Usagi Tsukino

Usagi Tsukino (月野うさぎ Tsukino Usagi), also known as Sailor Moon, is the main and title character of the anime and manga Sailor Moon. In the English adaptations, she is known as Serena Tsukino. Due to the series' widespread broadcast in many countries, as well as her distinctive and oft-copied hairstyle, she is one of the most immediately recognizable anime characters worldwide.

Usagi's name is a pun on the phrase "the rabbit of the moon" (月の兎 tsuki no usagi). This derives from a Japanese children's story about the rabbit that is said to be visible in the Moon's face, much like the Western Man in the Moon. (The manga translation, which otherwise uses the standard American names for the five "Inner Senshi" girls, gives her the nickname Bunny to partially preserve the pun.) Similarly, "Serena" is probably at least in part a play on the word Selene, a moon goddess in Greek mythology who fell in love with a shepherd named Endymion. It also derives from the name of the moon princess, which is alternately either "Selenity" (from "Selene") or "Serenity" (from the Sea of Serenity on the moon).

One day, as Usagi was running off to school, she saw some neighborhood kids abusing a cat, which she rescued. Afterwards, the cat (who could talk, and who was named Luna) gave her a magical device that allows her to transform into the "soldier for love and justice", known as Sailor Moon. Though at first the very definition of the term "reluctant heroine" (she often had to be bailed out of trouble by Tuxedo Kamen, in what became one of the show's recurring leitmotifs), as time went on she grew in both confidence and maturity, largely out of love for the friends who fought at her side -- though even late in the metaseries she would still have her "crybaby" moments.

Usagi lives at home with her mother Ikuko Tsukino, her father Kenji Tsukino, and her brother Shingo Tsukino. These characters were named after the real-life family of the metaseries' creator, Naoko Takeuchi. She seems to be the only one of the main characters with a conventional nuclear family (Minako Aino possibly notwithstanding), as well as the only senshi with a sibling. She is a markedly poor student, and often comes off as dumb (especially in the anime), though largely due to naïveté and laziness rather than actual stupidity.

One of the biggest secrets about Sailor Moon is revealed in a number of connecting episodes in the end of the first series, when she realizes that she is Princess Serenity (the "crown princess" of the Silver Millennium) reborn. In the second series, Usagi learns that she will give birth to a daughter by Mamoru Chiba, and Usagi will become a "sovereign of the Earth," known as Neo-Queen Serenity, by the 30th century.

In the live-action Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, Usagi is the only one of the Senshi to retain her anime hairstyle (albeit in a much-altered form; her hair is much shorter, only brushing the shoulders of her clothes when up and to the middle of her back when down) in conventional form.

(In an early DiC promotional tape that advertised Sailor Moon to television stations, Usagi was called Victoria.)

Statistics

Whether or not this section is encyclopedic is .

The following information is commonly found in character profiles.

• Age: 14 (beginning of storyline)
• Birthday: June 30
• Blood Type: O+
• Height: 150 cm
• Favorite food: Ice cream, cake
• Least favorite food: Carrots (a subtle joke)
• Favorite color: White
• Hobbies: Eating and sleeping
  

  Actresses

• In the animated version, Usagi is played by Kotono Mitsuishi (With Kae Araki taking over for a few episodes.).
• In the musical version, Usagi has been played by four actresses: Anza Ōyama (大山アンザ Ōyama Anza), Fumina Hara (原史奈 Hara Fumina), Miyuki Kanbe (神戸みゆき Kanbe Miyuki), and Marina Kuroki (黒木マリナ Kuroki Marina).
• In the English dubbed version, Serena is played by Tracey Moore (episodes 1-11, 15 and 21), Terri Hawkes (episodes 12, 14-20, 22-82, and movies) and Linda Ballantyne (episodes 90-166). Hawkes is considered by most fans to be the "definitive" English-language voice of the character, due in large part to her professional embrace of the role and of the series's fandom.
• In Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, Usagi is played by Miyū Sawai.
  

  See Also

• Queen Serenity
• Selene -- Greek Mythology