Silence Wall and Silent Wall

     Let us now analyze another one of Sailor Saturn’s special maneuvers.  In volume fourteen of the manga, when Jun Jun of the Amazones Quartetto attacks Sailor Saturn and Sailor Chibi Moon with her Medicine Ball, Sailor Saturn protects herself and her friend by performing her Silence Wall¹⁵.  The name of Sailor Saturn’s defensive maneuver really is Silence Wall because the katakana characters Sairensu Wru represent those two English words.

     In anime episode 172, Sailor Saturn performs a similar defensive maneuver.  She says “ Sairensu Wru” and we can easily hear the final su in Sairensu¹⁶.  It seems that maneuver is called Silence Wall.

     Those who worked on the anime continuity might have decided to change the name of that maneuver after they worked on episode 172.  Sailor Saturn performs her defensive maneuver in episode 196, and again in episode 197¹⁷.  When she calls out the name of the maneuver in both episodes, she says, “ Sairento Wru,” and she clearly enunciates that to syllable in Sairento.  The katakana characters sairento represent the English word silent¹⁸.  It is safe to say that, in those two episodes, Sailor Saturn says, “Silent Wall” instead of “Silence Wall.”

Silence Glaive Surprise

     Many fans claim that Sailor Saturn performs a maneuver called “Silence Glaive Apply.”  That is not true.  She does perform a maneuver in the anime and manga called Silence Glaive Surprise.  The katakana characters that represent the words are Sairensu Gureibu Sapuraizu¹⁹.  If the name were “Silence Glaive Apply,” then the katakana characters would have been Sairensu Gureibu Apurai²⁰.

     Incidentally, I know who came up with the name “Silence Glaive Apply.”  Janelle Jimenez, who once maintained the well-known Web site The Everchanging Sailor Moon Gateway, sent me this message one day:

     The “wonderful site” that she mentioned in her message referred to my now-defunct Web site called Resignation.  It was a Sailor Saturn site, and it happened to be listed as Anime Turnpike’s “Pick of the Week” for 22 February 1999.  It is a shame that Janelle never got around to put redo her Sailor Saturn Web site.

     I am happy to know who came up with that erroneous name!  It is also nice to know that Janelle liked my Web site.  After I read her message, I responded to it:

     Unfortunately, I never completed the “Renascence” version of my Web site.  At any rate, Janelle sent me one more message:

     Now that we know the proper name of the maneuver, it would be a good idea to discuss what happens when Sailor Saturn performs it.

     Sailor Saturn performs Silence Glaive Surprise once in the manga.  In volume fourteen, act thirty-nine, Sailor Saturn and Sailor Chibi Moon fight with the Amazones Quartetto.  At one point, Sailor Saturn attacks the four girls by performing that maneuver.  The four girls are confused for a few moments.  At that time, they are unable to attack.  We can see them laughing and smiling after the haze or light that the maneuver creates disappears²⁴.

     Unfortunately, many fans claim that Sailor Saturn’s Silence Glaive Surprise is the maneuver that ruins Nehellenia’s mirror palace in anime episode 172.  They think they see that Silence Glaive Surprise is the maneuver that Sailor Saturn performs to destroy the world because they have decided that is true after reading the information on many Web sites.  That is circular “proof.”  We know that the anime sources state that the accepted idea is that, as far as the anime is concerned, Sailor Saturn needs to bring down her Silence Glaive to destroy the world.  (Sailor Saturn’s encounter with Nehellenia shows that her powers of destruction are not all-or-nothing.  She has to be successful in unleashing her powers.)  Those sources do not mention that she needs to recite a three-word incantation to unleash that power.  A three-word incantation is not necessary.  We know what the accepted idea is, so saying that Silence Glaive Surprise should have something to do with bringing down the Silence Glaive to destroy the world simply because she performs it before she uses her power to destroy palace is to use fallacious post hoc ergo propter hoc reasoning.

     The reader should watch that part of episode 172 in order to get a better understanding of what happens when Sailor Saturn performs the Silence Glaive Surprise maneuver.  Please download this .zip file, unzip, and watch the .rm file.

     In that clip, Sailor Saturn says, “Silence Glaive Surprise.”  After she says those words, a ball of purple energy appears from the top of her weapon.  It expands and produces several cracks in the floor.  (The cracks in the floor do not count as explosions.  The purple lights do not count as explosions, either.)  The purple energy moves out of the windows of the palace to produce beams of light.  Then Sailor Saturn begins to bring down her weapon.  The actual explosion does not occur until after then.  When the explosion occurs, the purple lights disappear.  An observant viewer will notice that Sailor Saturn does not even begin to bring down her weapon until after she says the words “Silence Glaive Surprise.”  One could claim that Silence Glaive Surprise is part of the process of bringing down the Silence Glaive, but the scene does not confirm that.  (If a separate maneuver is part of bringing down process, then why did any of the anime souces not mention that?)  Sailor Chibi Moon intervenes before Sailor Saturn can complete the action of bringing down the Silence Glaive.  Even an incomplete version of Sailor Saturn’s world-destroying power produces a large explosion!

