Why Did the Amazoness Quartet Serve as Chibi Moon’s Guardians?

Amazoness Quartet

Amazoness Quartet

The Sailor Moon series is no stranger to making some seemingly inexplicable choices when it comes to groups and planetary associations. Jupiter, for example, is most definitely one of the outer planets… and yet we find her as a member of the Inner Senshi.

Odd though that choice may be, it pales in comparison with the bizarre choice of having Sailor ChibiMoon’s team be made up of… the Amazoness Sailor Quartet? No matter what way you try to cut it, there really just aren’t isn’t any logical connection between the asteroid belt and the Moon.

… right?

As we’ve learned many times before, sometimes the most difficult part of solving a mystery isn’t necessarily in finding the answer, but in finding the right way to frame the question.

Today we’re going to take a closer look at the Sailor Quartet, and why Ms. Takeuchi may have chosen these manga-only Senshi to serve as Sailor ChibiMoon’s guardians. You may want to keep a pen and paper handy, because things are about to get complicated!

The Sailor Quartet

The Sailor Quartet

One of the really unfortunate parts about the Sailor Quartet is that they were introduced to the story right at the end of the Dream arc, which also happens to be when Sailor Moon was blowing up1 with new characters appearing left and right — and most of them were Sailor Soldiers.

I guess we should be happy that we got as much information about them as we did, when you consider that other manga characters were considered lucky to have their whole story arc, from introduction to death, take place in just a few short pages.

Before we more forward, let’s take a moment to provide a quick refresher of what we do know about how the Amazoness Quartet became Sailor Soldiers:2

  • After destroying Nehelenia, Sailor Saturn approaches (Neo?) Queen Serenity3 with the four marbles/orbs that contain the spirits of the Amazoness Quartet and asks her to imbue them with the Silver Moon Power.
  • When the Amazoness Quartet reappear, they are now wearing Sailor uniforms and claim to have the power of the four asteroids — Ceres, Pallas, Juno, and Vesta.
    • Incidentally, the Amazoness Quartet are considered sisters, and their birth order is determined by the order in which their respective asteroids were discovered.
  • Sailor Ceres explains that they were supposed to be sleeping deep in the Amazon (rain forest? warehouse? headquarters?), but Nehelenia recognized their power and placed a curse on them, forcing the Quartet to work under her.
  • Now that they are freed from Nehelenia’s nightmare, the Sailor Quartet will go back to their slumber. It’s still too early for them to fulfill their role as Sailor ChibiMoon’s guardians, so they will lie dormant until that time comes.
The Sailor Quartet go back to sleep, because... reasons

The Sailor Quartet go back to sleep, because… reasons

… and absolutely no reason is given for that fourth and final bullet point. We’re introduced to the Sailor Quartet, then they say that it’s “still too early” for them to truly awaken, and they go back to sleep to await the time where they can serve Sailor ChibiMoon and then come back into the past.

While I can’t say anything useful about the issue of them waiting until the future to come back into the past,4 I think we can take a decent crack at their connection to the Moon.

Basically, the key to finding an explanation to this is that we need to completely forget about the asteroid angle. As fun and interesting as it is, sometimes the space connections are just a matter of plot convenience. Rather, the more important connection here is in their pre-transformation name: we need to look back to the Greek legend of the Amazons.

For those who don’t know, the Amazons were a tribe of fierce women warriors from Greek mythology.5 And, more importantly to us, one of the goddesses worshiped by the Amazons was none other than Artemis, the Greek goddess of the hunt, wild animals, wilderness, childbirth, virginity and protector of young girls.6

I’m sure you can see where I’m going with this now, right?

The Amazoness Quartet are named after the Amazons. The Amazons worshiped Artemis.7 Artemis is the Greek name for the Roman goddess Diana who supplanted the Moon goddess Luna. Thus, the Amazons, in a way, worship and serve the Moon.

Not sure I'm following along...

Not sure I’m following along…

Though I admit that this is a bit of a logical leap, it’s not too far outside the realm of possibility when you consider how much research Ms. Takeuchi did into mythology — and especially that of the Greek and Roman gods — when she was creating the series. As much as I would like the asteroid connection to make sense and somehow tie into the Moon, as far as I can tell there’s just nothing there. Most likely, the asteroids were probably chosen simply because she was running out of celestial bodies in the solar system to use for Sailor Soldiers, and the asteroid belt happened to be the most convenient “neutral” choice (since they’re not associated with any other planet).

