I am not a fan of Sailor Moon, nor do I pretend to understand anything about the series. I do, however, have a query for those of you who are fans and do understand these things. Why would you use the title “Sailor Moon?” Gramatically speaking, it just ain’t makin’ no sense. Interpreting it literally would lead one to believe that a moon is, for some reason, sailing. Moon Sailor would make so much more sense.
Please, enlighten my anime void life!
[Moderator Hat ON]
Well, this is not exactly a Great Debate, so I’m moving it to MPSIMS. (I fear manny’s wrath if I put it in GQ.) You’ll get a lot better response in there, too, zero.
[Moderator Hat OFF]
And as long as I’m here, the impression I get from my Sailor-Moon-lovin’ cousin: “Sailor” is a title, that they all apparently get from the little sailor outfits they wear. There’s Sailor Moon, Sailor Mars, Sailor Neptune, etc.
As you are no doubt aware, the show was originally produced in Japanese and then translated into English.
The Japanese word that’s translated as “Sailor” in the names of the characters (and in the title of the show) is “Senchi”. “Sailor” is actually not a very good translation of Senchi, which would be more accurately translated as “Soldier”. But Soldier Moon sounds too much like a show aimed at boys, and the translators wanted to pull in the intended audience of girls.
(Although some teen-age boys do watch the show – mostly to see the naked-looking silhouettes of the main characters as they transform into Sailor Scouts.)
Not quite.
They’re the Seira Senshi (Sailor Soldiers) (I’m not entirely sure ‘Seira’ is the best transliteration). The word that ‘Senshi’ was altered to was ‘Scouts’, to remove the violent connotations of ‘Soldiers’.
They are in fact referred to as ‘Sailor’ whatever because of the sailor-suit style costumes (based upon girls shool uniforms in many (most?) Japanese schools).
Each of the 1st 9 Senshi are named for a planet (Sailor Moon taking Earth’s place), and, I beleive later Senshi are named for other extra-terrestrial bodies, but I haven’t seen past the first part of R.
Eschew Obfuscation
In the final season of the show (Sailor Moon SailorStars) there are about a million new senshi. On the side of good you’ve got Sailor Star Fighter, Sailor Star Healer, and Sailor Star Maker, all of whom are apparently transsexual and members of a teen idol group…fitting, ain’t it? Opposing them are Sailor Galaxia and her various minions, including such weird names as Sailor Lead Crow and Sailor Aluminum Siren (as God is my witness, I am not making this up.) I’m not clear on any of their roles in the series, since I haven’t seen the Stars season yet.
Oh, and in the next season which will apparently be on Cartoon Network in the fall, Sailor Moon’s daughter becomes Sailor Chibi Moon, which is being translated as Sailor Mini Moon for the dub. Feel free to insert your favorite Mini Me joke here.
There’s also Sailor Cosmos and a few others in the manga, but I have no idea how they fit into things. Let’s just say there are a hell of a lot of them out there and leave it at that.
Mr. Armageddon
“Just when you thought you had all the answers, I went and changed the questions!”–Roddy Piper
falling off the couch laughing
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you guys have missed my point entirely.
What I am asking is why the translators didn’t bother to call it Moon Sailor (which obviously makes more sense in English) instead of Sailor Moon.
It is quite apparent to me that they are not sailors of any type (although they wear those cute sailor outfits) and that they don’t do any sailing they might do on the moon (or any of the planets).
I am purely interested in a debate on whether it should be called Moon Sailor or Sailor Moon.
This conversation came up at our lunch table at school the other week and I took the Moon Sailor standpoint. It just makes more sense to me.
I have yet to see adequate evedince supporting the current title of the show, please somebody, prove me wrong!
It’s quite simple, really:
Sailor: Title
Moon: Name.
Moon Sailor makes about as much sense as Kirk Captain, or Schwartzkopf General.
She is not a ‘moon sailor’.
She is not named Moon Sailor.
She is the Sailor Soldier of the Moon. (In her previous life she was Princess Serenity of the Moon Kingdom. Each of the other Senshi were the Princesses of their respective planets, and Tuxedo Kamen was Prince Endymion of Earth.)
Thus, she is Sailor Moon.
Eschew Obfuscation