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» CHARACTER INFORMATIONCharacter NAME: Seiya / Sailor Star Fighter
Canon & MEDIUM: Sailor Moon (Anime)
Canon PULL-POINT: Episode 190, after Seiya collapses.
Character AGE: 17 by profession. I'm still not convinced, but it's what I have to go with.
Character ABILITIES:- Senshi Form - Like all Sailor Senshi in the greater Sailor Moon universe, Seiya is able to use her Sailor Change Star item (now her designated Exsilium Weapon, described below) to transform into Sailor Star Fighter. She can only use her Senshi attack(s) while in this form. Even though she retains some measure of speed, endurance, and strength out of Senshi form, she is nowhere near as capable a fighter. Being a Senshi also means certain standard traits, like having her powers tied to a specific celestial body and able to have her life energy/powers removed in the form of a Star Seed. Her Star Seed is contained in the brooch on her chest in Senshi Form.
- Senshi Attack: Star Serious Laser - Currently this is Seiya's main form of attack and requires her Sailor Yell in canon. In Exsilium, her Sailor Change Star will serve in the Sailor Yell's stead for having a focus object, which includes the boom mic manifesting like when she transforms. This attack is a single point of contact roughly the size of a fist and she must have a direct line of sight to whom she is attacking. She will aim the attack in Exsilium by pointing her hand like a gun, which she does occasionally in canon anyway. It is a fairly lightweight attack, showing the ability to weaken Monster of the Day opponents, but not destroy them outright in one attack, although it can definitely be used to knock opponents back or to aim sniper-style at weapons and other small objects. If she can see it, she can hit it - so roughly 18m for good accuracy and 3km unobstructed for shooting big objects like cars/buildings or just taking pot shots to throw off an enemy. Since this is a light/medium powered attack, she can use it multiple times a day with little repercussion.
- Senshi Aura - Like all Sailor Senshi, Seiya is able to channel her remaining energy (think mana points) into an attack, or defense, or power boost to another Senshi, which illuminates her body and does not allow her to make any more Senshi attacks for the rest of the day. While the Inner and Outer Senshi usually manifest this power as orbs, the Starlights manifest this power as beams of light as if they are shooting stars striking the opponent. PASSIVE EFFECT: Whether transformed or not, having an aura means that other characters with detection abilities can notice she is 'special' in some way as a civilian, and sense base emotional intent. Some examples include hostility (such as towards perceived enemies) vs. warm/comforting (Princesses like Kakyuu) vs. desperation/sadness (final attacks).
- Body Shift - When Seiya de-transforms out of Sailor Star Fighter, she is able to choose the physical sex of her body. Currently, whenever she changes into Sailor Star Fighter, her body will always change to biologically female as part of her transformation sequence. Appearing as a male will count as a magical effect for detection purposes by other characters, unless in-game developments happens described below where she considers transitioning.
- Musical Telepathy - This is the only ability that the Starlights can use when out of Sailor Senshi form, perhaps because Kinmoku people as a whole can do it; it's never made clear why the Starlights can do it, only that it is their main form of communication with their Princess In Hiding as explained below. In Exsilium, this will still require Seiya activating her Weapon, the Sailor Change Star, and singing through the manifested boom mic. Though it can present as a truly telepathic power, the effect is largely determined by the person listening to the Starlights' singing that initiates the power. The known restrictions/rules are as follows:
-- casual listeners will only feel a powerful draw coming from the music, not any deeper meaning to it
-- listeners who enjoy the music or willingly look for a deeper meaning can see images that Seiya and the Starlights decide upon. More than one of them singing about the same thing enhances the effect and takes less concentration for the effect to work at all.
-- listeners with a close bond to the singer (Seiya) or who expect a magical effect can see very clear images more like classic telepathic powers, and communicate telepathically with the singer as well. This takes so much effort though that Seiya alone can only do it for 2-3mins; any longer will exhaust her the way that using her energy/aura for an attack will.
