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

Why Does Usagi Say Her Stomach is Trumpeting?

In the original run of the Sailor Moon anime, Usagi will occasionally say the hard to understand (and even harder to translate) line about her stomach playing a trumpet:

Japanese:  「おなかのラッパがプー」 (onaka no rappa ga pu~)
Literal Translation: “My stomach’s playing the trumpet”
Localization: “I’m laughing so hard, my tummy hurts!” / “My tummy’s singing!” / Etc.

On the surface of it, and depending on context, it sounds like she’s saying that her stomach’s rumbling, but as you watch through the series, you realize that she uses it more like a personal catch-phrase and not with any one, specific meaning. For example, this phrase comes out both when she’s yelling at Mamoru1 and again later when she’s on her way to lunch and can’t wait to start eating.2

Usagi and Her Trumpeting Stomach (Episode 11; 9m23s)

Usagi and Her Trumpeting Stomach (Episode 11; 9m23s)

So what is this, just another Japanese idiom that doesn’t actually translate well into English? Actually, the story behind it is more interesting than that. It turns out that it wasn’t originally part of the script and was said to be an ad lib on the part of Usagi’s voice actress, Kotono Mitsuishi, in the middle of Usagi’s tirade against Mamoru shown in the image above. But that isn’t where this catch phrase actually really originated.

Actually, this phrase first came about in the manga/anime known as Goldfish Warning!3 and was often uttered by the overly active Wapiko.

Wapiko of Goldfish Report!

Wapiko of Goldfish Warning!

After the anime ended, most of the animation staff (including director Junichi Sato and music composer Takanori Arisawa) moved over to the the Sailor Moon anime, which led to the appearance of many references to this series throughout the first season of Sailor Moon. From thereon, the phrase took on a life of its own, and has become one of the many Usagi-isms that continue to appear throughout the entire run of the anime.

Though this doesn’t really explain what your stomach trumpeting has to do with being emotional or agitated, it’s nice to know the story behind it!