The Moon Cats · Pixel & Planets

Artemis from the 90s anime, a white cat with a gold crescent on his forehead, sitting up and smiling against soft blue, green and pink lights

japanese name: Artemis (アルテミス)
90’s english dub: Artemis
name meaning: the Greek moon-huntress
likes: video games, a well-run mission, Luna’s good opinion
dislikes: being teased, being scolded, cold water

Luna from the 90s anime, a black cat with a gold crescent on her forehead, looking up with her mouth open, on a pink and lilac ground

japanese name: Luna (ルナ)
90’s english dub: Luna
name meaning: the moon
likes: clever gadgets, a well-run plan, sardines, Artemis
dislikes: Usagi’s napping, dogs, being ignored

Diana from the 90s anime, a grey kitten with a gold crescent on her forehead and a bell on a red collar, trotting towards you with her mouth open

japanese name: Diana (ダイアナ)
90’s english dub: Diana
name meaning: the Roman goddess of the moon
likes: the Small Lady, her parents, being useful
dislikes: being parted from Chibiusa, losing her way

Takeuchi colour illustration of the three moon cats in human form against pink lace: Artemis tall, with long white hair, Diana as a little girl in a lavender dress, and Luna with long black hair in a yellow dress

the family

Luna and Artemis are partners, then a couple, then a family of three. On Earth they work as a pair. Artemis has Minako and Luna has Usagi, and by the time the team is whole the two cats are running it between them.

The romance takes its time. Artemis is fond of Luna from the start: he comforts her when she’s upset and tells her how much he admires her. Luna has a crush of her own, on Kakeru, the astronomer she gets one human night with in the S movie. The future settles it. In 30th-century Crystal Tokyo they’re together, with a daughter, Diana, who comes back through time as Chibiusa’s advisor. In the 90s anime she turns up calling Artemis her father, and Luna accuses him of cheating before anyone explains where the kitten came from.

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In service to the Moon

their service

the Moon Kingdom

Mau. Luna and Artemis come from Mau, a peaceful planet with a guardian of its own, Sailor Mau. The manga only says so in its last arc. It doesn’t show them leaving Mau, and it never says how they came to serve the Moon’s royal family. In that arc Sailor Tin Nyanko, a false guardian from Mau, calls them traitors who left Mau for the Moon and blames cats like them for Sailor Mau’s death. Mau itself had been destroyed by Sailor Galaxia. Tin Nyanko strikes the crescents on the cats’ foreheads and they become ordinary cats who can’t speak, though Princess Kakyuu says their star seeds shine as brightly as Sailor Crystals. They die before the end and are born again with everyone else when the series closes.

The Moon Kingdom. In the Silver Millennium they were Queen Serenity’s advisors. Luna was also the companion of the queen’s daughter, Princess Serenity, and was sworn never to leave her side. When the kingdom fell, the queen put both cats into a long sleep and sent them to Earth’s future to watch over the guardians when they were born again. Part of Luna’s memory was held back, so that she knew only her task: find the guardians and wake them.

Earth. They wake in Tokyo with one girl each. Artemis finds Minako first, gives her a crescent compact and a pen, makes her Sailor V and runs her missions through her solo years. Later he confirms her as leader of the guardians. Luna finds Usagi, gives her the brooch and makes her Sailor Moon, then sets up a command post under an arcade and wakes the others one at a time. Neither cat fights. They brief, advise and scold, and what they hand the girls comes from the queen.

Crystal Tokyo. In the thirtieth century Usagi rules Crystal Tokyo as Neo-Queen Serenity, and all three cats live in the palace. The third is Diana, Luna and Artemis’s daughter, born there. She serves the queen’s daughter, the Small Lady, as Luna once served Princess Serenity, and when Chibiusa comes back through time to the present, Diana comes with her as her advisor.

Takeuchi colour illustration of Luna in human form, with long black hair and a yellow dress, sitting on a golden crescent moon inside a silver frame hung with autumn leaves

Luna was one of Queen Serenity’s advisors in the Moon Kingdom. When the kingdom fell, the queen sent her into the future with one task: find the reborn princess and wake the guardians. In Tokyo she finds Usagi, gives her the brooch and makes her Sailor Moon, then sets up a command post under an arcade and recruits the others one at a time. She scolds Usagi for oversleeping, for eating and for crying, and what she passes on to her comes from Queen Serenity. Over the series she has one human night with Kakeru in the S movie, and in the future she and Artemis have a daughter, Diana.

read the Moon page →

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Usagi and Luna

shared thread

In the Silver Millennium Luna served the queen and her daughter. When it fell she was put to sleep and sent to Earth to wait. The manga has her leave the falling Moon Kingdom with a single charge, to find the princess and wake her guardians. The 90s anime spends a season on the same job, one monster at a time, and gives her more nagging to do.

