Tag Archives: Hidden History

Where Did the Inspiration for Usagi’s Hairstyle Come From?

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Getting to the Root of the Problem

Getting to the Root of the Problem

One of the most identifiable of Usagi’s character traits – if not the most identifiable – is her signature hair style. It’s what earned her Mamoru’s teasing nickname お団子頭 (odango atama; or “meatball head” in the DiC dub) and led to multiple important elements in the series, from her hair decorations to ChibiUsa’s rabbit-inspired modified hairstyle. But what was the inspiration behind giving her that hairstyle in the first place and was there any other precedent for it before Usagi came into the picture? There’s surprisingly more to it than you’d imagine!

Before we get started, we need to break down the elements of Usagi’s hair into its two main components, which are often mistaken as one related hairstyle: the odango and the twin tails. Both of these hair styles are prevalent in Japanese anime and manga (though odango not so much in real life, it’s definitely not unseen or unheard of). I’ll explain the details of both as we go, but I apologize for just throwing terminology and foreign words left and right.

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What is the Story Behind ChibiUsa / Small Lady’s Name?

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Filed under Articles, Characters, ChibiUsa, Language, Making Of
An Unreadable Poker Face

An Unreadable Poker Face

What’s in a name? That’s a question we’ve asked many times already, but it’s always worth taking another look at the characters we love just a little bit closer and see if there’s something more to find out about them in something as simple as what we call them. If you want to talk about name mysteries, ChibiUsa definitely has a lot to offer to the conversations — she has a pretty long name after all! Her official name is Usagi Small Lady Serenity,1 though she’s typically referred to as ChibiUsa (Sailor Pluto, however, typically prefers Small Lady in the Black Moon Family arc) in order to avoid confusion with Usagi. So where does the Small Lady name come from?

Though Naoko has never officially remarked on this in detail, we can make some interesting inferences from what we know about language use in manga.

She's not 'chibi,' and don't forget it!

She’s not ‘chibi,’ and don’t forget it!

What’s interesting about the Small Lady name is that it’s already written either in roman characters as “S L” or written out in the Japanese phonetic alphabet, katakana, which is used for foreign words and sound effects.2 Though at first glance, this may imply that there’s no deeper meaning to be had, but that leads us into an interesting use of language in manga: very often, authors will intentionally apply kanji to Western words (to give them context) or will read a kanji with a Western word. One of the more famous examples is the first appearance of Super Saiyans in the Dragon Ball manga. What we all know of as Super Saiyan can be written in Japanese as either スーパーサイヤ人 (su-pa-saiyajin) or as 超サイヤ人 (su-pa-saiyajin),3 though it’s interesting to note that 超 should be read as chou and cannot be read as “super.”4

So why all this talk about Dragon Ball? Well, it was an anime and manga contemporary to Sailor Moon so we know that the phenomenon was already common at the time and gives credence to the idea that there might be some deeper meaning to the Small Lady name. Fortunately for us, the options are pretty limited, but the most likely choice for a kanji reading for Small Lady is: 少女 (shoujo; lit. small lady / maiden)5 If that sounds familiar to you, well, it should: these are the very same characters used in the title of the series: 美少女戦士セーラームーン (bishoujo senshi se-ra-mu-n; Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon). An alternative literal kanji choice would also be 乙女 (otome; lit. small lady / maiden). You would probably recognize this word as the ending theme to the Sailor Moon R anime: 乙女のポリシー (otome no porishi-; Maiden’s Policy).6 More likely than not, the Small Lady name is in reference to the very term her mother, Usagi, used to refer to herself as a sailor-suited soldier of justice.

Usagi Small Lady Serenity

Usagi Small Lady Serenity

The story with ChibiUsa’s name is interesting in general due to the Serenity name connecting her to her mother and even down the line to her grandmother. Even more interesting is that she doesn’t seem to be given a last name (neither Tsukino nor Chiba), which implies that the people of Crystal Tokyo don’t use last names. It may be a small detail, but I’m glad to see that Usagi maintained her independence, even through marriage!

How Did Naoko’s Part-Time Job Influence the Creation of Rei?

