'Sailor Moon' Halloween

Who is your favorite villain from Sailor Moon? People often ask me. When I answer 'Count Saint Germain and Elizabeth Bathory, but Count Dracul is not bad either,' they look at me in a weird way and kindly let me know those are not characters of the series but actual historical figures.

You share this opinion as well? Let me correct you.

Halloween is by the door, the celebration of all spooky, so I think it is the best timing to bring you some creepy tales which very much exist and involve our sailor suited heroines.

Sailor Moon musical's Dracul saga has no shortage of vampires, werewolves and historical characters. The story consists of four musicals and requires a great knowledge of the Bible, Kabbalah, black magic, occultism, and European history to fully understand what it is about. The story is very complex and at times hard to translate correctly.

I try not to give out too much of the story, but I guess spoilers may be necessary to explain what it is really about.

The first of the saga is called Overture of Last Dracul and in my opinion, this is the only musical out of the four which kind of has that classic "Sailor Moon feeling." It is a dark story, but it cannot be compared to the following ones by any means.

This article is mostly to get you interested and in the mood to watch this saga while I give basic information about the storyline and historical characters.

It was the first musical I personally watched and was kind of lost sometimes while watching it. Despite knowing the Japanese language, I understood little of it because of all the characters. Of course, you don't have to be a historian to enjoy it. There are a lot of aspects to enjoy. It has pretty costumes and good songs and if you are not that much into the story you can still be swept away by other features of it.

However, let me warn you. This is not for everyone because even though it is official Sailor Moon, it is very much different from the series and darker. You don't expect devil summoning spells and blood sacrifice along with vampires to be in Sailor Moon, right? Then be prepared, all of these are in this piece of art and it is not for the weak hearted. For those of you who love vampires, slightly bit of occult stuff plus Sailor Moon too and always wanted to have these elements together, Dracul saga is your dream come true.

There is just one very sad fact I would like to mention. Miyuki Kanbe, who was playing Sailor Moon during all stages of Dracul saga passed away at the age of 24 due to heart failure in 2008. She was very loved by cast members and if you decide to watch the musicals you will see she really is like Usagi. Rest in peace Miyuki.

I can't believe it is already 18 years old. Yes, people, Last Dracul overture was performed in 2000.

Synopsis

Usagi has a bad dream where all of her friends depart for various reasons. The dream is sent by muma (dream demons who devour the soul of humans while showing nightmares) and a man with a long cape walks into the picture. This man, as we later get to know is Count Dracula. In the dream after the inners go away, Haruka and Michiru appear. Dracul goes to Michiru and bites her while Usagi hears a woman talking "If you transform a catastrophe will happen."

The setting is during Sailor Moon S and there is only one villain who you know from the anime series, professor Tomoe. However, it is only the body of him. Inside lives Berserk who was an "old friend" of Count Dracul or so he says. He also mentions his personality is split to four (it is my own logic but by four personalities I think he means Tomoe, berserk, the animal bear and the undead werewolf he actually is.). The right hand of the professor is not Kaolinite this time but Lamia.

Count Dracul is not really a villain in this story. Only one goal drives him, to create a good future for his daughter who lives in the distant forests of Transylvania. The daughter is a half vampire half human and she has the ability to destroy vampires. The setting of this musical is Japan Tokyo, so you never actually see the daughter in this one. Berserk tries to persuade Dracul to help him. He is making homunculus (artificial life form) and his ultimate goal is to make the perfect homunculus and get into their bodies so the eternally undead vampires can finally die and feel hot blood in their veins once more. This is why he needs the sailor soldiers. He wants to take their starseed out and put them into the homunculus flasks.

Dracul plays along pretending to help him but he is only driven by his own ambitions. No one knows about it just one muma who he bit and gave the name of his dead wife Le Fay. Dracul is extremely wise and knows how to make the soldiers less powerful. He sees the united power is what counts and if he breaks the strongest, the group will be weaker. He knows exactly who to target. He decides to separate the two lover couples (please no homophobic statement, Uranus and Neptune are openly lovers in the musical version, they even share a kiss in one). He bites Tuxedo Mask and Neptune making them turn into vampires causing Moon and Uranus to be weaker. Chibimoon also falls into their hand, her star seed captured in the homunculus flask. The remaining soldiers have to face the undead enemies and defeat them. However, Berserk has Samael's sword and he wants to use it to destroy Sailor Moon. I am not saying anything else about the storyline in order to have fewer spoilers, check it out, it is worth it.

