Answering Your Sailor Moon Questions — Round 5

Your Sailor Moon questions, my Sailor Moon answers

Your Sailor Moon questions, my Sailor Moon answers

While most of the questions addressed here on Tuxedo Unmasked are things I’ve personally wanted to dig into deeper or fun trivia I want to share, sometimes I like to open up the floor to the Sailor Moon community at large to take a shot at addressing some of your burning questions.

Today’s questions are a selection of common questions I see floating around social media, in Google search terms, and even some taken right from the comments.

Stick around — who knows, you just might find one of your questions here… or at least learn something fun in the process!

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Who Sentenced Sailor Pluto to Death?

Oh, Pluto... if only you knew what's coming next

Oh, Pluto… if only you knew what’s coming next

While Sailor Saturn is generally considered by fans to be the most unlucky of the Senshi, personally I’d argue that it’s Setsuna who really got the short end of the Moon Stick.1 Between her unrequited love for a married man, having a non-sensical back story, and getting killed for literally doing her job, it’s not easy being Sailor Pluto.

One thing that’s always bothered me, though, were the circumstances surrounding her death in the Black Moon arc. Why did she die, and who condemned her to death in the first place?

Today we’re going to take a closer look into Sailor Pluto’s so-called “taboos” and how they ended up being placed on her. Make sure your Space-Time doors are fully closed, you’ve had your morning coffee or tea, and let’s get going!

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Why Are Sailor Saturn and Sailor Pluto’s Roles Reversed?

Just what's going on here, girls??

Just what’s going on here, girls??

Ms. Takeuchi’s near obsessive attention to detail is just one of the many things that make Sailor Moon such a great series. No matter how many times you watch or read through it, there’s always something new to discover.

And yet, despite her impressive ability to get even the tiniest details right on matters ranging from mythology to astronomy — and in a pre-Wikipedia world, no less!! — even Ms. Takeuchi messed up at some pretty crucial points.

… or did she?

Today we’re going to take a look at the ancient Moonie myth surrounding just what is going on with the Great Pluto and Saturn Mix-up. I hope you like Greco-Roman history, because things are about to get mythical!

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How Many Sailor Plutos Are There in Sailor Moon?

Won't the real Sailor Pluto please stand up?

Won’t the real Sailor Pluto please stand up?

While some may refer to Sailor Pluto as the Guardian of Time, I find myself typically referring to her by a very different name: the Soldier of Convenience.

It’s not that I don’t like her character — quite the opposite, in fact! — but more that it seems like so little thought was given to her background and motivations that she winds up just filling whatever plot hole the series is dealing with at the time.

As if that wasn’t confusing enough, we also need to contend with the fact that there are actually multiple Sailor Plutos within the Sailor Moon timeline!

… I mean, you knew that there were multiple Sailor Plutos, right?

Well, dear reader, it looks like we have an interesting conversation ahead of us. I hope you’ve had your coffee, because you’ll want to be awake for this!1

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Why Doesn’t Setsuna / Sailor Pluto’s Story Make Any Sense?

Setsuna's back story confuses even herself

Setsuna’s back story confuses even herself

Considering how I constantly talk about how Setsuna simply serves as a third wheel to Haruka and Michiru, it may comes as something of a surprise that she’s one of my favorite characters… in theory. The idea of a single Sailor Soldier surviving all the way from(and possibly prior to?) the Silver Millennium is a fascinating concept — even more so when you think about the emotional hardship she must have gone through living all on her own for centuries at a time.

Sadly, in stark contrast with this vast amount of potential her character had, neither the anime nor manga did much with Setsuna. And what they did do didn’t even make sense.

Today, we’re going to talk about how utterly non-sensical Setsuna’s university education is.

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