I love how he's so proud of that moment, and then doesn't check his handiwork and just leaves XD If only he had a mustache to twirl.
Anyway, I love all of them! I voted for the Shitennou, the Animamates, and Professor Tomoe
(and the Witches 5 but it was mostly for Tomoe, although Eudial and Mimete are rad too).
Here's my most to least favorites and a brief(?)
(warning: not brief) statement about each. This is for the '90s anime versions:
----- Big favorites:
1. Nephrite- At first he's funny and cool, with the awesome hair and the star divinations and the Ferrari and jumping over a fence with his hands in his pockets and he's all like "gimme that raquet" and no one questions it. Then he sorta saves a park and saves a kid from falling off a cliff (???). And then we see his true colors and it turns out he's a lot better at lying to himself than to anyone else, and... yeah. His final episodes are my favorites in the whole show.
2. Zoisite- I laugh
at him
(especially when he stepped in some sewage and said "This must be my greatest challenge!"), but I cry
with him. Thinking of the backstory of how he got to be the way he is makes me want to give him a big hug even though he's prone to stabbing people. A fantastic character. Also, he's very very pretty.
3. Professor Tomoe- Surprisingly, he's a fantastic dad and a really nice boss, so forgiving that he's probably
too forgiving when it comes to Mimete. On top of that, when he's crazy he's cute and hilarious! A total inversion of Beryl in all the best ways, and incredibly charming.
4. Saphir- Wait a minute, was Saphir even a villain?! Heheh. Always long-suffering and intelligently focused, but he's on a sinking ship of fools. I love what we learn about him in the end and how far he goes to try to help his brother. A very cool guy.
5. Kunzite- I've heard people complain of declining competence/villain nerfing, but I think there's a fascinating arc to this guy if you look at his motivations. Essentially, he falls to pieces after what happens in episode 35. He's outraged, but he is perhaps literally incapable of turning that rage against the one actually responsible, so he tries to lash out at acceptable targets. But he becomes more and more depressed and hopeless and bitter and in the end I don't think he even cared about the mission, only about Zoisite. He ties to go out with one last scrap of honor in the name of his teammates (even though they weren't really a functional team onscreen ), and so I find him very pitiable and respectable. Although he's still enough of a jerk to kick cats to cope with his depression so I dunno XD
6. Sailor Lead Crow- Her plight reminds me a bit of Kunzite's, but here we see much more viscerally how fixated she is on what she's lost (especially when she's talking to the picture frame about the amusement park
). She also reminds me of Rei's attitude towards Usagi a little bit, except turned up to 11, with her tsundere insistence on how "rivals" are supposed to work. I would've gladly watched another dozen episodes about this character at least.
7. Sailor Aluminum Siren- Her time was too short. What we did see was a bit of a flakey ditz, and yet someone who goes for the throat when she knows what to do. She's bubbly and friendly almost constantly, and quite charming! Honestly, she's a lot of fun and her dynamic with Lead Crow is hilarious and adorable. Also, with her eating habits and whatnot, she sort of reminds me a little of Usagi...
8 & 9. Major episode 197-198 spoilers
- Spoiler:
Sailor Uranus and Neptune
- Oh wow! Strangely, I felt like this turnabout was a natural extension of what had led up to this point, considering that time Uranus attacked the Starlights during the truce handshake with Sailor Moon, or all that weirdness back during S like challenging Usagi to a duel after the Death Busters were already defeated. These two walked a thin line and then fell off in the end, a road to hell paved with good intentions and a good attempt at climbing back up, and that was fascinating to see. I really do love these two, and I never expected it to go quite this far, yet it felt right when it did. A very potent storytelling decision I think. This is my favorite of the heroes-turned-villains set here, followed closely by Mistress 9. Also, that rainbow sparkly disappearance reaaaally reminds me of someone... a nice bit of thematic resonance I think.
10. Thetis- This one-off youma was fascinating! I feel like she has much more of a story behind her and her unseen history with Jadeite. Much is left to the imagination, but there's enough there to capture mine. Also, she was really pretty in all her forms.