-- Seiya is arguably the best at this power and was able to override both Taiki and Yaten singing their regular song to Princess Kakyuu (described in the History section) with a telepathic message to Usagi. However, Taiki was also able to disrupt the regular song when he grew despondent about their mission. Thus, this power can also be used like a Countersong ability to cancel out sonically created magical effects.
Character HISTORY: Chances are good if you know anything about Sailor Moon's LGBT characters, you know that Haruka & Michiru are the greatest lesbian couple ever. The
second thing you may know about are the Starlights, aka The Three Lights, from the final arc / season of the Sailor Moon canons. The backstory is that in the manga, they were introduced very late as minor characters. The Three Lights were cross-dressing as men in their civilian forms, but retained the physical form of women - because Word of God from Naoko Takeuchi is that only (cis) women can be Sailor Senshi. I chose not to apply from the manga largely because I don't have immediate access to it, but also because The Three Lights, including Seiya, were given an expanded role in the
Sailor Moon Sailor Stars TV Season. There's only one problem: Seiya and the other two Starlights - Taiki and Yaten - got one of the biggest character makeovers ever. Before North American dubbers even thought about making Haruka & Michiru cousins, Japanese TV execs noticed the *cough*
wave that the two characters made. So when they saw a female Seiya hitting on Usagi
as a major romantic subplot, they promptly said NO HOMO and decided to just... make the Starlights male in civilian form. Like, full-bodied males. I bring this up partly for educational purposes, but also to emphasize that I am very aware of the OOC side of Seiya's character development in the anime being vastly different from the manga. As I'll explain below, I do not believe that Seiya is (currently) a trans* character, but the character does hit several points within the greater LGBT community and I intend to do her justice as a bi/omni woman myself. Thus, I will continue to use female pronouns to refer to her and for when she refers to herself, even as she continues cross-dressing as a guy and other characters will (hopefully) refer to her with male pronouns in civilian form.
So let's talk about aliens. Seiya is a humanoid alien from the planet Kinmoku;
Kou Seiya is the name she adopted when she came to Earth, Kou being the given name. J-Pop Idols often write their names in Western order, but the Three Lights also use Kou as each of their given names as a kind of pun. That being said, we know that Seiya is the name that other characters from Kinmoku call her in the heat of battle and it's what she calls herself. We will henceforth assume that some variation of Seiya is the name she was born with and at the very least the name she prefers anyway. Kinmoku has 3 satellite moons (minimum) and the Sailor Starlights represent those satellites, in the same way that Sailor Mercury represents the planet Mercury and Sailor Uranus represents the planet Uranus.
Kinmoku's Tankei Kingdom was ruled by Princess Kakyuu, the functional equivalent of Queen Serenity or Prince Endymion. By the admission of the Starlights, they had other comrades in the Tankei Kingdom, but whether they were fellow Senshi or just warriors like
Endymion's generals is left unclear. What we do know is that several years prior to the series start, Sailor Galaxia descended upon their home world and started cultivating star seeds from the populous. If a person was not in possession of a True Star Seed (which mostly only Sailor Senshi have - notable exception being Chiba Mamoru / Tuxedo Kamen), they were turned into a
Phage, one of the Monsters Of The Day. The difference here is that since a Phage is created from a person, killing the Phage kills the person too. Apparently, only Princesses posses the kind of power that can heal a Phage instead of kill it. So now you have a war on Planet Kinmoku and through sheer numbers the Tankei Kingdom cannot win, because every ally lost is an enemy gained pretty much. Princess Kakyuu recognized the futile attempt and made her escape to search for a greater power that could help them win the war against Galaxia, even though they were losing the battle for their planet. The effect this had on Seiya was two-fold: guilt over surviving the destruction of planet Kinmoku when literally everyone except 3 others didn't, and then a ruthlessness when it came to lives lost on the battlefield. By the time Seiya reaches Earth, she has no qualms about killing Phage because she's reconciled the fact that she cannot help them, and the one person she knows who can is not available to do so. It was the nature of a soldier being at war.
