TV Tropes, you and I are going to have words.



Months back, I stumbled across this noise. I'd just edit it, but that'd also involve arguing with others about the changes, and right now, I just don't have that in me.… so instead, I'm just gonna ramble about it here.

I'm starting with the second point, because it has a lot more concrete evidence pulled straight from the source material, and is a lot more "what the hell ಠಿ_ಠ" in my eyes.

Now, while it's debatable if she's bi in other continuities, for her manga counterpart—and assumingly Crystal, by proxy—this is anything but 'heavily ambiguous'.

First, let's start off light: The first two images are her first meeting Ami, and gushing over Minako.



This is what I would refer to as ambiguous: Acknowledging that the new girl that she just met is cute, and fangirling that her hero Sailor V is (supposedly) the Princess of the Moon Kingdom.

Here, it's understandable if one may think, "Yeah, she may be flirting or have some interest in them, but the reader could just be twisting the information around to what they want to believe/queerbait fuel for those that yearn for that delicious yuri shipping."

Trust me, it starts getting a lot more blatant from here.

Usagi commenting that Makoto smelling nice isn't that big of a deal… but {a} pointing out someone's smell is a bit more intimate than just their looks, and {b} notice the blush lines that are there that weren't there with Ami… but were with Minako.

And the second page? Good lord.

Not only is she truncating the name of a girl that she just met to give her a cute-ass nickname, but even her friends are straight up pointing out that she's flirting with someone, and call her out for chasing Makoto over Tuxedo Mask, whom she had a consistent ladyboner for several Acts for by this point.

From what I understand, unless you have explicit permission to do so and have known them for a while, giving someone a cute nickname—especially one based on their first name—is not only a bold as hell move in Japan, it's also potentially incredibly rude.

Yeah, fiction can be far more lenient with these rules, but given that honorifics are at least given a passing mention in an earlier Act (i.e. Usagi telling Ami to just call her by her first name instead of "Tsukino-san", even though they just met), I assume that what holds true in the real world also holds true in the manga's canon.

Honorifics are serious business, yo. Usagi's lucky that Makoto was cool with it, and just said, "Welp, guess that's my nickname now, " haha.

And then, there's Rei.
Good lord, there's Rei.

Let's review:

• Ami lures Usagi onto the bus by saying there's a "really beautiful girl" that ride there sometimes.

• Usagi has hearts in her eyes upon seeing Rei.

• Usagi follows her off the bus—even though that was not part of the plan—because she wants to follow Rei, and admire her beauty.

This is ambiguous how‽

If Usagi were any thirstier, she'd pass out from dehydration!

Last—but certainly not least—we have Haruka.

While in the original anime, Usagi loses interest immediately once she finds out that Haruka is a gal… their relationship is a lot different in the manga.

First, Exhibit A:



After being kissed by her, Usagi dreams about Haruka/Sailor Uranus. While dreams in reality can take any shape and form, and don't necessarily have any rhyme or reason to them… this is not only fiction, but a shōjo series, and dreams tend to have a lot more meaning there.

Next, Exhibit B:



Usagi is blushing, and her heart is beating out of her chest.

She's thinking about her dream, and the kiss.

And despite not being 100% sure if Haruka is indeed a girl or a guy… she still starts to go in for the kiss.

Did I mention that she's in a long-term relationship with Mamoru by this point? Because as Exhibit C shows, the narrative sure as hell didn't.

Note Usagi's reaction throughout all of this. Not once has she ever thought, "Oh gods, I may be attracted to a girl;" it's, "Shit, have I technically been cheating on Mamoru?"

I dunno about you, but most everyone that I've heard of that even passively refers to themselves as straight has something of a minor meltdown upon realizing that they may be attracted to the same sex… much less, ya know, actually having any form of physical intimacy with them, and wishes to continue wanting to have physical intimacy with them.

Also, have a bonus round just for funsies.



Whoops just casually getting felt up and not being bothered by it in the slightest! (This may be non-canon, but is still drawn by Takeuchi, which is why I find it to be hilarious.)

Now that I'm done with my testimony for the case of Bisexual Usagi's existence, I can point to the former comment. Unlike Usagi's sexuality, there's nothing in the text itself that supports this, but this supposedly comes from Word of God… "supposedly", because the source is shaky as hell.

This is a Danbooru link to the preface of the short story, "Ami's First Love"… and on it, there's a comment that supposedly comes from Takeuchi… but I can't find a source (or even the Japanese text) for said comment—just the English translation.

While the logic makes sense—I mean, it's a book with hearts on the cover, c'mon now —the fact that I can't trace this back to an official source makes this flimsy.

What's even more interesting, though? This same user has provided similar Author's Notes to Takeuchi's art—and only Takeuchi's art.

They've uploaded several pages of images, but only Takeuchi's art are the ones that have comments with translated A/Ns.

Furthermore? It's only from the color drawings, to boot—nothing else drawn by Takeuchi like manga panels have similar translations.

This leads me to believe that there is some official source that they're pulling from, but I haven't the foggiest as to what it may be. I want to say that it could be pulled from the Picture Collection… but the scans that I've seen from those just have pictures—no complimenting text.

(There are other collections; maybe it's from one of those?)

So, Ami's sexuality may still be up in the air—well, in the manga anyway, and even that's debatable. "Ami's First Love" strongly hints that she can feel attraction towards other people; she just doesn't recognize that it is attraction she's feeling. (Her friends sure as shit are convinced that she's crushing over this Mercurius, haha.)

Usagi, though? Between Rei and Haruka alone, I think it's a pretty open-and-shut case.

(Note that I didn't include Kou Seiya/Sailor Star Maker from the Stars arc, because in the manga, Usagi doesn't feel for her that way at all. Like the case with Haruka, original anime is a whole different story.)