Sailor Moon’s Transformation Brooch
I’d like to thank a reader for sending this in because, I have to admit, that it the colors used in Sailor Moon’s brooch were just so natural that I never bothered to question it. But when you stop and take a look, you can’t help but wonder if there’s any method to the madness, any sort of order behind how Ms. Takeuchi arranged the colors as why. More specifically, the question posed is as follows:
The Spiral Heart Moon Rod
Throughout her time as a sailor-suited soldier of love and justice, dedicating her days to boring school work and evenings to punishing evil in the name of the moon, Sailor Moon has gone through quite a few different magical items and all manners of attacks. While I’m personally a fan of the traditional Moon Stick, which I think we can all agree has a pretty lackluster name, the inspiration behind the Spiral Heart Moon Rod is fascinating in its own right.
What makes the Spiral Heart Moon Rod so interesting is that its design, like the designs of other important items in the Sailor Moon canon, appears to be based on a real rod – a scepter1 – in the possession of the British Royal Family. Specifically, I’m referring to the Sovereign’s Scepter with Cross,2 part of the coronation regalia of the British monarchy.
The Sovereign’s Scepter with Cross and Spiral Heart Moon Rod
In addition to the remarkable similarities in their general appearance, which is pretty convincing in its own, it’s also noteworthy that the Sovereign’s Scepter contains within it Cullinan I,3 the clearest cut diamond in the world – not too dissimilar from the legendary Silver Crystal itself! The curving lines reminiscent of a heart, the crown design on top, and the crystal embedded within all make this a pretty convincing basis for the design.
Cullinan I
Taking into consideration that the talismans were also based on Western designs, it seems pretty fitting to me that Ms. Takeuchi would choose such a famous item from the crown jewels to use as the basis for her design. It also ties in nicely with her role as heir to the Silver Millennium and the future Neo-Queen of Crystal Tokyo.
Since we know that Ms. Takeuchi incredibly well-informed and clearly did a lot of research into various crystals, I think it would definitely be worthwhile to take a closer look at some of the broaches throughout the seasons, or maybe some of the other various sticks, wands, and scepters wielded by Sailor Moon. Just seeing something real that looks so similar really gives you a sense for just how impressive her attacks must have looked to the enemies she faces.
But what about you? What was your favorite of her weapons, and why? I’ve always loved the simplicity of the Moon Stick and how it even evolved once the Silver Crystal was added to it, but that’s just me. I’d love to hear other people’s opinions!
The Sailor Team like to think they have pretty normal names…
We’ve discussed on several occasions the difficulties involved in localization, particularly when it comes to names, but we haven’t often discussed the names of the main characters themselves (with some exceptions), and how uncommon or strange they may seem. In fact, when the Sailor Moon manga was first being localized into English by Mixxzine1 (before being moved to Smile2 and then serialized by Tokyopop)3 – one of the first magazines for localized manga to be widely distributed in the U.S. – there was a lot of debate among fans over how Usagi’s name was localized.
While many fans either preferred the name Serena, as used in DiC’s localization of the anime, many other fans expressed an affinity for the Japanese original name. Mixx’s choice to translate Usagi’s name literally as Bunny was divisive to say the least. On one side of the argument, you could say that this is how Japanese readers interpreted the name—as a word found in the dictionary. On the other, one could argue that just like Dick Dastardly4 and many other children’s cartoons in the West, the name is simply an extra to give you further insight into the character.
Since there’s no “correct” solution to this issue of nuance in Japanese being lost in localization, I think it’s worth taking a look at this issue from another direction: just how made up are the names of the Sailor Moon cast, and are they really as obscure and fictional as we’ve all been led to believe? How many people can there actually be who are named “… of the moon,” anyway?
Neo Queen Princess Usagi Serena Bunny Serenity Tsukino
According to this index5 of 19,661,494 Japanese phone book listings, at least. Another site, which uses both phone records and and government census data,6 says that there are approximately 1,500 people with the last name Tsukino, making it the 6,402nd most popular last name in Japan. The site also provides an interesting look into the origin of the last name:
現鹿児島県東部である大隅国曽於郡月野が起源（ルーツ）である。近年、鹿児島県に多数みられる。 「野」は自然のままの広い地を表す。
The origin of the name is the village of Tsukino in the Soo district of Oosumi province in what is now the eastern part of present-day Kagoshima prefecture. There are many with the name found in Kagoshima prefecture. The character for “no” (野) means a wide-open natural space.