She finds Usagi first, before Usagi is anything more than a girl with a bad report card and a black cat following her home. Luna tells her what she is, hands her the brooch and teaches her the words, and the story starts because Luna decided Usagi was the one. Everything Luna gives her, the brooch, the pen, the wand and the shape of a destiny, comes from a woman who could not stay. Later the story goes back further and gives the moon-cats a home planet of their own, Mau.

The manga side story The Lover of Princess Kaguya gives Luna one human night and a love she cannot keep, and the 90s anime adapts it as the S film. The live-action series goes further and makes her a girl for good, Sailor Luna. Every telling gives her back her cat form at the end, because her work needs a cat.

also carried by Sailor Moon

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Luna and Kakeru

the S movie

Sailor Moon S: The Movie (1994; Hearts in Ice in the English dub) gives Luna a love story of her own. She collapses in the road, and a young astronomer, Kakeru Ozora, takes her in and nurses her back to health. She falls for him. Kakeru believes a goddess lives on the Moon, and his girlfriend, the astronaut Himeko Nayotake, doesn’t, so they quarrel over it. Meanwhile a comet fragment he found is draining his life. It belongs to Princess Snow Kaguya, who has come to freeze the Earth.

When the guardians have beaten Kaguya, Usagi uses her wish to make Luna human for one night. Luna finds Kakeru in the snowstorm, at the spot where he once found her, and carries him up towards the Moon, close enough for Himeko to see them from space. Then she sends him back to Himeko, who he meets at the airport, and Luna and Artemis make up. The film is adapted from Takeuchi’s side story The Lover of Princess Kaguya, but it tells the story its own way and sits outside the series.

Takeuchi colour illustration of Sailor V in her red mask, winking and making a peace sign, with Artemis raising a paw in the corner, on a red-orange ground

Artemis is a white cat with a golden crescent on his forehead, and Luna’s partner from the Moon Kingdom. He found Minako Aino before there was a team, made her Sailor V and ran her missions through her solo years. Later he holds up the crescent compact to name her the soldier of love and beauty, and confirms her as leader of the guardians. He gives advice and doesn’t fight. Minako teases him and Luna corrects him, and he takes both with good humour. He’s a male cat named for the Greek moon-huntress, and the planet he serves is Venus. In Crystal Tokyo he and Luna are Diana’s parents.

read the Venus page →

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Artemis and Sailor V

Codename: Sailor V

▢Artemis and Sailor V

Codename: Sailor V isn’t Sailor Moon. It’s Takeuchi’s earlier series, a one-shot in RunRun in the summer of 1991 that became a serial running beside Sailor Moon until 1997, three volumes in all. It has one guardian, and the cat at her side is Artemis.

He introduces himself to a thirteen-year-old schoolgirl, Minako Aino, and tells her she can become a guardian stronger and more beautiful than anyone. He gives her a crescent-shaped compact and a magic pen, the pen makes her Sailor V, and he gives her the mission: protect the Earth in the name of her guardian planet, Venus. Through her solo years he’s her whole support staff: the briefings, the gadgets and the lectures. Her enemy is the Dark Agency, Danburite’s network of idols out to enslave the public.

It ends badly for her heart. The boy she falls for, Saijyo Ace, is Danburite in disguise, and when she strikes him down he dies cursing her never to find love. She remembers her past life and the princess she’s meant to protect, leaves Sailor V behind and sets out as Sailor Venus to find the others. Sailor Moon picks her up from there. Her side of the series is on Sailor Venus’s page.

Takeuchi colour illustration of Chibiusa in a white blouse and navy pinafore, head tilted and tongue out, with Diana winking from the ribbons on her head, among pink hearts

Diana is the daughter of Luna and Artemis, a grey-lavender kitten with red eyes, a small bell at her throat and a golden crescent on her forehead. She was born in 30th-century Crystal Tokyo and comes to the present as Chibiusa’s advisor, and she always calls Chibiusa “Small Lady”. She has her mother’s crescent and her habit of advising, but she’s polite to the point of shyness and hesitates before she gives advice. Luna serves Usagi, and Diana serves Usagi’s daughter.

read the Moon page →

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Chibiusa and Diana

shared thread

▢Chibiusa and Diana

Diana is a kitten out of the same future, Luna and Artemis’s daughter, born in 30th-century Crystal Tokyo. She arrives from a century that hasn’t happened yet. Her charge is Chibiusa, whom she calls Small Lady. In Japanese it comes with -denka, the address for an heir who isn’t yet a sovereign.

The manga and the anime disagree about when she turns up. The manga has her from the Black Moon arc, small and already at work. The anime holds her back two seasons and brings her in during SuperS, where she lands in the middle of a fight and explains on the spot that she is Luna and Artemis’s daughter and Small Lady’s companion.

A new Moon princess is given a new moon-cat, and the second is a softer copy of the first. Diana has the same crescent and the same instinct to advise, and she is much more polite. Where Luna scolds, Diana asks permission. She carries the same thing Luna carried for Usagi, memory that belongs to someone else’s time, and she hands it out to a girl who isn’t ready for it yet.

also carried by Sailor Chibi Moon