30 years ago, Naoko Takeuchi’s manga Codename: Sailor V debuted. That book spun out into a franchise for Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon. In addition to the 18 volumes of manga produced, Sailor Moon characters also appeared in original short stories, a Japanese anime series, animated movies, live musicals, live-action series, and video games. In 2014 a new version of the anime, Sailor Moon Crystal, debuted. Needless to say, Sailor Moon and the “magical girl” genre of stories have serious staying power.
It isn’t just the title character that causes people to fall in love with the franchise. Sure, of the magical girl story features monsters of the week who are overseen by a team of Sailor Moon villains, who are then overseen by a leader, who is ultimately doing the work of an even bigger bad.
These hierarchies of villains produce fascinating layers of story to flesh out character backstories and make many of the bad guys operate in shades of grey. The best of the best of the Sailor Moon antagonists have been assembled with every major Sailor Moon villain ranked from weakest to most powerful.
Updated on May 15th, 2021 by Amanda Bruce: No matter how long it's been since her original debut, fans can't get enough of Sailor Moon. Movies created that exist outside of the story canon, live musicals, and the ever-popular Sailor Moon cafes throughout Japan prove that fans will always have an appetite for the hero's story. Her story wouldn't be complete without these truly formidable villains, some of whom have seen themselves remade in Sailor Moon Crystal and the Sailor Moon Eternal movies. As long as fans keep responding to her story, there's a good chance the audience could still see new versions of the rest of the major villains as well.
Doctor Tomoe
Doctor Tomoe leads off the ranking for one major reason: he’s not really the villain of his time in Sailor Moon’s story. Instead, a Daimon, the alien creatures that take up much of his story arc, takes over his body. He was, however, the go-between for the big boss of his arc and the monsters of the week.
Souichi Tomoe was a well-respected scientist and father. Though he didn’t get a ton of backstory in the original anime, the manga revealed that he completed some questionable experiments (one of which killed his wife). The scientific community ostracized him. When he discovered the eggs that created Daimons, he thought he’d found the perfect way to create stronger humans.
He used the eggs to not only save his daughter but to experiment. Tomoe ended up creating new “monsters” in service to another Sailor Moon villain. In the long run, Tomoe doesn’t have any of his own powers; the infection created by a Daimon made him seem like he did. His power lies in his intelligence, but he allows the bad guys to use him instead of striking out for his own gain.
Fiore and the Xenian Flower
Unlike most of the Sailor Moon antagonists, Fiore didn’t appear in the manga first. Instead, he was created to be the primary villain for the movie Sailor Moon R. His turn as a villain allowed audiences to learn more about the life of Tuxedo Mask. Fiore was actually friends with Mamoru as a child. He even knew Mamoru before the death of the latter’s parents, something not true of anyone else in the Sailor Moon stories.
With a great fondness for plants, Fiore promised to return to visit Mamoru after he moved away as a child. He also promised to bring back the greatest flower ever seen when he did . The “greatest flower” turned out to be the Xenian Flower. While Fiore appears to be the villain when he returns to Earth as he attempts to rid the world of Usagi, he isn’t really. Instead, the Xenian Flower, which is a parasitic species, controls him and takes advantage of his jealousy of Usagi’s relationship with Mamoru.
All it took to defeat Fiore’s controller though was for him to realize how much love existed between Usagi and Mamoru. Realizing that love triumphed over hate was enough to break the hold on him and disintegrate the Xenian Flower altogether. That’s one easy defeat.
Vampir and Dracul
Sailor Moon typically spends her time facing off against aliens, beings from other dimensions, or threats from the future. The live musicals produced in Japan in the early 2000s took a different route. The Sailor Senshi took on vampires and demons.
Vampir was the daughter of the famous Dracul. She wanted revenge against the Sailor Senshi because she believed the group took her father’s life. In reality, he was still alive and would become the primary villain of the Sailor Moon musical when Vampir changed sides. Vampir, though, spent much of the musical in revenge mode. She had all the abilities of a vampire thanks to her father, but because her mother was human, she wasn’t burdened with the need for human blood. As a bonus, she had the nifty ability to change vampires back into humans if she so chose.
