Let's talk about character designs in this series and how they connect to personalities and the story! I know this rant of mine is focused on height, but I want to open this to any thoughts on the desings in general, from color schemes to statistics like favorite foods or blood types.

Okay, I get this might come off as a kind of silly thing to be bothered about, but some of the heights of the Sailor Senshi have started to grind my gears a little. Not in terms of being realistic to Japan or anything, because I know this is just a piece of fiction and there are far stranger things going on.  I mean in terms of character design and how they affect the story.

So I found this website that allows you to compare heights by typing them in:Click this

And so for fun and for a more accurate visual representation of things, I started plugging character heights in. Mamoru is around 5'9", and Usagi is 5'1", and they looked about correct. He's about a head taller, and they kind of have that ideal couple height thing where one can fit under another's chin or whatever. XD

I tried Makoto and Ami next. Mako is 5'7" and Ami is 5'2", and I suddenly realized that 5 inches actually isn't that huge of a gap visually. Maybe half a head. And with Rei it's even shorter. I guess I imagined Mako to be taller than that when the story tells us that her own height makes her stand out. 

And then the Outers are introduced. Haruka is 5'9" and Setsuna is 5'10", yet Haruka is only about 1 year older than the inners. Pluto can at least say that she's 20 and stopped growing. And she's also a time guardian from Pluto and not human at the beginning of the second arc, so that skews things a bit. 

My point in this is, if Mako's height is supposed to be a big deal to her, and part of the reason she doesn't feel like a girl, Haruka being taller than her feels a little arbitrary. It lessens the effect. If Mako was say...5'9" or 5"10 by the end of the series, it probably wouldn't have bothered me, but she didn't really grow much at all during it. This also ties into Uranus being shown to be physically stronger than her in the Anime. It lessens Jupiter's effect to a degree by removing her "title" as the toughest guardian. 

Anyone else have thoughts on this kind of stuff?

Chibiusa's hair always looked different to me between series. Not in terms of it growing longer but it being drawn a different way (it also happens in the anime i think)

Also, i've noticed that the anime swapped Chibiusa's outfits. In the manga she appeared in the blue outfit first then later appeared in the red sailor outfit but in the anime she appears in the red one first and changes to the blue one later without any explanation (the new dress was touched on in the manga when Mamoru says "by the way, i love your new outfit Chibiusa")

Oh yeah, I noticed Chibiusa's hair change too in the manga, I think it's just Takeuchi trying to make it look better each time. XD

And that clothing switch is strange... I wonder why that happened? Maybe the anime wanted to make her look more like a senshi for her first appearance?

Something I really enjoyed the anime and manga was how much effort was put into the senshi's casual attire. I plan on watching an episode a day of the original anime soon and I can't wait to see all these wonderful outfits.



Sure, the clothes are incredibly dated, but they're super cute.

I like seeing characters change their outfits. I know the outfit can kinda become a symbol of the character or part of the character, but man, you gotta clean your clothes and change it up. Just trying to find one outfit in my size is hard enough, but a full closet of the same outfit? That's hard! Lol

Most of them are cute, but few are...well, a little odd lol.(Then again, what do you expect? The anime was made in the early '90, and each generation has it's own style, ya know?) At least each and every one of them have a better fashion sense then mamoru.

Sailor Venus wrote:

I like seeing characters change their outfits. I know the outfit can kinda become a symbol of the character or part of the character, but man, you gotta clean your clothes and change it up. Just trying to find one outfit in my size is hard enough, but a full closet of the same outfit? That's hard! Lol

I definitely agree with you, Venus. Whenever I see a cartoon on TV I wonder why they always have the same outfit xD So it's great to see a TV show where they change their clothes

What I also really liked was Michiru's different hair styles. I don't know if you ever noticed it but Michiru changes her hair style more than anyone else.



I really liked these variations ^-^

@Cosmos-Hime
Yeah, you're definitely right xD His green jacket will always be in my heart :'D
But now in Crystal his fashion sense is much better

With the thing about the height, I'm wondering if they gave Makoto that insecurity to make her relatable to a certain group of girls? In Japan, the average height for girls is 5'2, and even though 5 inches doesn't seem like a whole lot, it can feel like a huge difference sometimes, especially if you consider that the average guy is about 5'7 - the same height as Makoto, which I see making her feel less feminine. I'm 5'4, which I wouldn't consider tall in Canada, but I sometimes felt a bit like a giant, haha. 

They could have chosen Haruka's height to be more since she does have that androgynous quality to her.

Totally just a guess, but it made me think about it when I read your post, JTC.

Some of the '90s outfits were atrocious - Rei's pink overalls and Michiru's "half" outfit (it looked like she was wearing two different pieces of clothing, one on each side of her body)... and while I have nothing against Mamoru's blazer, his running clothes were just icky.

But overall I really appreciate the fact that everyone had different casual clothes. It's rare, especially for such an old anime. And it makes their civilian lives a lot more... realistic. And easier to relate to them, as people

My favorite is Usagi's long baggy blue dress + white shirt + crescent moon pendant combo. It's just so... early '90s  I bought a silver moon pendant a few years ago just because it reminded me of Usagi in that outfit.

I love, love, LOVE the outfits in the anime. My friend and I actually spent aaages a few years ago documenting all the outfits in the first season and finding where you could buy real life equivalents. Yes, some are horrendous lol but some are kinda cute. Rei's and Usagi's are cute (Rei is kinda timeless and Usagi just a cutie) and some of Mako and Ami's, but wow, Minako... Most of hers were very painful lol.

But I loved that each senshi had a thought out wardrobe, and occasionally the'yd share clothes. ^^

The height thing bothered me too, JTC, but if you're going down that route then the strength comparison between Mako and Haruka always annoyed me. Mako is meant to be super strong, that's her thing, but then Haruka comes along and beats her. And as you say, she's only a year older. So annoying.

I've always loved Rei's fashion sense in the later seasons. They were alright in r and classic, but her style really evolved pretty chic in supers this is my favorite Rei outfit.

I agree with you guys, I love that all the girls have their own separate, changing wardrobes that fit them. Someone put a lot of detail into that. ^^ Like, i love how Ami's outfits slowly change in style over the seasons to fit her changing personality.

@dreamsinpink: That's a good theory, she was probably trying to make Haruka look like a guy at first glance by making her taller than the others. After the reveal, it started to annoy me though.

@SenshiRei: Yes, that's exactly what I'm talking about. And since Haruka likes going fast, I think they could have just made her the fastest senshi instead and left strength out of it entirely. I just hate it when one senshi overshadows another's "area of expertise". XD

Like how Michiru and Ami share a water theme, but I always thought that Mercury was freshwater and ice, and Neptune was saltwater and the ocean, so they weren't quite identical.

Hmm... myself, I always assumed Mercury was more about water in general, in ALL of its forms: water, ice, bubbles, fog (gas). With Neptune belonging to the oceans and oceanic "movements": waves, water currents, vortexes, that sort of thing.

It does sometimes bother me that there's more than one senshi of "water". There aren't two fire senshi so why should there be two water senshi? But then again, this isn't ATLA and the girls aren't divided so clearly into "elements", not even in the original group of 5. I mean, "fire" and "water" are definitely there; you can argue that Jupiter is "earth" (though wouldn't that be Mamoru as well? *dizzy*) but surely you can't consider Venus or Moon "air" representatives.

It's a tad chaotic if you look at it that way. Then you expand the group by adding the Outers and you have...

Moon: Heart
Venus: Heart
Chibi Moon: Heart
Tuxedo: Heart (and Earth?)
Jupiter: Earth (and Thunder? AND Plants?)
Mercury: Water
Neptune: Water
Mars: Fire
Uranus: Air
Pluto: Time
Saturn: Death (and Rebirth)

Not exactly the standard one person <-> one power thing principle

I've seen fans also argue Venus is represented by light and/or metal.

Can't say I'd have much to object to either of those

I've always thought of Jupiter as nature, since she thunder and flowers, and Tuxedo Kamen as Earth, just because I guess that made sense? Haha.

But I see Mercury and Neptune in a similar way that Childlike Empress does; Mercury is water, nice, bubbles, whereas Neptune is the raw power and strength of the sea, more like the mythological Neptune.

The only reason I don't consider Jupiter as belonging to "nature" is because in my view, water, fire, air, energies, earth, plants, animals, humans - "everything"... is Nature. But that may just be because of my Pantheistic worldview

So... maybe in Naoko's mind it does work that she's the senshi of "Nature".

That's true, I never thought of it like that. I just thought, ooh, flowers! Haha

I believe the reason why some cartoons have the one outfit thing is it's easier to draw. That's the one of the things I liked about As Told by Ginger. The characters wore different clothes and even reycled outfits.