Just a quick explanation of the characters before moving onto the next musical synopsis.

Berserk (or berserker) were Norse Viking warriors. The word could possibly mean "bear-shifter" referring to them being a wild animal in a fight. Count Dracul often addresses Berserk as the bear.

Lamia comes from Greek mythology. She was a woman who became a child-eating demon after her own children were killed. It explains her obsession with Chibimoon and mentions that all children should be sacrificed to her. Dracul refers to her sometimes as "frozen beauty."

Le Fay is Morgan Le Fay. A powerful enchantress of Arthurian legend and possibly related to King Arthur.

Samael is the archangel of death, also referred to as "Ha-Satan." Very simply said by Count Dracul, another name for Lucifer. It is not exactly the fact, though. Samael is both good and evil at the same time and in the musical, the sword of Samael changes its will according to who holds it.

Not interested enough to watch it yet? It gets better and more complicated.

The second musical of the saga is called Transylvania's Forest.

Here you meet Count Dracul's daughter who wants to take revenge for her father and is after the sailor soldiers. However the main villain, if you can name her as one, is not Vampiru. This musical is the most occult and starts with a blood sacrifice while summoning the devil. It gets spookier, the spell is not cast in Japanese but in its original language. I had Sailor Moon fan friends tell me, alright stop the clip now, please.

Transylvania's forest is hardcore and has nothing to do with any Sailor Moon canon universes. It doesn't follow the storyline of the anime neither the manga, it is a completely original creepy story with the appearance of a sailor soldier who was never in any other universes: Sailor Astarte.

The main enemy is Lilith of Darkness who is referred to be a witch even though she likes to refer to herself as the mother who gave birth to all. She also has helpers. The Samael quartet (who are the Amazon quartet from the anime), Baron Gilles de Rais and the blood countess Elizabeth Bathory. Later a mandragora plant in human form Mandrake is beside her too.

Bathory pretends to be the teacher of our heroines and after Usagi, Minako and Makoto fail a test she gives them the strict order, they cannot go on vacation if their next test won't be 100 percent. This is just a trap for her to introduce the girl who just transferred, Shiva. Shiva has split personality and the main enemies of all, Death Vulcan and Dark Cain speaks through her. Besides the personalities, her true identity is Astarte, the true goddess as Lilith refers to her.

While Lilith wants to turn Astarte completely on their side and wants to wake her fully, Vampiru only wants to take revenge for her father and wake her real mother up. She was told if she destroyed the silver crystal her mother would revive so she is after Sailor Moon. Being just as wise as her father, she analyses the soldiers and comes to a conclusion. The man pillars according to her: Mars, the sixth sense, Jupiter, the hand to hand combat and Uranus, the power (during this whole musical Uranus is referred to be the strongest soldier and Vampiru calls her like that rather than calling her by name). If these warriors are out of the play the others are not a big deal.

Michiru has a concert tour in Europe, and all of the soldiers go with her. The tour, however, was a trap set by the vampires and they end up in Transylvania where Vamipu sets her plan to the motion. At different places and different times, she bites Mars, Jupiter and Uranus but they don't turn into vampires right away.

When the girls face the enemy Sailor Astarte comes to the rescue but as you can imagine the outers do a great deal of yammering that she is not from the solar system so she must be evil. Tension is between all of the soldiers, and they are led away from the airport by Bathory who "accidentally" happens to be there.

At the final battle with Lilith, all of a sudden Uranus, Mars and Jupiter turn and the others are shocked. Neptune collapses on the floor screaming, Moon is being Moon not wanting to fight her friends and Astarte loses the battle to her other personalities turning to be Dark Cain. If it wasn't enough, Cain reveals the biggest threat of all is not them but the planet from behind the Sun, who is coming as a comet, Death Vulcan. How the fight turns out? Go and watch it yourself.

