Does Luna have a last name? I would never have thought so but it seems that now she does! Luna’s full name is listed as Luna Kuroneko in the broadcast credits for the first season of the original Sailor Moon anime! While the “new” dub by Viz has been out for many years and these episodes have been available to stream and on home video, they were not broadcast on TV until recently as part of the Toonami Rewind block. While the new dub isn’t the same one as aired during the 90s Toonami is able to air Sailor Moon thanks to Viz’s new dub. Those ending credits show only the English voice credits for the episode and amongst many other first season credits, many of whom aren’t actually in the first two episodes, we have Luna Kuroneko voiced by Michelle Ruff. Michelle Ruff is indeed the voice of Luna in the new Viz English dub. I saw the photo above on the Moon Sisters Facebook Page. It can also be seen on the Codename Sailor Earth Twitter page. Definitely worth checking out both pages if you like funny videos and wild ships.
What’s this name about and where is it from? Well “Kuroneko” simply means “black cat” in Japanese. Usagi refers to Luna as “Kuro neko Luna” in the opening narration starting with episode 2 and for the first half of the first season in of the original Sailor Moon anime. I believe she stops referring to her as such after Makoto shows up. I never assumed this was meant to be a name but rather a description of Luna’s colour and species. It seems like someone may have taken this literally and considers it to be Luna’s full name which, as is the standard in Japan, is stated with the family name first and the given name second. The order of names in the credits is given in the western style of given name first and family name second, as it’s done with the other names in the credits.
Luna does not otherwise have a family name which is mentioned in the manga, the original anime or Sailor Moon Crystal. She is an alien cat from another planet who as far as we can tell doesn’t have a family name. The human version of Luna who appears in the second half of the live action Sailor Moon series goes by the name Luna Tsukino as she is a part of the Tsukino family when not transformed into Sailor Luna. Human and cat Luna are the same character but cat Luna doesn’t use that full name in the series and even when Human Luna shows up in the manga, anime and Sailor Moon Crystal, she does not pretend to be part of the Tsukino family so the name simply does not apply to those series. That being said if Luna was ever brought to the vet she might be tracked in their system as having the family name Tsukino, if that’s how things are done in Japan. Somehow the idea of Luna getting prodded by a vet seems perverse and we know she doesn’t get spayed so perhaps she’s never been.
How official is this name? It’s in the credits so that’s something. It isn’t stated anywhere in the English version of the show and while it is said repeatedly in the Japanese version, that’s hardly what was likely intended with those scenes. I’d say the name is more or less as official as original dub names like Darien Shields or Amy Anderson.
This of course raises another interesting question. What is Artemis’s name? Is he Shironeko Artemis, meaning “White cat Artemis”? Does that mean Diana would take her father’s family name, Shironeko, even though she’s grey? Calling her “Haiironeko Diana” or “Grey cat Diana” would fit with the trend but not with how family names work.
Have you been watching Sailor Moon on Toonami Rewind? I’m Canadian so I don’t get Cartoon Network. Sailor Moon airing on Toonami is not a part of my own history of watching Sailor Moon so I have no nostalgia for it. The show played on Global and YTV throughout the week and also on US stations UPN 38 and WPix in the early hours of the morning back in 1995, years before the show reached a broad audience in the US through Toonami.
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i just hope they do not use the English honorific dialogue for Toonami like they did for Sailor Moon Eternal
I just want to point out as someone who’s lived in Japan for 11 years now and speaks fluently, Artemis would be Shroineko not Shiro. When Shiro becomes an adjective it would have an I at the end. Shiro is a noun. Shiroi is an adjective. Then again kuro neko is also incorrect lol. It would be Kuro NO neko which is what I believe Usagi says? Or Kuroi Neko. Just saying lol
wouldnt that turn her name to luna cat black? since usagi tsukino? maybe luna nekono kuro? its too funny all around, that and the fact that even the vis dub contains errors in there translations as ive stated before the biggest being the song for the 1st 167 episodes
Shroineko isn’t correct either. What the hell kind of Japanese is shroi lol
Zack – 黒猫 (“kuroneko”) is a compount word that means “black cat”. Usagi refers to her as “黒猫ルナ” (“kuroneko Luna”) in the narration, just as Adam said.
This is either some sort of joke, or somebody at Viz somehow literally thought “kuruneko Luna” was her ~NAME~
compound* (And I used some emojis but everything after them got deleted, so this was the rest of the message:)
– which wouldn’t surprise me at all, since Viz doesn’t do good work in general.
I just want to point out that 白猫, 黒猫, and 灰猫 (grey cat) are far more commonly used than 白い猫, 黒い猫, or 灰色の猫 are in Japan since the former group has fewer characters/syllables to write/speak than the latter group does. [白い猫] is also maybe how a Western foreigner in a Japanese 101 class would write “white cat”. It’s not grammatically incorrect but also not preferred by modern native Japanese when speaking or writing because it’s inefficient.
For someone who has lived in Japan for 11 years, you probably haven’t read enough literature or print media to know that both versions are acceptable. Janessa D is correct about 黒猫 being a compound noun.
Bad news: Nancy MacKenzie died 3 days ago.
I didn’t know about Luna’s full name.
Aren’t you going to ask about July news before someone beats you to it?
When will they release the July news and why?