I like characters like Naru because they make the series not just about the senshi, but about regular people too.

It certainly would've been enjoyable to keep up the tradition of Naru being either a target or within proximity of the target.

The last time we saw Naru, at least in the 90s anime canon, was a SuperS episode, that to me was extremely lackluster. I feel as though her presence just became tedious. Naoko didn't intend for Naru to be a Senshi or anything more, so she probably just faded away. To be honest you can only do so much with a more 'generic' friend character.

To be completely honest, I felt that she was just a placeholder so it wasn't the Usagi show until the other Soldiers showed up.


Edit: Just remembered she was only in Act 1 of the manga, so it's safe to say she wasn't meant to go on for a long time, but was more a way to extend/filler the episodes and storyline.

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. But my ideas regarding ways to develop the character may be a little... unusual. Eheheh.

I do agree that her and Umino's last appearance was one of their weakest, but I don't think that's because the well ran dry, I think that's because that whole era (the Amazon Trio arc) was full of uninteresting episodes, kind of the worst part of the series (even though I love the series and there were a few good moments in that arc, it was still unusually low quality).

I also think that characters such as Motoki, Yuuichirou, Ryo Urawa, and Rei's Grandpa might've been nice to see one more time. I think SuperS and Stars both shouldn't have had so many one-off "rando" characters for monsters of the week to attack, and should have instead plugged in these familiar faces and maybe done them a little more justice. (Yuuichirou got a pretty pathetic final outing, too, while Ryo Urawa got completely forgotten after season 1 for no good reason.)

Also, Naru was in stars! Sort of. Almost. Not really?: