Three Lights

     The question of whether K is meant to be the Three Lights’ personal name or their surname has been hotly debated in message forums and on Usenet for years.  Before we examine the names Seiya, Yaten, and Taiki, we should understand why the answer to that popular question is simpler to ascertain than people realize.

     It is necessary to understand how the Japanese write their names in the Japanese script.  In the Introduction of DIES GAUDII, it is shown how Ms. Takeuchi writes her name as .  The characters that represent the sounds in her surname, Takeuchi, are .  The characters that represent her personal name, Naoko, are .  Her name would never appear as .  When people write her name in Roman letters, it can appear as either Naoko Takeuchi or Takeuchi Naoko.  Notice that I avoided the phrases first name and last name.  When English-speaking people use the phrase last name, they usually think of a person’s family name or surname.  It is important to know that when the Japanese transliterate non-native Japanese surnames and personal names into their script, they use the sequence that the original language uses.  Therefore, my name would appear as Ian Mir in Japanese texts, not as Mir Ian.

     If the Three Lights have Japanese names, then it should not be a difficult to determine whether K is supposed to be their surname or their personal name.  Now we should examine the characters that are used to write their full names.

     In each of their names, the kanji that represents K () is always the last one⁶⁸.  Their names are never written as , , and .  If they were, then the kanji would represent their surname.  Since kanji are used to write their full names, and those kanji are associated with Japanese pronunciations, it is safe to say that the names themselves are Japanese.  Therefore, their names should follow the Japanese name sequence of surname first, personal name last.

     The smaller katakana characters above the kanji act as furigana, which allow people to know the intended pronunciations of the associated kanji.  Some fans may argue that since katakana characters are used, the names are in fact non-Japanese.  That claim is erroneous because katakana characters do not only represent non-Japanese names.  Reika, Motoki’s girlfriend, writes her name with the katakana characters ⁶⁹.  Reika is a native Japanese name⁷⁰, but that does not mean that her name is non-Japanese.  The Three Lights’ full names would not be non-Japanese anyway because all of those katakana characters represent modern Japanese pronunciations associated with those kanji.  (Those pronunciations might have derived from Mandarin Chinese, but they are now fully Japanese today.)  The kanji , for instance, represents the k sound only in the Japanese language⁷¹.  Even if the furigana characters are katakana characters, the names are still Japanese.

     The Three Lights came from the planet Kinmoku, so they are not native Japanese people.  Even so, the names that they use on Earth are Japanese.  The three characters are from another planet, but that is not enough to claim that their Japanese names are not supposed to follow the rules for Japanese names that are written in the Japanese script.  Those names may be pseudonymns, but the characters treat them as real Japanese names.  Taiki’s full name appears with Ami’s full name and other Japanese names in the anime and manga.  Someone argued that the K are titles instead of names, but the official sources do not indicate that.  The person did not provide any evidence from any of the official sources that could support his claim.  Furthermore, he did not specify whether Seiya, Taiki, and Yaten are supposed to be personal names or surnames.

     One could claim that many famous idols and people whose names are known outside of Japan will use their name the western way: personal name first, surname last.  However, when idol singers who have Japanese names write their names in the Japanese script, the written characters that represent the surnames appear before the written characters that represent the personal names.  When they write their names with Roman letters on their CD covers and elsewhere, they have the freedom of using the eastern sequence (personal name last, surname first) or the western sequence (personal name first, surname last).  The idol Nanase Aikawa, for instance, writes her name as in Japanese, but her name can be written as Nanase Aikawa and Aikawa Nanase in Roman letters.

     Even Japanese people who are not idols often write their names either way (western or eastern) when they use Roman letters.  If their names are Japanese, and they write their names in the Japanese script, they are restricted to using the eastern sequence.  I pointed out earlier that Ms. Takeuchi uses the characters to write her name in Japanese, but she often writes her name in Roman letters as Naoko Takeuchi.

     Someone could say that it seems strange that the Three Lights have the same personal name.  However, their having the same personal name is not enough to conclude that we should reject the rules of reading Japanese names in the Japanese script since the rules allow three people to have the same personal name.  According to the Sailor Moon FAQ by Ken Arromdee, Ms. Takeuchi stated that the three characters are not related⁷².  However, it is not known exactly what she said.  If the three characters are indeed not related, someone could say that it seems strange that those characters have the same surname.  Regardless of whether they are related, and regardless of whether they have the same personal name or the same surname, they can still link the K in their names to the name Three Lights.  The kanji that represents the K () means light⁷³.  If the in each of their names is supposed to be the personal name, then the three characters can be thought of as three Ks or three Lights (if we translate the kanji).  If the in each of their names is supposed to be the surname, then the three characters can be thought of as three Ks or three Lights (if we translate the kanji).