Somehow Princess Kakyuu did convey the general direction she was headed, because Seiya makes it clear when she reveals the Starlights' past to Usagi in episode 190 that the Starlights headed straight for Earth, probably as a fighting retreat. We also know the war on Kinmoku probably lasted more than a year, because Taiki says in episode 179 that it has been several years since she laughed, contextually implying that she hasn't laughed since the war began. When the Starlights arrive on Earth, they must have asked someone "What is the easiest way to find a woman here?" - to which this Japanese person replied, probably with tongue firmly in cheek, "be a male Idol." As in, be a male music star and attract female fans. So began the distinction between female Starlights and male Pop Idol trio The Three Lights.
Seiya's Alien Physiology: When Princess Kakyuu sees the Starlights' male forms for the first time (in canon) in episode 194, she does not act shocked that they can change their bodies. It's said with the air of "Oh you chose to wear a suit this morning instead of a dress." I take it to mean that the Starlights, if not Kinmoku people as a whole, have a power similar to Sailor Moon's Disguise Pen in which they can choose a Civilian Form to de-transform into using the power of their transformation item, the Sailor Change Star. It just so happens that they consistently choose male forms while on Earth. That being said, at canon start, Seiya and the other Starlights do act like cis women doing a very elaborate, magically-assisted cross-dressing act when they speak in private amongst themselves. Their plan is to pose as male Pop Idols for the sake of their mission as Kinmoku's last warriors, not much different from the manga, so that their music can be spread by their fanbase and so their princess eventually hears it. The point is that the Starlights, if not Kinmoku people as a whole, apparently posses a kind of sonic telepathy already, so a super-powered Disguise Pen item isn't really that much of a stretch to me when we're talking alien technology. Sexuality and gender identity is something that Seiya starts to explore further beyond the canon point I'm pulling her from, but that could happen in game very easily - in fact it likely will - it's just not something she's had much need to consider until Usagi came along.
Once again referring to Taiki's remark about several years passing, I don't think it's too much to guess that Seiya, Taiki, and Yaten have been on the Earth posing as young men for at least a year. They have a fan club with thousands of members -
thousands. They have photographers approaching
them for gigs to make a name for themselves. They appear in commercials, TV dramas, star in a Superhero movie, and star in musicals in the course of the Sailor Moon Stars series itself. They sell out packed amphitheaters in 1996, before the days of Youtube self-made sensations, when the only hits crossing over from America were R&B crooners and Pop Diva belters and otherwise non-entity songs that happened to appear in Japanese TV shows. I think half the reason the Starlights got bigger roles in the anime series is in fact because of Naoko Takeuchi predicting the absolute explosion of Pop Idol status that was on the horizon. 1996 was one year before
Morning Musume hit, and in 1997 you suddenly had 3 of the Top 40
Oricon songs coming out of anime theme music. Even if we assume that within a month of
deciding to be pop stars that they were 'discovered' through magical assistance and plot contrivance, that kind of impact still requires months by my estimation, if not a year or more. Seiya in particular is very, very comfortable with using male-gendered nouns to refer to herself in public, calling herself a "Pro" Idol, and in her role as an All-Star at a high school to impress the girls of the Three Lights fanclub, thus gaining more listeners for their music.
