Hello everyone, here is my second official proposal for a character who I believe deserves to have the category of Pure Good applied to them. That character is Sailor Jupiter AKA Makoto Kino from Sailor Moon.
What's the Work?[]
Sailor Moon is a popular shoujo manga series that was both written and illustrated by Naoko Takeuchi, and was serialized in Nakayoshi from the years 1991 to 1997. It focuses on a schoolgirl named Usagi Tsukino, after she discovers that she is the reincarnation of an ancient lunar warrior from the Moon Kingdom.
The remainder of the series has Usagi protecting the planet from evil, searching for the reincarnation of the Moon Kingdom’s princess, and gathering a team of other reincarnated warriors.
One of those warriors is the subject of this proposal. Now onto the character of Jupiter specifically.
Who is She/What Has She Done[]
Note: Since the character discussed here has far more screen time and overall appearances than the last candidate I discussed, rather than going over everything here, I will cover a few key episodes so you can get a general idea of Jupiter's behavior. Trust me, you do not want me to give a summary of almost the entire series after episode 45 out of 200.
Makoto Kino is the public identity of Sailor Jupiter. She is the fourth Sailor to be introduced and is the tomboyish muscle of the group.
When she was younger, her parents died in a plane accident and Makoto had to live in her own apartment.
In Makoto’s introductory episode, she makes her first appearance by saving Usagi from a group of guys who were threatening Usagi. Later on, Usagi learns from Umino that Makoto is a transfer student who was expelled from her previous school for fighting. Usagi talks with her, and Makoto shares some of her lunch and the two become friends with each other.
They then visit the Game Crown Center and Makoto meets Usagi’s friends as well as someone named Crane Game Joe. Makoto states that he looks like her old boyfriend and leaves the arcade to follow him.
After departing, Joe is attacked by one of the series villains named Zoisite. Makoto arrives and defends Joe, managing to land a strike on Zoisite, who then leaves once Usagi shows up.
Afterward, Makoto continues to follow Joe and ask him if he’s alright despite his rude attitude towards her. They are attacked again in a diner and Joe flees again, but is then found again by Zoisite along with Usagi who has now transformed into Sailor Moon.
After Joe is transformed into Gamecen and attacks and traps Sailor Moon, Makoto learns that she can transform from the talking cat Luna. Using her transformation pen, she becomes Sailor Jupiter for the first time and frees Sailor Moon, allowing her to transform Joe back to normal.
In her next appearance, after the other scouts have a debate about whether or not Usagi should be the leader, Makoto defends her and disagrees with the other two that she should not.
Later on, when an emergency arises over a rainbow crystal and Usagi calls for backup, Makoto comes to the call when the other two scouts refuse, and when she does arrive, she transforms and uses her powers to stun the monster allowing Sailor Moon to turn it back into a normal human.
At the end of the episode, whenever Luna considers telling Usagi that she is no longer the leader of the team, Makoto says for her not to and that deep down the other scouts believe in her, and that Usagi is a true friend.
In “I Won't Run Away from Love Anymore: Ami vs. Mamoru” after Makoto meets Ami, she encourages her to go find and protect Urawa with her. While they are searching Ami wants to turn back, Makoto says that Ryo is her boyfriend, and that Ami can’t disregard her feelings, that she needed to be honest with herself, and that it was alright for Sailor Scouts to fall in love.
When they find Ryo, Sailor Jupiter tells Sailor Mercury to flee to safety with Ryo while she stays behind to fight Endymion.
Later on, after losing, the Sailors all gather together and Jupiter works with Mercury to immobilize Endymion so Sailor Moon can attempt to turn him back to normal. Though the attempt fails, Ryo is still safe, and thanks to Makoto’s advice, he and Ami have grown closer.
In “Death of the Sailor Guardians: The Tragic Final Battle” after traveling to the Dark Kingdom, all of the Sailors are attacked by five DD Girls. After getting caught in a trap, Sailor Jupiter begins to be electrocuted to death, yet she still tells the other Sailors to hurry and stop Queen Beryl. She then uses the electricity flowing through her to produce an attack that creates a large bed of ice and spikes. All of the DD Girls are knocked back and two are killed by the attack.
Sailor Jupiter is left seriously injured and gives some final words of encouragement towards Sailor Moon before dying. Though she, along with the other deceased members of the cast, would be resurrected by Usagi’s wish in the next episode.
In her first appearance in the next season, she helps to bring down the Minotauron, and has all of her memories restored along with the rest of the Sailors.
In the next episode, Makoto falls in love with Ail when he is disguised as a human, and offers him some of her lunch. However, An becomes jealous and forces Ail to summon a cardian. Sailor Moon and Sailor Mercury arrive to help and Makoto transforms into Sailor Jupiter.
When Sailor Jupiter tries to use her attack, her arms are bound and her friends are trapped. She is saved by Moonlight Knight, and then she unleashes the full power of her attack on the cardian before Moonlight Knight convinces Sailor Moon to defeat it.