     There is a site that claims that “more often than not, Usagi calls everyone close to her, in her age group, by their first name through the entire series.”  The author of that site apparently made that claim in order to make it seem as if K is more likely the surname of the Three Lights.  It is true that Usagi does not usually refer to each of the Three Lights as K, but Usagi does refer to several other people her age by their surnames.  Usagi and the other characters always refer to Umino by his surname, Umino, not by his personal name, Gurio⁷⁴.  In the anime, Usagi and the others refer to Urawa by his surname, Urawa, not by his personal name, Ry⁷⁵.  It would not be unreasonable to think that Usagi would refer to Seiya, Taiki, and Yaten by their surnames.

     When Ms. Takeuchi was at the San Diego Comic-Con in 1998, someone apparently asked her whether K is the Three Lights’ surname or personal name.  At least one person claims that she said that K is the surname while another person claims that she said that K is the personal name.  Ms. Takeuchi probably answered in terms of “last names”/“first names” or something like that (instead of “surnames” and “personal names”), so her answer would be ambiguous.  There is one person (Lunar Archivist) who made a recording of the entire question and answer part of the Ms. Takeuchi visit.  Unfortunately, the quality of the recording is relatively poor.  Ms. Takeuchi most likely meant that K is the characters’ because of how she wrote those names in Japanese.  Whatever Ms. Takeuchi said, she did not indicate that K is supposed to be a title.

     The author of a certain Usenet message said that a Japanese person claimed that K and the characters switched their names from , , and to , , and because the characters are famous.  (The author of that message is referring to the names written in the Japanese script because those names are only in the Japanese script in the cited manga book.)  How could the Japanese person know that the characters switched the order of their names?  Such an idea is never brought up in any of the official sources.  The Japanese person gives an answer of why the characters switched their names, but she does not explain how she knew that.  Japanese names follow a specific order when they are written in the Japanese script, so when is it okay for the names of famous people to follow a different order when the names are written in the Japanese script?  Ms. Takeuchi and Ms. Aikawa are both famous people, but as far as we know, they did not switch the order of their names.

     According to a well-known online Japanese online dictionary, the kanji , when it represents the k sound, can be used as a given name or a personal name⁷⁶.  That fact gives us more of a reason to think that K is the Three Lights’ personal name.  Could that kanji be used as a surname?  Some Japanese people might have used it that way, but its use as a personal name is evidently more common such that the dictionary lists it as a personal name, not a surname.

     The author of the FAQ section of the Makenai Web site wrote:

     Someone can introduce Usagi as either “Usagi Tsukino” or “Tsukino Usagi” even though her name appears as in Japanese.  People may introduce the Three Lights as “Seiya K,” “Taiki K,” and “Yaten K,” but he or she could also say “K Seiya,” “K Taiki,” and “K Yaten.”  No matter how a person says their names, and no matter how one writes their names in Roman letters, their names always appear as , , and in the Japanese script.  There is ambiguity when people say the names, but there is no ambiguity when the names are written , , and .

     If the the three characters are introduced as “Seiya K,” “Taiki K,” and “Yaten K”, and they are in the western format, then we should see their names appear as , , and in the Japanese script on the official sources.  However, their names never appear that way.

     It is also important to understand that the Three Lights call out their own names while somebody else calls out Usagi’s name (and used the western sequence of surname last).  Different people can use different sequences even if they are being inconsistent.

     Incidentally, the cover of the Three Lights’ “Nagareboshi E”/“- my friends love” CD single shows their names in Roman letters and in the Western sequence as “Kou Seiya,” “Kou Yaten,” and “Kou Taiki.”  Their names appear in the usual Japanese sequence in the Japanese script, too: [sic] (Seiya K), (Yaten K), and (Taiki K).  Three other Japanese names, “Shiho Niiyama,” “Narumi Tsunoda,” and “Chika Sakamoto” also appear in the Western sequence.  (Those are the names of the Three Lights’ voice actresses.)  Those names are also written in the Japanese script in the usual way: (Niiyama Shih), (Tsunoda Narumi), (Sakamoto Chika).  So the writer consistently placed Japanese surnames before the personal names when the full names appear in the Japanese script, and consistently placed surnames after the personal names when the full names appear in Roman letters.  There are some oddities, though.  Notice that the writer does not consistently handle long vowels.  He or she wrote “Kou,” but then he or she wrote “Shinho” instead of “Shinhou.”  (“Kou” would go with “Shinhou,” and “Ko” would go with “Shinho.”)  Furthermore, Seiya’s name is misspelled.  The name should be written as , not .  (That is probably where people get the idea that Seiya’s full name means star arrow light.)

