An age old controversy may have finally been answered as the Sailor Moon Eternal film has weighed in on the issue of the colour of Phobos and Deimos’s clothes! Phobos and Deimos are Rei’s crows. In the Dreams arc of the manga, and the first Sailor Moon Eternal film, we see their humanoid fairy forms. A quiz in the Sailor Moon Eternal magazine, which I posted photos of recently, asked which character was Phobos and which was Deimos. The only noticeable difference between the two is the colour of their clothes. So which is it? The answer has been a mystery until now. The Sailor Moon Eternal film, now in theatres, settles it. Phobos is red and Deimos is purple!
Twitter user @oozorakeroko2 posted that the answer as to what colour they were had been answered in the film but did not not state what that was! Earlier today Twitter user @KrissyDiggs shared a few photos of a promo packet which she got at a screening of the film. One such photo was a bio for Sailor Mars which included a colour image of Phobos and Deimos with their names under it. She then posted a close up photo of the two. The caption suggests that Phobos is red and Deimos is purple!
Why do I state that this mystery has been going on for so long? The Sailor Moon manga is black and white so throughout the Dream and Stars arcs in which Phobos and Deimos appear we can never see the colour of their clothing. There are two colour images of the two which have been drawn by Naoko Takeuchi and those gives conflicting information.
The first such image, seen in the February 1996 issue of Nakayoshi and later reprinted in the Sailor Moon Original Picture Collection Vol. IV art book, tells us that Phobos is purple and Deimos is red (PIPDIR).
A year later an image from the 1997 issue of Nakayoshi tells a different story. This image was reprinted in the Sailor Moon Original Picture Collection Vol. V art book and states that Phobos is actually red while Deimos is purple (PIRDIP). It seems that Sailor Moon Crystal canon agrees with this later interpretation of their colours. Will this settle the question once and for all or will fans continue to argue about their manga colours for years to come?
Phobos
This whole thing is reminiscent of the Transformers controversy with regards to the colours of Soundwave’s Transforming Mini-Cassettes Frenzy and Rumble. For the toys Frenzy is Blue, Rumble is Red (FIBRIR) while in the animated series Frenzy is Red, Rumble is Blue (FIRRIB).
Deimos
Check out more of @KrissyDiggs’ photos of the movie promo packet including the Dead Moon Circus and some relationship charts, bios for Tuxedo Mask, Helios, Sailor Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, Saturn and Chibi Moon, bios for Sailor Venus, Jupiter, Mars and Mercury and close up photos of the Amazon Trio, the Amazoness Quartet, Phobos and Deimos, Human Artemis and Minako.
Fans can check out scans of the Sailor Moon art books from Sailor Music (Vol. IV, Vol. V) or Miss Dream (Vol. IV, Vol. V).