What do you think of this explanation, then? Does it actually explain anything away, or could it just be a false lead of only vaguely-related concepts? If you have any other theories for how the Sailor Quartet ended up as ChibiMoon’s guardians, I’d love to hear them!

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References:

  1. Sometimes literally… and in that case, pun intended
  2.  See p. 124, vol. 15 of the original manga
  3. This is a bit of an odd situation, because Luna clearly refers to Serenity and Endymion here as “King” and “Queen.” However, since Crystal Tokyo hasn’t come about yet, that means that Usagi/Serenity is not yet “Neo” Queen and should just be your plain old “Queen” Serenity. But we already have a Queen Serenity. So maybe Queen Serenity II?
  4. And, frankly, I don’t think anyone can
  5.  See Amazons (Mythology) (Wikipedia)
  6.  See Artemis (Wikipedia)
  7.  See Artemis (Goddess)

20 thoughts on “Why Did the Amazoness Quartet Serve as Chibi Moon’s Guardians?

  1. I love seeing more about the Dream arc/SuperS, and one of those questions I haven’t really thought about. I like the Diana/protector of young girls connection. Makes more sense of why the Sailor Quartetto would be acting as Chibi Moon’s bodyguards. Too bad this didn’t get nearly as much attention as it should have.

  2. The Quartet is more tied to / modelled after the Inners and their mythological connections.

    – The goddess Ceres is associated with fertility, not unlike Venus. Sailor Ceres is Sailor Venus’s counterpart.

    – The goddess Athena – known as Pallas Athena – is associated with wisdom. Sailor Pallas’s counterpart is Sailor Mercury, the team brain.

    – The goddess Juno was Jupiter’s wife, and Sailor Juno is Sailor Jupiter’s counterpart.

    – The goddess Vesta is associated with hearth, and thus, fire. Sailor Vesta is Sailor Mars’s counterpart.

    I think you’re right about the “worshipping Artemis” angle, since there doesn’t seem to be any explicit connection between the Quartet and Chibimoon apart from them mirroring Usagi’s team. But other than that, these four happen to fit into the normal “mythology/space” naming pattern, so there’s nothing unusual about it.

    • Great catch on the connection with the Inner Senshi! I never really thought to consider how each of the Sailor Quartet tie into the original Sailor Team. Though PallaPalla serving as the “brain” of the team is a bit amusing to think about. =p

      • This is because the Quartet seem to be designed to be the opposite of the Inners, personality-wise (though I guess it applies somewhat more to the manga due to Rei’s change in the anime).

        – CereCere is feminine, contrasting Minako’s usual tomboyish behavior.

        – PallaPalla is childish and naive, whereas Ami is the smartest on her team.

        – JunJun is a tomboy and proud of it, while Makoto emphasises her femininity in various ways.

        – VesVes is appropriately fiery, while Rei is calm.

        And, IIRC, their ages are also in the opposite order compared to the Inners.

        It’s a shame we don’t get to see much of them; I wish there was another “Chibiusa’s Picture Diary” chapter about her adventures with her team.

  3. The only thing about them that’s making me lose my sleep is… Sailor Ceres having a pink outfit. Seriously. I mean, what the hell was Takeuchi thinking? Not only is pink already Chibimoon’s colour (so it looks weird when they stand next to each other), but also yellow is Ceres’ main colour, which “incidentally” suits the Venus counterpart thing.

      • I wish we could see more of them and how it all works (Hi, SM Crystal!). I remember being pleasantly surprised and… satisfied that (in the manga) the whole Moon senshi idea came full circle and Chibimoon even got her own guardians.

    • I mean, while CereCere’s outfit has some yellow, it’s still mostly pink. I actually like that Sailor Ceres’s outfit is pink; I think she’d look weird in yellow, and while it may be a bit odd for her outfit to be the same color as Chibi Moon’s, it at least slightly subverts the idea that the Quartet are just replacement Inners.

    • Well Naoko Takeuchi did give Cerecere in her Amazon form a mostly pink outfit so I guess she wanted her Sailor Outfit to match. If she wanted her outfit to be yellow then she honestly did a bad job not making both outfits mostly yellow. Then again we all know she can be inconsistent with the designs she likes.