     Someone may ask “If Silence Glaive Surprise is not what destroys the world, then what is the point of it?”  It has already been pointed out that in the manga, the manga version of Silence Glaive Surprise manages to make the Amazones Quartetto stop trying to attack Sailor Saturn for a short time.  We should notice that in the anime, after Sailor Saturn performs Silence Glaive Surprise, she manages to make Nehellenia stop using her lightning power.  A maneuver that makes her enemy stop attacking her, like the manga version of Silence Glaive Surprise, would be useful then.  Nehellenia is distracted by the anime version of the maneuver in a similar way that the Amazones are distracted by the manga counterpart.  (Of course, the maneuver in the anime is not foolproof against everybody: Sailor Chibi Moon, who has been lying next to Sailor Saturn, does manage to stop Sailor Saturn from bringing down her weapon completely.)  The notion that the anime version of Silence Glaive Surprise is a maneuver that distracts the enemy in the anime like its manga counterpart would make sense for three reasons: 1) it makes the anime version closer to Ms. Takeuchi’s original version, 2) it shows the similarity between what happens to the Amazones and what happens to Nehellenia, and 3) it makes it so that it is closer to what the anime sources tell us about the accepted notion about bringing down the Silence Glaive.

     (On the other hand, the notion that the anime version of Silence Glaive Surprise is either part of the Glaive-bringing-down process or solely responsible for the destruction of the palace [such that the Glaive-bringing down process is irrelevant] makes less sense for three reasons: 1) it make the anime version not as close to Ms. Takeuchi’s original version, 2) the two versions are not as comparable [the Amazones do not necessarily have to worry much about being destroyed by the power of that maneuver, but Nehellenia does have to worry about being destroyed by the power of the maneuver], and 3) it makes it so that it is not as close to what the anime sources tell us about the accepted notion about bringing down the Silence Glaive.)

Conclusions

     It should be clear by now that many of the ideas that people have about the powers of Sailor Saturn that are shown in the Bishjo Senshi Sr Mn anime are not accurate.  There is no need to speculate what Sailor Saturn’s most important powers can and cannot do.  The official sources often give us clear answers to our questions.  From what we have discussed in this article, we can draw several conclusions about Sailor Saturn’s powers in the Bishjo Senshi Sr Mn anime.

     1. The anime and manga sources say that Sailor Saturn, when she wishes to destroy the world, needs to bring down her Silence Glaive.  No three-word incantation is ever mentioned to be part of the world-destroying power of hers.

     2. In the anime, if she brings down her Silence Glaive to unleash her world-destroying power, and she is successful, she will die.  Her power is not all-or-nothing.  In the manga, she can unleash her world-destroying power, but she does not die because of doing that.

     3. In the anime, Sailor Saturn uses her “power of destruction” to destroy Master Pharaoh 90.  It seems that the power could kill her, but the power of Super Sailor Moon saves her.  Sailor Saturn does not die then, but Hotaru does get to start over as a baby.  There is nothing that tells us specifically that Sailor Saturn is successful in bringing down her weapon when she fights the enemy.

     4. Sailor Saturn may die in the anime because of her destroying the world, but that does not mean that she is forbidden to use her powers.

     5. She may perform her Death Reborn Revolution maneuver in the anime, but we are never shown it.  The official sources never mention it, either.

     6. She says the words Silence Wall in the manga, but she says two different things in the anime when she performs her defensive maneuver: Silence Wall (in episode 172) and Silent Wall (in episodes 196 and 197).

     7. Sailor Saturn never says, “Silence Glaive Apply.”  In the anime and manga, she really says, “Silence Glaive Surprise.”

     8. In the anime and manga, her bringing down the Silence Glaive to destroy the world is not necessarily connected directly to her Silence Glaive Surprise maneuver.  According to what we know about the anime (Nehellenia is distracted and no explosion occurs until after Sailor Saturn begins to bring down her weapon), Ms. Takeuchi’s original idea of Silence Glaive Surprise, and the information stated in the anime sources, it makes more sense that Silence Glaive Surprise is a maneuver that Sailor Saturn performs in order to distract her enemies.

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