11. Jadeite- All we saw of this guy was dry and stiff and that he could get very angry. I've heard him described as "some sort of evil administrator". He's the least interesting of the Shitennou (which is still a compliment!), yet I still find myself thinking about him quite a bit. He's
so dry and stuff, and so formal around Beryl, more so than any of his peers and perhaps any other miniboss villains in the show (except maybe Saphir). This makes me think he's a very serious-minded dutiful kind of guy who takes this stuff really seriously, far more seriously than the capricious and thoughtless queen he serves, and he has a hard time loosening up and doesn't realize until too late that there is no winning by simply doing his duty correctly. And when I think of him like that, he starts to become much more interesting.
12/13. Ali & En- These two are like feral kids who have grown up as teenagers with vast resources but little knowledge of life. They're a ton of fun and almost every scene they're in is amusing or heartfelt (mostly amusing). They're both easily caught up in jealousy, but it's Ail who first starts to realize that maybe they're going about all this the wrong way. I really like these two.
14. Fiore- What I really like about Fiore is when he realizes how badly he misunderstood and what he does about it. And while I don't go in for jealousy much at all, the loneliness he went through is very understandable. This guy deserves a hug, and a nice boyfriend.
15. Sailor Iron Mouse- An adorable little goofball!! If I was two feet shorter I think this is what might happen if someone made me be a villain. She doesn't get to do all that much besides one-off attacks, or grow as a character, and that's a shame, because she's charming and funny and extremely cute. Especially with that whole mafioso look and the business cards.
16. Fish Eye- What is Fisheye's preferred gender pronoun? I'm gonna go with male only because that's what was said in teh show. Anyway, he's so pretty! I mean the hands are a little odd but that's fine. At first he's very shallow and a little frustrating (but not as bad as Tiger's Eye) but then with Mamoru, he starts to rethink everything and starts to grow, and that's when things get really interesting and I really start to feel much more softly for the trio. I wish their finale revelations had been more of a gradual arc instead of all at once right at he end after almost 20 episodes of a flat pattern, but even so I really like how it all turned out all the last minute. Iffy
story arc, but a great
character.
----- Medium size favorites:17. Eudial- She's so gung-ho about everything that I bet she has her own pure heart crystal that nobody saw. Always driving her van at 90MPH out of random scenery, recklessly wielding a flamethrower, pretending to play a grand organ with a boombox... Eudial is pretty fantastic.
18. Mimete- A goofy little stalker-murderer, she's kind of charming in her own sort of awful way and a whole lot of fun. Unless your name is Eudial...
19. Sailor Tin Nyanko- Tin Nyanko's outfit looks very strange. On top of that, her introductory actions incline me against liking her, as I side very much with Lead Crow during those events. On the other hand she can be pretty funny now and then. But THEN we start to see the rest of the picture. That black-and-white thing with the personality switching... that's when I fall in love with this character completely. She's actually pretty great!
20. Major episode 36-46 spoiler
- Spoiler:
Prince Endymion
- What the heck kind of villain is this?! It's like he just moved his apparent, changes his rose color, retooled his speeches a little, then did everything else almost the same as normal, until that thing with the seven great youma (which sounded like it could've been a huge disaster). I guess that's what you get when you try to brainwash the hero of the Earth. But take 2 is downright creepy, like he's been reduced to a puppet. In any case, I do like him.
21. Mistress 9Late season 3 (S) spoilers:
- Spoiler:
- I love Hotaru, and seeing how this plays out, this conflicted twitchy mess she becomes under so much durress, is fascinating and heartwrenching and great.
22. PallaPalla- It can be hard to separate the quartet but I always feel like PallaPalla was sort of the funniest one and had a very carefree, casual sense about her. She always seems to shrug everything off with a smile and that's kind of great. And then she pops the dolls' head off and gets creepy and that is also great.
23. VesVes- She always felt like the grounded leader of the Quartet, the levelest head but still kind of a petulant goofball because they all were. I like her.
24. JunJun- She seems like the tough kid of the group, wearing the black jacket and trying to act all serious and broody and irritable when she's really just as silly as the others. I can kinda dig it.
25. Esmeraude- What a crazy lady! She's a ton of fun, but surely unwell. What a mess!
26. CereCere- She always seems very haughty, and when she's condescending and demanding to Kamoi over her (conjured) wealth versus his needs as a starving artist, I find her irritating and insulting, but in the long run I suppose I still like her.