Speaking of their fan club, that's how they're introduced to the show - the Inner Senshi girls minus Usagi are all in the Three Lights fanclub. The Starlights are formally introduced
in episode 173. The two main running plots follow the dichotomy of having a Sailor Senshi identity. While Kou Seiya is hitting on Usagi, charming the other Inner Senshi girls, and generally acting like an unflappable teenage rockstar enjoying highschool shenanigans, Sailor Star Fighter is getting into tiffs with Earth's Sailor Senshi over whether or not they should be allies and how capable they may not be when it comes to defending their own planet. This repeats for several serial plots, but from episode 181 on Seiya also begins to suspect that Usagi is Sailor Moon and tries to tell her about being Sailor Star Fighter. This happens when Seiya takes Usagi out on a not!date to an amusement park, trying to determine if Usagi could be their princess... until episode 188. Galaxia's henchman Sailor Aluminum Siren discovers Usagi's identity at the end of episode 187, then hatches a plan that takes place in episode 188. She traps Sailor Moon / Usagi on a plane, but in doing so forces the 4 Inner Senshi to reveal their identities to the Starlights and the Starlights to likewise reveal themselves to the Inner Senshi. While they defeat Siren, Seiya knows that their relationship (platonic or otherwise) has to change to reflect their Sailor identities. What happens next is the Outer Senshi, defenders against threats outside their solar system, insist that Usagi stay away from the Starlights as hostile interlopers. Taiki and Yaten tell Seiya much the same thing, that Usagi and the Senshi will only get in the way of their mission to find Princess Kakyuu. They even chastise Seiya for mistaking Usagi for Princess Kakyuu. The very next episode, Seiya and Usagi apologize to each other for keeping secrets after they'd become such good friends as civilians, despite their teammates pulling them apart and Seiya realizing she might be falling for Usagi. Then the Inner Sailor Senshi find themselves combating Siren's replacement, Sailor Lead Crow, and a Phage, but her cohort Sailor Tin Nyanko is on the scene for a sneak attack aimed at Sailor Moon. Seiya notices this and jumps in to take the hit, untransformed, which knocks her out completely. Taiki and Yaten appear to angrily remove Seiya from Sailor Moon's arms and order her to leave Seiya alone again.
At last we come to the pull point, episode 190, when Seiya emerges wounded to a confrontation between the transformed Outer Senshi, Sailor Star Maker (Taiki), and Sailor Star Healer (Yaten). Even though she promises not to meet Usagi (or Sailor Moon), she encourages Usagi to come to their live concert that night. Instead of singing to find her princess, Seiya uses the same telepathic powers to sing an abbreviated backstory at Usagi alone, who is listening from a nearby Ferris Wheel, explaining how Galaxia had destroyed the Starlights' homeworld and that they were looking for their princess. Since Seiya was really not that well recovered from the attack, the effort exhausted her and she collapsed on stage. While Taiki and Yaten made attempts to revive her, Seiya will wake up in Exsilium.
Character PERSONALITY: Seiya was designed as a cross between Haruka and Mamoru, and it shows. Her civilian introduction to Usagi parodies how Mamoru was introduced and showcases the kind of Cooler Than Thou personality that helps people mistake Haruka for a guy. The funny thing is, most of that was just her putting on airs.
Seiya cross-dressing as a young man is exactly that -- just clothes and a deep undercover mission, right now. That feeling may change for her in-game, like a con artist who buys their own con, but right now she seamlessly moves between bodies in ways that are truly alien. Yaten said it best: "I don't think boys and girls should be separated." Whatever society Seiya came from, she has been molded of late by the highly traditional bimodal gender spectrum of Japan in terms of what is expected of men and women. Cross-dressing is part of her job right now, but as she befriends more progressive minds (and Usagi all over again) she may find herself gravitating to a Trans*, Bigender, etc. gender label or simply different sexuality labels on the LGBTQIIA alphabet soup spectrum. Right now though, it simply doesn't define her; whether that's because of the change from manga to anime or because there's a lesbian power couple as 2 of those most popular characters in the cast, the Sailor Moon canon treats it as
different but not mind-blowing. Seiya herself laments that "Kou Seiya's time is short" meaning she still does not really identify with the male body she wore so often.
