characters makes a nice wordplay which signifies not only elemental affinity, but the celestial object they’re tied to. Though the English names for the planets are gaining traction in recent years, traditionally the other inner planets (excluding Earth) and Jupiter have been referred to by elements, which ties back into the elemental affinities of the inner soldiers.

Mercury to Jupiter, in Japanese

Here you can see the Japanese names of the planets: Mercury (水星; suisei – water planet), Venus (金星; kinsei – metal planet), Earth (地球; chikyuu – earth globe), the Moon (月; tsuki – Moon), Mars (火星; kasei – fire planet), and Jupiter (木星; mokusei – wood planet).

The same characters are found in the name of the Sailor Soldiers: 月野うさぎ (Tsukino, Usagi – Usagi/Rabbit of the Moon), 地場衛 (Chiba, Mamoru – Mamoru/Protector of the Earth), 水野亜美 (Mizuno, Ami – Ami of the Water), 火野レイ (Hino, Rei – Rei of the Fire), 木野まこと (Kino, Makoto – Makoto of Wood), and 愛野美奈子 (Aino, Minako – Minako of… Love). As you can see, Minako breaks out of this system in a pretty dramatic way and leaves us with the question of just why is it that Ms. Takeuchi decided to not follow the pattern with her in the first place.

The Sailor of Love and Beauty

The easiest answer, of course, is simply that Minako came first, as we talked about before in her debut in Sailor V, approximately half a year prior to her appearance in the Sailor Moon manga. Minako is the self-proclaimed Sailor Soldier of love and beauty, so it only makes sense that she has a name that matches, right? Obviously her character being created prior to the rest and before Ms. Takeuchi herself had the naming patter down clearly plays a roll in this, but there are several other reasons which likely played into the decision.

For one, in order to name Minako after the planet Venus (and to conform with the naming system of the rest of the Sailor Soldiers), she would have had to name her 金野美奈子 (Kin’no, Minako). This name unfortunately doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue in Japanese, and obviously is a little too close to comfort with Makoto’s name. The other reason is that, through a clever play on kanji readings, it turns out that Ms. Takeuchi already did manage to sneak Venus into her name, all without having to bother with using her last name to do it.

As you may know (and probably noticed above), Japanese kanji can generally be read at least two different ways, very often more. These readings are referred to as their on and kun readings.¹ Taking Ami’s name, for example, her last name Mizuno (水野) contains the same character as Suisei (水星). The same applies to Hino (火野) and Kasei (火星), and Kino (木野) and Mokusei (木星). Well, if one were to take alternative readings for Minako‘s (美奈子) first name, you can actually pronounce her name as Binasu² – the older Japanese romanization of the English name “Venus.”

So while it might not be apparent on the surface, it turns out that Ms. Takeuchi did manage to slip the the planetary reference into Minako’s name! It’s amazing how far she really thought these things through…

What is the Story Behind the R in Sailor Moon R?

Posted 2015-12-03

Filed under Articles, Language, Making Of

Sailor Moon Rrrr……rrr?

One of the more enduring mysteries about the Sailor Moon anime franchise is what the “R” in the second season of the anime, Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon R, actually stands for. While I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s “hotly contested,” it is one of those questions which you’ll get a different answer for every person you ask. Before we go on, though, one thing to get out of the way is to discuss the way that Ms. Takeuchi handles this in the manga, seeing as the manga didn’t have seasons, per se, even though the themes of the stories did change in both the anime and manga around the same time and always happened around March or April of each year.¹ In the manga, the five major story arcs are named:

Dark Kingdom [February 1992 – March 1993]
Black Moon [April 1993 – March 1994]
Death Busters [March 1994 – March 1995]
Dead Moon [April 1995 – March 1996]
Sailor Stars [April 1996 – March 1997]

The anime, by contrast, in Japan is referred to as:

Mujirushi (無印; lit. ‘unlabeled’) [March 7, 1992 – February 27, 1993]
R [March 6, 1993 – March 12, 1994]
S(uper) [March 19, 1994 – February 25, 1995]
SuperS [March 4, 1995 – March 2, 1996]
Sailor Stars [March 9, 1996 – February 8, 1997]

There is some debate among fans regarding Sailor Moon S as well and whether or not it stands for Super, since it seems silly to have Super followed by SuperS, but alas, that is irrefutable due to the fact that the title is sung during the eyecatch.² You can watch and hear it for yourself here!

Sailor Moon and Sailor Moon Crystal

So that brings us back to “R” and where the title comes from! Unfortunately, the eyecatch is of no help, since it simply says “Sailor Moon R!” There are many theories floating around, including that it stands for Romance, suggesting that this is because the series takes on more of a romantic turn in the relationship between Usagi and Mamoru. However, that theory doesn’t really pan out, since the anime had to run with Cardian storyline for three months³ to allow Ms. Takeuchi to get ahead in the manga so they could follow the story.⁴ This means that they wouldn’t have known yet that the theme of the series was ‘romance’ anyway.

Other common theories are Return (since the series came back to the airwaves), Rabbit (after Usagi), Remake (since it’s theorized that the characters were reborn and the year was restarted, explaining no change in age), and Ribbon (… no idea where this came from!). One strong contender for the Return theory is that on the TV program Quiz: Hint de Pint,⁵ which also aired on TV Asahi (the same station that Sailor Moon aired on) the host, Masaru Doi, read the title of Sailor Moon R as “Sailor Moon Return” in the episode airing July 25, 1993.

Quiz: Hint de Pint

While we can’t say for sure, one thing that further adds to the mystery is that there’s another series which came out right at around the same time which to which the author also gave its sequel the “R” title after its name: the science fiction Somon Valley series by Katsuhiko Takahashi.⁶ The Somon Valley series first made its debut in 1985 and the follow-up novel, Somon Valley R⁷ was released in 1991. Now at first glance this could just be a coincidence, but it’s also worth noting that the producer of the Sailor Moon anime, Iriya Azuma,⁸ belonged to the science fiction club of Keio University (incidentally, the same university Motoki Furuta and Mamoru in the anime attend) and is apparently quite familiar with science fiction in general. It wouldn’t be too far fetched to say that Mr. Azuma was influenced by this title when name the new Sailor Moon anime series.

Regardless of which camp you fall under, it’s an enduring mystery that will keep people guessing for quite awhile longer, I’m sure, or at least until some sort of behind-the-scenes reference material comes out! Hopefully one day we’ll get an straight answer, but for now we’ll just have to enjoy theorizing!

Tuxedo Unmasked

The Real World Stories Behind Sailor Moon

Category Archives: Language