Sailor Star Maker

Sailor Star Maker 	Sailor Star Maker
 	
Publication information	Publication information
Publisher 	Kodansha Limited
First appearance 	Sailor Moon Act 43
Created by 	Naoko Takeuchi
In-story information 	In-story information
Alter ego 	Kou Taiki / Taiki Lights
Identity 	Female crossdresser (manga)
Super gender bender (anime)
Abilities 	Light-based magical powers
Angelic wings
Allies and alliegances 	Sailor Starlights
Princess KakyuuSailor Team
Enemies 	Sailor Galaxia
Sailor Iron Mouse
Sailor Star Maker is a member of the Sailor Starlights, a trio of Sailor Senshi in the Sailor Moon manga and anime. They were created by Sailor Moon creator Naoko Takeuchi and published by Kodansha Limited.
==History==
Sailor Star Maker is a member of the Sailor Starlights, three Sailor Senshi who were the lone survivors of the planet Kinmoku after Sailor Galaxia attacked. When on the planet, they served as protectors of Princess Kakyuu. Upon coming to Earth, the Starlights disguised themselves as a male pop group called the Three Lights.
Kou Taiki (大気 光 Taiki Kō) is the most intellectual of the Sailor Starlights. His/Her abilities rival that of Ami Mizuno, though s/he considers her romantic notions foolish. In the anime, Ami's appeal for him to see the good in dreaming does begin to have an effect, however. In combat with a phage, Star Maker is the first of the Starlights to willingly allow Sailor Moon to heal the monster rather than trying to kill it herself. She spares the monster only because it had been a teacher who Ami respected. Later in the series, as he is beginning to lose hope in finding Princess Kakyuu, he visits a sick girl in the hospital. She shows him a drawing of the Princess that she sees when she listens to the Three Lights' song. With renewed hope, Taiki returns to the Three Lights. In the anime, he sometimes wears glasses.
Like Yaten, Taiki believes that Seiya should stay away from Usagi after learning she is Sailor Moon, despite their wish, shared by Princess Kakyuu and the Guardian Senshi, for them all to work together. However, his views on Usagi change for the better near the end of Sailor Stars. He seems to be the most cool headed of the trio.
Taiki's responsibilities in the band are background vocals, keyboards, lyrics, and guitar. S/he also enjoys poetry and belongs to the Literary club at school. Taiki is meant to be more distant than Setsuna Meioh.
==Powers and abilities==
Like all Sailor Senshi, Sailor Star Maker is given special powers and items that aid in her missions as a soldier of her their planet and ruler.
* Maker Star Power, Make-Up! — Changes Taiki into Sailor Star Maker (and, in the anime, back into a female).
* Star Gentle Uterus — Sailor Star Maker's attack, an explosion of lights. Tokyopop altered the name to "Star Gentle Creator."
* Star Maker Relaxation, Star Maker Strike, and Star Maker Music Box — additional attacks listed in the Materials Collection for Sailor Star Maker. It was never specified what they did nor were they ever used in the any version of the series, however little notes were added for two of them.
* Starlights Fusion Tempest — A special combined attack from all three Starlights and the only physical attack other than the Sword of Sealing able to physically hurt Sailor Galaxia. It is only named in the Eien Denstesu musical, but something similar is seen in Episode 199 of the anime. In the manga, Sailor Kakyuu uses a similarly named attack called Kinmoku Fusion Tempest.
* Star Yell — The palm sized star-shaped device used by the Starlights to launch their attacks. It is also sometimes called the Sailor Star Yell. It only appears in the anime.
* Sailor Change Star — According to Bandai, this is a two piece set of the microphone and brooch used by the Starlights to transform. According to Naoko Takeuchi's own notes, the brooches contains the Sailor Crystals of the Starlights, similar to those of Sailor Moon and Sailor Chibi Moon.
* She can grow a pair of angelic wings in the manga.
==Sailor Star Fighter in other media==
Aside from the manga and anime, the character has appeared alongside the other Starlights in various media. They appeared in the Sailor Moon musicals Sailor Stars, Eien Densetsu, Ryuusei Densetsu, and Kakyuu-Ouhi Kourin, as well as their own songs, due to their cover as a music group.
In the musicals, it is not clear whether they are crossdressers or magically change their forms, though they keep the personalities characterized in the anime. Taiki is generally portrayed as reluctant to help the other Sailors in these productions. He is also portrayed as more of a womanizer, several times hitting on Michiru and it is implied he does this to all women.
==Actresses==
In the anime, Kou Taiki is voiced by Narumi Tsunoda. In the musical version, Seiya is played by Hikari Ono and Akiko Nakayama.
==Censorship==
In the Italian dub, instead of changing sex of the Starlights, there were six people - the Starlights were always men and simply summoned their twin sisters instead of transforming, as the original depiction was very controversial in Italy. Similarly in the Russian dub, the Sailor Starlights were consistently referred to as men, even in their Senshi forms (despite the visible breasts). However, they had different voice actors in their civilian and senshi forms. Some countries implied that they were still men, even when transformed, or were women in civilian form. The North American, French, Swedish, Dutch, and Hungarian dubs did not get the rights to this season, so they never appeared. In the Korean dub, the Sailor Starlights were female in both their civilian and senshi forms. This change was made to make them become straight women, but this made Usagi's and Seiya's relationship more like a homosexual relationship than a heterosexual relationship. Surprisingly, the Latin American dubs, specifically those from Mexico and Brazil (which also refused to change the romantic nature of Uranus' and Neptune's relationship) kept the nature of the Starlights gender intact, the same done in the Hebrew dub, except for them keeping male voice actors for the both civilian and senshi forms.
In fact, the anime made them transsexuals instead of cross-dressers to avoid the controversy caused by Uranus and Neptune's relationship. In the manga, Taiki was an asexual woman. The anime implies that Taiki has feelings for Ami Mizuno and Makoto Kino, although nothing clear comes from this.
The Starlights are usually falsely attributed to the fifth season not being dubbed into English. Despite popular belief, this is really because Toei would not sell the rights to it. However, it has been reported that an independent British company attempted to produce a dub, but later backed down claiming they were dressed provocatively for a children's program. The French dub reportedly did not dub the series viewing the idea of transsexuals too risque for children, however.
Category:Publisher: Kodansha Limited
Category:Crossdressers
Category:Super gender bender
Category:Superheroes
Category:Characters