Just how many Sailor Soldiers ARE there in the Solar System?
If you’ve been involved with the Sailor Moon fandom as long as I have, I’m sure you’re quite familiar with all the absurd rumors that were running around in the early days, rampantly mixing original characters with the actual story, making it nearly impossible to tell what was real and what was fake.
Though Ms. Takeuchi never actually directly touches on the hows, whats, or whys involved in the connection between a human, their Sailor Crystal, and their respective celestial body, I think the information we can glean from the story tells us quite a bit.
Today we’ll be looking at just where that line in the sand is between what makes a Sailor Star Maker versus a Sailor Star Faker. For all you passionate Sailor Moon fans out there making your own custom characters, this one is going to be required reading!
Usagi was supposed to be taking notes for me
As I mentioned, we don’t really have a whole lot of solid information straight from Ms. Takeuchi herself on the issue, but I think we can still lay down some general ground rules that seem to be true from what we see in the series. Fortunately for us, there are a lot of Sailor Solders in the series, so we have quite a large data set to work with!
In terms of hard-and-fast rules, I’d say there are two big ones that are important for our conversation today. For the sake of simplicity, we’ll take them one at a time.
Must be a singular, physical celestial object
I’d say that this is probably one of the most important rules when it comes to the whole Sailor Crystal/celestial body connection in the series, and is also the first one ignored when fans start coming up with their own original characters. The “celestial object” part is obvious, because each and every Sailor Soldier has a guardian planet/star/whatever that their Sailor Crystal is tied to, so we have no reason to believe that this isn’t always the case.
That rules out the possibility of a Sailor Flower, Sailor Photon, or Sailor Former-Soviet-Union. Of course, the Phages in Sailor Stars are an interesting exception to this, but since they technically aren’t even Sailors, I think we can safely overlook them.
The “singular” part comes into play because, at least as far as the series lets on, there’s no such thing as a Sailor Asteroid Belt, Sailor Oort Cloud, or Sailor Taurus. Yes, as tempting as it is to suggest that there are Constellation Senshi, constellations as we know them are completely made up by humans and exist only from an Earth-centric point of view.1
Technically this shouldn’t be allowed to happen
One Sailor Crystal per object
Basically what this rule means is that Sailor Crystals aren’t just continuously produced, and that like rabbits mating in Australia,2 eventually everyone will have a Sailor Crystal. There is exactly one Sailor Crystal for the Moon, and that’s all there ever will be. Though it’s unclear how a Sailor Crystal gets passed from one person to the next, such as from Usagi to ChibiUsa, we do know that there’s only one Sailor Crystal to go around.
This point is also made clear in the case of the Sailor Animamates, and how Sailor Lead Crow and Sailor Tin Nyanko killed Sailor Coronis and Sailor Mau for their respective Sailor Crystals.3
This rule also excludes common fan theories or original creations involving twin Sailors, having a Sailor Earth together with Tuxedo Mask (which doesn’t even work, considering that he possesses the Earth Sailor Crystal), and things like that.
You called? … actually, no.
Now that we’ve gotten all that out of the way, I think we’re finally in a spot to try to answer our original question: does every celestial object have its own Sailor Soldier?
Seeing as it’s nigh impossible to prove a negative,4 this is a bit of a tough point to argue, but I think that all of the information we have about the Sailor Moon universe points pretty clearly to the fact that Sailor Soldiers are more the exception than the rule.
The most obvious evidence is the fact that the Solar System isn’t overflowing with Sailor Soldiers, which it most certainly would be if every space rock over a certain size had one. Boasting a whopping 184 natural satellites,5 there’s no shortage of Senshi fodder in the Solar System. And that isn’t even counting all the space rocks in the asteroid belt, four of which (Ceres, Pallas, Juno, and Vesta) make up the Asteroid Senshi.
Listen, guys, it all makes sense… I swear!!