That’s right, if you were to go to Soo county in Kagoshima,7 you could very well meet someone named Tsukino. So in terms of realism, how do the rest of the characters fare?
| Name | No. Households | Ranking | Most Common In |
| Tsukino | 251~1,500 | 6,402 | Kagoshima |
| Mizuno | 26,216~175,000 | 105 | Aichi |
| Hino | 4~20 | 64,633 | Oita |
| Kino | 1,284~8,700 | 1,811 | Shizuoka |
| Aino | 21~140 | 26,233 | Hokkaido |
| Chiba | 34~230 | 19,895 | Yamagata |
| Tenoh | 13~80 | 36,041 | Hiroshima |
| Kaioh | 0 | NA | NA |
| Tomoe | 0 | NA | NA |
| Meioh | 0 | NA | NA |
| Osaka | 172~1,200 | 7,346 | Osaka |
I guess it shouldn’t be all that surprising that Mizuno would be that common of a last name (almost breaking into the top 100!) considering that there’s the Mizuno Corporation,8 a popular brand of sports equipment. More than anything else, though, I was surprised to see that nearly all of the last names of the main cast (with the exception of Michiru, Hotaru, and Setsuna) actually exist in the real world. Even Ms. Naru Osaka, who I always figured was a pure parody name, actually has some real-world relatives in the – big surprise! – Osaka region of Japan.
The Lovely Ms. Osaka
So there you have it! Though obviously Ms. Takeuchi picked the character names in order to match them with their representative planets as well as their chosen element and, to be honest, it may simply be a pure coincidence that any of these are real-world names at all, I for one am glad to see that there is at least one more touch of reality in the world of Sailor Moon.
And for anyone who’s curious – no, there’s no one in Japan that I could find named Usagi. Too bad!
The Not-Boomerang Moon Boomerang
Few attacks in the history of the Sailor Moon series have undergone as many alterations as the sailor-suited soldier’s debut attack in both the manga and the anime. While it’s up for debate whether or not her crying, which unleashes ultrasonic sound waves that distract the youma Morga in the midst of her assault,1 is a special attack in its own right, in the tradition of most anime and live-action shows in the sentai fighting-force line, I think it’s fair to say that anything without an explicit name is just a part of them being super soldiers of justice. Otherwise, you will need to start coming up with names for their ability to jump to high places, a name for Sailor Jupiter’s punching, and more. That said, Sailor Moon’s tiara is the first named attack, but its name has gone through several major changes. What gives?
Crown Game Center – Real or Legend?
Anyone who has been around the internet long enough to have been bombarded with clickbait headlines on Twitter, Facebook, and even major new sides on a daily basis is probably familiar with so-called Betteridge’s law of headlines,1 which states:
Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no.
Fortunately (or unfortunately) for me, here we address nothing but questions with answers that are rarely – if ever – as simple as a yes or no answer. On one hand, it’d be nice to quickly confirm or dismiss some of these questions, but that’d kill much of the entertainment and learning value for you, the reader, and the excitement and research value for me, the writer. I guess what I’m trying to say here is that, as usual, the answer to this question is: “it’s complicated.”
Within the Azabu Juban Shotengai (麻布十番商店街; Azabu Juban Shopping District),2 right around the time that Ms. Takeuchi was putting together the world of Codename: Sailor V (and later Sailor Moon), there actually was an entertainment center called “Crown.”
From Left to Right: Pachinko Crown, Crown Game Center, and McDonalds
The small caveat here is that though the Crown was a game center (i.e., an arcade as we’d know it in the west) in the manga run by a friendly university student, it was actually an incredibly noisy pachinko gambling den that kids were forbidden from entering in real life, known as Pachinko Crown. The business has since shut down and has been converted into a McDonalds, but the design of the building is still noticeable to Sailor Moon fans.
The Crown as it Appeared in 1993
Unfortunately, it seems that the anime didn’t take much of an effort to use the design of the original Crown, but it is nice to see that it was at least something of a festive landmark in the Azabu Juban area. According to a notice posted on the door (which was thankfully preserved online),3 Pachinko Crown closed for business on January 4, 2001.
While on the topic of the Crown shops (which, according to the Sailor Moon lore, was run by Motoki’s family, which explains why both he and his sister worked there despite being students), there is one more interesting thing to share: it seems that the Crown Fruit Parlor was also a real place, though it’s unclear if the businesses were related in real life like they were in the manga/anime. They both are named “Crown,” though, so it’s not too hard to imagine that there may have been a connection in the real world too.
Crown Musk Melon and Crown Fruits Parlor
The shop with the Crown Musk Melon sign is actually a fruit shop (which doesn’t seem to have an attached cafe) named Marumiya that appears to still be in business.4
So there you have it! For what seemed like a couple of random shops that appeared throughout the Sailor Moon anime and manga (and, in the case of the anime and Central Control, was actually an integral part of the series!), it turns out that there actually was some truth behind the locations and their designs. I’d love to know more about what drew Ms. Takeuchi to these places, if perhaps she used to buy groceries at the fruit shop or used to commute along these roads, but I suppose that sort of history is for now at least lost to time. All the same, though, it’s a great feeling to be able to see my favorite places in the anime actually appear in real life!