Rei Hino
From Sailor Moon
Rei Hino is Sailor Mars in Sailor Moon, the shrine maiden Guardian who fights with fire and spirit charms. She is voiced by Michie Tomizawa in Japanese and Cristina Vee in the Viz English dub.
About Rei Hino
Rei Hino is Sailor Mars, the fire Guardian of Sailor Moon. A shrine maiden at Hikawa Shrine with real psychic sensitivity, Rei fights with flame attacks and paper charms. She is elegant, ambitious and sharp tongued, and her constant bickering with Usagi hides one of the team's strongest bonds. Rei senses danger before anyone else and says what the group needs to hear, even when it stings. Of all the Guardians, she may be the one who grows most in trust.
Appearance
Rei has long, straight black hair with a purple shine, sharp violet eyes and a poised way of carrying herself. At home she wears the red and white outfit of a shrine maiden at Hikawa Shrine, sweeping the grounds and reading fortunes. As Sailor Mars she wears the red Guardian uniform with a purple bow and high heels. She is drawn as the elegant one of the group, all clean lines and confidence, which makes her bickering, comic angry moments with Usagi funnier by contrast.
Personality
Rei is proud, driven and blunt. She dreams big, sings, writes songs and plans a future far beyond the shrine, and she has no patience for laziness, which puts her on a collision course with Usagi daily. Under the temper sits discipline and real spirituality. She meditates, works hard at everything she does and takes her duties seriously. She is also fiercely loyal once she commits. Her softer moments are rare and therefore land hard, especially when she admits how much the team means to her.
Background & Story
Rei lives at Hikawa Shrine with her grandfather, its priest, while her father, a politician, keeps his distance. She attends a private Catholic girls' school and works as a shrine maiden, with real spiritual sensitivity: she senses evil, reads fire omens and uses paper charms even before Luna awakens her as Sailor Mars. Rei's arc is about trust. She starts guarded and ambitious, dreaming of a big life on her own terms, and slowly lets the Guardians in. In the manga and Crystal she is cooler and more distant; in the 90s anime she is warmer, funnier and closer to Usagi, with their rivalry a running source of comedy.
Powers & Abilities
- Fire Soul: Her basic flame attack, a fireball launched from her fingertips, used from her first appearance.
- Ofuda charms: Paper talismans she throws with the chant Akuryo Taisan, freezing evil spirits and monsters in place. She can use them as a civilian.
- Fire reading and sensing: Rei meditates before the sacred fire for visions and senses dark energy and danger before the team encounters it.
- Mars Flame Sniper: Her later attack, summoning a bow of fire and shooting a precise flaming arrow.
Key Relationships
- Usagi Tsukino: Her favourite person to argue with and the friend she would trust with her life. Their friction is the team's comedy engine.
- Her grandfather: The Hikawa Shrine priest who raised her. Their home life is warm and full of gentle comedy.
- Minako Aino: A fellow veteran Guardian in spirit. In later seasons the two often act as the team's experienced pair.
- Yuichiro Kumada: The shrine's live in helper in the 90s series, whose open crush on Rei shows her kinder side.
Quick Answers
Who voices Rei Hino?
Michie Tomizawa in Japanese. In the Viz English dub she is voiced by Cristina Vee.
Does Rei have psychic powers outside her Guardian form?
Yes, in a natural way: she senses evil auras, receives visions in the shrine's sacred fire and uses ofuda charms to paralyse evil, even untransformed.
What element does Rei control?
Fire. Mars Flame Sniper fires a flaming arrow, and her earlier attacks include Fire Soul and Burning Mandala.
Are Rei and Usagi friends or rivals?
They argue constantly, but it is a close friendship. Rei is often the first to defend Usagi and the one trusted to lead when Usagi cannot.