Category Archives: Characters

What is a Tomoe and Its Connection to Saturn / Hotaru?

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Hotaru Mitsu-Domoe

Hotaru Mitsu-Domoe

It would probably be fair to say that the historical connections and meanings behind the names of the Sailor Moon cast seems to be something of a running theme for me. On the other side of the coin, though, Ms. Takeuchi definitely seems to have done her homework when it comes to naming her characters and even went out of her way to add hidden references to the character’s planets and personalities. And that’s not even talking about all of the in-jokes and references that the anime staff put in!

As most any Sailor Moon fan can tell you, all of the Sailor Soldiers are named in a way that directly references their planets (though the Minako/Venus connection isn’t so obvious). Once she reached the Outer Soldiers, in fact, their names literally come from the Japanese names for their respective planets,1 with the final character for star/planetary-body (星; hoshi)2 omitted. However, oddly enough, Hotaru’s last name, Tomoe, doesn’t fit so neatly into this naming system. In fact, other than the fact that the To part of her name is made up of the symbol for soil (土; tsuchi/to),3 which is the Japanese elemental symbol representing Saturn.4

The planets and their Japanese/English names

The planets and their Japanese/English names

What about Moe? Well, the kanji used is an alternate (uncommon and used only for names)5 way of writing moe (萌え; infatuation),6 which I’m sure is a term that many modern fans of Japanese anime are familiar with.7 So at first blush, one could assume that Hotaru’s last name implies that she is infatuated with the earth… but that would be incorrect. As with the names of some other characters, the most obvious Japanese translation is not always the correct answer, and that’s also the case here with Hotaru’s last name.

Taiko drum with a mitsudomoe

Taiko drum with a mitsudomoe

You see, the more likely interpretation is that the kanji which make of Tomoe (土萠) are irrelevant and that her name is actually a direct reference to the Japanese shape known as a tomoe.8 In its most common form, as a mitsudomoe (三つ巴; triple tomoe) which is commonly found on Shinto shrines and on taiko drums, it is said to represent the three-fold division between mankind, earth, and sky. Incidentally, going back to its Shinto roots (though the symbol also appears in Korea, China, and throughout Asia, so it’s fair to say that its origins are not Japanese), the tomoe was traditionally associated with Hachiman, the god of war.9 What’s more, this was also the symbol used on the flag of the Ryukyuan Kingdom10 and is today strongly associated with karate and various other forms of martial arts throughout Okinawa, further cementing its military nature.

Taken all together, it’s pretty apparent that the stronger connection for Hotaru here would be with the tomoe symbol, both for its military applications (which ties in nicely with her status as one of the most powerful Sailor Soldiers) as well as for its symbolism related to the various stages of life – birth, death, and life in heaven.

As usual, I really have to give it to Ms. Takeuchi to be able to slip references like this in, all the while making it seem totally natural. Not only did she manage to include the reference to the planet Saturn, but even managed to include a far deeper cultural reference. She never ceases to amaze!

Is Michiru the Most Powerful of the Sailor Soldiers?

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Is Neptune really an unstoppable force?

Is Neptune really an unstoppable force?

Let me start out first by saying that I don’t necessarily subscribe to the theory that Sailor Neptune is the most powerful of the Sailor Team, but during my research of going through old Japanese fan sites, this was an interesting theory I ran across. The reasons behind it are also pretty interesting, so whether or not this is something one personally believes in or not, it’s definitely something interesting to think about!

Before we can talk about “most powerful,” I think it’s important that we take the time to define what it is that we’re actually talking about and, more importantly, to explain why the obvious choices don’t count.

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How Uncommon Are the Names of the Sailor Moon Characters?

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Filed under Articles, Characters, Inner Senshi, Language, Mamoru Chiba, Naru Osaka, Outer Senshi, Real World
The Sailor Team like to think they have pretty normal names...

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

Neo Queen Princess Usagi Serena Bunny Serenity Tsukino

There are at least 251 households named 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

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!

Did the Sailor Moon Anime Make Haruka More Masculine?

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Sailor Uranus – A Sailor Soldier Not Restricted by Gender

Sailor Uranus – A Sailor Soldier Not Restricted by Gender

I generally try to avoid topics that require an understanding of Japanese to begin with, since it’s much less fun for those involved and has a very “inside baseball”1 feel to it if you’re trying to follow along with a bunch of different terminology. Of course, it can be very interesting sometimes and since we’re talking about a series which has undergone many incarnations in being brought to the Western world, it definitely is worth discussing sometimes. The case of Haruka, and how her gender and sexuality is conveyed in the anime and manga, is certainly one of those issues worth a closer look.

