Happy Birthday Rei! (courtesy of Sweet Bee)
Whether you know Rei best as the cool, silent priestess-type from the manga or the bossy counterpoint to Usagi in the anime, this character managed to strike a very personal chord that still resonates with me today.
In honor of Rei Hino’s birthday, I’d like to take the opportunity to highlight five interesting facts about the high-heeled Senshi of passion and her role in Sailor Moon. Happy Birthday, Rei!
The mandala, it burns!!
It certainly does seem like we keep coming back to Sailor Mars, time and again, in our effort to answer yet more Sailor Moon mysteries.
And it’s not like we don’t have a good reason for it, either.
While I’m certain that most fans the world over are perfectly capable of figuring out what a “Supreme Thunder” is, or parsing out the meaning behind a “Love and Beauty Shock,” Sailor Mars is something of a different story for the western world. Steeped in Shinto tradition, and yet having nearly no Shinto-inspired powers, the attacks wielded by the Sailor Soldier of fire have a surprisingly deep and convoluted background.
Join me as we dissect the Burning Mandala, and figure out once and for all what those symbols she’s summoning up actually mean. You may want to grab a snack, because this is gonna be quite a ride!
The Magnificent Mars Mantra!
While Sailor Moon definitely had its fair share of character stereotypes, I think that was actually one of the points where the series truly shined. Rather than just sticking with common tropes, it built upon them to make each of the characters into people that stood out on their own merits and that the readers/viewers could really relate to.
One such character, for me at least, is Rei — and especially the Rei that we see depicted in the anime. Though a haughty, strong-headed, and competitive 14 year old girl in her day-to-day life, she somehow manages to make this work with her spiritual side without ever feeling like either depiction of the character is shoehorned in.
Today, I’d like to take a moment to explore a little more of Rei’s spiritual side, and specifically about what some of her chants actually mean. If you happen to be an evil demon, you may want to skip this article. For the rest of you, read on!
Rei and… Rei?
When you consider the sheer volume of anime, manga, and videos games that produced in Japan every year, it’s really no surprise that you’ll run across characters that share the same name. The more popular or common a name is, the more likely you are to see it elsewhere, either in other media or even in the real world!
But when you stop and consider (1) the relatively short time period in which Sailor Moon and Neon Genesis Evangelion hit the market and (2) just how uncommon a name like Rei is in the first place, it’s a little harder to write it off as pure coincidence.
Today we’re going to take a look at the interesting, behind-the-scenes connection between these two juggernauts of anime!
Flaaaaaaame Snipeeeeeeeer!
This is another one of those interesting fan theories that I occasionally see bouncing around the internet. I especially like it because, in a series that is frankly lacking in diversity, the idea that any of the characters would have anything remotely different about them is interesting to me.
Not like being left-handed is much of a big deal anyway, but that’s about as close as we could hope to get.
So today we’re going to take a deeper look into the theory about our (possibly…) favorite left-handed Sailor Soldier!
Sailor Moon and the Holy Grail
While I’m well aware that the majority of the audience who reads this blog probably watched/read Sailor Moon in translation, I think it’s sometimes informative to take a look at the more in-depth Japanese linguistics issues that, even though they don’t have a substantial impact on the series as a whole, they still would stand out and affect the interpretation of a native Japanese speaker.
And besides, I live for this geeky Japanese interpretation stuff.
I hope you join along for this trip through the bizarre world of the kanji wordplay! If we’re really lucky, maybe we’ll have even learned something at the end of this!
You’ve got some ‘splaining to do, Grandpa Hino!
With how many articles I end up writing about Rei Hino, you’d think I should have named this blog Sailor Un-Mars’ed. But to be fair, it’s not entirely my fault that between the anime and manga, there are so many riddles about this Christian school-attending Shinto priestess who suffers from split personalities.
Today I’d like to take a look at trying to unravel the mysteries of Rei’s family tree and, specifically, which side Rei’s grandfather lands on.
I hope you join along, it’s going to be an interesting ride!