Who's the smartest?

[nekosenshi]

I personally think they're all smart, the only Inner Senshi matching them (or ahead of them) is Mercury.

[yumecosmos]

I'd say Pluto, though that might not be fair since she's older. Hotaru also seems like a child prodigy, though I'm not sure if that's just because she has Michiru for a teacher, or because of her accelerated growth/regaining memories from her previous life, or something.

Comparing them to the inners is difficult since they all have such different talents (no pun intended, Jupiter fans ), but I think Rei is just as smart as Haruka, if not Michiru and Setsuna (again, keeping in mind that she's quite a bit younger than them.)

[nekosenshi]

Actually, Rei is not very much younger than Haruka and Michiru. In the S series, Haruka and Michiru are one grade above Usagi and friends. I'll agree Rei has good intuition, but I'm not sure about other smarts.

Ha ha, Jupiter's talent...We all know why she really should've played Snow White, right?

[yumecosmos]

Maybe the anime and manga are different then. In the manga at least they seem to already be adults who are just masquerading as high school students. In Stars doesn't Michiru say something about being high school students "again", as if they'd already graduated and are coming back?

[Zyppora]

Does it really matter for the discussion at hand what age they are? I think it's more important what age they act. And considering Haruka and Michiru's quite serious relationship, they're pretty mature.

[yumecosmos]

But I'm talking about intelligence, not maturity. If Haruka and Michiru are college graduates, of course they would know more than Rei because they're farther along in their education. That doesn't necessarily mean they're inherently smarter than Rei though. Or Ami, for that matter. For the same reason, it's kind of hard to say whether Pluto or Saturn is smarter.

[Zyppora]

Intelligence has little to do with knowledge (more with the speed with which to suck it up though). Besides that, Haruka and Michiru are in a different school too, so there's another factor to keep in mind when comparing them to Rei.

[yumecosmos]

Yeah, that's my point. That's why it's difficult to compare the outers and inners. Intelligence is such a tough thing to measure that it's hard to say who's really the smartest...

[nekosenshi]

I don't think Michiru ever says she's a high school student again.

[yumecosmos]

At the beginning of stars, Haruka says something to the effect that high school life is boring after travelling the world and raising a child, and Michiru responds "We can sing the praises of youth again."
Maybe they were seniors at Mugen and graduated after that. I don't think Michiru would be able to run in the circles she does without having a high school education. And Setsuna certainly wouldn't have her position as a physicist or a nurse if she hadn't graduated high school.

On a side note, I don't think it's quite true to say that having a serious relationship makes one mature. Usagi and Mamoru have a serious relationship, but I wouldn't call Usagi mature. Haruka can be quite immature at times (particularly where Seiya Kou is involved...)

[nekosenshi]

yumecosmos said:

At the beginning of stars, Haruka says something to the effect that high school life is boring after travelling the world and raising a child, and Michiru responds "We can sing the praises of youth again."
Maybe they were seniors at Mugen and graduated after that. I don't think Michiru would be able to run in the circles she does without having a high school education. And Setsuna certainly wouldn't have her position as a physicist or a nurse if she hadn't graduated high school.

On a side note, I don't think it's quite true to say that having a serious relationship makes one mature. Usagi and Mamoru have a serious relationship, but I wouldn't call Usagi mature. Haruka can be quite immature at times (particularly where Seiya Kou is involved...)

Sorry, but I'm not familiar with the manga. In the anime, Haruka never says anything of that sort. (Sorry again, I'm ignorant there!)
I always assumed Setsuna was out of school. She is definitely the most mature of the Sailor Senshi.

Anyway, how mature is Usagi and Mamoru's relationship? In the beginning of Stars, Usagi suggests that now that she's in high school, maybe they should advance their relationship. To me, that indicates that they've never had sex yet. Haruka and Michiru on the other hand, are definitely lovers, IMO.

[yumecosmos]

Actually, I think you were right according to the anime timeline. The manga timeline is different -_-;

On the second point as well the anime differs from the manga. The manga pretty strongly implies that they had sex in the R season. (They are shown lying on the floor and kissing, and later Usagi comes out of Mamoru's room wearing different clothes.) Anyway, they know they're going to have a kid and be married in the future, so I think that makes the relationship pretty serious.
Haruka and Michiru are obviously lovers, but my point was that that doesn't make Haruka mature. Michiru seems to be pretty mature, but I don't know about Haruka sometimes...

[Patrick Barron]

I would have to say Setsuna/Sailor Pluto. With her sation as temporal guardian; a qualification would be to know allot. Such as history, science, pysics, astrology, ect.

Also her experence is an asset to the team. Just about as smart if i not more than Sailor Mercury/Ami

[Zyppora]

yumecosmos said:

Actually, I think you were right according to the anime timeline. The manga timeline is different -_-;

On the second point as well the anime differs from the manga. The manga pretty strongly implies that they had sex in the R season. (They are shown lying on the floor and kissing, and later Usagi comes out of Mamoru's room wearing different clothes.) Anyway, they know they're going to have a kid and be married in the future, so I think that makes the relationship pretty serious.
Haruka and Michiru are obviously lovers, but my point was that that doesn't make Haruka mature. Michiru seems to be pretty mature, but I don't know about Haruka sometimes...

While Usagi and Mamoru's relationship wavers constantly throughout the anime series (think R season when Mamoru turns away from her for example), Haruka and Michiru's relationship is constantly as strong as ever.

Besides that, during S season we see that Haruka is willing to sacrifice even Usagi to find the talismans. I don't think it gets much more serious than that.

[yumecosmos]

People always point out the R season breakup. As far as I can tell, that's the only instance of them actually splitting up. And while we never see Haruka and Michiru having any problems (other than Haruka's occasional jealousy), overall we don't see nearly as much of them--after all, they only show up in the third season and get completely shafted on screentime in the fourth. By the fourth season, Usagi and Mamoru are pretty stable as well. The only time he isn't there for her is when he's brainwashed or dead. Haruka has never been killed or brainwashed, except when Michiru was too, so there's no way to make a comparison.

The fact remains that having a relationship doesn't make Haruka mature. In fact, in the S season Haruka has the same flaw as Mamoru: she doesn't trust Usagi to be the Messiah, and she doesn't trust the inner senshi enough to even tell them what's going on, let alone let them help. Then the three of them decide to kill Hotaru instead of looking for another way out, just like Mamoru decides to break it off with Usagi rather than trying to change destiny.
Besides that, Haruka has shown that she can be jealous and a little petty when she gets mad at Seiya for being better at football than her, or when she gets jealous of the fan in the CD shop who gave Michiru flowers. And she's the one who spoils Hotaru the most ^.^ I'll admit I may have been influenced by fanon potrayals, which often have Haruka as the emotional, free-spirited, easily flustered one while Michiru is the calm, rational, level-headed one.

Buuut to get this topic back on track, now I'm actually leaning toward Hotaru as being the most naturally intelligent. At the physical age of about 5, the kid is memorizing poetry that I don't even understand. ^^; Pluto probably knows more at this point, having been around a lot longer, but as far as the ability to learn Hotaru might be the smartest.