The following is the first part in a series of 'commandments' or 'rules' that I've seen in some form or another on various Sailor Moon related sites. This section deals with general guidelines within the Sailor Moon universe. Of course, I've included my two cents worth with each 'commandment' and heavy sarcasm is applied when necessary. All outside links open up in a new window. Feel free to send any feed back to .

01.) Thy sailor senshi must have a sailor collar.

I can see where this came from...those who believe that since the Sailors in the U.S. (or other countries that do so) Navy, [most] sailors have a sailor collar, and thus the belief that sailor senshi have to have a sailor collar to be a SAILOR senshi. Another view on this is that some believe that since every single sailor senshi within the Sailor Moon Manga/anime has sailor collars and is called Sailor(Whatever), that any/all senshi, otaku, canon, fake or otherwise mentioned HAS to have a sailor collar to be called Sailor(Whatever), otherwise no collar = no 'Sailor' in their name/title. But I don't follow either rule at all times. I've seen quite a few sailors (both from the U.S. Navy and sailor senshi) without sailor collars. And truely, some sailor senshi are more believable without sailor collars.

02.) Thou shalt not make thy sailor senshi resemble canon sailor senshi.

Ten million senshi (rough estimate) but only 5 million ways to draw them. Sooner or later, someone's bound to look like somebody else.

03.) Thou shalt not make thy sailor senshi perfect, in all aspects, don't make a senshi at all.

I partially agree with this. Heaven knows we need more senshi that are clones of Mary Poppins. But if that's the way you want to make her, she's your senshi and I can't/won't do a thing to stop you in making her YOUR way. As long as she's not directly cloning either a canon or fan created sailor senshi.

04.) Thy sailor senshi upon creation shall automatically be dubbed Mary-Sue.

If you truly believe this, then you might as well take a long walk off of a short peer. The original definition of Mary-Sue has become so deformed with time that people are becoming label happy with it. Basically Mary-Sue originally had the same description of Mary Poppins: Practically Perfect In Every Way. Everybody loved her, nobody hated her and she could do no wrong. Now-a-days, people changed it so Mary-Sue automatically meant a fan created character made to exist in a pre-existing world/universe that someone else created.

05.) Thou must have detailed details for thy sailor senshi, else why bother?

I've actually talked this over with several of my friends and most of them agreed that having detailed details about their sailor senshi just doesn't work for them. Why have information in the profile that isn't ever going to come up with in the whole storyline? It'd just be useless information.

06.) Thou shalt not crossover Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon characters with characters from other anime or manga.

Hey, if you're able to successfully cross over two or more different anime/manga, then more power to you. I've seen stories where it worked perfectly well crossing over Sailor Moon and Pokemon...and even Sailor Moon with the cartoon My Little Pony. It all depends on how you write it. I can't even fully write a whole 'season' for any of my fan fiction characters, much less characters that are already pre-existing. Like the saying goes; It isn't WHAT you write, it's HOW you write it.

07.) In fact, thou shalt not crossover information from the anime, manga, musicals or live action show.

For the most part, I agree with this one. Except where some parts are changed when done in a different medium. For example, in the SuperS season of the manga, the Amazon Trio get killed off, yet in the anime version they get taken by Helios to Elysian. Also in the manga, Luna, Artemis and Diana are able to freely move between feline and human forms, yet in the anime, the Silver Crystal was the only thing able to turn Luna human for just one night. In my Sailor Tiger site, I combine a bit of both anime and manga to make things more believable in her timeline. But crossing over doesn't work for everybody.

08.) Thou shalt not make any crystal or any other object as powerful or even more powerful than the Silver Crystal.

This one I generally go by. After all, the series IS called Sailor MOON, if some other character's going to be more powerful, have the most purest soul, the usurper to the throne, then it wouldn't be the same.

09.) Thou shalt not alter any season of Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon in thy fan fiction.

Although I generally like to adhere to this one, I've seen fan fictions that completely re-wrote the whole series, and did a pretty darned good job at it (example: The Earth Scout Chronicles).

10.) Thou must have a B.A. degree in writing, a PH.D. in astrology and Takeuchi Naoko-hime's personal blessing before even considering writing Sailor Moon fan fiction.

Personally, I'd just go with a spell checker, Merriam-Webster's Dictionary, Dictionary.com (because Merriam-Webster's Dictionary doesn't have definitions for all words) and at least one or two beta-readers who aren't afraid to tell you what how much they don't like how things are written and offer helpful hints and constructive criticism.

[ Print This Page | Back to the Articles ]