Princess Serenity

Down to the blue eyes, the twin buns trailing long pigtails, and the golden crescent on her brow that marks her royal blood, the princess looks exactly like the girl she becomes, Usagi Tsukino. She is clad in a flowing white gown whose shoulder pieces float free of the dress, its bodice worked with gold hoops and a line of beads across the bust, while a sheer bow, pink or at times pale purple or white, streams behind her with long ribbons. Spiral earrings and a beaded bracelet clasped at her right wrist finish the picture.

At the story's most charged moments, when Usagi rises into Serenity, she can sprout a working pair of angelic wings. This happens as she dives to rescue Sailor Chibi Moon near the close of Sailor Moon SuperS, and again in the final season as she grasps the Sword of Sealing against the fully possessed Galaxia; whether the wings spring from her past life, from Usagi, or from another source is left unsettled.

Serenity is defined above all by her love for Prince Endymion, the reason she kept slipping away from the Moon to walk the surface of Earth. In her lighter moments she is fond of ice skating.

The princess is the daughter of the Moon who repeatedly stole down to Earth and there fell hopelessly for Prince Endymion. As war flared between the two realms, Endymion pledged himself to the defense of the Moon against Queen Beryl and the malevolent Queen Metalia behind her, and in the end he and Serenity were slain together. Drawing on the full might of the Silver Crystal to seal Metalia away, Queen Serenity sent her daughter, the prince, and the Sailor Guardians forward to be reborn on Earth into peaceful lives.

Through the first series Luna searches for the Moon Princess while Mamoru dreams of a girl pleading for the Silver Crystal, and the thirty-fourth episode reveals that girl to be Usagi. In the climactic stand against the Dark Kingdom, Usagi assumes Serenity's form and, with her friends' combined strength channeled through the crystal, defeats a Metalia-empowered Beryl; the effort kills her, though she is revived without her memories as a guardian.

Serenity keeps a lighter presence in the seasons that follow. During Sailor Moon R she does not truly appear, yet Mamoru's false visions of her death arrive as warnings from King Endymion, and the future throne of Crystal Tokyo is foretold under the name Neo-Queen Serenity; she also surfaces in the R film to turn the Silver Crystal against an oncoming meteor. A brief glimpse in Sailor Moon S pairs her with Endymion as the Spiral Heart Moon Rod is born of their love, and in SuperS she takes Serenity's shape to save Sailor Chibi Moon, gaining wings from Pegasus. Her final anime appearance comes in the two-hundredth episode, facing Chaos Galaxia.