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Our Eager Miko

Our Eager Miko

The answer to this question can be really short or surprisingly quite long, depending on how deep you want to get into it. Of course, the quick and easy answer is that “Rei is a miko because she lives at a Shinto shrine,” but like most things in the Sailor Moon universe, things aren’t that simple (nor would it be interesting if they were!). We’ve already discussed the interesting religious (in)significance of Rei attending a Catholic school, so let’s take a closer look at the inspirations behind her more obvious religious affiliations!

Fortunately for us, Ms. Takeuchi directly addresses this question in her ~~ Punch! question and answer segment added to the end of the re-released manga volumes around 2003/2004 (the shinsouban; “new editions”).1

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Why Does Rei Throw Her Ofuda at Enemies?

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Mars and Her Signature Move

Mars and Her Signature Move

If you’re anything like me, you’ve been reading and watching the adventures of Sailor Moon for ten or even twenty years and have seen Rei throw these strips of shrine-blessed papers at enemies (and even Usagi) without ever once thinking “Well, that’s kind of strange. Throwing papers around seems like an odd way to go about things.” In fact, until I actually started reading up on this for a completely unrelated project, it just seemed so natural to me that of course she would be throwing papers around. I suppose this is because scenes like this actually appear in other anime and manga, so it just seems like yet another anime trope. But if that’s the case, where did it start? How did something like this get embedded into Japanese entertainment in the first place?

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How Smart Is Mamoru in the Anime and Manga?

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Mamoru Flexing His Intelligence

Mamoru Flexing His Intelligence

One of the well-known – yet often forgotten – facts about Mamoru’s character is that he’s not only tall, mysterious, rich, and handsome, but he’s actually quite brilliant. In fact, if you were to judge by the levels of the schools he attends, he’s arguably on level with – or even above! – Ami. Of course we’ve already mentioned that Mamoru was changed from a high school student to a university student in the transition from manga to anime, but that actually has very little impact on the conclusions we can make, for reasons we’ll discuss below. So just how smart is Mamoru Chiba? Let’s find out!

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Why Was Diana the Moon Fairy Cut From Sailor Moon?

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Filed under Articles, Characters, Luna, Making Of, Supporting Cast
The Three Lunar Guardians – Luna, Diana, and Artemis

The Three Lunar Guardians – Luna, Diana, and Artemis

One of the great mysteries surrounding the early years of Sailor Moon (and the characters developed for it) is around the character of Diana, the Moon Fairy who was to accompany Luna in her task of awakening Sailor Moon and searching for the Moon Princess. The fact that the name, Diana, was later reused for the daughter born between Luna and Artemis, and ChibiUsa’s post Luna-P companion, certainly makes matters all the more confusing when you try to look up information about her. And believe me, I certainly tried! So, what kind of character was Moon Fairy Diana originally supposed to be like, and what were the reasons for cutting her? Well, let’s find out!

Unfortunately, there’s really not much known about Diana outside of what’s written in the Materials Collection Artbook,1 so it’s hard to really go into much detail here. According to Ms. Takeuchi’s notes, she’s:

  • A cute fairy who’s mischievous, talkative, and sassy. Also a crybaby.
  • Found by the Sailor Team among the ruins of the Moon Palace, she sticks around with Luna and Usagi. She and Luna don’t get along.
  • She has pale blue wings with a light, lemon-yellow lace skirt.

What we do know is that she and Luna would have had a bit of an antagonistic relationship with each other, probably akin to the manzai comedy acts2 which are so popular in Japan. More specifically, most acts are made up of a pair of comedians playing very specific roles: the boke – who’s portrayed as light-headed, stupid, and innocent – and the tsukkomi – who’s serious, easily angered, and doesn’t put up with the nonsense from the boke.3 Here, it’d likely be Diana and Luna playing those roles, respectively.

Luna and Diana – Amateur Comedy Hour

Luna and Diana – Amateur Comedy Hour

So, why was it that Diana was cut from the story? While we’ll never really know for sure (at least without getting official word from Ms. Takeuchi, which seems unlikely this many years later), it’s most likely that she simply was too similar to Usagi. Just by reading the blurb about what her personality was meant to be like – mischievous, talkative, sassy, and a crybaby – there isn’t that too much that differs with Usagi. Also, while Ms. Takeuchi didn’t exactly steer clear from comedic moments (especially in the Codename: Sailor V manga), it seems that as the series progressed the characters had come more into their own and the idea of making Luna into a comedy-relief duo became less and less appealing.

