Discarded SAILOR MOON Character Designs Resurface.

[OliviaRodrigoStan 2,961]

Apparently Youichi Fukano, who worked in the 90s as character designer for Sailor Moon, has shared on Twitter some obscure, unused designs that he made for Sailor Uranus, Sailor Neptune, and Sailor Saturn. 

Sailor Pluto, who already had an official design, remains largely the same, except her sailor outfit is lavender, rather than black. The other three are apparently Fukano's creation, and it seems like only Neptune left Naoko satisfied enough, as she is the only one who was left virtually untouched, except for her footwear. 

Clearly Naoko's vision was pretty much set from the beginning, as you can see a lot of concepts from her final designs, present in Fukano's sketches: Saturn being younger and close to Chibiusa's age, Uranus being somehow masculine presenting and having short hair, etc. The silhouettes, are pretty much the same for the three characters, only the colors difer (dramatically). 

Personally I'm glad those were discarded. I prefer Naoko's final design for all of them. I do wonder who is to be credited for Neptune's design though: did Naoko had her designed in advance, just like Pluto, or is that Fukano's original design? because she looks the same, nothing was really changed for the final release, unlike the other two. 

Do you like Fukano's vision for Uranus and Saturn besties? 

[Killa 14,973]

so who would be that cute chibusa friend?

[OliviaRodrigoStan 2,961]

3 minutes ago, Killa said:

so who would be that cute chibusa friend?

That would be Hotaru/Sailor Saturn 

[Edonis 27,975]

That Haruka design is CURSED 

[Killa 14,973]

2 minutes ago, OliviaRodrigoStan said:

That would be Hotaru/Sailor Saturn 

ah silly me . god she even already knew they'd be friends from the get go. No wonder all the sagas seem so fluid even though the whole future past jdapsdaosids is a bit of a mess hahha

[OliviaRodrigoStan 2,961]

13 minutes ago, Edonis said:

That Haruka design is CURSED 

I feel like her design was reused for Seiya/Fighter. They look alike TBH. 

[YASKALE 386]

So interesting! Thank you for surfacing and sharing. 
 

I don’t think these are as good as what we got, although Saturn as bright yellow is super interesting. 

[Roronoa 6,873]

I just watched my first episode of Sailor Moon yesterday. I hope to join the fandom soon. 

[OliviaRodrigoStan 2,961]

6 minutes ago, Roronoa said:

I just watched my first episode of Sailor Moon yesterday. I hope to join the fandom soon. 

It's a wonderful franchise, very, VERY ahead of its time in terms of LGBT representation. Thirty years ago, it had not one, but two openly gay couples

in a show for children, and it was presented as something natural and organic. 

We had the iconic Zoisite and Kunzite romance: 

The legendary lesbian power couple Haruka and Michiru: 

And gender non conforming characters, like my twin Fish-Eye, who was male, but presented as more femenine than the entire cast: 

Obviously certain elements of it are super dated by today's standards, like the formulaic system of "monster of the day", etc. But for its time, this was a very, very sophisticated show, considering its target demographic. 

[RebeldeFaith 4,446]

I love seeing this so much! It's so fascinating to see how series that have shaped pop culture so much could have been so different from what we got.

[OliviaRodrigoStan 2,961]

8 minutes ago, RebeldeFaith said:

I love seeing this so much! It's so fascinating to see how series that have shaped pop culture so much could have been so different from what we got.

Same. I love this type of stuff. Most of the die hard fans already know this, but originally, all the Sailor Scouts were supposed to have unique outfits, and fantasy hair colors: 

Naoko eventually discarded this idea, but I still think these designs are very charming and full of personality. 

Back to the anime, this was one of the unreleased concepts for the final season, by Fukano: 

It was discarded and we got Eternal Sailor Moon instead. I love all of these behind the scenes, concept arts, lol. 

[RebeldeFaith 4,446]

34 minutes ago, OliviaRodrigoStan said:

Same. I love this type of stuff. Most of the die hard fans already know this, but originally, all the Sailor Scouts were supposed to have unique outfits, and fantasy hair colors: 

Naoko eventually discarded this idea, but I still think these designs are very charming and full of personality. 

Back to the anime, this was one of the unreleased concepts for the final season, by Fukano: 

It was discarded and we got Eternal Sailor Moon instead. I love all of these behind the scenes, concept arts, lol. 

Yes!!! I always wished they all had fantasy hair colors. But Usagi has such an easily identifiable hair that it's almost impossible to visualize what kind of impact pink would've been like vs the yellow. I can still dream though. 

[OliviaRodrigoStan 2,961]

10 minutes ago, RebeldeFaith said:

But Usagi has such an easily identifiable hair that it's almost impossible to visualize what kind of impact pink would've been like vs the yellow. I can still dream though. 

Well, she does canonically get silver/white hair both in the manga and the animated versions, when she becomes Neo Queen Serenity: 

Naoko still made several illustrations of the inner senshi with fantasy hair color though, even after the series became a hit: 

But I guess it was only a "stylized" thing, for the illustration. She drew them with only natural hair colors too: 

More than once. In another illustration, she made Neptune a ginger. 

This idea was kind of revisited in the live action series, where they all had natural hair colors, until they transform: