What Were Some of the Inspirations Behind Tuxedo Mask?

The many masks of Tuxedo Mask

The many masks of Tuxedo Mask

Ah, Mamoru – the “cool” guy that young boys wanted to be and young girls wanted to be with. Putting aside his absolutely atrocious fashion sense for a moment, it’s hard to deny that the image of Tuxedo Mask is nearly just as recognizable as that of Sailor Moon herself.

Today we’re going to take a quick look at some of the characters Ms. Takeuchi looked to for inspiration when she created Tuxedo Mask, and her reasons behind making him wear a tuxedo in the first place.

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Whose Real Life Parenting Experience Inspired a Sailor Moon Episode?

... I'm not sure how I'd feel about seeing this

… I’m not sure how I’d feel about seeing this

As I’m sure I’ve mentioned on many different occasions, I absolutely adore the Cardian story arc from the first half of Sailor Moon R. It’s not so much to do with the fact that the story itself is particularly interesting or that I’m a huge fan of Moonlight Knight,1 but rather it’s precisely because the story itself is less epic in nature. The whole storyline felt like a series of “slice of life”2 episodes where you actually got a know a little more about the day-to-day lives of the characters.

And today, we’re going to talk about one such episode.

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Why Were Both Queen Beryl and Luna Voiced by Keiko Han?

The Evil Queen We Will Defeat

The Evil Queen We Will Defeat

One of the more endearing “behind the scene” mysteries to me about the development of the Sailor Moon anime is just why, exactly, did Luna and Queen Beryl share a voice actress. Certainly, Keiko Han was a very talented – and veteran – voice actress who’s been active in the industry since her debut in 1977,1 but that doesn’t explain why the anime would choose to reuse her talent for two major roles. Today, we’ll take a look at one theory to explain this.

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What Does Luna’s Code Name 0091 Mean?

Very computer-literate cats

Very computer-literate cats

One of the really interesting storylines about the original season of Sailor Moon (at least to me) that never seemed to live up to its potential was the concept of a game machine in the Crown Arcade which gave Luna instructions before she had recovered her memories and while she was left on her own to assist Usagi and the other Sailor Soldiers. While it was ultimately explained that the one giving her information was actually Artemis, it just sounded like an overly simple explanation. But that’s not what we’re talking about today. Rather, it’s about Luna’s strange code name: 0091. What does it mean?

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Why Did Motoki’s Girlfriend Go to Africa?

Off to Africa Because... Reasons.

Off to Africa Because… Reasons.

Motoki Furuhata has always been an interesting character to me in the world of Sailor Moon not only because he manages to be a strong supporter of Usagi and the rest of the Sailor Team even before he knows much about what’s going on, but he also neatly ties together the worlds of Codename: Sailor V and Sailor Moon. While I’d love to talk more about Motoki, though, today I’d like to talk about his girlfriend, Reika Nishimura, and some of the mysteries about her.

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Was Naru Intended to Be a Bigger Part of Sailor Moon?

Usagi Tsukino and Naru Osaka – BFFs

Usagi Tsukino and Naru Osaka – BFFs

Naru Osaka is one of those secondary characters that is incredibly hard to pin down. At first glance she’s just one of many background characters – like Ms. Haruna SakuradaUsagi’s family, and many other members of the supporting case – but when you actually take time to look at the amount of work put into developing her character, you realize that quite a bit more work was put into her background than many others. So what do we actually know about Usagi’s best friend?

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How Uncommon Are the Names of the Sailor Moon Characters?

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 Serenaas 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!