By: Ian Andreas Miller
I've always enjoyed the three Sailormoon movies that were
released in Japan.
Most of the names of the characters from these movies are
rather clever and
they're interesting to study. I thought that if I could
understand what some
of these names mean, I could better understand the
characters and I could
better understand the movies. After a bit of detective
work, I now have a
list of what I believe are the proper translations of the
names of the
characters from the Sailormoon R, Sailormoon S, and
Sailormoon SuperS movies.
The list below shows the names of the characters that appear
in the movies. For each entry, there is a comment about the origin of the name.
The letters in the brackets [] represent how the names would be spelt
in Romaji. Romaji is a system of expressing the Japanese writing system with
English letters. The actual Japanese script of the names and titles can also be found in
each entry.
I must now make a disclaimer. Though I have
worked hard to make this list as accurate as
it can be, but I
am sure there are still some mistakes. I don't claim
to be the ultimate
and final authority of the information I provide in the
list, but I feel that I have correctly ascertained the origins of these names.
Pretty Soldier Sailormoon R
[Bi Shoujo Senshi Seeraamuun Aaru]*
Fiore [fiore]
--
The name Fiore comes from the Italian word
for "flower."
This word seems to be derived from the Indo-European root
"bhel," which is
the same root where the English words "foliage," "bloom,"
and "flourish"
find their origins. It's no doubt related to the Latin
words "flos" and
"floris" which also mean "flower." The goddess named Flora
in Roman
mythology was the goddess of flowers. Florence, the capital
city of both the
Firenze province and the Tuscany region of central Italy,
often calls itself
"Fiorenza." My grandparents have a facsimile of an old
drawing of the city
of Florence and the letters for "Fiorenza" are written in
bold at the top.
Xenian [kisenian]
--
The word "flower" after this name is
redundant because
the credits in Japanese at the end of the movie don't
specifically include
it; the name is written as simply "kisenian" in Japanese
Katakana. In
botany, any effect produced on the endosperm of an
angiosperm by pollen from
a plant having a different kind of endosperm is called
"xenia." The word
"xenia" comes from the Greek word "xenia" which means
"gifts of friendship,"
and ultimately from the word "xenos" which means "strange."
A xenophobe is a
person who has an unhealthy fear of outsiders, strangers,
or aliens. The
original Greek word "xenia" was pronounced something like
"kseen-ee-ah" and
not "zeen-ee-ah." The reason why the Japanese spell the
name with the "ki"
and the "se" instead of a "ze" is because they want to stay
as true to the
pronunciation of the original Greek as possible with their
writing system
(though doing so is difficult due to the syllabic nature of
the Japanese
Katakana script). Takeuchi, in the same way, wrote the
Katakana characters
for "eriosu" ("Elios") for Helios because there is no
letter for the English
"h" sound in the Greek alphabet.
Glycina [gurishina]
--
Glycina is the name of the monster
with the green
legs that grows from the pink flower near the beginning of
the movie. The
word "glycine" in Japanese is "gurishin" and so the name
"gurishina" must be
"Glycina." The words, incidentally, are derived from the
Greek "glykeros"
which means "sweet." The word "glycina" is part of the name
"Glycina max"
which is the binomial nomenclature of a variety of soybean.
Different types
of food derived from soybeans enjoy much popularity in
Japan; tofu is by far
the most famous of the soybean products.
Dahlian [darian]
--
The Dahlians are the slithering,
snickering, serpentine
monsters that appear from the pink flowers on Fiore's
meteor. The name comes
from dahlia which is a type of flower that is often grown
in gardens.
Dahlias produce colorful and attractive flowers from
midsummer until frost
and are great additions to the summer garden. Each tuber
will produce a
number of hollow, stout stems that vary in height depending
on variety.
There are very tall varieties that can reach a height of
twelve feet, but
these are seldom grown. Dahlias can be found in almost
every color except
blue, but they can be found in a variety of flower types.
Campanula [kannpanyura]
--
Campanula is the name of the
flying monster
Sailormoon and the others confront when they fly above the
surface of
Fiore's meteor. The girls use their Sailor Planet Power
ability to attack
this monster. The name Campanula refers to any of a genus
of plants of the
bellflower family. The name comes from the Latin "campana"
which means
"bell."
Pretty Soldier Sailormoon S
[Bi Shoujo Senshi Seeraamuun Suupaa]*
Princess Snow Kaguya [purinsesu sunoo kaguya]
--
Princess
Kaguya is the name
of the principle character in one of Japan's oldest tales
called
"Taketori-monogatari," otherwise known as "The Tale of the
Bamboo Cutter."
According to the tale, a bamboo cutter finds an infant,
with the elegance of
a princess, inside the stem of bamboo. He takes her home
and she grows into
a fine maiden who is admired by many. One day she tells the
bamboo that she
must return to the moon, a place that's her original home.
She leaves and
forever after, the bamboo is sacred.
Snow Dancer [sunoo dansaa]
--
I don't think I need to
explain this name.
