Welcome back to Mooniversity, our column for all things “Sailor Moon.” It is Halloween, and so we’re taking the opportunity to discuss a surprising running theme across most incarnations of the series, which is vampires. Why have vampires appeared in the manga, anime, and stage shows? You’d think werewolves would be a better fit given the Moon theme, but no.
Vampires made their debut in “Sailor Moon” early on, during the first season episode “The Summer, the Beach, Youth and Ghosts” (episode 20, aired August 1, 1992), where Usagi, Ami and Rei discover a hotel staffed by a vampire woman, a wolfman, and a Frankenstein Monster. They’re a harmless trio, prone to being as afraid as Usagi, and a reflection of how the show’s writers weren’t sure of how realistic it had to be, especially during filler episodes.
Naoko Takeuchi would bring vampires into canon with the first ‘Chibiusa’s Picture Diary‘ manga, ‘Beware of the Transfer Student!,’ where Chibiusa and friends discover new girl Lilica and her mother are bloodsucking beasts. This was subsequently adapted into a segment of the Sailor Moon SuperS Special aired at the start of the fourth season on April 8, 1995, although the anime toned down the story by simply making Lilica an ordinary girl who gets turned into a vampire by a Lemure.
in the musicals
By far the most prominent appearances vampires have in the franchise comes in the three musicals (plus one revision) that were performed from Winter 2000 to Spring 2001, which reimagine the ‘Infinity’ arc with Dracula (Dracul in Japanese) himself as an acquaintance of Professor Tomoe (who is possessed here by another undead monster.) These plays, which featured Yuuta Mochizuki (best known outside Japan for being the Red Ranger in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers‘ source material Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger) as Dracula, also drew on the stories of Morgan le Fay, Dracula’s daughter, Elizabeth Bathory, Lilith, and Cain and Abel, with it being revealed this version of the Count is actually Abel, not Vlad Tepes. It’s a shame the musicals are so obscure outside Japan, because I would love to know the thinking behind such a wild swing for the fences.
Which brings us to the question: why vampires? The simplest answer is that there’s a nighttime quality to these creatures in keeping with the Sailor Guardians’ celestial nature, but also an aristocracy and glamor that werewolves lack. Dracula is the ultimate aristocrat, literally feeding off the lower class, making him a perfect contrast to Usagi and Mamoru’s destiny as the Neo-Queen and King of Crystal Tokyo, who will heal the world eternal. It goes without saying Mamoru’s alter-ego Tuxedo Mask evokes Dracula’s classic evening wear, and the reincarnation story resembles some versions of Dracula where Mina Murray is the Count’s past love.
It’s also appropriate given the LGBTQ+ representation in “Sailor Moon,” and the queer themes that have been found in vampire fiction since (at the very least) 1872’s lesbian vampire novel Carmilla. LGBTQ+ people can relate to superheroes and vampires because they are different from the rest of society, with their secret identities and transformations/self-discoveries resembling the experience of being closeted or transitioning between genders. However, vampires, who can read as the ultimate expression of bigots’ paranoid fantasies about their targets seducing and preying on them, ultimately lead secret lives for selfish and cruel ends.
Finally, vampires are perversions of late, loved ones, cursed to become murderous cannibals. It’s a horror at the center of Bram Stoker’s original Dracula, where Mina’s sweet, young best friend Lucy Westenra is slowly turned into a monster who preys on children, forcing the men in the book to essentially desecrate her body to stop her. This fear of someone you love returning as a possessed nightmare is a constant in “Sailor Moon,” with Mamoru, Chibiusa, Hotaru, and eventually all of the Sailor Guardians falling under the spell of the manga’s villains by the time it ends. Is it any wonder vampires are such a surprisingly perfect foe for Usagi then?
Happy Halloween folks, and see you next time for when we discuss… something completely different. (OK, maybe it’s another show we’ve mentioned before.)
