Junichi Sato on why Rei was different in the 90's anime (also some griping about Tuxedo Unmasked)

[Seen2]

I'm not a writer and I have a hard time articulating my thoughts into words at times, so apologies if this is hard to read or comes off as disjointed to anyone.

Sailor Mars/Rei Hino's personality is pretty different in the manga and anime, right? Why is that?

Her wikipedia article says that it's Ikuhara's doing:

A cold and aloof character in the manga, her personality was drastically changed in the anime adaptation[2] at the behest of Kunihiko Ikuhara, where she became fiery and hotheaded.

But wasn't Ikuhara just an episode director for the first season? How would he have that much influence on the series? They're even talking about the infamous "Ikuhara hates Mamoru" rumor that most likely came from this interview. It's just speculation. Fan speculation is usually fine, but it shouldn't be a source on a Wikipedia article.

This Tuxedo Unmasked article lists Roppongi and Bubble Era culture as their motivation. Now they got her personality wrong because of the location of the school the T.A. Catholic School is based off of?:

Rei is said to go to T.A. Catholic School (a private all-girl’s school) which seems to be based on Toyo Eiwa Jogakuin (T from Toyo and the ei in Eiwa is pronounced “A” in Japanese, which would explain the name TA chosen by Naoko). The school is located in a part of Roppongi where there are quite a few embassies, high class restaurants, and has a vibe of what one could call the “upper crust part of town.”

Incidentally, TV Asahi (the station which carried the Sailor Moon anime during its original run) is also located in Roppongi, though despite being in the same area, the feeling of the town is incredibly different. Particularly at that time, in the late 1980s and early 1990s (and even today, to be honest), Roppongi was known for its discos and wild night-life entertainment. Late night drinking, women in short skirts, and dance clubs running late into the night were and are the norm. The most famous of which, Juliana’s,4 was located in Shibaura, in the same Minato ward and nearby to Roppongi.

While I wouldn’t go so far as to say that it was a misunderstanding by the anime staff when they were deciding how to interpret the characters from paper to the airwaves, I think the staff working on the series definitely had a different impression when they heard the words “Roppongi girl,” which could have led to at least some of the differences we see in Rei’s personality. While Ms. Takeuchi’s association was likely more in line with the private Catholic girls school, the embassies, and sky-rise apartments, the day to day experience of the TV Asahi directors and writers would have been very different and more akin to the night club life that Americans would more closely associate with Las Vegas.

But then we have this interview with Junichi Sato from a few years ago. The series director of season 1. (I used the subtitles provided by the video itself with some minor adjustments.)

We didn't have many direct meetings with Takeuchi-sensei. We usually had a representative take part in meetings; her editor or another representative.
That person would feed us all the important information during our meetings and he also explained our opinions to Takeuchi-sensei. So we didn't have many chances to meet.
She visited us from time to time, but she wouldn't take part directly. We usually talked to a middleman.
...

About Rei, we had the following situation; when we create the animation scenes we use the original story as a base. But when the manga version of Rei finally came along, we had already created many episodes in advance.

That's why we started noticing some differences and gaps. Even with all the meetings, we ended up with these differences.

Our Rei Hino ended up with a more masculine side; a girl that speaks her mind. A very cheerful girl.

But later Takeuchi-sensei said "No...Rei is actually an ojou-sama (refined lady)..." and we said "Oops..."
But we had already established the character that way and we couldn't possibly change it.
So we met with Takeuchi-sensei in order to define how the character would be and we created her personality.

I think Rei is the most different character when comparing the anime to the original story.

So there you have it. It was the result of a lack of communication between the manga and anime staff.

Satojun retweeted a link to the trailer of this fan documentary back when it first came out, but I can't find it anymore. Still, without his twitter account I never would have known about this documentary in the first place. We shouldn't pester and/or harass the creators on twitter with questions about a 30 year old show, but it doesn't hurt to look them up every once in a while.



...



BTW, it's kinda weird that Tuxedo Unmasked makes nasty tweets like this in regards to MementoNepenthe's translations of the Blu Ray booklet notes when they're writing articles about clubbing culture influencing anime Rei with nothing to go on:

https://twitter.com/statuses/1354365687829958658

https://twitter.com/statuses/1354418816906711040

Should MementoNepenthe have posted scans in the first place? Yes. Should there have been a seperate thread made for them? Maybe. Should these have been waved off altogether initially, even when they covered nearly every episode and already sounded extremely plausible before getting confirmed? No. Should they have doubled down and launched a crusade on the thread's title when proven wrong? Even when it's explained why it's in that thread? No.

They have citations in their article, but the conclusion is still a huge reach. Especially when sources like Junichi Sato's interview are available online. I *like* Tuxedo Unmasked most of the time. They're usually so on-game with this stuff that I can't help but feel angry about this article and these tweets. COULD they have misinterpereted her character because they associated the location of her school with late night clubbing? Maybe. But you can't tell me that doesn't sound like a huge reach.


