Behind the Scenes with the Sailor Moon R Game Designer

Sailor Moon R for the Super Famicom / Nintendo

Sailor Moon R for the Super Famicom / Nintendo

[Note: This translation is edited a bit for clarity and comes from an interview in the back of a strategy guide written for the Super Famicom fighting game. You can find the Japanese interview here: Page 94, Page 95, Page 96, Page 97.]1

Opening Up on the Unspoken Stories

Jouji Yuno, Developer/Producer at Angel
Continuing with his work on “Sailor Moon” for the SFC.

— That “ChibiUsa” mode is pretty unique!

ChibiUsa Mode

ChibiUsa Mode

That’s right, it grew far beyond our expectations, though there’s a reason behind how it came to this. When we started game development, there were still quite a few mysteries behind ChibiUsa, so when we were putting our heads together and debating how we should put her into the game, we decided to take her out of the main game and make a separate “ChibiUsa Mode.”

In this mode, you play as the near-invincible ChibiUsa. This was partially related to her height (laugh), but since we that though that it really wouldn’t look so nice to have ChibiUsa get punched by the enemies, so we made it so that even a little kid could make it to the end. We decided to have her use the umbrella she’s had since her appearance as a weapon, but she’s stopped using it entirely lately (laugh). In the game, the umbrella is really important to her since it makes up for the difference in the enemy’s height. What’s more, it’s a lot cuter than ChibiUsa directly punching and kicking the enemies. However, from the point of view of child-rearing, it’s not ideal to be hitting enemies directly with an umbrella, so she attacks the enemies with the energy from the stars that come shoot from the umbrella.

As much as we worried about how to fit ChibiUsa into the game, it paid off and people fell in love with it.

— What about the other Sailor Soldiers?

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What Other Series Inspired Sailor Moon’s Title?

The Various Forms of Senshi

The Various Forms of Senshi

As we discussed earlier, the term senshi as used in Sailor Moon‘s title is the cause of quite a bit confusion due to the change from the traditional Soldier and being re-interpreted as Guardian in recent years. While doing all the research into the background on the name, though, I ran across multiple examples of the use of senshi pre-dating Sailor Moon (which isn’t too surprising) in a form rather similar to that in Sailor Moon, which gives us more of a sense of the context in which the title existed and how the title Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon fit into Japanese public consciousness in the early 1990s.

It turns out that during the early- to mid-1970s, there was a great deal of manga, anime, and live action series bearing the senshi moniker. For those who lived through the late 80s and through the 90s in the US, you may be familiar with the popularity of the term “ninja” almost anywhere you looked, in comics, cartoons, tv shows, and movies. As the Vietnam war ramped up and drew attention around the globe, soldiers and the military came into the limelight and even pacifist nations like Japan were pulled into the build-up. Unfortunately, the traditional term for a military soldier, heishi (兵士) was, and is today, heavily stigmitized in the post-war era. Even today, the term used when applied to the Japanese military nearly exclusively refers to the combatants in WWII and prior to that.

The term of senshi, however, carried with it no such stigma and was more closer tied to the older samurai warriors. So what can we learn about the context of senshi leading up to Sailor Moon? Well, as it turns out, there’s a richer story than you’d initially believe!

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How did the Ministry of Education Change Sailor Moon?

Ministry of Education Orders Sailor Venus to Change Name

Ministry of Education Orders Sailor Venus to Change Name

Though on the surface that may seem completely unrelated, you’d be surprised to know that – at least in some minor way – the Japanese Ministry of Education (now the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology)1 had an effect on the characters of the Sailor Moon universe, at least in Japanese.

