Why Didn't the '90s Anime Invent New Senshi?

[Memento]

The musicals had no problem inventing new Sailor Senshi (Titanium Kerokko, Pewter Fox, Buttress, Theta, Astarte) and neither did the live action series, albeit it with Naoko's input (Sailor Luna; Princess Sailor Moon and Dark Mercury, too, if you want to count them). Why, then, didn't the '90s anime invent new Sailor characters? They had no problem inventing other new characters (Urawa, Yuuchirou, Ail, En, etc), so why not add some non-manga Sailors into the mix?

Sailor Fantasy and Youichi Fukano's unused Sailor Moon le Cygne concept suggest at least that some people working on the anime toyed around with ideas for alternate forms the girls (or at least Usagi) could take; could there be more unused concepts for power-ups or new Senshi altogether?

I'd imagine that if any such concept art existed, it would probably have made its way to the public sphere by now, so I guess what I'm really curious about is if anyone knows of any interviews or places on social media or anything where a member of the '90s anime staff may have commented on creating new Sailors for the anime (or even just about the process of creating any of the anime's original characters), or, similarly, where anyone involved in the musicals or live action series commented on those works' original Senshi characters, or where Naoko herself or Osabu may have remarked on them.

And, of course, would you guys have been interested in the '90s anime having new Senshi? And if so, where do you think they could have been introduced?

 

[ChibiBoi]

If they invented new Sailors into the mix, they would’ve had to either carry them throughout the rest of the series or have them be one-off characters. Mind you, Sailor Luna, Princess Sailor Moon, etc were all created after the manga and anime had wrapped so they were able to explore different ideas that weren’t previously touched upon. The Sailor Moon manga and anime ran congruently and anime side characters were created as filler for when new chapters of the manga was being drawn. They barely had enough time in Sailor Stars and had to cut out Sailor Heavy Metal Papillon, I doubt they were going to create another Sailor. I think up until the stars arc, it was thought that only the planets of the solar system were able to be Sailors.

 

[Memento]

True, but they could have always included a new Sailor in one of the movies so they'd only have to deal with her for 60 minutes

 

[ChibiBoi]

True, but they could have always included a new Sailor in one of the movies so they'd only have to deal with her for 60 minutes

Could’ve been cool for a Sailor Stars movie, but if I remember correctly they weren’t satisfied with the ratings and/or toy sales for that arc.

 

[Star Angel Haruki]

This is basically what Sailor Stars is in a nutshell. It's not often you see a Senshi with deadly sweat or a clown Senshi.

The best Sailor (Phage) they ever created was Sailor Gamer. She was something serious and very formidable.

This topic reminds me of how useless the Dark Kingdom was. I remember when they made those two gemini youma that could copy Shabo Spray and Fire Soul. The real question is why didn't the Dark Kingdom not have their own Dark Senshi? The DD Girls come close but not exactly.

What I really wanted was Dark versions of the Senshi like in the musical. I thought that was cool. I loved Evil Mercury's Mood Swings in the musical. I would have loved to see it animated.

 

[NJ_]

They would probably be forgotten quickly like the attacks introduced in early R.

The same thing happened with Saint Seiya when they had the anime-only Steel Saints during the Sanctuary arc and then were never seen again after it was done (plus nobody liked them anyway) and they tried to bring them back for Omega and the focus on them and the original saints were some of the reasons why season 2 sucked so much.

EDIT: Just remembered the four sisters, not anime-only but just another example of characters who were quickly forgotten after a certain arc ended.

 

[Seira Hazuki]

I honestly think it’s as simple as whenever Toei or Bandai needed new senshi for whatever marketing/merch, they’d probably just ask Naoko to create them. Naoko didn’t seem like she had any problem spinning her wheels and creating random characters on the fly... just look at all of the one off senshi killed off in the same chapter they were introduced in Stars! lol

 

[Star Angel Haruki]

Yeah, even if they didn't ask Naoko, they could easily create one. I know a lot of New comers who were born during the Pretty Cure era rave about them fighting and being powerful but I just keep thinking about some of the monsters in Sailor Moon being way tougher and scarier. I haven't seen much of all Pretty Cure but the youma from the first season of Sailor Moon were pure nightmare fuel comparable to Witches from Madoko if not crazier.

I know it's a fan rumor or whatever but a Sailor Sun and/or Sailor Earth in female form would have been cool.

Sorry, but I wish Naru was made a Sailor Senshi, but not a good one. Since Toei was taking liberties with the story, they should have made Nephrite use the Dark Crystal to morph Naru into some type of evil Senshi (like Dark Mercury from PGSM) because I really wanted to see how they would pull off the conflict with her and Sailor Moon...and if she found out her identity..it'd be great. I'd love to see how Nephrite would pull the strings in that situation.