She walks and talks a lot tougher than she sometimes feels, which draws her particularly close to Usagi because Usagi can admit that about herself, while Seiya feels like she owes it to her Soldier status, her mission, and her princess to put up a strong front. Cross-dressing as a guy and falling back on stereotypically masculine traits -- such as being a workaholic, shallowly egotistical, her competitive streak, and sacrificing personal feelings in wartime -- has helped her maintain that front with strangers. The deeper logic is there though, despite the outward appearance of shallowness; the Starlights genuinely do need to be popular, they need to appeal to their fanbase, they need to be attractive to women for their mission to succeed, as ridiculous as the premise may sound. They have to have an audience to spread their message. Other traits are just posturing - Taiki and Yaten remark that Seiya hates to lose, and she does practically run over a basketball member to score a basket in a casual Basketball club game, but then keeps her cool when she's bested in American Football by the club's team captain. She plays it off as a guy thing, but it's much more like the respect a commanding officer can have for their squad. The intensity she displays is genuine, absolutely, it's usually just for ulterior motives; when she is challenged by Member #1 of the Three Lights' own fanclub to a softball game, Seiya wants to win because Member #1 dissed Usagi and Seiya's friendship with Usagi.
Having strong feelings about anything - or lack of it - is something Seiya cannot hide in any guise she wears. She gets intensely angry at her own friends, the Starlights, and even punches Taiki at one point when Taiki suggests they cancel a concert; she cries tears of joy when Princess Kakyuu reappears as Sailor Star Fighter; and even her flirting as a male Idol is straightforward with little subtlety left to the imagination - which is why Haruka dislikes "him" almost immediately. The analogy to Seiya as a shooting star is not inaccurate; she can burn up almost anything in her path to what she wants, but she can also burn out from the effort. When Seiya stopped thinking that Usagi might be her princess and Usagi instead became a romantic interest for Seiya, it wracked Seiya to the core. More than anything, because she had come to care so deeply for Usagi, Seiya hated to see Usagi lonely over Mamoru being gone and even cried when they couldn't see each other as friends.
You can tell how intensely passionate Seiya will get about things (and people) she actually cares about - versus the masculine persona she cross-dresses as - by the events of episode 176. Seiya doesn't put forth her full effort into both math class and a musical the Three Lights are starring in, seeming to have failed at both. Once she cares enough about doing well that her time spent practicing actually increases her skill level, she succeeds at both by the end of the episode. Likewise, Seiya hasn't actually cared about anyone who has become a Phage in a year, minimum. When the musical's Director gets changed into a Phage, she is committed to destroying the Phage under the belief it is the best thing for the person at that point, but it tears her apart to think of killing another familiar face. She was prepared to do it, though; had it not been for Sailor Moon and Sailor Mars intervening, she'd have killed her new friend.
Especially in a place like Exsilium, where she can be more open about her alien heritage and generally relax the façade, she'll grow into the person we see at the end of canon. Beyond her current canon point, she's still Sailor Star Fighter but is more willing to compromise, to support others outside of her own causes, and most importantly to forge new alliances be they platonic or romantic. She will still see the missions as important, because to her Galaxia is not yet defeated, but as the pressure to perform as male goes away, so will her stress. She may still lash out time and again, because she wears those feelings so close to the surface, but she is decent enough to make amends when it happens. Thanks to Usagi, she has learned that accepting help is not weakness and friendships can make you stronger both in battle and in life.
» EXSILIUM INFORMATIONChosen WEAPON: Seiya's chosen Weapon will be her Sailor Change Star. In normal civilian form, this is a
winged charm she keeps in her pocket that becomes the
the front brooch on her Sailor Star Fighter uniform. During transformation and when attacking, the Sailor Change Star activates
a boom mic (seen here on Yaten) and winged star earpiece that sits on the left ear. As explained above, there are several abilities that Seiya will only be able to access while transformed using the Sailor Change Star. Additionally, the Sailor Change Star can itself be damaged, as it is a physical object; since it houses her Star Seed in canon anyway, damaging the brooch or magically disabling it will disperse her transformation (ribbons first then nothing at all) and potentially kill her.