First, a little bit of background…

Japanese is pronounced in vowel and vowel-consonant2 pairs. The five vowel sounds: a, i, u, e, and o. The consonants are: k, s, t, n, h, m, y, r, and w (though there are voiced and unvoiced pairs for k/g, s/z, and t/d and a a voiced and unvoiced bilabial pair for h/b/p).3 Whenever a foreign word has been brought over into Japanese, it traditionally needed to fit into this pronunciation system in order to become a proper gairaigo (borrowed word)4 though there have been some concessions since the early 20th century to adapting the Japanese language to accommodate new sounds.5

Sailor Venus' first appearance in Sailor Moon (October 1992 ed. of Nakayoshi; p. 80)

Sailor Venus’ first appearance in Sailor Moon (October 1992 ed. of Nakayoshi; p. 80)

So, what changed?

As you’ve probably already figured out from our list of available sounds, we’ve got a slight problem with not having a “v” sound in Japanese. After WWII when the writing system was being re-standardized in 1954 for the fledgling remodeled education system, it was determined by Japanese Language Council that the “v” sound should be written consistently with the similar-sounding “b.”6 As the world became more international and Japanese exposure to foreign words increased, it became apparent that this approximation was insufficient, and the Council decided in 1991 to re-adopt an older approximation used, which was pronounced similar to the English “v” but written as a voiced “u” (ウ/u – ヴ/v).

And that’s where our question comes in: as you see above, when Minako first introduces herself in the Sailor Moon manga as “Sailor Venus” (and not “Sailor V” or “the Princess”), Ms. Takeuchi used the newer writing style of セーラーヴィーナス (Sērā Vīnasu). As you may recall, though, Sailor V pre-dates Sailor Moon by a little less than a year. So how did she give her name back in 1991?

Sailor Venus' First Appearance (August 1991 ed. of RunRun; p. 59)

Sailor Venus’ First Appearance in Sailor V (August 1991 ed. of RunRun; p. 59)

As suspected, in her introduction (left side, middle of the page) she gives her name as セーラービーナス (Sērā Bīnasu), the way of writing it prior to when the order was passed by the Ministry of Education on June 28, 1991.7 Since the official order was given out in late June and the manga published in August, it’s very likely that Ms. Takeuchi had already finished and sent it out for proofing and editing. Still, it’s interesting to see that even stuffy, boring acts of the government can have even a minor impact on the anime and manga we all love!

Is Usagi Really Just an Average Girl?

Usagi at Home

Nearly every act of the Sailor Moon manga begins with Usagi introducing herself as “just an average junior high school girl.”  We see that she lives in a typical nuclear family with two parents and two children, one boy and one girl.  They live in a modest home with one car and she goes to a public junior high school.  Aside from her well-established abysmal grades, the Tsukino family is pretty much statistically average, isn’t it?  Well, it certainly looks like it, but the facts don’t actually pan out that way when you look beyond the surface.

First off, regarding Usagi’s family, Ms. Takeuchi actually modeled the makeup of it after her own, even down to the names of her mother and father (Ikuko and Kenji) and younger brother, Shingo.  Though the birth rate has been on the decline since 1973, in 1992 (when Sailor Moon takes place), households with two children still edged out single-child households,1 so at the very least this part of the “average girl” story works out. Now how do things work out with her living situation?

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Guardians? Soldiers? What Are the Sailor Senshi?

Pretty [???] Sailor Moon

Pretty [???] Sailor Moon

This is an interesting question, since the answer is tied to not only language differences, but also to differences in culture between countries and even differences in culture across generations. First off, as you all obviously know, Sailor Moon’s full Japanese title is 美少女戦士セーラームーン (Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon), which was originally translated as Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon and then later as Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon. So which one is it? Was the original translation a mistake?

