Who would be your top 5 favorite sailor moon villains and top 5 least favorite villains?
Hi! Sorry for the long wait on this ask, I can def give you my ranking!
With these I will try my hardest to stick with canon, but I will apply the level of logic the show doesn’t want me to think about (basically means I’m allowing myself to include QS) and also I’m only including major villains, no MOTWs.
This post ended up being much longer than I anticipated. Hope you enjoy it.
Honorable mention for fav villains: Sailor Aluminum Siren and Sailor Lead Crow. I love the concept of these two enslaved senshi who are forced to work together, but gradually come to care for each other, made more tragic by the prospect that you know these two are both gonna die, and one of them is gonna have to die first. It’s just kind of underdeveloped in my opinion and a victim of the Stars seasons being the prime example of great concept, bad execution. They were still some of the best things to come out of Stars though.
Bottom 5 villains: #5
Princess Snow Kaguya.
You know what the worst crime a villain could ever commit is? Being incredibly forgettable. I'm not joking, I forgot this villain existed til I went on the wiki to look up all the villains. And I remember most of the motw! Yeah, that's more than good enough grounds to get in the bottom tier, the only thing keeping her this high is me not really giving a shit. I have no beef with her, unlike the other people in this list. Also congrats on being the villain of the worst sm movie.
The ONLY thing I appreciate about her is her design, I'm genuinely impressed they let her be topless and I really respect that level of maturity from the show's part. (where boobs aren't just the butt of a joke or just horny, but they are instead causally shown as an attribute of the female body. It's empowering in away for me.)
Top 5 villains: #5
Dr Tomoe.
Now, this may seem like a bit of a shock, but I do like the concept of Dr Tomoe, I just wish he wasn't involved with all that alien bs. Just let the man be fucked up! In my ideal world S is all about him and Hotaru (and Harumichi obv). The idea of a main villain just being a father experimenting on his daughter after a tragic accident is compelling, it also makes Hotaru's story way more tragic and impactful.
But anyway, canon, he's fun villain, nothing more than a scientist in a lab coat with powerful connections in search for a greater power, human lives being nothing more than just small hurdles he has to pass in order to reach such greatness. I also like the idea of a villain being closely related to one of the senshi.
Bottom 5 villains: #4
Dark Lady.
I'm just gonna call her this instead of her actual name just cause her Japanese name is very.. eek. I never think about her anyways so I'm losing nothing. But anyways, her, yeah.. I don't care. The fact that this villain is mostly born from a weird incest-y plotline is just the icing on the "you couldn't ask me to care about this" cake.
And I like Chibi, I like Chibiusa as character, I just don't like the time travel.
There is a small glimmer in this character that hints at some actual good shit, which is Chibiusa's complex about her mother and how that affects their relationship and the way she views herself and her mother because of it, but it is all muddled and smeared with Chibiusa's stupid infatuation with her father and Usagi's jealousy.. like I get it, she's a kid, kids think about this, it's innocent. Doesn't mean I have to like it and doesn't mean it justifies Usagi's jealousy of her and Mamo. TLDR, this is weird and I don't care.
Top 5 villains: #4
Ail, Ann and Fiore.
This might seem very confusing, so let me explain for a sec. I'm aware canonically that Ail and Ann have nothing to do with Fiore, BUT their designs are basically identical and I did give myself a lil bit of wiggle room for hcs so I count them as the same species of alien. That said I adore the concept, specifically for Ail and Ann, of just two extraterrestrial beings who want nothing more than to survive. To do so they have to feed off energy and thus harm others, but they don't want to take over the Earth or kill anyone, they just wanna live and that concept is suuuper fascinating to me.
Much like many things sm the execution for their characters and story wasn't great and I did wish they ended up staying on Earth living with the girls, but oh well. I think I've mentioned it before but it would've been so interesting if their species was actually attacked by Galaxia instead of.. greed (idk). It would've been such a nice way to tie them back to the girls and a small mention of Galaxia very early on.
Bottom 5 villains: #3
Pharaoh 90.
