Sailor Neptune

Sailor Neptune (セーラーネプチューン) is one of the central characters in the Sailor Moon metaseries. Her civilian name is Michiru Kaioh (海王 みちる), an artistic schoolgirl who can transform into one of the series' specialized heroines, the Sailor Senshi.

Introduced in the third story arc, Sailor Neptune fights alongside her partner and lover Sailor Uranus in defending the Solar System from outside threats. In both versions of the story, she is elegant, sophisticated, capable of sharp anger, and sometimes cold. She is fully dedicated to her duty as a Senshi.

Profile
Michiru is formally introduced in the third story arc, although she appears in silhouette alongside Sailor Uranus in episode 89, a "teaser" to Sailor Moon S.

She is portrayed as a very polite, calm character in the series. She dislikes being patronized even if not doing so would hurt her feelings, and subsequently will not indulge people. This is alluded to in her backstory, explaining that she was congenial but generally not social. Michiru is also graceful and delicate, with an aura of sophistication. She is clearly intelligent, and this usually manifests itself through art and music. Usagi (to whom this observation is especially relevant) once commented that Michiru was the ideal example of a princess.

Michiru attends Infinity Academy with Haruka (and the younger Hotaru Tomoe) when she is first introduced. In the manga, after Infinity is destroyed, she and Haruka later attend the same high school as Usagi and the other girls. It is never mentioned where they go after this in the anime, but the two of them are shown driving away in their last appearance in Sailor Moon S, and during a made-for-TV special set during the following season, they are shown staying at a hotel elsewhere in Japan. According to the musicals, Michiru had experience studying abroad.

Michiru's closest bond is with Haruka, and Takeuchi has explicitly stated that the two are in a lesbian relationship in both the manga and the anime as well as the musicals. This was changed in the American dub done by Cloverway (see Censorship).

In the anime, Michiru briefly flirts with Kou Seiya, at that time a man, asking him to help her unzip her dress. Her stated intention, earlier in the episode, is to learn Seiya's motives out of fear that he is a threat to the planet. This flirtation does not occur in the manga, where Seiya is always a female and plays a much more minor role. However, in the Infinity arc, Michiru appears as temptation for Mamoru, paralleling Haruka being used as temptation for Usagi. Though she never makes any of the advances on Mamoru that Haruka makes on Usagi, Usagi is jealous of her because she sees them together.

Michiru is deeply artistic and is the Senshi most associated with the arts. Her known skills include the violin, swimming, and painting; of all her skills, her strongest is as a violinist, which is also her greatest dream. She likes all her classes, especially music, and belongs to the Music club at school as well as the Swimming club. In the manga, she collects cosmetics; in the anime, she loves to swim, often using the water as a way to relax. Her favorite food is sashimi, while her least favorite is kikurage mushrooms. She also dislikes sea cucumbers for unclear reasons, and her favorite color is Marine blue.

Aspects and forms
As a character with different incarnations, special powers, transformations and a long lifetime virtually spanned between the Silver Millennium era and the 30th century, Michiru gains multiple aspects and aliases as the series progresses.

Sailor Neptune
Michiru's Senshi identity. She wears a uniform colored in teal and cerulean, and unlike most of the other Senshi, her gloves extend only to mid-forearm and has a jewel on her choker. She is given specific titles throughout the various series, including Soldier of the Deep Waters (or "Depths" in the English manga), Soldier of Embrace, Soldier of Affinity, and Soldier of Comprehension. Her personality is no different from when she is a civilian, although certain powers are unavailable to her in that form.

Sailor Neptune uses ocean-based attacks (not just water), and carries one of three Talismans carried by the Outer Senshi; Neptune has the Deep Aqua Mirror, which always reveals the truth. She takes a black-and-white approach to her role as a soldier, one shared by Sailor Uranus, who is virtually always at her side.

As she grows stronger, Sailor Neptune gains additional powers, and at key points her uniform changes to reflect this. The first change takes place in Act 39 of the manga, when she obtains the Neptune Crystal and her outfit becomes similar to that of Super Sailor Moon. She is not given a new title. A similar event takes place in Episode 167 of the anime, and she is given the name Super Sailor Neptune. A third, manga-only form appears in Act 42, also unnamed but analogous to Eternal Sailor Moon (sans wings).

Princess Neptune
During the Silver Millennium, Sailor Neptune was also the Princess of her home planet. She was among those given the duty of protecting the solar system from outside invasion. As Princess Neptune, she dwelt in Triton Castle and wore a sea-green gown. She appears in this form in the original manga Act 41, as well as in supplementary art. It is unknown whether she had a romantic relationship with Princess Uranus at that time.

Special powers and items
Even in civilian form, Michiru has some precognitive gifts, as she occasionally states that "the sea is stormy" when there is an evil presence at work. She is not shown using any other special powers in her civilian form, and must first transform into a Sailor Senshi by raising her hand or a special device into the air and shouting a special phrase, originally "Neptune Planet Power, Make-up!" In the manga she eventually gains her Neptune Crystal and this phrase changes to evoke Neptune Crystal Power. In the anime, although she does upgrade to Super Sailor Neptune, the Crystal is never mentioned and her transformation is never shown on screen after the upgrade. Her transformation sequence involves a pillar of seawater encircling her body and swirling around her as her uniform appears.

Sailor Neptune's powers are inspired by Roman mythology, where Neptune is the god of the ocean. She never uses the element of water in a general sense, that being Sailor Mercury's domain; instead, she draws energy from the "deep waters" and blasts this at her foes (rather than attacking with physical ocean water). She is given three major attacks in the series, and although they all have English names (like those of the other Sailor Senshi), each is also given kanji in the manga to denote the meaning to Japanese readers. For example, her first attack, Deep Submerge, is given kanji which translate precisely to "deep" (深) and "submerge" (水没). The intended English pronunciation is given in furigana. This is Sailor Neptune's primary attack for most of the anime series.

In the manga, Michiru owns a special hand mirror which supplements her precognition. This turns out to be the Deep Aqua Mirror, one of three powerful Talismans, the other two of which are carried by Sailor Uranus and Sailor Pluto. In the anime, she does not gain the mirror until she is revealed as one of the Talisman bearers; in either case, it is used in her second attack, Submarine Reflection (深海鏡射). In the anime, Michiru can use it through and dispelling illusions, as seen in the SuperS movie. In the manga, she can use it for astral projection, and lends it to Chibiusa while she and the other Outer Senshi are away. Chibiusa invokes the mirror's power by stating its name and is able to teleport to Sailor Neptune's location.

Michiru's violin, a Stradivarius worth some five million dollars, is called the Marine Cathédrale and is named after "the temple of the sea". Aside from playing it in concert, she uses it in her third and final attack, which (like the instrument itself) has a French-inspired name: Submarine Violon Tide (深海提琴潮流).

The Neptune Crystal is perhaps her most important possession, as it is her Sailor Crystal and the source of all her power, which becomes especially important in the fifth story arc. It is given to her by Sailor Saturn.

Development
The character of Sailor Neptune was not developed until partway through the Sailor Moon series, after the Guardian Senshi were well-established. She was created in tandem with Sailor Uranus, as a pair of "complementary but opposite characters", and meant from the beginning to work alongside Sailor Pluto. Creator Naoko Takeuchi has said that she was shocked by the changes made to Michiru's personality in the anime series, but that she was glad fans still liked the character.

Sailor Neptune's visual design is intended to evoke images of her element, from the choice of colors to the wavy quality of her hair, which Takeuchi even joked might be thought of as seaweed hair. In street clothes, Michiru is supposed to be an "artist type" and to dress accordingly; in fact, initial drawings are extremely elegant and "adult", because she was originally intended to be involved in the all-female Takarazuka Revue with Haruka. Although this was not included in the series itself, Takeuchi stated in an interview that she feels Takarazuka is "the maximum level of feminine emancipation," that as such it was her inspiration for the character of Haruka, and that it seemed natural for Haruka to fall in love with another woman&mdash;namely Michiru.

Certain background details of Michiru's character were chosen symbolically&mdash;for instance, her Western astrological sign is given as Pisces, which in astrology corresponds to the planet Neptune. In reference to a popular Japanese belief, her blood type is given as O, supposedly indicating an agreeable and vain nature.

The kanji of Michiru's surname translate as "sea" (海) and "king" (王). Together, they constitute most of the name of the planet Neptune in Japanese, Kaiōsei (海王星). Her given name is in hiragana michiru (みちる) and so its meaning is not inherent, but the word itself means "to rise". The packaging of Irwin dolls released in Canada in 1998 called Michiru by the name Nerissa.

Censorship
In the Italian dub, Uranus and Neptune were merely close friends who had a sister-like relationship.

In the French dub, the relationship was explained that Uranus poses as a man in civilian form, and Neptune only pretends to be "his" girlfriend, to help protect their identities.

Most European dubs portrayed their relationship to be merely platonic. The Taiwanese dub also toned down the relationship.

In the North American anime, her relationship with Sailor Uranus was redefined as being cousins, and an ex-boyfriend was mentioned, further defining her as heterosexual.

Reception and influence
The official Sailor Moon popularity polls listed Michiru Kaioh and Sailor Neptune as separate characters. In 1994, with fifty one choices, Sailor Neptune was the seventh most popular character, receiving almost eight thousand votes more than Michiru, who was the ninth. In early 1996, with fifty one choices, Michiru was the sixteenth most popular character, and Neptune was the twenty second.

Fan fiction featuring Haruka and Michiru is among the most searched-for fan fiction on the Internet, and Erica Friedman of Yuricon has described Haruka and Michiru as being "one of the most romantic, funny, and fun yuri couples, ever."

It has been suggested that Sailor Neptune "probably would not tolerate an unkempt, inconsiderate male as her romantic partner."

Actresses
In the Japanese anime series and movies, Michiru Kaioh is voiced by veteran voice actress Masako Katsuki. In the English-language dub, the voice of "Michelle Kaioh" is provided by Barbara Radecki, who had previously played Usagi's mother and Queen Serenity. Many fans believe this was due to her resemblance to Ikuko.

In the stage musicals, Michiru has been played by 8 actresses: Kaoru Sakamoto, Chikage Tomita, Miyuki Fuji, Hiroko Tahara, Sara Shimada, Yuhka Asami, Tomoko Inami, and Takayo Oyama. Asami, the longest-running of these actresses, knew nothing about Sailor Moon when she was given a role in the musical, but came to greatly admire the character of Michiru after reading the manga and watching the anime. Nao Takagi, who played opposite her as Sailor Uranus, has stated that certain scenes were specially created just for the two of them.

Michiru does not appear in the live-action series.