Character Background

Lilith of Darkness: she is the demon Lilith, the first wife of Adam from the Bible. After she had refused Adam, she was tossed down from Eden and met Lucifer. Their children are known as demons and rule the underworld.

Baron Gilles de Rais: an actual baron who lived in France (1405-1440) He was a lord and leader in the French army, the right hand of Jeanne D'arc. After Jeanne died from injustice he couldn't cope with it. He became a serial killer, mainly killing children. Because of his crimes, he was sentenced to death and hanged. Some translations or character reviews write his name mistakenly as Gilles de Retz. Please don't confuse the two, the latter was a famous racehorse.

Elizabeth Bathory: born in Hungary (1560-1614), she was a noblewoman from the family of Bathory (King of Hungary). The countess wanted to be forever young and believed if she bathes in the blood of young women she will gain eternal youth. She killed approximately 600 women and therefore named as the blood countess. Because of her family's influence, she was not sentenced to death, but she was locked up into her castle into a windowless room until her death.

Mandrake: he is the human form of the plant mandragora.

Dark Cain: the first murderer in humanity, Cain from the Bible who killed his brother Abel.

Astarte/Shiva: goddess of rebirth and destruction

The third musical of the saga is Transylvania's forest - revision -.

As the title inclines it is just a revision of the other. It means that the story is mostly the same just with a few different songs. In this case, however, there is one huge difference. Because of that, it is advised to watch this one as well. The ending is completely different too.

Besides the already explained characters, there is an addition.

Marquis de Brinvilliers: a French aristocrat (1630-1676) she committed three murders using poison (belladonna). She was also charged with witchcraft and was beheaded. Her body after it was burned on the stake.

The fourth and last musical of the Dracul saga is called Seal of Death Vulcan. This is the shortest of the plays, followed by a super revue music show by the soldiers.

Synopsis

Dracul is reunited with his daughter, and they find a werewolf kid in the forest. Cain destroyed everyone else but for some reason, this kid is not affected by his magic. This time the aristocrat count, Saint Germain helps the villains and he is determined to test the power of the soldiers. He is quite smart and can be cruel if he has to be and while using his powerful alchemy he captures everyone and threatens Moon with killing them if she doesn't give him the silver crystal. Of course, Usagi being Usagi she hands him what he wants. Her only luck is, that Vampiru and count Dracul are against Cain and Saint Germain and help her in everything.

However the main enemy, Death Vulcan finally shows himself. He is a planet who was torn into two halves so there are two people playing it. The good Vulcan (who is played by a woman) and the bad Vulcan (who is played by a man). In this musical, we learn what relation Cain has to count Dracul and what Death Vulcan really is. He possesses the Dark tablet (which can be related to the Rosetta stone) and we get to know what all of their true motives are. The end is a surprise no one would have expected, it turns out who is behind this all but I won't spoil it. This musical is exciting too but here it is very important to understand the background of the characters and to have knowledge of tarot and tree of life.

Character Background

Count "Magi" Saint Germain: he is a popular character in films and series as he was an interesting person. He was born in 1691. Having Hungarian and Transylvanian origin the Count was an adventurer. He was a wise man who was also in French court accompanying Luis XV. However, the man was a mystery in his time. An alchemist who supposedly found the elixir of eternal life. Besides this, he was a talented painter, could play the violin and was extremely wealthy. He was linked to various secret societies such as the Freemasons and Illuminati. Some claim he never died, he is just faking identity and is hiding somewhere even now.

Abel: Cain's brother in the Bible whose sacrifice was chosen by God and therefore he was murdered by his older brother.

Tifaret: the sixth sephirah from Kabbalah's tree of life, "adornment."

Yesod: a sephirah from Tree of Life "the power of connection."

Malkuth: sephirah from Tree of Life "the kingdom"

In all conclusion, this entire storyline while being dark is extremely entertaining and deep. Whoever wrote it must have had a great knowledge and could link things well together. If you want to understand every detail of it, be prepared to watch it a few times.

Got into the mood of some Sailor Moon Halloween spookiness? Turn off the lights, light your pumpkins and press play. Let the vampire soldiers bring you to a creepy world you will never forget.