Sailor Mars

Sailor Mars landing the final pose of her transformation, the Mars glyph burning behind her.

“Mars Power, Make Up!”

japanese name: Hino Rei (火野レイ)
90’s english dub: Raye Hino
name meaning: of fire
likes: zazen and meditation, fortune telling
dislikes: television, modern romance
birthday: april 17
zodiac sun sign: Aries
blood type: AB

Rei Hino is first seen at the top of the shrine steps, sweeping the courtyard of Hikawa in the white and red of a miko. Her family name, 火野 (Hino), is fire plus field, “of fire”, and 火 is also the first character of 火星 (Kasei), the Fire Star, Mars’s Japanese name, so her element and her planet share one word. She’s proud, sharp-tongued and exacting. She was raised by her grandfather and is estranged from her father, who was never there, and she learned early to rely on her own discipline and her own sight. She reads the sacred flame and senses evil before it arrives.

Mars is the warrior, the lesser malefic, and it both wounds and guards. It is the will made into an instrument, which is a different thing from anger. Rei is quick to anger and just as quick to put her body between a friend and danger, and as she grows her fire narrows, from the burst of Fire Soul to the single aimed line of the Flame Sniper.

read the Mars page →

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in hellenistic astrology

dignity

domicile: Ariesspeed and competitionScorpiostrategy and persistenceIts own house, and Mars has two. Aries is a masculine, movable fire sign, and its quality is hot. It begins at the spring equinox. Scorpio is a feminine, fixed water sign, and its quality is wet. At home, a planet uses its own resources and doesn’t rely on a host.In Aries, Mars is quick and direct and shows up as starting things, competing, speed and bluntness. In Scorpio it’s fixed and hidden and shows up as strategy, patience, defence, secrecy and persistence. Mars signifies soldiers and officers, and people who work with fire, iron and their hands.
exaltation: Capricorndiscipline and enduranceRaised up in Capricorn, a feminine, movable earth sign ruled by Saturn. Its quality is dry. Exaltation is a place of honour, where a planet’s significations are raised in standing. Capricorn is in sextile to Scorpio, one of Mars’s homes, and each night-team planet is exalted in a sign sextile to one of its homes. It pairs with Jupiter’s exaltation in Cancer, Mars’s death set opposite Jupiter’s life-breath.Mars in Capricorn mixes its force with Saturn’s structure and patience. It shows up as discipline, endurance, planning, organised effort toward long-term goals, military rank and command, and hard physical work finished properly.
detriment: Librarestraint and rivalryTaurusdelay and grudgeOpposite its houses. Libra and Taurus are Venus’s houses. Libra is a masculine, movable air sign that begins at the autumn equinox, and Taurus is a feminine, fixed earth sign. Mars’s fear and wrath sit opposite Venus’s pleasure and desire. Later texts treat a planet opposite its own house as hindered or in exile.Mars in Venus’s signs shows up as conflict over relationships, pleasure, beauty or money, rivalry in social or artistic settings, and anger held back to keep the peace. In Libra it waits on weighing and agreement before it acts. In Taurus it’s slowed down by the fixed sign.
fall: Cancertemper and protectivenessPut low in Cancer, a feminine, movable water sign ruled by the Moon. Fall is the sign opposite a planet’s exaltation, and there its significations lose standing. Cancer is Jupiter’s exaltation. Jupiter’s life-breath and abundance sit opposite Mars’s death.Mars in Cancer mixes its force with the Moon’s concerns, which are home, body and family. It shows up as conflict at home, anger that comes out sideways, protectiveness over the household, and a quick, changeable temper.