      • I think the pink was chosen over the yellow because of all of them Ceres resembles Chibimoon the most. Like Venus could stand in for Sailor Moon or Princess Serenity as a double. Ceres has long pinkish hair and similar fuku colors. Just my thought.

    • Actually that makes sense to me. Venus was chosen to act as a decoy/body double for moon when needed. I suspect ceres would serve a smiler function for ChibiMoon

    • I thought that since Ceres is the leader, she was supposed to be Chibiusa’s body double in case things go awry. Similar to Venus who is the leader, she looks like Sailor Moon so that she could be her body double if needed.

  4. All of the Asteroids that the New Guardians were given are part of Western Astrology. I initially assumed it had something to do with that.

    It may also have something to do with the Titans and whatnot the DwarfPlanet are named from, but it does seem to match. The Titan Pallas was associated with Warfare, which is also a realm of Athena (wisdowm), but seems like a loose association

    • The asteroid Pallas was directly named after Athena / Minerva, though, not the Titan: “Pallas” was an epithet that Athena gained either when she slayed the Giant Pallas (not the same Pallas as the Titan) and made a shield out of his skin, or when she accidentally killed her best friend Pallas, daughter of Triton, and took her name out of love and respect for her. (There is also yet another Pallas linked to Athena, as her teacher). So, by Greek Mythology convention, “Pallas” could be used interchangeably with “Athena”, much like “Phoebus” and “Apollo”.
      I’m not quite sure why atronomers didn’t just name the asteroid Minerva and spared us all this confusion.

  5. I think there isn’t much more significance there than for the Senshi of the other planets to be the guardians of Sailor Moon: Chibi Moon is the princess from the Royal Family of the Solar Systems, they are soldiers (and possibly princesses) of their own celestial bodies from said Solar System, and that’s that.

    As to why Ms. Takeuchi chose those four asteroids among the huge selection she had, I think that’s because historically they were classified as planets upon discovery, and stayed that way, planetary symbols and all, until 1845. She went as far as to have their date of discovery factor into the girls’ ages, so I’m totally sure she was aware of that too.

  6. Ceres, Pallas, Juno and Vesta were the first four objects discovered in the asteroid belt, and were, in fact, all considered planets for most of the 1800s. Eventually they were reclassified as asteroids (and Ceres was re-reclassified as a dwarf planet recently; also, yes, that’s right, Pluto was NOT the first planet to be “demoted”! That was the asteroids! Sad!)

    Aside from mythology, I always assumed this was why the Amazon Quartet is named after the asteroids, and why they are considered Chibiusa’s “inner senshi.” Because Chibiusa is “Mini Moon,” those four were “mini planets” and “minis” of the other scouts.

    As a side note, Jupiter is probably considered one of the “Inner Senshi” because, on average, the planet Jupiter is actually closer to the inner solar system (Earth and Mars, specifically) than it is to the outer solar system. For reference Jupiter is around 3.5 AU from Mars, but it is 4.5 AU from Saturn, the next closest “outer” planet (an AU is roughly 93 million miles).

    Also, Fun Fact: Earth technically has a second moon, which is a captured asteroid, and there might be a few more we don’t know about. This wasn’t known in the ’80s and ’90s though, so that certainly wasn’t included.

    Anyway, there’s your boring space trivia for the day! I know it’s not quite as fun as mythology and astrology, but there you are.

  7. I always took the “it’s still too early” thing just as like, the whole arc took place in the past which isn’t really chibiusas time, they have to wake up during the time of crystal tokyo in order to fulfill their duties? But I don’t really know how they would be aware of that

    • Yeah, I always took it to mean they would awaken in Crystal Tokyo in the distant future, once Small Lady completed her training in the past.
      In fact, judging by the events in Stars, that seems to be exactly what happens!

  8. Ceres is goddess of the harvest and is Venus’s counterpart, Juno is Hera, wife of Zeus/Jupiter so that’s Jupiter’s counterpart, Pallas is called Pallas Athena, goddess of wisdom, Mercury is the goddess of wisdom so Pallas is Mercury, Vesta is goddess of the hearth and fire, not unlike Mars so she’s Mars’ counterpart. I think since she’s (chibi) moon, it’s like with Princess Serenity. Her guardians were Venus, Jupiter, Mars, and Mercury. Because Chibiusa is the future princess, Naoko uses the same thing but with Ceres as Venus, Juno as Jupiter, Pallas as Mercury and Vesta as Mars.

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