Lita Kino

Lita Kino (Makoto Kino)

Lita Kino, known as Makoto Kino in Japan (木野まこと) is a 'Senshi' character in the manga, musical theater, and television adaptations of the Japanese metaseries known as Sailor Moon. Kino Makoto is a 14-16 year old with medium-length brown hair and green eyes, and is more known as Sailor Jupiter.

She is also 170 cm, a typical measurement for a 'tall' schoolgirl. She is the tallest of the Sailor Team (a.k.a., the "Inner Senshi").

Her default school uniform for most of the story's run is different than what the other young women wear. It is white and brown with laces in the front and a long brown skirt. The fanon reason is her school didn't have them in her size - this is never referred to in the original story. Visually, schoolgirls with longer skirts than normal in anime are traditionally depicted as more 'delinquent'. More likely is the possibility that she simply didn't require a new uniform. This becomes unimportant later in the storyline, when she attends high school and wears the same new outfit as the other girls.

SKA Kigurumi costume of Makoto Kino

Her parents died in a plane crash, and subsequently, she lives alone in an apartment. Although very strong and athletic, she considers herself 'overly' tomboyish and compensates at being very good at domestic tasks. She is a great cook. Her most infamous trait is her seemingly random puppy-love affliction for cute boys, who she compares to a boy she knew when she was younger. She was the penultimate senshi introduced in the first major story arc, although she has fewer character-specific episodes than the others. As Sailor Jupiter, Makoto uses elemental attacks involving plants or lightning, which are commonly associated with the Roman god Jupiter.

Her personality is slightly different in adaptions of the Sailor Moon story, although generally more consistent overall than the other main characters.

Table of contents

1 Comparisons 1.1 Manga Version 1.2 Anime Differences 1.3 Anime (English Dub) Differences 1.4 Live Action Differences 2 Famous quirks 3 Actresses

Comparisons

Makoto is a transfer student and is often depicted with her hair down, and appears (erroneously) have a perm. Nearly all of Sailor Jupiter's attacks are plant based. A male friend who seems attracted to her and knows she is Sailor Jupiter is mentioned in one chapter but not mentioned again later on. Makoto admires Haruka Tenoh and they are considered friends.

Anime Differences

Makoto is a transfer student who is thought by the characters to be a former delinquent who got into fights (although this is commonly believed by the audience, there is no canon support for this and the manga contradicts this assumption). Makoto's hair is always seen up in a ponytail. In one episode of the 'filler' Doom Tree story arc, we learn she has had a male friend since childhood. Makoto's admiration of Haruka Tenoh is referenced, although the two are not close. The seiyuu who performed as Makoto was Emi Shinohara.

Anime (English Dub) Differences

Despite criticism against the English adaptation of Sailor Moon, Makoto Kino's personality is generally consistent with the original Japanese portrayal. Some aspects of her personality are downplayed, such as her height (presumably because taller American children wouldn't find a 170 cm-tall teen as unusual) and her obsession with proving her femininity (including 'running a restaurant' as a life goal rather than 'getting married young'). Her 'senpai' was given a name, Freddy; when later episodes were dubbed by a different company, Cloverway, he was given a different name. Lita Kino was voiced by Susan Roman, who also provided the voice of Megaman in the English version of the Megaman Legends game.

Lita's dub name is considered to be either a corruption of Leda, a moon of Jupiter or short for Hippolyta.

Live Action Differences

Makoto is more similar to the manga version than the anime version, including her attacks. However, her obsession with boys and proving her femininity are even more downplayed than the American dub. She is much more overtly boyish in dress and manner, tends to reject overtly girly things, and her sempai complex is treated with great seriousness rather than a reoccurring gag as in the original anime.

Famous quirks

• 'Talent': A fan term meaning to have large breasts. This comes from a dialogue change in the second season from the original to the English dub when the characters are debating who should be the lead in a play. Makoto implies she should because she has the 'largest chest' while Lita retorts it's because she has the most [stage] 'talent'. This slang is recognized by most anime fans due to the popularity of Sailor Moon. It may be supplanted by Azumanga Daioh's more expressive slang.

• Makoto yuri fandom: Sailor Moon's popularity and it's mainly all-female main cast created one of the largest yuri fandom for a series in anime. One of the most common femme-slash or yuri pairings in Sailor Moon is Makoto and Ami, mainly due to their polar personalities and appearance. Lita and Minako was a semi-common yuri pairing in early dub-based fanfiction. The otherwise unusually rare Makoto and Rei pairing has become more popular due to the Live Action version, which sometimes pits the opinions of the refined by somewhat cold Rei to the boyish but chummy Makoto.

• In the anime, Makoto is played by Emi Shinohara.
• In the English dub, Lita is played by Susan Roman. Lita is the only character in the English-language dub to be played by the same voice actor through the entire series run.

• In the live action series, Makoto is played by Myuu Azama. Azama often spells her name in Romaji as "Mew" when signing it.