Here's an example of one of my ABSOLUTE LEAST FAVORITE tropes that this show is utterly OBSESSED with for some reason: the great dark entity big bad reveal. Yeah.. I hate it. I never like it ever and it happens almost EVERY SINGLE SEASON.
I am aware it has a canonical reason it happens (at least in the manga) but I still don't like it and I don't like the reasoning either. It basically makes it so the same thing happens time after time after time, oh why are the senshis fighting this? Oh cause chaos sent dark entity #47 to destroy the universe, oh you defeated it? Well you won't expect this, go dark entity #48!
And listen, there's ways to do this that could work and it very simply boils down to: stop having the big bad dark entity! Just let the major villains do the talking! Let people be fucking evil, let villains be villains, you can still have chaos secretly pulling the reigns, just leave it ambiguous or something.
When you expand the scope so large every time instead of keeping it to a personal connection it just makes things worse for me and destroys any investment not only in the threat presented but also in the villain's motivations. If the S season has to be about Mistress 9 then have fucking Mistress 9 be the villain, or Germatoid or any villain that we spent more than 2 seconds with whose intent isn't just: destroy the universe for the funny.
Top 5 villains: #3
Queen Serenity.
I love you so so much, but you do not fool me. You are a villain my sweet sweet Queen of my dreams.
I've talked about QS in length and about how much of a cop-out it is that's she's presented as the good guy in all adaptations. The infinite potential of her character has me literally salivating. One of my absolute favorite ways to have villains in stories is having them closely tied to the main characters and the narrative and Queen Serenity checks all the boxes. The way that her influence is so strong, it has an ever lasting presence and effect on all characters and the narrative even after death, pushing the moral dilemma of the girls asking themselves "are we the baddies?", oh, Oh I'm in love I say. This is the sort of character I dream about at night.
The ONLY thing keeping her this low is the fact that she's canonically NOT a villain so on a technicality I cannot in good faith put her higher.
Bottom 5 villains: #2
Queen Metalia.
Same spiel as Pharaoh 90, but this time it affects a villain I actually really care about and like, Beryl. I love that Beryl is basically the only major villain with personal beef with the heroes, she has a close connection to them a way no other villain has. She killed them. Why involve a dumb nameless entity into it, why. Just let Beryl take her fucking revenge, let Beryl be evil. But nope it's just another dark evil entity that wants to destroy the universe.
And you know what's worse than that, it's her mere existence actively making a character and plotline worse. Yeah, cause don't worry, the people of Earth are actually just corrupted and jealous, yeah, they are definitely not attacking because QS enslaved Earth as an immortal monarch. It's the people's fault guys, not the monarchy's.. this is some like revisionist history type shit. I don't buy it for a second, but I'm forced to canonically cause that is ACTUALLY truly what happened and I'm like.. WHY?! I know why, cause the moon monarchy is a good thing and will always be a good thing cause the narrative could never ever challenge Usagi or the Serenities or their morality.
ANYWAYS, yeah, Metalia doesn't matter and makes another actually good villain actively worse.
Top 5 villains: #2
Queen Beryl (and the four kings).
Might be a lil bit of a cheat to include all of them here, but they do all work amazingly as a package. I love Beryl the most, obviously, but I really like all the kings and their roles. Their differing levels of loyalty to Beryl and their different moralities as well, though that gets a lil more into hc territory so I'll cut it here, just know I do really like the kings.
So Beryl! where do I start with you my Queen, oh well I'll start with my ONE problem with her character. The romance. I do not care for Beryl's jealousy over Endymion and I hate and I mean HATE that it's the reason behind her actions canonically. It revolves around the idea I mentioned prior, Moon kingdom good, but also it's just another factor that's used to make the moon romance "more tragic and compelling", cool. I don't care. And listen before you label me as a hater, you can have the jealousy angle, sure, go for it! But don't have it be THE ONLY REASON behind Beryl's actions, are you serious?
