The last set of Sailor Senshi, this team hails from planet Kinmokusei and make their appearence
during the final series of Sailor Moon, Bishoujo Senshi Sailormoon Sailor Stars. While the Stars
arc of the manga has appeared in America, the anime is still caught in limbo, the only source
for a translated version being fansubs. Thus, when fans can't get easy access to the show, the
rumor mill tends to churn out various tales of what everyone's missing...
The Starlights are men who turn into women. Sort of. In the manga, they are always
physically female, and they dress as men to disguise themselves. Takeuchi Naoko said they must be
women because Sailor Senshi can only be female. In the anime, while they are physically male in
civillian ID, they were all originally women, and their female forms as the Starlights
are their true forms. Proof of this is found in the anime when Princess Kakyuu arrives again and
asks them why they chose their male forms, which proves that they have not been male before. For
more information on the genders of the Starlights, check out the explanation for the Lights at
Starlight Pops. It references both the anime and manga quite thoroughly.
The Starlights are brothers/sisters. Yes, they do look alike. So did the Beatles
in their early days. That didn't make them brothers, now did it? The Starlights birthdays are
all in the same year, and are way too close to allow for them to be related. They also do not share the
same last name-Kou is actually their first name, with Seiya, Taiki, and Yaten being their last
names.
Sailor Star Fighter attacks using "Star Serious Razor." Someone clearly confused "Laser"
with "Razor". It's rather obvious that the attack is "Star Serious Laser" because she actually uses a
laser in her attack. "It's a pun!" is not enough - even when a pun is present, the concepts of phonetic
and literal puns are entirely different. "Razor" and "Laser" are approximated the same way, but the
context tells us which term the katakana characters are pointing to. (An earlier entry incorrectly attributed
this blunder to Sweet Usagi. As it is not there, an apology is in order for this one.)
Sailor Star Healer possesses healing powers. Despite having "Healer" in her name,
Healer does not heal anything. Her attack, "Star Sensitive Inferno," is purely offensive.
Kou is the last name of the Starlights. This is a pretty long debate, but generally,
the availible information points to Kou being their first names.
Starlight Pops offers the most thorough explanation for Kou being their first names that I've seen, even
topping out DIES GAUDII's extensive article dealing with the same topic. This is definitely recommended reading for the full issue, but I'll give my main argument for the name order, which is also referenced in both articles above.
The most obvious example is that the Starlights introduce themselves as Seiya Kou, Taiki Kou,
and Yaten Kou. They are using the traditional Japanese order of last name first, and do this
both in the anime and manga. Yes, this does mean that the other characters are reffering to them by their
last names. It seems strange, but it's not the first time in the show that this has happened.
The geeky Umino Gurio is always reffered to as Umino, even though it's his last name. Naru refers
to him as Umino even when they are dating. Umino is also reffered to by his last name throughout the
entire manga. Urawa Ryo, Ami's brief love interest in the first series of the anime, is also reffered
to by his last name. Therefore, the Three Lights being reffered to by their last names is not unusual
for the show. Various international versions reverse the name order-it is just as confusing to them
as it is for the fans.
"Kinmokusei," the name of the planet from which the Starlights hail, means either 'cinnamon blossom star/planet'
or 'redbud blossom star/planet' but absolutly NOT 'olive tree star/planet'. Another blunder courtesy of
Sweet Usagi Sailormoon. The explanation on her site is based off of the kanji reading, which is different, but "Kinmokusei"
is actually rendered in katakana, which sounds like the Japanese word for the Orange Osmanthus, an olive tree with
fragrant blossoms. This is meant as a phonetic (not literal) pun, because the names of planets in Japanese end
with the suffix "-sei." By changing the spelling of the word, they make the name of a tree into the name of a
planet. Osamnthus blossoms are used as a symbol for Princess Kakyuu, as they're all over her costume, part of
her manga attack, and she even smells like the olive blossoms. The major issue with the supposed "debunking" is that the page used as a source actually does not have the word "kinmokusei" written at all - only "Kinmoku". Further more, instead of using hiragana above the word like usual, kanji appear above the phrase that use the word "keika", which is the kanjia equivilant of the entire osmanthus family (in addition to red flowers), but it's STILL not the entire phrase, "Kinmokusei" and hence is useless for debunking in this case. Oddly enough, the page this appears on is the first time Kakyuu uses "Kinmoku Fusion Tempest," which uses the osmanthus blossoms and they're all over the page. Starlight Pops has a nice page with more information
about the osmanthus, how the Japanese characters appear in the manga, and how the flowers relate to
Kakyuu and her planet.
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