I'm just really tired of this sort of thing and frustrated I guess. Like, if Tuxedo Unmasked sees this and blows me off the face of the Earth with an epic clapback or whatever then so be it. But this fandom has enough baseless rumors as it is and we should be trying to stop it.

 

[foenyanko]

Fascinating. I know Naoko was approached to make SM with the intention of creating an anime, but it surprises me that it was produced so far in advance that Rei's personality was already established before she even appeared in the manga. These days most anime are produced after the manga has gotten pretty far ahead, so... Interesting.

 

[Seen2]

Fascinating. I know Naoko was approached to make SM with the intention of creating an anime, but it surprises me that it was produced so far in advance that Rei's personality was already established before she even appeared in the manga. These days most anime are produced after the manga has gotten pretty far ahead, so... Interesting.

I'm amazed you managed to read this while I edited the OP a million times!

Honestly, I can't think of any other media mix projects with radically different stories like SM off the top of my head to begin with, let alone nowadays. Everything about it seems like it was rushed from the very beginning.

 

[foenyanko]

I'm amazed you managed to read this while I edited the OP a million times!

Honestly, I can't think of any other media mix projects with radically different stories like SM off the top of my head to begin with, let alone nowadays. Everything about it seems like it was rushed from the very beginning.

Haha!

Yeah, I agree. I can think of some instances where a personality might be exaggerated, or of course anime-only characters/stories are introduced, but it does seem fairly unusual. I wonder what led Toei to rushing the series out the door so fast. Maybe it just wanted to capitalize on the popularity of Sailor V before it fizzled out...

 

[Slowpokeking]

The thing is that manga Rei doesn't have much obvious characteristic until The Memory of Casablanca. Which is wayyy later and it was actually based on the impression of Michie Tomizawa, her VA in the anime.

They also need someone to interact with Usagi's funny stuff, Ami obviously is not the option.

 

[Slowpokeking]

Nephrite was also quite different from the manga, which he was a hothead in Naoko's concept book and in PGSM the character followed such setting.

In the anime he was very cunning.

 

[Jawshx]

I'm not a writer and I have a hard time articulating my thoughts into words at times, so apologies if this is hard to read or comes off as disjointed to anyone.

Sailor Mars/Rei Hino's personality is pretty different in the manga and anime, right? Why is that?

Her wikipedia article says that it's Ikuhara's doing:

But wasn't Ikuhara just an episode director for the first season? How would he have that much influence on the series? They're even talking about the infamous "Ikuhara hates Mamoru" rumor that most likely came from this interview. It's just speculation. Fan speculation is usually fine, but it shouldn't be a source on a Wikipedia article.

This Tuxedo Unmasked article lists Roppongi and Bubble Era culture as their motivation. Now they got her personality wrong because of the location of the school the T.A. Catholic School is based off of?:

But then we have this interview with Junichi Sato from a few years ago. The series director of season 1. (I used the subtitles provided by the video itself with some minor adjustments.)



So there you have it. It was the result of a lack of communication between the manga and anime staff.

Satojun retweeted a link to the trailer of this fan documentary back when it first came out, but I can't find it anymore. Still, without his twitter account I never would have known about this documentary in the first place. We shouldn't pester and/or harass the creators on twitter with questions about a 30 year old show, but it doesn't hurt to look them up every once in a while.



...



BTW, it's kinda weird that Tuxedo Unmasked makes nasty tweets like this in regards to MementoNepenthe's translations of the Blu Ray booklet notes when they're writing articles about clubbing culture influencing anime Rei with nothing to go on:

https://twitter.com/statuses/1354365687829958658

https://twitter.com/statuses/1354418816906711040

Should MementoNepenthe have posted scans in the first place? Yes. Should there have been a seperate thread made for them? Maybe. Should these have been waved off altogether initially, even when they covered nearly every episode and already sounded extremely plausible before getting confirmed? No. Should they have doubled down and launch a crusade on the thread's title when proven wrong? Even when it's explained why it's in that thread? No.

They have citations in their article, but the conclusion is still a huge reach. Especially when sources like Junichi Sato's interview are available online. I *like* Tuxedo Unmasked most of the time. They're usually so on-game with this stuff that I can't help but feel angry about this article and these tweets. COULD they have misinterpereted her character because they associated the location of her school with late night clubbing? Maybe. But you can't tell me that doesn't sound like a huge reach.


I'm just really tired of this sort of thing and frustrated I guess. Like, if Tuxedo Unmasked sees this and blows me off the face of the Earth with an epic clapback or whatever then so be it. But this fandom has enough baseless rumors as it is and we should be trying to stop it.

Tuxedo Unmasked muted me on Twitter after I said my Eternal review may contain spoilers, he was polite about it, but still. It’s a review of a 30 year old manga 1:1 adaptation.. I do like his work and writing but I am not a big fan of people getting too big for their boots.