----- Not as sure about these but still like them:27. Black LadyLate Season 2 (R) and Season 4 (SuperS) spoilers:
- Spoiler:
- I have a hard time viewing her as much more than a very confused and upset Chibi-Usa, because she's really just playing grown-up. Not unlike the Amazon Trio, in a way. What I really like is that here we see, more explicitly than the rest of the show, just how extreme the brainwashing mojo in this story can get, and how nasty it can be, as she is literally forced to forget and disbelieve her own past. How many other characters on this list went through this? And now you see my soft spot for Zoisite, right?
28. Queen Beryl- Onscreen we saw basically nothing pleasant about her, and sooooo much is her fault. Yet I still wonder how she got this way and what lead to this point, and exploring that can be very interesting.
29. Sailor Galaxia- It was a while before we learned anything about her. What we did learn was kind of cool. We still don't know much about her personality, but I do like her. Also, her true form is very pretty, as opposed to that goofy looking crown-hat thing she usually has.
30. Prince Diamande- At first I didn't like this guy, and then I disliked him even more. But then, something changed. What I see in Diamande is a man who completely lost sight of who he was and what he wanted for his brother and for his people, and only started to snap out of it once it was far too late. But unlike Kunzite, he manages to push back a bit harder, and that's a pretty satisfying moment in it's own way. I have mixed feelings about this character but I kind of like him, and I can imagine him being a much better man under other circumstances.
31. Petz- I particularly like her brief scenes with Saphir.
32. Koan- She gets a pretty cool recovery scene.
33. Hawk's Eye- I feel similarly about him to Tiger's eye, but we saw a lot less of him so he didn't have as many chances to start grating. Also, he seemed to have a pretty good sense of humor which was charming, I especially like when he made fun of Zirconia. But what really wins me over is what he does for Fisheye in their last episode, turns out he's kind of a champ in his own way.
34. Tiger's Eye- I have a soft spot for all of the Amazon trio in the end but dang was this guy a stupid jerk a lot of the time XD He never seemed to learn any kind of lesson at all until the last minute and could be very frustrating. Yet, given his background and (near-total lack of) life experiences, I don't think it was all his fault. Also, he was also very funny at times, and sometimes he could look cool (though sometimes he looked kinda ugly depending on what he wore). Also, he's definitely loyal to his friends, and that's worth a lot.
35. Queen Nehelenia / Zirconia / Zircon- At first I thought Zirconia looked cool, then she got kind of annoying. Then we see her connection with Nehelenia and I became intrigued again. Then there's that chestbursty thing which is kind of awesome. Nehelenia herself is a strange character and at times could be a little flat, but I loved the finale of her story and in the end I'd say it was pretty good. Also, Zircon's a cute little flying eyeball critter, though it seems he/she's at least as questionable a stalker photographer as Umino XD Can you imagine Umino and Zircon trading notes?!
(P.S. Umino's not a villain so I'm not listing him here, but I love him to bits)36. Bethier- Her subtle breakdown after the chess thing is pretty memorable.
37. Calaveras- I don't much to say about her but she was alright I guess.
38. Kaolinite- Much like Jadeite, she's a hard one to get a read on (other than her feelings for Professor Tomoe). I expected something more to happen with the "Kaori" thing late in the season, but it seemed not much became of her in the end. An intriguing character, but she never seemed to really find her big moment to shine.
39. Tellu- She only gets one really interesting moment, vs. Mimete. But she is a bit intriguing.
----- Very little opinion or apathetic:40. Vliuy- This character barely appeared so I don't have much to say.
41. Ptriol/Cyprine- Likewise.
42. Poupelin- He didn't make much of an impression on me and I had to look his name up when I wrote this
43. Rubeus- This guy was just kind of a jerk XD I dunno. I feel like there must be more to him than we saw. (I like how the manga version briefly tries to run away and ditch the Black Moon Clan though.) Even at the bottom of my list here, I still like something about him, enough to be interested when he appears in fanfiction, anyway.
----- Unable to rate:- Incomprehensible malicious beings:
Queen Metallia
Death Phantom / Wiseman
Xenian Flower
Pharaoh 90
Snow Princess Kaguya
Nehelenia's talking mirror from episodes 166 and 172
Queen Badiane / Black Dream Hole
Chaos
These were all kind of creepy and interesting, but how do I evaluate them as characters??
- Not counted:
Makaiju