Kino Makoto - Astrology and Mythology
| Makoto and Her Sunsign Makoto is a Sagittarius (Sagittarius - the Archer - ninth sign of the zodiac), and like a Sagittarius she is open, friendly, tall (yes, height is a Sagittarian thing ^^), and aggressive; Sagittarius is a fire sign. Makoto's boy-crazy attitude is typically Sagittarian: Sagittarians are characterized as "loving the one they're near when they're not near the one they love." :D Sagittarius is a fire sign, which doesn't fit with Makoto's affinity to wood and to electricity, but then Takeuchi-san created the Inner Senshi with not only the Western zodiac's elements (fire, earth, air, water) but also traditional Eastern elements (water, fire, wood, metal, earth) in mind. The ruling planet of Sagittarius is Jupiter - hence Makoto's Senshi name. xp It might also interest you to note that the Japanese (along with the Koreans and Chinese) use a specific symbol to represent each day of the week, and the symbol used to represent Thursday is the kanji for "ki" ("wood"), the first character in Makoto's name. I mention this because the twelve zodiac signs all have a day they're associated with, and the sign of Sagittarius is associated with Thursday (the name "Thursday" in fact derives from "Thor's Day" - after Thor, Norse god of *thunder* :P). Makoto's Mythology Jupiter is the Roman version of Zeus, the Greek king of the gods and the god of thunder. In fact, the name "Jupiter" or "Iuppiter" is actually a contracted form of "Zeus pater" (which means "father Zeus" in Latin). Zeus controls the weather and is characterized by thunderbolts, which relates to why Makoto's transformation and attacks are based on electricity, lightning, thunder, et cetera. Zeus also rules over oak trees and eagles, which ties in with Makoto's "oak evolution" attack and her relation to wood. Zeus is just as crazy about girls as Makoto is about boys (Zeus and Makoto are strikingly similar in that they have strong, self-assured personalities but have a weakness for the opposite sex - something quite Sagittarian in nature, in fact!), and the king of the gods is notorious for having many lovers and making his wife Hera jealous. Zeus is actually bisexual (and you *know* how many fans think that Mako might be bi... *L* XD), and he had one notable male lover named Ganymede. Each moon of the planet Jupiter is named after one of Zeus's many lovers, and the biggest moon is called Ganymede. XD!!! Zeus is brother to Poseidon and Hades, son to Cronus, and father of many children, including Ares, Hermes, and (some books say) Aphrodite. Mythology Behind the Constellation Sagittarius Of all the centaurs, Chiron was the only immortal one. All the other centaurs, who are mortal, were born from the union between Nephele the cloud-goddess and Ixion (a man who seduced Nephele thinking she was the goddess Hera), while Chiron was born from another union altogether (some say his father is Cronus). At any rate, Chiron became very wise in the ways of medicine, hunting, archery, the arts, et cetera, and some of the finest Greek heroes trained under him, such as Castor and Polydeuces, Jason, Heracles, Achilles, and the god of healing Asclepius (heh... they trained UNDER him... I'm so hentai... *L* ^^;;;). Unfortunately, some years later Heracles accidentally struck his former master with one of his trademark poisoned arrows and Chiron, being immortal, suffered endless agony from the poison without being able to die. In order to die, Chiron agreed to take the place of Prometheus, the Titan who was undergoing eternal punishment for giving humans the secret of fire (Prometheus could only be freed if someone was genuinely willing to replace him). Thus Chiron was allowed to die and Zeus rewarded Chiron for his lifelong nobility by turning him into the constellation Sagittarius - the Archer. (There are some stories that say that Zeus allowed Heracles to end Prometheus's torment by killing the eagle that ate Prometheus's liver everyday, but whatever the case, Zeus turned Chiron into the constellation Sagittarius after he had lived his life.) |