The short answer is: probably not. A quick Google image search for senshi in Japanese1 pulls up a lot of characters in armor and wielding weapons. The job of “Fighter” in Final Fantasy 1 is known as Senshi,2 the “Four Heroes of Light” are the 光の四戦士 (Hikari no Yon Senshi),3 and even the Japanese write-up for the movie “300” describes them as coming from the 戦士の国スパルタ (senshi no kuni Sparta; Sparta, the land of warriors).4 Taking this together, it’s pretty clear that the Japanese interpret the word senshi as a type of warrior, fighter, or soldier and not as some sort of peaceful guardian. The original art books by Naoko Takeuchi are even titled “Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon” in English, so that puts the origins to rest, at least.5

So where does the Guardian title come from? The earliest reference to it that I could find is in the live-action series of the same name that debuted in 2003. The best theory I can come up with is either that this is due to wanting to make the concept friendlier for young girls or, possibly, it was to further distinguish it from the live action musicals which were running at the same time. The musicals almost always included the title written in English for stylistic reasons, so seeing as they were both live action, this may have been a factor.

Sailor Moon Musical OST

Sailor Moon Musical OST

Whatever the reason for the change, it seems like it’s stuck for the franchise now and that the official English title is now Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon. We can at least say, without a doubt, that Scout6 isn’t a good translation. One thing that I would like to know, though, is how this nuance difference will be addressed when Viz finally gets around to their subtitling and dubbing of the final season, Sailor Moon Stars. The Starlights, Galaxia, and the Animamates are all senshi, which makes the title of Guardian a bit difficult. I guess I need to finally read Kodansha’s English translation of the manga7 and see!

Interview with a Sailor Moon Game Designer

Sailor Moon for the Super Famicom / Nintendo

Sailor Moon for the Super Famicom / Nintendo

[Note: This translation is edited a bit for clarity and comes from an interview in the back of a strategy guide written for the Super Famicom fighting game. You can find the Japanese interview here: Page 94, Page 95, Page 96, Page 97.]1

Behind the Scenes of Super Famicom Development

Jouji Yuno, Developer/Producer at Angel
Representative works: “Oda Nobunaga” for the SFC and “Sailor Moon” for the GB.

First off, please tell us about how you came to develop a Sailor Moon game for the Super Famicom.

Well, we just released the Game Boy game in December the year before, and it pretty much sold out throughout Japan. However, there are a lot of restrictions due to the Game Boy’s hardware, so we felt that we would like to release a Sailor Moon game for the Super Famicom as well, since it has less restrictions than the Game Boy.  The Game Boy game being such a hit is what brought this about.

What was the start of planning for the Super Famicom game like?

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Why Are Sailor Moon’s Titles Almost All the Same Length?

TV Listings in May 1992 Edition of Kitami Shimbun

TV Listings in May 1992 Edition of Kitami Shimbun

Or, for those of you who didn’t know already… yes, nearly all of Sailor Moon‘s episode titles are the same length in Japanese.1

You wouldn’t really notice at first glance, but once you start reading through the titles, you’ll notice that the phrasing is a little off (i.e., some words seemingly forced in) or that kanji will be used or not used inconsistently, which just stands out. My original theory on the issue what that possibly it had to do with the fact that Japanese is typed in full-width, each character taking up the same amount of space (monospaced fonts2 are an example of this in English), and with balancing how much “white space” is taken up on the title card. But after reading into this a bit more, it looks like there’s a more specific reason for this.

Dec. 1993 Issue of Animage

Dec. 1993 Issue of Animage

According to my research, Animage3 ran a column interviewing the staff who were producing the series and were able to get the scoop on why the titles seemed to be a near perfect match.

It turns out that the staff behind the Sailor Moon anime wanted their titles to fit in exactly in the space provided in the daily/weekly TV listings in the newspapers of the day4 and so they purposefully rewrote the episode titles to try to fit that character limit exactly. If you went over, it would be cut off (and viewers wouldn’t know what the episode was about) and if you went under, it would leave empty space. You can see in the example at the top of this post, Sailor Moon is the program starting at 7pm (incidentally, that’s episode 12), though the title was abbreviated here.

It’s pretty amazing to see that the staff actually went to such great lengths for such a small detail! In case you’re curious about the numbers, here they are:

Episodes, by Number of Characters in Episode Title
Total <15 15 16 17 18 18<
200 1 10 136 50 3 1