Ten'ou Haruka
| Ten'ou Haruka |
Warning: Plot details follow.
Ten'ou Haruka (天王はるか) is a fictional character from the anime and manga Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon. Ten'ou Haruka (other variations include Tenoh and Tenno) is a stubborn, xenophobic, and overprotective individual, but is also strong-willed, capable, charming, and occasionally even doting. She is formerly introduced in the third season as Sailor Uranus, although her possible existence is alluded to in the second season. She is part of the four person group known informally in American fandom as the Outer Senshi (In the east, Jupiter is not considered an outer planet and due to its visibly from earth more easily, has different mythological properties).
| Table of contents |
|
2 Character |
Sailor Uranus is the soldier of the planet Uranus, and her element is air in the manga. However, due to an animation quirk, it often looks like an earth-based attack. Her planetary aura is blue in the manga, but in the anime, it varies between blue and orange.
Haruka's transformation command is "Uranus Planet Power, Make up!"
As Sailor Uranus, her powers include firing a concentrated energy bomb along the ground and using a magic sword which she acquired explicitly in the anime but already possessed in the original comic. In addition, Haruka herself is quite strong and shows grappling fight skills.
In the anime, Sailor Uranus' initial power is "World Shaking." When she does this move she makes a fist above her head, and then a yellow energy concentrates within. She subsequently slams her fist onto the ground and a transparent yellow sphere with a ring around it zig-zags back and forth until it lifts off the ground. The second attack Sailor Uranus uses in the anime is called "Space Sword Blaster." Using her talisman, a sort of scimitar, she raises it above her heard and begins to strike. Energy off the sword is what usually hits the enemy, and not the sword itself.
Haruka is also apparently a racecar driver, a logical plothole in the original manga once mentioned in the TV series as a good-natured rub. This is because Haruka is actually not older than most of the Senshi, and, despite misinformed fanon, barely sixteen years old when she appears.
Her other hobbies, as well as anything about her family life, are never discussed, although she and Michiru appear noticeably wealthy by unknown means. Popular fan fiction tends to speculate that like most of the other Senshi, her family life is problematic. She has been the target of sexism at one point in the animated series, but never of negative homophobia.
In the United States, Haruka was (and likely is) the most famous out lesbian character in anime. Haruka is also extremely flirtatious and loves to tease pretty girls who sometimes confuse her gender due to Haruka's tomboyish behaviour, although most people who confuse her for a man are either distracted by her good looks or simply do not pay enough attention.
Although her relationship with Sailor Neptune (Kaiou Michiru) is not implicitly "sexual" until later in the metaseries, their romantic situation is referred to early on and generally understood by most of the metaseries' characters fairly quickly. The creator of the manga (Naoko Takeuchi) also explicitly mentioned this at a fan convention to a particularly obtuse audience member. It is sometimes as a source of good natured humor, particulary because few of the other Senshi have serious romantic prospects in comparison and because the otherwise flirtatious Haruka finds it impolite to discuss people's romantic matters.
While most Americans are more familiar with the anime version of Haruka (an absolute crossdresser), in the original manga Haruka is more androgynous, wearing both feminine and masculine outfits, and more in tune with the traditional depiction of a beautiful androgynous woman in shoujo comics. Unusually, the manga artist goes as far as to draw Haruka physically different and more masculine when she is crossdressing, perhaps as an easy visual aid. All fan rumors about Haruka being a man, the reincarnation of one, or a hermaphrodite, are untrue. Naoko Takeuchi has explicitly stated multiple times that "Haruka is a girl. Always has been, always will be."
However, while superfically appearing as a femme/butch relationship, Haruka is generally regarded to be much more emotional and visceral (Michiru is often seen by fans as 'cold' by comparison), and shows quite motherly tendencies towards her adopted daughter, Tomoe Hotaru.
In yuri fandom, Haruka and Michiru are considered a hands-off pair due to their healthy love for each other, aloofness towards others, and writing scope of the plot according to canon. It is extremely difficult to slash them with anyone else, although many good natured "lemons" sometimes have Haruka in explicit trysts with other Senshi. (Officially, it is recognized that only Tsukino Usagi and Aino Minako have any long-standing attraction to Haruka - Minako slightly more so - Mizuno Ami, surprisingly, had never seemed interested in her looks.)
The anime and manga versions of the character are reasonably interchangeable, although arguably her masculine traits and stubborness are exaggerated in the TV program. Haruka (along with the Outer Senshi in general) is sometimes considered more cold and slightly unlikeable by some fans, due to the anime's more fatalistic and grim additions to the original manga plot. Aside from a brief vignette in a special, Haruka and the others do not return after the third season until the final fifth season, generally retaining the same personalities.
Haruka and the others do appear in the SuperS movie, although because its story is derived from the manga rather than from the anime, there are some changes. Notably, they are more overtly friendly and helpful, and Sailor Pluto is present (a contradiction to certain events in the third series). One of her most amusing scenes is the implication that while Haruka is a flatterer, she can get flustered herself if flirted with.
The North-American English dub changes her given name to Amara (an unusual non-phonetic twist, although it is Greek or Latin for 'eternal'). Michiru (now Michelle) is stated to be her cousin - mentioned several times, actually - and yet a noticeable amount of flirting is sometimes inexplicably left in the translation at times. Thus the edits are disliked but generally noticable, perhaps purposely so.
Although this semantically does not prove Amara isn't a lesbian - simply a relative to Michiru - most fans of the original are not particularly interested in this version of the character, considering by the time the relevant episodes of the series were dubbed most fans were well aware of changes within the adaptation.
Senshi Attributes
Transformation
Attacks
Character
| Sailor Moon Characters: |
| Tsukino Usagi | Chiba Mamoru | ChibiUsa | Chibi-Chibi | Sailor Starlights |
| Mizuno Ami | Hino Rei | Kino Makoto | Aino Minako |
| Meiou Setsuna | Kaiou Michiru | Ten'ou Haruka | Tomoe Hotaru |
| Luna | Artemis | Diana
Other characters: Professor Tomoe |