More specifically, though, I’d point to Sailors Lethe and Mnemosyne as a good example of this. The two of them live on the same planet, but get their Sailor Crystals from the binary stars they orbit between. Suspiciously missing from the picture is a Sailor Soldier for the planet they’re living on, though the implication is that they are the twin soldiers of the planet (which is probably related to the fact that living on a star isn’t practical).
Then of course there’s also Phobos and Deimos, the soldiers-but-not-Sailor-Soldiers from the planet Coronis that serve Sailor Mars.6 I guess there’s always the possibility that there’s some weird overlap with there being a Sailor Phobos and run-of-the-mill Phobos, but I’m comfortable ruling that out.
Phobos and Deimos? Not Senshi.
Probably the biggest question left here for me, and the one that only Ms. Takeuchi could answer, is what the determining factor is behind what has a Sailor Soldier and what doesn’t. Since we know that stars like Kinmokusei can have Sailor Soldiers, it seems like an odd oversight that there isn’t a Sailor Sun within the Sailor Moon universe.
But even if we can’t explain the how or why, I think we can at least reasonably say that there are limits, as we outlined above.
Do you have a different take on this? Or possibly an explanation as to why none of the other moons in the Solar System have a Sailor Soldier, when even asteroids do? If you have any theories on this, I’d love to hear them!
References:
- See Constellation (Wikipedia) ↩
- See Rabbits in Australia (Wikipedia) ↩
- I just wrote “Sailor” six times in this sentence. Wow… ↩
- See Burden of Proof (Philosophy) (Wikipedia) ↩
- See List of Natural Satellites (Wikipedia) ↩
- There is some confusion over whether or not they were Sailor Soldiers, but the manga is pretty clear that they aren’t since they are described as “soldiers in training” (訓練兵), using an entirely different Japanese word for “soldier” (兵; hei vs. 戦士; senshi). They also have normal star seeds when killed by Sailor Lead Crow, which basically settles that argument. ↩
I thought Helios is supposed to be “Sailor Sun”?
Not quite a “Sailor” (doubt he has a Sailor Crystal), but he definitely does have a sun connection!
I believe that Sailor Crystals were one of major reasons Sailor Moon’s fandom has such longevity. A series that allows you to insert your own proxy character opens up a huge world for the fans to explore. While Sailor Autumn or Sailor Virgo, or Mercury Knight do not fit the canon of the official works, they do allow the fans to create new stories within that world that’s often not possible in a rigid setting.
Planet Nemesis was always the odd exception, clearly being called a planet yet having no sailor crystal. Wiseman was also aware of sailor crystals, given he talked with Galaxia well before the events in the 30th century. The musicals also introduced the idea that planets could lose their sailor crystal by being destroyed, Planet Vulcan was consumed by the sun and clearly has no Sailor Crystal. But then that musical also gave us Sailor Astarte so anything from there has to be taken with a bucket of salt.
My head canon figures that Nemesis’ sailor crystal was turned into the Evil Black Crystal when Death Phantom merged with the planet, preventing a Sailor Nemesis from existing. Then all the space/time screwy-ness of the planet plus it being destroyed prevented Sailor Nemesis from existing in any timeline. My head canon also says the sailor crystal of the moon is actually the sailor crystal of Theia, the planet from the large impact theory so…..
And I wrote a wall of text.
I’ve actually wondered whether Wiseman *is* Sailor Nemesis.
Tuxedo Mask is a two-word name, like Death Phantom. He and Pharaoh 90 with his Taioron Crystal may, like him, be among those guardians who are not called Sailor, because they are male.
That’s just a theory, of course.
I agree on most things here but I think you are wrong on one thing. There can be Senshi of say more massive celestial objects or I guess a celestial object that is a combination of many more celestial objects like Galaxies. For one we have Sailor Galaxia who in the 90s anime atleast was Senshi of the Milky Way Galaxy. In fact the word Galaxia is the Greek word for the Milky Way. Likewise we have Sailor Cosmos who is the Senshi of basically all that exists,
I agree that Sailor Galaxia and Sailor Cosmos muddy that up… on the surface.