When Senshi power up, they gain 2 things from their weapons/items: stronger attacks and power-enhancement via new transformations. Comparing the main scouts
Mercury (Inner) and
Uranus (Outer) we see the general progression as follows:
| Weapon Enhancement | Mercury | Uranus | Sailor Star Fighter |
| Base Transformation | Mercury Power | Uranus Planet Power | Fighter Star Power |
| Base Attack | Sabao Spray | World Shaking | Star Serious Laser |
| Upgrade of Base Attack | Sabao Spray Freezing | World Shaking w/ Space Sword | (1) |
| New Attack | Shine Aqua Illusion | Space Sword Blaster | (2) |
| Super Transformation | Mercury Crystal Power | Uranus Crystal Power | (3) |
| New Attack | Mercury Aqua Rhapsody | Space Turbulence | (4) |
| Eternal Transformation | (same as Super/costume+power change only) | (5) |
| Final Attack | Mercury Aqua Mirage | | (6) |
It's easy to look at the Sailor Senshi upgrades as their canon's variant of the shoujo trope
So Last Season, but each attack and transformation are actually dynamic enhancements at the time they appear. The Senshi's back is against the wall and
something changes - their emotional state is renewed, they come up against a too-powerful foe, a friend is danger, they are trapped, their life is on the line... you get the idea. I don't want to predict too directly what sorts of powers that Seiya will develop with her Weapon because they should be dynamic to the problem she is facing; the common thread will be elemental type (Light/energy) and possibly nothing else. Each Senshi has shown a capacity for direct attacks, terrain altering, defensive wards, and so forth, all depending on what kind of power they felt they were lacking in the moment. The boom mic could activate a targeting system, or the Sailor Change Star could develop into a melee weapon like Pluto's staff, Saturn's glaive, or Uranus's sword.
Likewise, the transformations come less from a need to adapt to a weird scenario and more a total power upgrade, but only when there is emotion to catalyze the first of the new transformations. With the Sailor Change Star being more intelligent in Exsilium, this will allow Seiya's powers to adapt with her gender identity. Again, without hard-coding a progression of her character, it is possible for Seiya to realize that being male 24x7 suits her better, or at least that transforming back into a female body to fight is discomforting. Regardless of where Seiya is in the 6-step progression outlined above, a gender and sexuality identity crisis is the one thing I predict to catalyze a new transformation from Seiya - or even an attack if she doesn't feel she needs to change, only to get more powerful.
While many people have taken their stab at alternate Sailor uniforms, I have found a few pieces of inspiration if the need arises:
» SAMPLESFirst PERSON:[Seiya is still not 100% positive she's not dreaming, considering her last memory is of falling at the concert. All the same, a video to tentatively check on things.]Excuse me, but I think I paid a bit better attention in my history class than all of this. It doesn't make any sense - I was just on Earth and maybe the average person wasn't aware of world events, but I'm an Idol, and a pro keeps ahead of trends.
And if this a joke, it isn't funny.
[In reality, she's hoping this really is a joke. Her voice starts to quaver.] War is a terrible thing to joke about, even for one of those Gotcha! shows.
[Then she tries a fake laugh.] So come on out Taiki, Yaten... Odango? Usagi? If this is your idea of punishment, Tenou, it's a little extreme, don't you think?
[But the dawning realization that there is some greater threat happening, that maybe she did completely miss a war that could have swallowed up her princess... it's making her sick to her stomach even as she stands there and tries to answer everyone who responds. She was already feeling like a failure - this is about to break the camel's back.]Third PERSON: Test Drive Meme Link» ADDITIONAL NOTESNothing else except I really am trying to be respectful with the character for OOC reasons, while focusing on the fact that she is more than her magical naughty bits.
[Seiya has the tablet set up so the edges of the video feed are also the edge of the room. Behind her is Lyra the Harp, seen at right, who is one of Lucy Heartphilia's (