While it’s a shame that we’ll probably never really know what kind of character the Moon Fairy Diana was meant to evolve into, ultimately I think I like her successor – ChibiUsa’s feline guardian – better than what this character would have been. Still, though, I’d love to see more material that ultimately got cut!

What Was Sailor Moon’s Original Title?

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The Original Cast of Pretty Soldier Sailor V

The Original Cast of Pretty Soldier Sailor V

One of the details that’s rarely discussed (which isn’t too surprisingly, since it’s not terribly well known) is that the official title of the series that we all know and love – Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon – wasn’t actually decided until the last minute. In fact, as of November 1991 (the material printed in the January 1992 issue seems to have been compiled at this time, as noted by the date written in the lower right of her sketch – November 5, 1991), Ms. Takeuchi and the editors at Nakayoshi magazine were still referring to the series as Pretty Soldier Sailor V.1 Fortunately, that’s not all there is to the secrets that can be found in this old back issue. In fact, there’s even an interview with Ms. Takeuchi in which she discusses some details about the series, some of which weren’t even actually used!

1992’s Super Heroine Appears!
“Pretty Soldier Sailor V” (Naoko Takeuchi)

“Code Name: Sailor V,” which has been massively popular in Nakayoshi‘s spin-off magazine RunRun, has powered up and will now be serialized in Nakayoshi magazine!! Thanks for your support!

Sailor Moon's Pre-Final Design

Sailor Moon’s Pre-Final Design

On page 48 of the January 1992 issue, you can see Sailor Moon’s working design, which differs both from her final design and even from the one which appears in the Sailor Moon Materials Collection artbook. In fact, if you look closely, both of the designs seem to differ slightly, so it looks like she had several designs being worked on at once.

Sailor Moon here is lacking her tiara and broach, but mysteriously has armor-style shoulder pads and even a crown in one of them. One of the designs appears far more reality-based, at least from the one image, due to the normal earrings and more simply school uniform (and not the normal body-forming Sailor Soldier uniform the team is famous for).

Several more interesting points can be found in the early-stage sketch of some of the main cast proposed by Ms. Takeuchi, which appear on page 292 of the same issue, in a monthly interview column titled “Nakayoshi Manga Newspaper.” In the picture (which can be seen at the top of this article), you can see the “mysterious cat” which was likely an early design for Luna (though it could be Artemis, it seems unlikely that she wouldn’t just use his name if it were), though it’s white and appears to be fluffy. We also have an “otaku boy” who appears to be Umino, the  “main character and ally of justice – Usagi,” in addition to the Mamoru-looking character on the right: “a nice guy who’s my type… could he be Usagi’s enemy?!” And the Rei-looking character in the middle of the group? Actually, that’s Ms. Takeuchi herself! It says: “I’ve recently gotten my hair straight-permed and started prettying myself up!”

The interview itself isn’t too interesting and doesn’t really give many details, but for those who are interested, here is a rough translation of the interview between the Nakayoshi editorial staff and Ms. Takeuchi:

Editor (Ed): What will the story be about?
Naoko (N): It’ll be a really cool story that’s totally outrageous, with some romance thrown in.

Ed: What’s the main character like?
N: “Usagi” is her name. She’s a crybaby, but she has a sweet and innocent personality.

Ed: It sounds like there’ll be “transforming” involved. When will she transform?
N: When “the Earth is in peril.”

Ed: What kind of enemies will she face?
N: Incredibly beautiful women and remarkably handsome young men… at least that’s what I’m thinking!

And there you have it! The first time that Usagi’s name was announced to the public… and some more of the background on the series before all the final details had even been decided! I’d really like to know more about what all this talk of “Sailor V powered up” was meant to imply, and if there were supposed to be any direct connections between Minako and Usagi. Hopefully one of these days more information will surface!