Oozora Kakeru [oozora kakeru]
--
Kakeru's full name
poetically means "he who
soars (about) the universe" in the Japanese language.
Normally, the Japanese
term for "universe" or "outer space" is "uchu," but in
Kakeru's case the
phonetic values of the Kanji have been altered to read
"Oozora." The myriad
homonyms for the Japanese word "kakeru" include "to
initiate," "to hang,"
"to run," "to be lacking," and "to wager."
Nayotake Himeko [nayotake himeko]
--
Unfortunately,
Himeko's name cannot be
rendered into English as nicely as Kakeru's name when
translated from
Japanese. One fantastic and rather loose translation is
something like "the
child princess whose reputation is among the bamboo at
night." Literally,
the Kanji that are used are "reputation" (or "name"),
"night," "bamboo,"
"princess," and "child." The mention of bamboo in her name
is probably in
reference to the old Princess Kaguya tale.
Pretty Soldier Sailormoon SuperS:
The Nine Sailor Soldiers Unite! The Miracle of the Black
Dream Hole.
[Bi Shoujo Senshi Seeraamuun Suupaazu]*:
Seeraa 9 senshi shuu ketsu! Burakku- doriimu- hooru no
kiseki.
Perule [peruru]
--
In botany, a perule refers to a scale of
a leaf bud or
the pouchlike portion of the perianth in certain orchides.
This word comes
from the French word meaning "wallet" and that word in turn
comes from the
Latin "pera." Since Perule seems to be the youngest of the
four fairies that
are shown in this movie, and since the others are named
after different
types of trees and types of fruit, this name seems relevant
to the subject
matter.
Peuplier [pupuran]
--
The name Peuplier comes from the
French word "peulier"
that refers to the poplar tree. In old French the word is
either "poplier"
or "pouple." The name of the character is probably more
like "Pouple" but
the modern version of the word should suffice. The poplar
is any of the
several fast-growing deciduous tress of the genus Populus
having unisexual
flowers born in catkins. There is a Russian folktale about
a woodcutter who
meets a woodland fairy and becomes a poplar tree.
Oranga [oranja]
--
Orangia is the fairy who wears the
orange motif and
becomes a pink bird when fleeing. His name is obviously
derived from the
fruit called the orange. An orange refers to any of several
trees of the
genus Citrus, widely cultivated in warm regions and having
fragrant white
flowers and round fruit with a yellowish or reddish rind
and a sectioned,
pulpy interior.
Banane [banaanu]
--
Banane is the fairy who wears the
banana motif and
becomes an orange bird when fleeing. His name is obviously
derived from the
banana. These elongated, edible fruits of the plants
belonging to the genus
Musa have a thick yellowish to reddish skin and white,
aromatic, seedless
pulp.
Bonbon Babies [bonbonbebii]
--
Traditionally authoritative
sources such as
Hitoshi Doi's site and some of the different English fansub
translations
have inadvertently promoted the "Bon Bon Baddies"
misconception.
Unfortunately, this error is so old that some fans are
likely to question
the corrected version. Anybody who takes the time to study
the child-like
nature of these enemies will see why they are
"babies." Bonbons
are candies that often have a center of fondant, fruit, or
nuts and are
covered with chocolate of fondant. The name of the candy is
a reduplication
of the French word "bon," which means "good," and is from
the Latin word
"bonus."
Queen of Black Lightning Badiana [kokurai no joou
badiyaanu] 
--
Badiana, otherwise known as star anise, is a type of exotic spice
that is extracted
from the star-shaped fruit of a small evergreen tree native
to China. The
Japanese plant the tree in their temples and on tombs. The
reddish-brown
fruit ripens into a six or eight pointed star shape. This
same star-shape,
which the queen wears on her forehead and on her chest,
serves as the her
characteristic emblem.
Marzipan Castle [majipannu kyassuru]
--
The donut-shaped
Marzipan Castle is
the strangely ornate fortress where Badiana and her cohorts
take the
children. Marzipan refers to a confection made of ground
almonds or almond
paste, egg whites, and sugar, and it's often molded into
decorative shapes.
The alternate spelling, "marchpane," is closer to the
original form of the
word, Arabic "mawthapan," which means "seated king." The
exact line of
derivation from king to candy is conjectural.
Papillotte [papiyotto]
--
The Papillottes are those little
pieces of candy
that the fairies throw to become Bonbon Babies. In reality,
a papillote
refers to a heavy, greased or oiled paper in which food,
especially meat or
fish, is wrapped, cooked and served. The word is derived
from the French
word "papillon" which means "butterfly."
* Though the Japanese phrase "bi shoujo senshi"
literally means "beautiful girl fighter" in English, the phrase "Pretty Soldier"
seems to be the "official" name.
Bibliography:
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Spice. {Web page} 26
May 1999;
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{Accessed 18 Feb 2000}.
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Comments on this article can be sent to: Ian Andreas Miller.