I love the clothes from the oringal anime and the manga. There some iffy ones, but for the most part everyone looked great!

Mamoru oh how I love your terrible fashion sense.

Yup, I think that Venus is more of a triple element. I'd call it beauty as a whole, but it's a mix of light, metal, and love. You can argue that they're all facets of each other too. Jewelry is made of metal and people find that pretty, Love and light are usually connected as well.

Jupiter is kind of like nature, in a sense that her elements are more uncontrolled. Plants easily fit into this (plants are EVERYWHERE, even in the roughest conditions), but you can also say that lightning is one of the elements that is least "tamed" of the senshi. People can control rivers, make fire, and bend metal, but can they control a storm? A lightning bolt is far more powerful than mass produced electricity. 

And I can see Mercury fitting the scientific states of matter in terms of water, but still has an icy tone to it. She doesn't use steam, but cold fog. Neptune is definitely more tides and flows, and I always wished she had a Poseidon styled earthquake/tsunami attack. XD

Ooh, actually this just occurred to me after I posted my reply above, if you look at all the character's names, they more or less have an element in them, which is also in the corresponding planet's name.

For example, Makoto's last name is Kino (木野). 木 means tree, but it's also in Jupiter (木星).
Ami and Michiru are interesting, too. Ami's last name is Mizuno (水野), with 水 meaning water. Michiru's last name is Kaiou (海王), where 海 means sea, and 王 means ruler.

I get really excited about this stuff, because I find it fascinating, haha.

Here's a little summary from some of the research I've done.

The Senshi seem to receive powers both from their Chinese and Greco-Roman counterparts:

Mercury - Water/Music
Venus    - Metal/Love
Mars      - Fire/War
Jupiter   - Wood/Thunder
Saturn   - Earth/Agriculture (Silence Glaive/scythe + death-rebirth cycle of life)

Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto's powers are just from their Greco-Roman counterparts Sky, Sea, and Underworld respectively.


Now I want to do a Silver Millennium RP where the Senshi are treated like Ancient Deities when visiting Earth...


EDIT- I wonder if Takeuchi-sensei was also inspired by Vedic mythology (summarized from Wikipedia):
Mercury - intelligence
Venus - brightness, enthusiasm, fertility
Mars - celibacy (I-Hate-Men Rei), impulsiveness
Jupiter - mentor, helps out in war
Saturn - "...punishes the person who does not do his duty properly"
Uranus - heavens
Neptune - seas
Pluto - wealth, deformity (??? only non-match)

OuterHarmonie23 wrote:

Here's a little summary from some of the research I've done.

The Senshi seem to receive powers both from their Chinese and Greco-Roman counterparts:

Mercury - Water/Music
Venus    - Metal/Love
Mars      - Fire/War
Jupiter   - Wood/Thunder
Saturn   - Earth/Agriculture (Silence Glaive/scythe + death-rebirth cycle of life)

Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto's powers are just from their Greco-Roman counterparts Sky, Sea, and Underworld respectively.


Now I want to do a Silver Millennium RP where the Senshi are treated like Ancient Deities when visiting Earth...


EDIT- I wonder if Takeuchi-sensei was also inspired by Vedic mythology (summarized from Wikipedia):
Mercury - intelligence
Venus - brightness, enthusiasm, fertility
Mars - celibacy (I-Hate-Men Rei), impulsiveness
Jupiter - mentor, helps out in war
Saturn - "...punishes the person who does not do his duty properly"
Uranus - heavens
Neptune - seas
Pluto - wealth, deformity (??? only non-match)

If you do that RP I'm in 

But really, these are all pretty spot-on. Pluto has a weird relationship with Greek mythology as well. Given their senshi powers, you would expect Pluto to have Saturn's role of destroyer, rather than time powers. But I guess Chronos is a good enough excuse so... we'll let it slide

^Headcanon: Pluto's mother in Silver Millennium oversees the underworld.

Oh oh oh. Can her name be Persephone?

I think I'm going to brainstorm such an RP now.

Awesome that you got an idea out of this! You are more than welcome to create a topic in the OOC thread to gauge interest and have others help work out the plot. Be sure to keep all your planning there. 

Ok I'm going to randomly butt in with a stupid question:  Where the heck are y'all pulling metal from for Venus? O.o

I believe it has something to do with mythology.

... but ...  mythology =/= Sailor Moon ... ?  I get the similarities and inspirations but is there more behind that?  Do people associate Sailor Venus with metal because of her "love me chain" maybe?