In an episode of “Sailor Moon S” Makoto saves Usagi by pushing her out of the way of a speeding motorcycle being driven by a girl named Haruka. Haruka notices that Makoto hurt her wrist saving Usagi and ties her scarf around it.
Later on, Makoto tries to find Haruka at her home to return the scarf to her. However, Kaolinite conjures a gust of wind to blow it away and a Daimon named Scar possesses it and after a battle, retreats while still inside it.
The next day, Makoto turns down the Usagi’s offer of hanging out in favor of searching for the lost scarf. That is, until Haruka along with Michiru show up and request Makoto take a ride with them, which she agrees to do.
However, the whole thing turns out to be a trap. Scar shows up and takes Makoto’s heart crystal, while Haruka and Michiru transform to attempt and try to steal it. Luckily, the other Sailors show up, and Haruka and Michiru return the crystal heart after they decide that they do not need it.
Makoto has her crystal heart returned to her and transforms into Sailor Jupiter. She blasts Scar with her attack, stunning her long enough for Sailor Moon to defeat her. She then confronts Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune, claiming that wanting to keep crystal hearts makes them no better than the Daimons.
Jupiter and Uranus clash and Uranus comes out victorious and flees, but not without damaging her hand. Later on, Makoto finds Haruka and returns her scarf by wrapping it around her bruised hand much like she did to her, while also reminding her of her childhood friend.
In “Makoto's Friendship: The Girl Who Admired Pegasus” it is revealed that Makoto knows a critically acclaimed author who goes by the name of Tomoko Takase. In the past, Makoto scared off three boys who were bullying her, read Tomoko’s writing, and offered her words of encouragement that eventually led to her publishing her first novel.
Later on, whenever Tomoko is facing doubt and feels that she can never write again, Makoto offers her more words of encouragement and reminds her of what her dreams used to be, inspiring her to take up writing once again. She also helps fight off Tiger’s Eye along with Usagi and Chibusa.
Admirable Standard[]
Even before she became a Sailor, Makato was already performing admirable actions. The reason that she got into fights at other schools was to defend other people from bullying, she helped inspire Tomoko to follow her dreams, and her Establishing Character Moment is her saving Usagi.
After she gains her powers as Sailor Jupiter, Makoto would go on to help the team in numerous victories against their foes.
As stated above though, Makoto also has a few victories that she can call her own. She helped Usagi defeat Gamecen when she would have likely died had she been on her own. In her next appearance, she was also the only one who fully supported Usagi as the team leader and was the only one who showed up to help fight the monster in that episode. Probably the most notable example of this, is an episode in R whenever Jupiter defeats a Cardian all by herself to save Sailor Moon. What makes this even more admirable is that this was after Makoto had willingly donated her own blood to save her injured childhood friend Shinozaki.
As far as her relationships with other characters go, she’s also very admirable. She’s the most protective of the main character Usagi, and she extends that protection to all of her other friends. One example was when she was about to fight some boys who were harassing Ami and claiming that her grades were the result of cheating, but still didn’t go through with it whenever Ami asked her not to.
As far as the whole group goes, Makoto is the one who does the cooking, housekeeping, and looks after the rest of their girls in their day to day lives. Her loyalty to them never wavering.
Corrupting Factors[]
Makoto doesn’t have any major corrupting factors in the grand scheme of things. She has a reputation as a delinquent, but as was stated above, despite her brute strength, the only reasons that she ever fights is either self defense or to protect someone.
While she does mention being angry during combat, this does not make her a Berserker, as she only focuses this on her enemies and does not hurt anyone else around her. Her powers also aren’t derived from rage.
While she did kill two of DD Girls in a suicide attack, this does not make her lethal. The DD Girls were already killing her and had surrounded her in a way that none of her friends could help. Makoto had to take out at least a few of them so that they wouldn’t continue to impede the other Sailors' progress in the Dark Kingdom.
While she did once claim that she should be the lead actress in a play because she had the best talent, this was just a minor joke, and for the rest of the series, she’s very humble, always downplaying herself and her achievements whenever they are brought up, so she definitely isn’t arrogant in the slightest.
There are also a few moments whenever Makoto accidentally hurts someone due to not knowing her own strength, like accidentally knocking Mamoru out or knocking Ami to the ground by clapping her on the back, but when these situations occur, she apologizes for them or asks if the person on the receiving end is okay.
Overall, any corrupting qualities that Makoto may demonstrate are ultimately subverted and don’t matter in the grand scheme of her behavior throughout the series.
Overall Verdict[]
Makoto is someone who qualifies as Pure Good. Underneath her tomboy personality is a loving caring girl who acts as a surrogate mother and big sister figure to everyone and would never hurt anyone unprovoked. All of these reasons are why I believe that Makoto, who is also known as Sailor Jupiter deserves to be approved as Pure Good.