That's one of my weird fan fantasies.

 

[MariaTenebre]

Well I mean if you will indulge my opinion. I think probably one of the reasons that new Senshi were not introduced in the 90s anime because again the 90s anime was airing concurrently with the manga and at that point there was no telling how many seasons the show was going to have. The reason the show ended with Sailor Stars was due to had bad SuperS was received and so they simply wished to do one more season to finish it off. Had SuperS been a better adaptation of the manga and kept on the more darker train that S was then we might have had more then 5 seasons. I believe the main reason they didn't say introduce original Senshi in the 90s anime because they probably didn't want to contradict Naoko Takeuchi lest she introduce Senshi based on whatever celestial object they introduced. I mean what would have happened if say they introduced their own Sailor Uranus before Haruka was released in S or say made Naru into Sailor Saturn as many Japanese fans speculated before Hotaru was introduced in S this probably wouldn't have gone over well in the plot or with Naoko Takeuchi. Now I suppose they could have made Senshi for maybe some OC celestial objects but even this could be risky. I believe the reason that the musicals and PGSM were able to introduce these new Senshi was because by then the story had been concluded and there was no chance of Naoko Takeuchi creating more material and potential new Senshi.

 

[Rika-Chicchi]

I think An could look great as a Senshi (the Makaiju could somewhat be considered as a celestial body).

 

[Star Angel Haruki]

Personally, them creating new Senshi would be as easy as creating new youma or even the Hell Tree Arc cast. I do agree with the unsureity of it. If I am not mistaken, weren't the majority of girl team shows at the time only focused on a cast of up to three females?

Even with Naoko having created Jupiter and Venus, Toei still took 500 years to feature them in the actual anime. Since they were riding heavily on the trio girl trope. Mars was the power, Mercury was the brains, Moon was "chosen" one. Very Charlie's Angels like

Perhaps the idea of creating more Senshi was foreign to the genre at the time?

Or maybe it's contractual reasonings, which led to Toei just creating their own series which gives birth to new warriors all the time.

Which really makes me anxious about something:

What if each arc were in fact different girls (Senshi) during different eras?

Classic Sailor Moon took place in the past (maybe an even medieval setting) and it was our main loved team of Usagi and the others but afterwards, the R saga featured a different set of Senshi in the future time, The S featured a different set in a present time.

Basically how they do Pretty Cure. Makes me feel weird thinking about it. Since I've grown a deeper connection with one team.
.

 

[Memento]

I mean, technically I guess Classic could have just been the Inners, R could have just been Chibi Moon and the Sailor Quartet, S could have just been the Outers, Sailor Stars could have just been the Star Lights, and for SuperS they could have created a team of jungle and/or circus Sailors? Or maybe other lunar-themed Senshi (Sailor Eclipse, Sailor Full Moon, Sailor Crescent Moon, Sailor Waxing Moon, etc)?

 

[ChampionOfNuggets]

I mean, technically I guess Classic could have just been the Inners, R could have just been Chibi Moon and the Sailor Quartet

Didn’t R air well before the Sailor Quartet made their debut in the manga?

I do wish Chibi Moon had made her debut in the R anime like in the manga. S was focusing on the Outers and then Chibi Moon is like “Hey I’m here too!!!”

 

[Memento]

I meant in terms of if Toei were going to make up teams of new Senshi to base each season around, the second season could have followed Chibi Moon and the Quartet (or whatever equivalent characters Toei would have devised).

 

[Nadia]

Time for my contrarian speculations!

I can think of several good reasons why there were no extra Sailors created for the series.

They weren't allowed to create any. This possibility might seem odd given that the old anime diverged very much from the manga in many respects, to the point where it is an alternate continuity in of itself. However let's look at all the original characters that were created. The vast majority of them are victims of the day, monsters of the day, recurring supporting characters, or villains who were swiftly dealt with at the end of their arcs/movies and never mentioned again. There has never been an original character for the anime that was either a clone or a distorted version of the Sailors. That may have been because they weren't allowed to create additional Sailors. This might have been spelled out in whatever agreement used to agree to adapt the manga; perhaps only Takeuchi was allowed to create new Sailors.

They wanted to keep in line with continuity. Imagine you were a fan in the 1990s, before the Outers were introduced. Let's suppose you had your own vision of a Sailor Saturn. She was a ring-throwing, ring themed giant girl with orange hair and red eyes, who liked to dance, party, and play the guitar. You wrote fanfiction for this character, you drew this character. Now imagine if Naoko Takeuchi either made a rule completely invalidating your character, or worse yet produced a version that was completely different from what you had envisioned.

As a fan you would have been devastated, having created all this fan art and fanfiction for a character who was noncanonical. But as a fan you would have only wasted your own time and your own efforts.