I'd like to present you instead with the concept I fell in love with and the major reason I love Beryl so so much: Beryl was actually a good person! How about having her be a sort of freedom fighter/rebellion leader for the people of Earth in the past, but now, with the new awakening of the girls, she's blinded by her on hatred, rage and fear of a Moon monarchy possibly starting again. Along with a personal vendetta against Serenity and the girls, all slowly corrupting her morality and character. A bit of a play of the 'you either die a hero or live to become the villain' idea.
Idk, it's kind of hcs, but also the ideas are there if you're willing to not bow to the canon of Moon kingdom good. Either way, she's also just fucking great, she's a treat every time she's on screen (I'm in love with her in pgsm) and her design is one of my favorites in the show.
Bottom 5 villains: #1
Prince Demande.
Just.. fuck him, man. His plot is fucking stupid and sucks, I hate the execution of the Black Moon clan (the sisters and Esmeraude are the only good parts and even they cannot get me to care about this arc). This show is not made for time travel, it cannot work with it cause it doesn't know how to write it.
Moving onto him though, I just, why? Why do any of that, this show does not need to introduce the concept of sexual assault, and unlike the Eyes, it's not in a weird metaphorical way, no, it's just straight up sexual assault. That's where I draw the line, I'm sorry, call me soft, but if you introduce such concept in sailor moon I'm just tapping out. ESPECCIALLY if you write it the way they wrote this mf, the show does not have that level of maturity to introduce such concept in a respectful and meaningful way, it does NOTHING for the story and then had the gull to say: forget about that, redemption time.
Fuck off. (I think he doesn't get redeemed in the manga, but I still hate it anyways)
I've seen some people say "well he didn't actually do it" and? the intent was there, he was going to do it and as far as Usagi knew, it was going to happen. Not to mention the fact that he still kissed her (which is a sure fire way to immediately make me hate a character. Welcome manga Haruka). And that he also changed her clothes, idk why people forget about that, but it is indeed there and it happens, and it it a form of sexual assault.
Anyways I'm done with this and with him, I get uncomfortable every time I talk about him and it's not the good kind of villain uncomfortable, it's the "I don't wanna talk about this anymore" uncomfortable.
Top 5 villains: #1
Sailor Galaxia.
So here we are. Yep, it is her, the ultimate Queen. There is just so much I adore about Galaxia.
First of all, she's a senshi! YES! Thank you! I'm in love with the concept of the sailor senshis' biggest villains and foils being other senshi! It just keeps it so neat and opens the door for SO MANY interesting and fascinating concepts. I forever cherish my sweet narrative of "being a senshi does not make you a hero", and there is no better person to show it than with Galaxia.
She knows how powerful she is, she's so incredibly threatening, by far the scariest and most threatening villain in the series. It's funny when you compare her with say Pharaoh 90, which is a literal planet that's gonna destroy everything there is, Galaxia just sitting at her throne smiling reads WAY scarier. Not to mention she's surrounded at all times by what are basically dead sailor senshis, all but a collection to her. And the ones she hasn't killed are enslaved.
A parallel I always draw in the series is between her and Queen Serenity, and how in some ways, they are two sides of the same coin. Though that gets more into hc territory
To give you an idea of how much of a threat she feels, in the lil rewrite thing I have there is not a single draft for the conclusion of the Galaxia arc where Galaxia doesn't kill all of them. I just cannot physically envision a scenario where the sailor team faces Galaxia and they don't all die at the cost of defeating her. (and I don't have Usagi revive everyone cause that's a dumb cop-out)
If there was one complain to throw her way it would be that I wish she was more integrated in the narrative. Like I've mentioned before, it'd be so great to get hints of her early on, like her name being mentioned by Ail and Ann, or having her be the entity/power to influence Beryl's current actions (the only way that would make Metalia work for me, her being secretly Galaxia). Just something alerting us of her ever looming presence inching ever closer towards the girls.
I could talk about her all day, but I'll keep it here, also her design is fire and so slept on by the fandom. She's top 5 designs in the whole franchise hands down.