Vampir–despite being fairly strong and a compelling character–doesn’t rank higher because she isn’t truly a villain. She’s a young woman who misses her family. (She hopes to use Sailor Moon’s Silver Crystal to bring her mother back to life.) She isn’t able to defeat the Senshi on her own and initially allies with demons. When she discovers that her father lied to her and is the true villain, she decides to form an alliance with the Sailor Senshi instead. Likewise, the audience doesn’t get to see much of what Dracul can truly do, so it's hard to establish that he outranks some of the more iconic villains.
Bewitched Tuxedo Mask
There are times in the manga and the anime where Tuxedo Mask doesn’t know who he is. Sometimes, that’s a result of actual memory loss, and other times it’s the result of him being bewitched. When Mamoru suffers memory loss in the anime, he takes on a new heroic persona known as the Moonlight Knight. When that memory loss is the result of Queen Beryl's manipulation though, he works for the Sailor Moon bad guys instead.
In Sailor Moon Crystal, he took on the identity of one of the oldest friends of Motoki, the young man working at the arcade. That’s harmless enough on the surface. It caused emotional strain on Sailor Moon when Usagi realized what was going on, but it didn’t physically harm her. When Queen Beryl revealed that she had complete control over Tuxedo Mask though, that was another matter entirely.
It didn’t just cause a little emotional distress for Sailor Moon; it also meant that she was nearly ready to throw in the towel and make sure both she and Mamoru ended up destroyed so they could be “free” to be together. Tuxedo Mask might not have had a lot of abilities to use against Sailor Moon, but the emotional manipulation of her was enough to make this version of the character a major villain.
Ail And An
Ail and An, whose names were a play on the word “alien,” were the only major Sailor Moon antagonists created exclusively for the anime. The two were from a distant planet and the only survivors of their people. The population declined as their Tree of Life became ill. Ail and An believed that they needed the energy of humans to feed their tree, which in turn gave them energy to sustain life on Earth.
Ail created special monsters called Cardians from a deck resembling tarot cards. They didn’t target the Sailor Senshi specifically until the women got in their way. Because the two were simply trying to keep their way of life alive, it’s easy to have sympathy for them. When they discovered that the tree that gave them life was “sick” because of the energy they fed it, they attempted to change.
What the tree really needed was love, something they were able to do once they stopped acting as the villains of the story. Though the English dub of the series made them connected to the Negaverse and Queen Beryl, the original Japanese anime did not. The original Japanese story made it clear that the two weren’t intentionally evil.
Sailor Animamates
This special brand of Sailor Senshi appears in three different versions of Sailor Moon’s story: the manga, the original anime, and the live musicals. Rather than being named after their protective planet, they were named for metals and animals. Their particular power level varies depending on the story.
The musicals took inspiration from the anime -- having the Sailor Animamates working for Sailor Galaxia, but ultimately being ineffective in their quests for Star Seeds. In fact, in the anime, the group of Sailor Senshi rarely succeeded in the missions set to them by Galaxia. For the series, they were Sailor Senshi whose planets Galaxia had conquered. She forced them to help her expand her empire. The manga had a different, and darker, approach. The manga saw the Sailor Animamates choose to work with Galaxia. Many of them stole their Star Seeds in order to gain their power.
The Sailor Animamates of the manga were ruthless. Aluminum Siren took out Sailors Venus and Jupiter. Sailor Tin Nyanko destroyed the Sailor Senshi companions Luna, Artemis, and Diana. While those two might have been effective, Sailor Iron Mouse and Sailor Heavy Metal Papillon both failed in their quests, making the power levels of the group uneven and landing them a lower ranking overall.