 

[Star Angel Haruki]

Rei is my favorite. I love her 90's version because she was so ambitious and had many talents.

 

[Memento]

I definitely appreciate some of the work TU has done over the years, but for the most part, especially of late, I've found him to be pretty grating, and obviously his attack on me/my thread was the last straw.

 

[inthezone]

im so confused at this thread

 

[Seen2]

im so confused at this thread

Tuxedo Unmasked wrote an article making weird speculations about anime Rei's origins even though the series director already said why in a video interview nearly 3 years ago. This was after they tried dragging a user here for posting translated booklet notes from the recent Japanese Blu Ray release in the "Deleted and Altered scenes from the 90's anime" thread. When photos of the booklets were shown, they tried to change the subject to be about the thread name being misleading. When that was explained, they ignored it.

I thought it was hypocritical, so I made this thread. Partially to let more people know about why anime Rei's personality is different, and partially to shed light on their weird article.

Sorry if I didn't make it any easier to understand, I'm pretty bad at writing a lot at once.

 

[Slowpokeking]

I definitely appreciate some of the work TU has done over the years, but for the most part, especially of late, I've found him to be pretty grating, and obviously his attack on me/my thread was the last straw.

Me, too. Not sure why some ppl hate her.

 

[Hadibou]

Tuxedo Unmasked wrote an article making weird speculations about anime Rei's origins even though the series director already said why in a video interview nearly 3 years ago. This was after they tried dragging a user here for posting translated booklet notes from the recent Japanese Blu Ray release in the "Deleted and Altered scenes from the 90's anime" thread. When photos of the booklets were shown, they tried to change the subject to be about the thread name being misleading. When that was explained, they ignored it.

I thought it was hypocritical, so I made this thread. Partially to let more people know about why anime Rei's personality is different, and partially to shed light on their weird article.

Sorry if I didn't make it any easier to understand, I'm pretty bad at writing a lot at once.

Agreeing with all you said.
What MementoNepenthe presented and translated had more informations about the show conception and planning than we ever had in almost 30 years. And it was accurate and interesting elements, unlike some of TU articles that just have a catchy title with very few actual informations inside. His attitude was a little petty, it’s disappointing.

 

[ChampionOfNuggets]

TU logic doesn’t even follow. Even ignoring his somewhat leap in logic on what inspired Takeuchi and the anime staff by his own logic the anime staff would have associated Rei as some type of party girl which isn’t really how I’d describe her character.

Ikuhara being responsible for Rei’s character also made no sense because A. He was only an episode director until the Chibi Usa arc B. While he was the episode director for episode 11 which was her first big showcase episode Kazuhisa Takenouchi directed her debut episode which already established Rei as someone who would have little patience with Usagi and also act as her love rival for Tuxedo Mask’s affections (though again I don’t an episode director would have much control over long term character writing or overarching story arcs)

 

[Nadia]

All I'm going to say about Tuxedo Unmasked is that the person behind that site blocked me on Twitter and hangs around a lot of the "upper echelon" of the Sailor Moon fandom which has also blocked me, then pitched a fit and reported me (which got me suspended) for blocking them back.

Fans always think they know more than they do, and I'm no exception, but the difference is I say my opinion is my opinion and I will defer when others do have greater knowledge than I do.

 

[Slowpokeking]

Also anime Rei's characteristic is quite common for "the red" in sentai and other similar teams. I was quite surprised when I learned about her personality in the manga.

However, I don't think they have that much difference. They both are quite arrogant and have bad temper. Just that the anime Rei was into boys and parties, even ask for attention. The manga Rei was not interested in men.

 

[FloraKiraraHime]

Just that the anime Rei was into boys and parties, even ask for attention. The manga Rei was not interested in men.

That's about right.

 

[Seira Hazuki]

Agreeing with all you said.
What MementoNepenthe presented and translated had more informations about the show conception and planning than we ever had in almost 30 years. And it was accurate and interesting elements, unlike some of TU articles that just have a catchy title with very few actual informations inside. His attitude was a little petty, it’s disappointing.

Not just these specific translations, @MementoNepenthe has provided interesting discoveries for the fandom for as long as I’ve been on this forum now. From background stuff for “Pretty Soldier Sailor V” to looking into the possible meanings of certain lines in the manga that have been mistranslated for ages. It was incredibly clear WHAT those translations were, so TU coming for her was weird and unnecessary.

 

[Memento]

You're gonna make me cry!!

 

[Masquerade]

Yeah, a group of fans from Brazil interviewed him some years ago and I made a comment about the reason of Rei's change when I first saw it. People asked me to post the vídeo, and I did so. There weren't English subtitles back then, though.
I wasn't aware the guy behing Tuxedo Unmasked wanted to be "Mr. Knows It All About SM". That's sad to hear, but he seems to spend so much time researching about Sailor Moon it doesn't surprise me he has some kind of odd behaviour regarding the franchise.