But considering that the current standing theory is that there is a super massive blackhole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy, I’d argue it’s entirely possible that Sailor Galaxia’s Sailor Crystal is linked to that, which still neatly fits into our “must but a single celestial object” rule.
As for Sailor Cosmos? We know almost nothing about her, so it’s really hard to make any statements. The good news is that we also know very little about the makeup of the entire cosmos! =D So assuming she is literally the Senshi of the cosmos, she could fit into that rule somehow somewhere (if you consider the cosmos to be one “single” entity)… or she could just break all of the rules. I’d be okay with either theory, since the whole point of Sailor Cosmos is that she’s the ultimate and supreme senshi.
Well personally I have a different view. I don’t think that Senshi can only be Senshi of say exactly single celestial objects. Now I do think that Senshi can only be Senshi of 1 celestial object at a time and there can’t be two or more Senshi for the same celestial object. This means as you say there can’t be a Sailor Earth because Tuxedo Mask is Earth’s Senshi and has Earth’s Golden Crystal. I actually criticized this one person who believed that Tuxedo Mask was Senshi of both the Earth and the Sun as this is wrong as Senshi can not be Guardians over more then one celestial object and Tuxedo Mask is only stated to be the Earth’s Senshi. Besides when Sailor Galaxia was talking about the Senshi she killed it showed the Inners and Outers with their planets and Starseeds and with Mamoru it showed only the Earth beside him and his Golden Starseed not the Earth and the Sun. That being said a Galaxy does count as a singular celestial object just one that comprises multiple celestial objects. I also see no issue in say Senshi of constellations as it may be Earth centered but they are counted as celestial objects. I will agree that say Senshi of non celestial objects like the elements, the seasons or what have you dosen’t work as Sailor Galaxia stated that Senshi are Senshi of Stars and Planets aka Celestial Objects.
Galaxia is probably not the solider of the galaxy and there probably isn’t a sailor crystal of the galaxy. She likely named herself Sailor Galaxia to further remove herself from her ‘trash planet’. She views the galaxy as the only object worthy of her.
Galaxia says she is from a ‘trash planet’ and that she hated being an ordinary Sailor Solider. She wanted the power of a strong planet and be the strongest Sailor Soldier. We know she gains the powerful Saffer Crystal at some point, but she clearly does not have it during her flashbacks when she’s searching for the Galaxy Cauldron. Galaxia is probably an average solider of an average planet with a god complex. There’s no indication she was born the solider of the galaxy.
Also I want to thank you for revealing that info of Sailor Lethe and Sailor Mnemosyne being Senshi of binary Stars I for a long time thought that those two celestial objects represented the planets of the two that were conjoined and warred against each other. Thanks for telling us that.
Does the Galaxy Cauldron itself count as a celestial object? Because, given what happens in the final chapters of the manga, it’s possible to interpret Sailor Cosmos as the senshi of the Cauldron, born when it was filled with all the Sailor Crystals Galaxia collected.
As for Galaxia, I don’t even seem to remember anyone ever clarifying what she is linked to. In the manga she seems to have had her own planet originally but wanted to rule something greater, but the anime only describes her as the strongest senshi in the galaxy (and the fact that she somehow gave up her own star seed doesn’t help).
It’s just one of those things that will never have a sensible canon answer, I think. Naoko Takeuchi wrote it this way and it’s not consistent, and that’s just the way it is.
As much as I love Stars, it definitely feels a lot less “developed” compared to all the other seasons.
My suggestion for a new Senshi: Sailor Shoemaker-Levy 9!
Has an unstable, “rocky” personality and tends to clash with Makoto (Jupiter)… 🙂
Then the question is — do artificial satellites also get a senshi? =D
Sailor Hubble!
