Queen Nehelenia (女王ネヘレニア, Joō Neherenia) is the main villain of the 4th season of the anime series, and the leader of the Dead Moon Circus. Later, she is the main villain for the first 6 episodes of the 5th season.
Quick Answers
What role does Queen Nehelenia play in the 4th season of the anime series?
What is the physical appearance of Queen Nehelenia in the anime series?
Who does Queen Nehelenia lead in the anime series?
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What is unique about Queen Nehelenia's hairstyle in the anime series?
Appearance[]
Queen Nehelenia is an exceptionally lovely, youthful, graceful and beautiful woman with white skin with pointed ears and extremely long, flowing, wavy dark blue hair. Her hair is mostly down apart from two buns and two ponytails coming from those buns. Her fringe is similar to Usagi's except it is sharper and she has slim light blue eyes with slit-shaped pupils. Her dress is darker green with puffy sleeves below her shoulders and longer skin-tight sleeves going down to her wrists, her top only covers her breasts and the skirt is covered by a beige overskirt. She has a lavender cape that goes down to the floor and wears gold and black bracelets and a necklace with a similar style. Her earrings and headpiece consist of three silver moons (one being golden) and she wears a black circular gem as a crown. She was also considered the loveliest, fairest and most beautiful being in the Dead Moon Circus.
When Queen Nehelenia was good she wore the same outfit but her skin was a natural human skin tone and her eyes were larger and bright blue.
As a child, Queen Nehelenia looks similar to her adult self. Child Nehelenia has the same dark blue hair but instead of it flowing down to the ground, it is in two short ponytails like Chibiusa's hair, she retains her fringe and odangos. Her dress is identical to her adult self but her jewelry is less numerous and intricate with her only having a simple necklace, stud earrings, and crown. Her necklace is a simple gold choker with a red gem, her earrings are white studs and her crown is a simplified version of her adult self.
However, it should be noted that it is likely she only retains this form due to embracing her seal in the mirror; when her mirror breaks near the end of SuperS, she is shown in a form with sickly purple, wrinkled skin, long disheveled white hair and to be much older and more bitter. This implies that her true form may be similar (or identical to) that of Zirconia, who was created by her fears.
Character design sheets show that Queen Nehelenia has a spiderweb pattern on the back of her cloak. It also shows she has a long black bow on the back of her dress and she wears black high heeled sandals with a design similar to her crown on them. This may not be seen so easily in the anime due to her long dress and cloak.
Information[]
Prior to Anime[]
Queen Nehelenia, then known as Queen Helenia, ruled over her own kingdom of peace and harmony in which her subjects all adored her. She took great pride in the fact her subjects always complimented her of her great beauty. Because Queen Nehelenia dreamed of staying young forever, she gazed at her reflection in the mirror to see her future but instead saw herself as an ugly old woman. In turn, this caused her to become obsessed with remaining young and beautiful forever, and so she extracted the dream mirrors of her subjects and turned them into Lemures, allowing her to stay young forever. Zirconia was then created from her fears of becoming ugly. She formed the Dead Moon Circus, but the Dark Moon wasn't nearly as nice a place to live as the Moon Kingdom, which she watched from the Dark Moon, so she wanted to take over the Moon Kingdom and take Queen Serenity's place as ruler of Silver Millennium and eventually Crystal Tokyo. When she learned of the Golden Crystal, she tried to get it from its guardian, Helios, but was unable to; due to her evil intentions, and was eventually sealed inside a mirror of darkness by Queen Serenity.
Queen Nehelenia was able to reawaken when the great power of Elysion weakened due to people giving up on their good dreams, though she was still trapped inside a mirror. She then captured Helios and imprisoned his physical body inside Nehelenia's mirror, where she imprisoned him in spider-like threads in a red cage, but the pure golden light from Chibiusa's lovely dreams turned his spirit into Pegasus, who then remained in the dream world, only able to enter the real world as an illusion.
Sailor Moon SuperS[]
At some point, the venomous Queen Nehelenia was discovered inside of a dream mirror by the Amazoness Quartet, and she gave them mystic orbs to give them more strength and keep them young and lovely forever. The four girls agreed to work for her as her loyal subjects and minions.
Nehelenia then commanded Zirconia to find the person whose lovely dreams Pegasus was hiding inside. At a solar eclipse, the Dark Moon Circus was able to arrive on Earth and began seeking out the holder of Pegasus. After the Amazon Trio became complete humans from Pegasus' aid, Queen Nehelenia told Zirconia that the golden dream-mirror of the holder of Pegasus had to be found immediately.
Eventually, Nehelenia plunged the world into darkness and covered it with spider-like threads. Once Sailor Chibi Moon was imprisoned inside her mirror by Zirconia, Nehelenia used her golden dream mirror, forced Pegasus to become Helios again, and took the Golden Crystal, allowing her to escape the mirror, destroying Zirconia in the process. Nehelenia fought the Super Sailor Guardians and gained the advantage until the Amazoness Quartet switched the Golden Crystal for a pineapple and gave it to Super Sailor Moon. With the help of everyone on Earth, Super Sailor Moon and Super Sailor Chibi Moon used the fully energized Golden Crystal to shoot an extremely powerful beam of golden energy at Nehelenia, defeating both her and destroying the circus tent.