condition

sect: nocturnalMars is on the night team, led by the Moon. Sect changes how the benefics and malefics behave, and a malefic does less harm in its own sect and more harm outside it. In a night chart Mars is in its own sect.In a night chart Mars’s better significations come forward, such as courage, leadership, soldiering and work with fire and iron, and its harms are held back. In a day chart it’s out of sect, usually the most difficult planet in the chart, and its conflicts, injuries and losses are worse.
joy: the sixth placeA planet’s joy is the place where it’s gladdest to be, whatever sign it’s in. Mars’s is the sixth place, Bad Fortune. It’s a bad decline, in aversion to the rising sign, and it signifies illness and injury, labour, servants and subordinates, and four-footed animals. It’s in trine to the Midheaven, which gives it some connection with work.Mars in the sixth can show up as injuries, fevers and inflammation, hard physical work, trouble with subordinates, and work with animals. The sixth is called Bad Fortune because it’s Mars’s place. A planet in its joy still needs a good sign and a good sect before it counts as well placed.

powers and transformations

The Transformation Wand
One object, three times. Each asks a little more of her.
Transformation Pen
Given, not earned. “Mars Power, Make Up.”
Ofuda
Paper evil-spirit-be-gone charms she throws with the cry “Akuryo Taisan,” evil spirit be gone. In both continuities she uses this miko’s tool as a weapon, sealing and repelling the possessed and the unclean.
Phobos and Deimos
The two crows at Hikawa are named for the moons of Mars, and the moons are named for the sons of Ares who drove his chariot, Fear and Dread. They keep the shrine with her. In the manga they are more than birds.

what she can do

Sailor Moon1992

Sailor Moon R1993

Sailor Moon S1994

Sailor Moon SuperS1995

Sailor Stars1996

Mars Power, Make Uptransformation
The first call. Luna hands the pen over, and Rei is no longer only the girl at the top of the shrine steps.
Kuji-inritual
These are the nine-syllable seals. Before the ofuda leaves her fingers, she cuts the hand signs and speaks the nine syllables (rin, pyō, tō, sha, kai, jin, retsu, zai, zen). It is real Shugendō practice, taken over whole. The charm is the weapon, and the seals are what arm it.
Fire Soulattack
Her first attack, and the simplest. She locks her hands with one finger out, and the fire goes where she points.
Akuryo Taisanattack
It is more an exorcism than an attack. The ofuda goes up and she says the words, and whatever she is holding off is held off.

Mars Star Power, Make Uptransformation
The upgrade, and the call lengthens with it.
Burning Mandalaattack
Eight rings of fire, a character burning in each, thrown together.

She has no new moves in this arc and carries what she already has straight through.

Mars Crystal Power, Make Uptransformation
It has wings, and her own crystal powers it instead of the Moon.
Mars Flame Sniperattack
A bow of fire. She is a trained archer.

She has no new moves in this arc and carries what she already has straight through.

variations

Labelled by source. The manga is the primary text here. The anime, Crystal and the live-action series are separate continuities that sometimes disagree, and where they do, this site argues from the manga.

manga
Sailor Mars
Act 3
manga
Super Sailor Mars
Infinity arc
manga
Eternal Sailor Mars
Stars arc
manga
Princess Mars
Silver Millennium
anime
Sailor Mars
season 1
anime
Super Sailor Mars
SuperS onward
crystal
Sailor Mars
season 1
pgsm
Sailor Mars
2003

✦

Rei and Minako

shared thread

Takeuchi paired these two on purpose, drawing them together and writing them into each other’s stories. She says so in the fourth Original Picture Collection, where she writes that “the pair of Mina-P and Rei-chan is very pleasing.” She was writing about one illustration and about their two voice actresses, but the pairing is her own, and it did not start with the fandom. Ares and Aphrodite were lovers long before either of these two had a name.

Readers remember a promise between them, but there is no scene, in the manga or anywhere else, where they agree to have each other if nothing else works out. There is a scene on a rooftop in the Stars arc where the two of them say they don’t need men, because there is already someone they live for, Usagi. In the scene everyone reads as a pact, the person they both point to is her.

In Casablanca Memory Rei says she never wanted to marry and does not need love, because she has comrades with the same purpose. In the Dream arc, Minako’s advice to her about the shrine is to find a husband who can help run it. In Takeuchi’s own Parallel Sailor Moon both of them are grown, married to men and raising daughters.

also carried by Sailor Venus