I don’t see why there couldn’t be a senshi for every celestial object. I mean, what if they weren’t on the Moon Kingdom when Serenity sent everyone to the future? They could have had permadeath from Saturn’s wiping the slate clean, or they could have just continued to live on on their respective planets/moons/asteroids. Or they could have been reborn elsewhere in the world. Or elsewhere in time. Or they could be still slumbering like the Asteroid Senshi were supposed to be doing. Or maybe we never see them because like the Outer Senshi have the job to defend against invaders to the solar system and so won’t awaken/react to inter-solar threats, we just haven’t run into the situation that the senshi are called upon yet.
Personal headcannon is that lunar senshi are responsible for protecting the planet that their satillite circles. The inner planetary senshi are responsible for defending the solar system against treats originating within the system. Outer senshi are responsible for defending against threats invading the system from the outside. TNO Senshi are responsible for going out of the system and fighting threats before they reach the system. That’s why they aren’t around in the series because they already fell to Galaxia and are part of her Starseed garden. And all the Lunar Senshi are busy on their own moons guarding their respective planets against threats while the Planetary Senshi are away. The reason Sailor Moon had an awakening and is seeing so much action is because all the problems are happening on Earth and so it falls within her jurisdiction to take care of the problem.
As for Phobos and Deimos, I saw it like Luna, Artemis, and Diana. They are not actually connected to the satillites, but are merely named after them. Rei, as a small child, had some sort of innate connection to Mars and somewhere inside recalled the two moons that circles her planet and keeps it company like the crows that always flew around her. She named them Phobos and Deimos off of that–because otherwise what sort of Japanese kid would name two crows after something as obscure as moons of Mars? And when they transformed, they just told her they were the names she recognized and had been calling them by for years to reassure her that they were the same beings. And then they died before they had a chance to explain anything to her for real.
Or perhaps those really are their names, like the cats, and there is just a Sailor version of them as well. After all, Takeuchi-sensei isn’t really a stanger to naming multiple characters with the same name (Moon Queen Serenity/Neo Queen Serenity/Small Lady Serenity, Usagi/Chibi-Usa/Kousagi, Ami/Ami Jr, Rei/Rei Jr, Makoto/Mako, Minako/Mina, Naru/Naruru) thoug admittedly it’s usually a parent-child relationship, or a sibling relationship, and sometimes she adds or drops a character, that doesn’t void the fact that she has a notable habbit of it in this series. And it’s not like she had so many characters running around that she had no choice but to start reusing names. So it wouldn’t surprise me if she did have a Sailor Phobos and Sailor Deimos out there that may or may not be connected to the crows.
From a practicality stand point, the gas giants (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune) have too many moons to have a senshi or animal familiar for every one of them but I have wondered what it would be like if they did. And for the other asteroids as well.
That’d be even crazier than the PreCure movies with all the main characters meeting up!
Personally, I actually do consider Phobos and Deimos to be actual sailors but they are not sailors that originate from our solar system (as you said they are from the planet Coronis) but an interesting theory that I have is that sailor crystals are kind of blank slates. I feel like they can just make a connection with any celestial body (of course only one at a time) and choose to associate themselves with said celestial object. A headcanon that I have is that the sailors Phobos and Deimos that we see actually killed the real sailors Phobos and Deimos. Yes, I’m aware that it doesn’t make much sense, but I still like the theory. Also, I like to imagine that sailor Jupiter just has an army of her own. It never made sense to me that we never saw any other moon Senshi that actually belong to this solar system. But a theory I have (yes, I have a bunch of them lol) is that they guard the palaces of the princesses, I.E sailors Io, Ganymede, Europa, etc guard princess Jupiter’s palace. Basically, I believe that the moon guardians protect their respective princesses palaces, hence why we never see them.
You know, for years, I always thought they were canonically Sailors just like the Asteroid Senshi.
o_o I still have a hard time wrapping my head around the idea that they might not be.
I think it would be cool there was a relative of Tuxedo Mask that we didn’t know about, like a cousin, and particularly a female cousin that has a Sailor Crystal relating to the planet that crashed into Earth, Theia, the mother of the deities Selene/Luna, Helios/Sol and Eos/Aurora connecting her to Sailor Moon.