Amazon Trio
Though this trio of villains only appeared briefly in the manga, they got new life in the anime. Appearing in 22 episodes of the SuperS anime, they were actually the longest-running henchmen for the series! Despite their longevity, these Sailor Moon bad guys weren’t very effective, though that’s likely a result of them not originally being villains.
Hawk’s Eye, Tiger’s Eye, and Fish Eye were all originally the animals from which their names stem. A magic ball turned them into humans with special abilities. The trio fell in love with life as humans. During the “Dream Arc,” the trio searched for the Dream Mirror that contained the enemy of Queen Nehelenia -- Pegasus. Fish Eye was actually effective in that he discovered that Chibiusa held it, but his superiors didn’t really listen to him, targeting Usagi instead.
Ultimately, the trio saved Usagi from a horrible fate when her Dream Mirror was stolen and destroyed. They sacrificed the magic that made them human, funneling it to Usagi to restore her Dream Mirror. Appreciating their selfless act, Pegasus made them truly human.
Kaolinite
Kaolinite (sometimes called Kaorinite to go with her civilian guise as Kaori) was a servant of Pharaoh 90. She’s a Magus, which means she should be more powerful than her underlings, but that’s not necessarily the case.
Kaolinite had a lot of tricks up her sleeve. Not only did she have magical abilities, but she could communicate with her master through a magic fountain. She was also able to resurrect the Witches 5 after the Sailor Senshi defeated them. All of that makes her sound pretty unbeatable, but she’s no match for Sailor Moon.
While facing off against the Sailor Senshi, Kaolinite actually evolved into her Daimon form. It’s in the monstrous form that she went up against Sailor Moon. Sailor Moon wasn’t cowed by the villain though. Instead, the fight actually allowed Sailor Moon to level up to her own next form: Super Sailor Moon. Kaolinite was then easily defeated.
Pharaoh 90 and Mistress 9
Pharaoh 90 was the Sailor Moon villain of the "Infinity" arc. Mistress 9 was his loyal partner. The arc occurs in the manga, the original anime, and Sailor Moon Crystal. Though the two were the villains in the shadows, they didn’t get a ton of screen time compared to some of the other villains in the same arc.
It’s Pharaoh 90 who gave Kaolinite her powers and influenced Doctor Tomoe’s life for the worse. Pharaoh 90, however, spent much of his time as a villain as something of an undefined cloud with glowing eyes. He gave so many people more power, but he didn't exert his own. When he finally attempted to, Pharaoh 90 became more liquid-like, trying to surround the planet and absorb its energy, though it didn’t work with Sailor Saturn awakened.
Mistress 9 and Pharaoh 90 are inevitably tied together as Mistress 9 was supposed to be his second-in-command. With her Daimon egg spending so long incubating in Hotaru though, the audience didn't actually see much of her in action. Most of her abilities are the same as that of Kaolinite, though she did appear to edge her out in the strength department. When Mistress 9 managed to get the souls of the Sailor Senshi, it was Hotaru’s pure determination that stopped her from winning.
Mio Kuroki
Not every Sailor Moon fan will have heard of Mio Kuroki. That's because, for a long time, there wasn't access to the live-action series Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon outside of Japan. The series still hasn’t made its way all over the world and it debuted on Japanese television in 2003.
Mio Kuroki was created exclusively for the live-action series. She was actually the shadow of a villain everyone will recognize: Queen Beryl. Queen Beryl created this version of herself to get to Sailor Moon in her everyday life. As a result, Mio became a teen pop idol overnight and befriended Usagi while competing with her friend Minako. The other Sailor Senshi saw through Mio’s act as the young woman repeatedly made Usagi miserable. She blamed everything on coincidence or accidents, but when she kidnapped Mamoru, Sailor Mars confronted her.
This Sailor Moon villain had a portion of Queen Beryl’s power, like being able to bewitch Mamoru, but she didn’t have all of it simply because she was a "shadow" of the real queen. Her power really came from her ability to make Usagi miserable in her civilian life. She was particularly creative in her endeavors, even if she didn’t win in the end.