However, Nehelenia survived and lifted the remains of the main circus tent toward the Dark Moon, kidnapping Super Sailor Chibi Moon, who was unconscious. Super Sailor Moon followed her to the top of the circus tent, where, as a result of the battle, Nehelenia's beauty and youth diminished, turning her into an ugly old crone. She threw Super Sailor Chibi Moon over the edge, and Super Sailor Moon jumped after her, aided by Pegasus. Nehelenia then returned to her mirror, sealing herself inside it once again, and returning to the dark moon inside her mirror to sustain her exceptional beauty, youth and charm for all eternity.
Sailor Moon Sailor Stars[]
Unlike the manga, she was discovered by Sailor Galaxia, who released her from her mirror seal and took advantage of her jealousy and venom towards the Silver Millennium, although Galaxia's true agenda was to awaken the spirit of Sailor Saturn deep within Hotaru Tomoe. Once released from her mirror, (and after being convinced that the Sailor Senshi were mocking her) Nehelenia becomes so enraged that her own "Dream Mirror" of sorts is released from her body. However, Nehelenia's mirror only contained anger and hatred.
Encouraged by Sailor Galaxia, she smashed the mirror, whose shards rained over all of Japan, infecting anyone struck in the eye by a shard, including Mamoru. The other Super Sailor Senshi caught up, but were unable to stop Nehelenia from taking her grudge on the White Moon, and she stole Mamoru inside the mirror. Using Sailor Teleport, the Sailor Senshi infiltrate Nehelenia's makeshift castle, where she subjected all of them to nightmares and illusory copies of herself, only to capture and seal them all away. Only Usagi makes it to her castle unscathed and, despite Sailor Chibi Moon and Sailor Saturn also arriving, they are unable to stop Nehelenia, as Chibi Moon prevents Hotaru from using Silence Glaive Surprise.
Usagi learns about her past and despite Nehelenia's attempts to make Usagi hate her so she can destroy her, Usagi refuses to do so and instead forgives Nehelenia for her actions of vengeance. Despite Nehelenia's desire to torture the Sailor Senshi, Usagi's desperate plea to take everyone's pain alone resonates with Nehelenia, who begins to empathize with Sailor Moon. With the newfound power of Eternal Sailor Moon as well as Nehelenia finally embracing the Sailor Senshi's wish to aid her, Usagi is able to grant Nehelenia's true wish: to start her entire life over as a child again, and to have friends. Thinking it was all just a dream, her child form wakes up in front of her subjects who tell her she was merely sleeping. Before she leaves to rest, she asks if anyone will sing her a lullaby. One of the subjects agrees and the reborn Nehelenia smiles in appreciation.
Abilities[]
Queen Nehelenia can shoot energy waves of shadows and darkness, and also spider-like threads. She is also impervious to even the strongest of most attacks; except those of Super Sailor Saturn. The Golden Crystal increases and multiplies her own abilities tremendously. She could also emit bursts of pure dark energy that cause intense pain and agony to her opponents, which she can strengthen and intensify if need to.
Gallery[]
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Trivia[]
- Nehelenia herself draws inspiration from many fairy tale villains, such as her lifelong desire to become beautiful and youthful for all eternity, which is similar to the Evil Queen from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The Evil Queen, too, desired to remain forever young and the fairest in all the land; never wanting anyone else to surpass her exceptional charm, looks, youth, and beauty. Also, she possessed a magic mirror that foretold her future and destiny.
- Also, her use of a cursed mirror shard, embedded into Mamoru's eye, and kidnapping him bears similar parallels to the title character in Hans Christian Andersen's The Snow Queen.
- Her use of a thorny briar to protect her castle and the curse to put others to sleep bears similarities to Maleficent, from Sleeping Beauty.
- Unlike the three previous final villains (Queen Metalia, Wiseman, Pharaoh 90), Nehelenia never really dies.
- When Queen Nehelenia reverts into an ugly, old woman the very first time, she expresses disgust at the look of pity Super Sailor Moon gives her. She alludes to the fact that Super Sailor Moon who was Princess Serenity back then- had looked at her in the same way once before. This suggests Queen Nehelenia and Princess Serenity had crossed paths in the distant past.
- Queen Nehellenia as a child is similar to that of Chibiusa Tsukino.
- In many countries, her name was mistranslated as Queen Neherenia.
- She is the only villain that appears in 2 seasons.
- Her name either refers to Nepheline, a mineral (probable since Sailor Moon often names villains after gems or minerals) that is interestingly very dark when polished, or to Nehalennia, an ancient goddess (also probable, since many names are borrowed from gods or goddesses).
- Her older appearance looks similar to Zirconia (without the helmet), and the Viz version of the 90s anime has a throwaway line where Nehelenia asks Zirconia what her greatest pleasure is. Zirconia says that she likes seeing Nehelenia's image in the mirror. Nehelenia tells Zirconia that the thing that causes her the greatest anguish is seeing her face in the mirror. This suddenly becomes significant when it is understood that Nehelenia greatly feared the idea of getting old, indicating that the two are actually the same person. In fact, she calls her "My reflection that I so detest", before coming out of the mirror.