Imagine then you were part of the production company and your team was tasked with creating a new Sailor character. Let's suppose this new character was then scripted and animated into even a special. Now imagine Naoko Takeuchi, not only ignoring this character but then once the license gets back make sure the character is never seen again.

Congratulations! You not only just wasted the effort and time but you also wasted a company's money, money that cannot be recouped.

They feared an overcrowded plate. Out of all the new characters added for the anime, note with the vast majority of them came in; the first season. There isn't much room for any more characters than what we got. Would it be possible to create a new Sailor? Of course. Would it be possible to devote enough time to her and the canonical characters? No.

The possibility was precluded by the change in showrunners. As many die-hard fans know, Junichi Sato was the director for Sailor Moon and the first part of R while Kunihiko Ikuhara took over the remainder of R as well as the entirety of S and SuperS. When you look at the vast majority of the original recurring characters, they were introduced in Sato's run. Maybe Sato would have added more Sailors but Ikuhara refused to go that route.

They didn't think of it. By far, this is the most likely reason but I'd like to add that we're looking at this series retrospectively. It's easy for us to envision a "Sailor Anything" because we have seen the series from beginning to end. However, it is not clear when watching the series from the beginning that there is a Sailor "Celesial Object" for every object, Looking at the series, one would easily assume that the Sailors were connected to the Silver Millennium as a group; it wasn't clear even at first that there were even any more Sailors than the main five. At most, there would be enough for the Solar System...but that's it.

This is evidenced by the very next group of enemies in the anime after the Dark Kingdom being aliens. If they thought it was possible for there to be extra-solar system Sailors, you could be certain En or an En-like figure would have definitely been one. There may have also been a Sailor Nemesis/Sailor Black Moon if they thought it would generate toy sales...but they probably didn't think there was.

Sorry, but I wish Naru was made a Sailor Senshi, but not a good one. Since Toei was taking liberties with the story, they should have made Nephrite use the Dark Crystal to morph Naru into some type of evil Senshi (like Dark Mercury from PGSM) because I really wanted to see how they would pull off the conflict with her and Sailor Moon...and if she found out her identity..it'd be great. I'd love to see how Nephrite would pull the strings in that situation.

That's one of my weird fan fantasies.

My fantasy is even weirder. I would have had him used the Dark Crystal to sense that Naru was actually a latent Youma (technically a Youma-hybrid...yes, that would mean Morga was actually her mother) and that is the secret power he sensed from her. However, I'd still keep his budding morality so he'd actually have some reservations about awakening her power...only for her to transform anyway out of stress and a desire to protect "Masato Sanjoin" when Sailor Moon confronts him. Of course, like PGSM, I'd give Sailor Moon the ability to heal transformed people from the start so that would be resolved at the end of the episode...for now..and later in the arc she would find out about Sailor Moon's identity...

 

[ChampionOfNuggets]

I meant in terms of if Toei were going to make up teams of new Senshi to base each season around, the second season could have followed Chibi Moon and the Quartet (or whatever equivalent characters Toei would have devised).

I dunno, I feel like if Toei elected to go their own route with a team based around Chibi Moon for R with out knowing Naoko’s plans, we would have just gotten Chibi Mercury, Chibi Mars, Chibi Jupiter, and Chibi Venus. The “future daughters of the guardian soldiers”

 

[SILVER]

Hmm... what if instead of a new cast every season, the Inner senshi did die as Naoko intended them to in the first arc ....and we'd get a new set every season afterwards? For example, R/BM could've had Chibiusa and Pluto as Sailors, S/Infinity Pluto, Uranus, Saturn and Neptune, SuperS/Dream having the Quartet and Stars having a larger focus in traveling to planets and also meeting their senshi + Galaxia's minions?

 

[Rika-Chicchi]

Hmm... what if instead of a new cast every season, the Inner senshi did die as Naoko intended them to in the first arc ....and we'd get a new set every season afterwards? For example, R/BM could've had Chibiusa and Pluto as Sailors, S/Infinity Pluto, Uranus, Saturn and Neptune, SuperS/Dream having the Quartet and Stars having a larger focus in traveling to planets and also meeting their senshi + Galaxia's minions?

So the Senshi would all die at the end of their respective seasons?

 

[SILVER]

So the Senshi would all die at the end of their respective seasons?

Only the ones I dislike

Kidding. Maybe just the Inners, Pluto (who'd return in S and Chibiusa who'd go back and forth from Crystal Tokyo), Saturn at the end of S would die, and the rest could come and go like the Outers did in Stars after being gone in SuperS (with cameos in between). Shadow Galactica would all die. Then everyone would return via the Galaxy Cauldron at the end.

 

[Rika-Chicchi]

As the universe is supposed to have an infinite number of Senshi, Sailor Moon could very well be Precurized & run for eternity. lol