Haruka needs to relax sometimes

Haruka needs to relax sometimes

Japanese, as I’m sure many of you are aware, has a lot of personal pronouns.2 In fact, if you take a look on the Japanese Wikipedia page,3 you’ll find that they list fifty-one different ways to say “I” or “me.” This leads to an interesting problem in translation, since in Japanese these all express information on the way that the speaker views both themselves and their relationship with the listener while there’s no other choice than to translate them all as “I” when putting it into English.4 While most anime fans have undoubtedly heard of the common terms like watashi, atashi, boku, and ore, there are many others like honshoku (本職; used in business correspondence, often by government officials) and wagahai (我が輩; used by kingly sorts and despots, like King Koopa from Super Mario and well known in the title of “I Am a Cat” by Natsume Soseki5) which, though slightly less common, are just as important to Japanese culture and communication.

So when it comes to Haruka, it’s obviously a great point of interest how she refers to herself, since it expresses a part of her character that doesn’t really come across in English. While researching this, though, I came across an interesting issue: the anime and the manga treat Haruka’s use of personal pronouns differently… and in a pretty peculiar way.

The Unstoppable Sailor Duo

The Unstoppable Sailor Duo

How does the anime treat it? Well, irrespective of whether she is Sailor Uranus or Haruka (and both before and after Usagi discovers Haruka is female), she refers to herself using the pronoun boku, which is typically reserved for males but is not seen as completely verboten when used by younger girls and up through university. Where things get interesting, though, is in the manga. Ms. Takeuchi did not stick to just one personal pronoun for the character, but actually uses two – atashi and ore, which are seen as explicitly feminine and masculine, respectively. So when appearing as Haruka, she identifies herself more as a masculine and strong personality while taking on more of a feminine touch (on the same level as the way Ami refers to herself!) when in the form of Sailor Uranus.

To be honest, I’m rather disappointed that the anime did away with this for a simple across-the-board use of boku rather than going through the effort of trying to show Haruka as more of a fluid character, transcending above the simple male/female gender choice, as Ms. Takeuchi hinted at in the manga by switching between two extremes.

Ultimately, this is all a relatively minor issue, but it’s unfortunately one that’s lost in translation since there really aren’t any direct ways to address it in English other than changing the rest of the character’s speech patterns. I’d love to hear about how other translations dealt with it, though. Especially ones which do have gendered pronouns!

How Are the Three Talismans Connected to the Japanese Emperor?

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Filed under Articles, Characters, Haruka Tenoh, Michiru Kaioh, Outer Senshi, Setsuna Meioh
The Three Talismans

The Three Talismans

Due to the very nature of the names of the planets and their connections to astrology, it’s fairly obvious why Ms. Takeuchi and the directors of the Sailor Moon anime used a lot of Greco-Roman mythology in the creation of the characters and universe. That’s why it comes as a bit of surprise that suddenly they would take a turn to an interesting mix of Christian, in the form of the Holy Grail,1 and Japanese, in the form of the three talismans, when creating the story behind the Death Busters story arc. Though the story of the Holy Grail is pretty well known in the west (indeed, there’s even a popular comedy2 written about it), the story behind the three talismans is much less well known. So what exactly are they, and how do they tie into the story?

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Could Haruka Actually Be a Race Car Driver?

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Not just a Sailor Soldier, but a championship race car driver too!

Not just a Sailor Soldier, but a championship race car driver too!

Ah, yes… one of those questions that’s been haunting Sailor Moon fans for years: if Haruka and Michiru are high school students, how is it that Haruka is able to drive a car? Upon their first appearance in the manga,1 they are supposed to be first-year high school students, which would put them both at 16 years old.

Considering the legal driving age in Japan is, and has always been, 18 years old,2 it’s a bit of a mystery as to how Haruka gets around this issue and is seen driving around the city. So how do you explain this?

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How Did Ail and An’s Cardians Get Their Names?

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Surprisingly, Sailor Moon and WWE do have something in common

Surprisingly, Sailor Moon and WWE do have something in common

While the whole Monster of the Day (MotD) concept is one of the more memorable aspects of the battles the Sailor Team take part in during their various adventures, it’s easy to forget that this was really more of an invention of the anime than anything else. This is, of course, all doubly true when it comes to the Cardian Arc of Sailor Moon R since… well… there was no corresponding story line in the manga.  While in Ms. Takeuchi’s manga, many of the MotD (be they youma, droids, or otherwise) actually went unnamed since they were one-off, throwaway characters, fortunately for us it seems that the anime had a penchant for creatively (generally pun-related) names. As with the youma of the Dark Kingdom, Ail and An’s Cardians don’t disappoint with their names. Let’s take a look at where they came from!