     After looking at the evidence that we have been given in the anime and manga, it is not unreasonable for us to conclude that Ms. Takeuchi intended K to be the personal name that the Three Lights use on Earth.  One particular Web site even claims that there are good arguments coming from both sides of this debate.  However, we have seen that the popular arguments for the claim that K is the Three Lights’ surname are fallacious.  The explanation of their names on this Web site is full of mistakes.  Some of those arguments were probably formulated by fans who were misled by the phrases first name and last name.  Perhaps the confusion would have been avoided if fans were not in the habit of using ambiguous terms such as first name and last name.  Some of those fans probably were not familiar with how Japanese names are supposed to be written in the Japanese script.

     Unless we can bring in evidence that shows that we are supposed to use special rules for reading Japanese names in the Japanese script, we can say with confidence that K is meant to be the Three Lights’ personal name.

     (Incidentally, if Ms. Takeuchi wrote the Three Lights’ personal name in Roman letters, she might have written “Koh” instead of “Kou.”  “Koh” would go along with her “Tenoh,” “Kaioh,” and “Meioh.”  The kana combination ou usually represents the long o sound.  In the later manga books, when Ms. Takeuchi wrote names of several of her characters in Roman letters, she indicated long ”o”s by placing “h”s after the “o”s.)

     Now that I have shown why Japanese orthography rules favor the idea that K is the Three Lights’ personal name, I shall now explain what the other characters in their names mean.

Seiya, K

     Some readers may recognize the middle kanji in Seiya’s name as the one that means field or wilderness (), but they may also wonder why there is not a no sound this time.  The reason is that a kanji, in most cases, does not always represent the same sound.  In Seiya’s surname, that kanji represents the sound ya, even though it still has the same meaning⁷⁷.  The first kanji () represents the sound sei, and it means star⁷⁸.  Although Seiya’s name can literally mean star field, it is actually being used as a surname.  Incidentally, the characters can also represent the name Hoshino, which is a Japanese surname and personal name⁷⁹.

     According to the Sheer Lunacy! Web site, the Japanese phrase seiyak (which means star field light), refers to the “light originating from distant stars which cannot be seen by the human eye.”

Taiki, K

     The first kanji Taiki’s surname () represents the sound tai, and it means big or large⁸⁰.  The other kanji () represents the sound ki, and it means spirit⁸¹.  Although those two kanji can come together to mean literally big air (), they actually represent taiki, which is a Japanese word that means atmosphere⁸².  Since those two kanji together mean atmosphere, it does not make sense to translate them literally as big air.  Incidentally, those two kanji () can also represent the surname ki⁸³.

     According to the Sheer Lunacy! Web site, the Japanese phrase taikik (which means atmosphere light), refers to the “light reflecting off of molecules and atoms in the upper reaches of the atmosphere.”

Yaten, K

     We have seen the second kanji in Yaten’s surname () in Haruka’s surname.  It represents the sound ten, and it means sky or heavens.  The first kanji in the name Yaten () represents the sound ya, and it means night⁸⁴.  Therefore, that name literally means night sky.  In Yaten’s case, is being used as a surname.

     According to the Sheer Lunacy! Web site, the Japanese phrase yatenk (which means night sky light), refers to the “collective name for all the lights in the night sky.”

Chiba, Mamoru

The Japanese write Mamoru’s personal name with the kanji .  The kanji in this case represents the verb mamoru, which means to protect or to guard⁸⁵.  That verb can also be written as ⁸⁶.  The popular Sailor Moon Role-Playing Game and Resource Book claims that mamoru means protector or defender, but it cannot mean those things because it is a verb.

     Mamoru’s surname is written with the kanji .  According to this online Japanese-English dictionary, those kanji represent the word chiba, which means local dealers.  In Mamoru’s case, the kanji are being used to write his surname.  The first kanji in his surname () is also the first kanji in Chiky , which is a Japanese name for the planet Earth⁸⁷.  In his previous life, Mamoru was Prince Endymion from Earth.  So, his surname hints at his association with that planet.

     Some fans evidently think that Tuxedo Mask is a name that came from the English-language dub of Bishjo Senshi Sr Mn.  On the contrary, the original Japanese sources, such as the original Japanese manga, show Tuxedo Mask in Roman letters.  The Japanese word kamen means mask⁸⁸!  Although Ms. Takeuchi uses , she specifically had the English word mask in mind.

Conclusion

     This article has shown that it is not enough to say that the names of the main characters in Bishjo Senshi Sr Mn literally mean this or that in Japanese.  For many of the names, there may be literal meanings of the kanji that are used, but the words that the kanji represent sound like other words that are completely unrelated.  Sometimes those kanji can represent different sounds.  It may be difficult to know what sounds the kanji represent, but sometimes the writers write furigana characters to show the readers the intended pronunciations.  Naoko Takeuchi knows how to come up with complex puns, and we can be entertained and enlightened when we look carefully at the names she used.