The Cardians

It probably goes without saying, but the name “Cardian” itself is a play off of both “card” and “guardian,” though the idea of them being guardians is a bit ironic when you think about the fact that they exist to help Ail and An steal energy from humans and fight against the Sailor Soldiers. However, it you look at it from Ail and An’s point of view, I suppose you could easily consider them to be guardians of sorts! Individually, though, is where it gets interesting.

  • Vampir: Due to her sucking energy (from our favorite victim, Naru!) for the Doom Tree (Makaiju), it’s pretty obvious that she got her name from the English word “vampire,” though the plant connection seems to just have been added in without any relation to the name.
    • As an interesting bit of trivia, Vampir was voiced by no other than Megumi Ogata, the same voice actress who voiced Haruka Tenoh!
  • Minotauron: Based obviously in both design and abilities on the Minotaur1 of Greek mythology. As for the “~ron” part of the name? This appears to be related to an obscure French term for a cut of beef between the neck and the shoulder, talon.2 You may also recognize this name from Talon, the owner of Lon Lon Ranch3 in Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and beyond.
  • Phalion: You’ll often see the name of this character romanized with an f (rather than a ph), but considering the character’s design appears to be based on that of a sphinx (note that this is not the Sphinx, but a sphinx – a monster in Greek mythology said to be made up of a lion’s body and a female head)4 I think that the beginning part of the name, the “Pha / Fa,” is actually a word play with Pharaoh (which is written similarly in Japanese), hence the spelling.
  • Hell Ant: This is one of those Cardians that, to an English speaker, is pretty straight forward. She’s basically an ant. From hell.
  • Leshy: This is another name that you’re likely to see written differently on the web, usually as “Reci.” The Japanese spelling is an exact match with the Japanese spelling for Leshy,5 a spirit of the woods from Russian fairy tales. Considering the mythological basis for the rest of the characters and that she attacks during cherry blossom season (and from a tree, no less), this seems like a more proper connection.
  • Gigaros: The name is a play on both the Greek word giga– meaning huge6 and the Japanese name for Icarus.7
    • According to an interview with Takuya Igarashi,8, an episode director for Sailor Moon R, this was actually the first Cardian designed.9
  • Amaderasu: Continuing our mythological theme, this time the reference goes back into Japanese mythology, as this monster is pretty clearly named after Amaterasu,10 one of the first gods in the Shinto religion and the goddess of the sun. Her name may also be a play off of Amadeus, since they’re spelled so similarly in Japanese.
  • Seiren: This Cardian’s name is a pretty clear connection to the Siren11 of Greek mythology. The sei part of the name, though, may be a pun in reference to the Japanese kanji for “voice” – 声 – which can be read as sei.
  • Utonberino: One of those names that absolutely doesn’t localize well, this is the Japanese word for a traditional boxed lunch, 海苔弁当 (noribentou; nori boxed lunch)12 written backwards. This is obviously where the character design comes from. It’s not exactly apparent in English, but when you break it up as no-ri be-n-to-u and u-to-n-be ri-no, you can see it easier.
  • Bipierrot: Named after pierrot,13 a mime of sorts in traditional French theater and the Japanese word for clown, the connection is pretty obvious. As for where the bi part of the name comes from, my best guess is that it’s the same as the one used in used in Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon (美少女戦士セーラームーン; bishoujo senshi se-ra-mu-n), since bi here means “pretty” or “beautiful” and often is used for female-related words.
    • According to an interview with Noriyo Sasaki,14 an episode director, the original inspiration for Bipierrot was Doink the Clown,15 a WWF wrestler popular at the time.16
  • Amanju: Once again we go back to Japanese folklore for inspiration, this time to the amanojaku,17 a demon which is said to provoke one’s darkest desires. This would explain the connection with reading everyone’s minds, though judging by the horns and all, the design seems to be based off of a standard Japanese oni.18
  • Yamandakka: While the appearance is obvious – an Asura19 from Buddhist mythology – the basis for her name is a bit of a mystery to me. The best possible answer I’ve been able to come up with is that it’s a play on the Japanese term for Asura which are depicted with three faces and six arms, a design known as 三面六臂 (sanmenroppi).20 If you were to yaman could be an altered reading of 四面 (four faces) and 足花 (legs, flower; read as da and ka respectively).
The Mysterious, Unnamed Cardian

The Mysterious, Unnamed Cardian

And there you have it! Once again, the various animators, directors, and all the staff who worked on the Sailor Moon anime don’t disappoint when it comes to making creative and interesting character names. Though some of them are a bit obvious to native English speakers, like the Ail, An, and Fiore connections, it’s nice to see all of the different mythologies tied together. And who would have known that a wrestling star would be the inspiration for a character!