Ranking the Sailor Moon Heroes' intelligence

 I saw a screenrant article ranking the Sailor Moon "main characters'" intelligence and it it's a blog I've wanted to make for a while so I'm gonna be responding to it while giving a more accurate list. The article doesn't specify whether they are talking about the manga or the anime, much like a lot of screenrant articles, but the Minako section makes me think they're talking about the manga which is my area of focus regardless. I'm going to be addressing the elephant in the room at the end because the number 1 is...um....well you'll see

So ranking the Senshi in order of intelligence:

11: Chibiusa

The article puts Chibiusa at the bottom and yeah this is correct. She's mentally the youngest senshi and doesn't have any particularly have any intelligence feats to think she'd be any higher. That said the section for her does the reccuring trend in this article which is to try and associate things that aren't intelligence with intelligence. 

The article says "she decides to time travel without truly thinking about the consequences or forming a coherent plan." Firstly, she did have a plan. The Silver Crystal of the future wasn't working so get the Silver Crystal of the past (present). Secondarly impulsivity and immaturity are not intelligence. But third and most importantly THE CRYSTAL PALACE WAS BEING BOMBED AND GASSED. Chibiusa in the second arc is roughly 5 mentally and the only home she's ever known is being bombed from above, while her parents are frozen in crystal; the fact that she ran away into the past is not just sensible it honestly speaks to her bravery and mental fortitude. Early in the second arc Chibiusa becomes terrified at the sight of shards of the black crystal reminding her of the future. This is not some kind of intelligence anti-feat.

10: Usagi

So if this was judged by emotional intelligence, Usagi would obviously be number 1 being able to understand even the motives of conceptual darkness like Chaos. That said in general intelligence Usagi is supposed to be a completely average girl. She struggles in school, although her school is implied to be a hard one and it's partially from her poor study habits. She's above Chibiusa because the two are both roughly average in intelligence for their intelligence but Usagi is not just a decade older mentally, she also has past life awareness and has the knowledged gained as Princess Serenity.

This is not including her Queen Serenity self, as the article seems to be written only about their present day selves but as Sailor Cosmos Usagi is arguably the smartest character in the series.

9: Makoto

The article puts the Guardian Senshi way too high and everyone else way to low in comparison. The section for Makoto says things that either aren't intelligence (she can take care of herself and "analyze threats" because she fights bullies) or are just outright false. It claims that while Usagi and Minako have anime arcs where they struggle in school, Makoto always excels which is just false. In both the anime and the manga Makoto is shown struggling with school, if I recall correctly more then Minako in the anime.

Makoto like Usagi is relatively average in terms of intelligence and is a pretty fair comparison. There's an argument to suggest that Usagi is smarter then Makoto however I think there's MORE arguments for Makoto being smarter. The argument for Usagi being smarter is that in her doing poorly in school is at least partialy due to her poor study habits rather then intelligence and in the short story "The Melancholy of Makoto", Ami seems more concerned about Makoto getting into High School then Usagi suggesting she thinks Usagi is more likely. That said that short story is written from Makoto's perspective so it's possible she's just noticing Ami lecturing Usagi as much, and Makoto's lack of success in school is also not entirely due to her intelligence but due to her avoidant behavior where when she has to do schoolwork she instead procrastinates by doing cooking and cleaning. 

Conversely there's a few arguments for Makoto being smarter then Usagi. Makoto is shown to be very skilled in horticulture and cooking. This is probably more so talents, knowledge in a particular field, but all else being equal if general intelligence is an average than it may bring her average up. We know that Usagi's first past life was Princess Serenity since the Silver Crystal was entrusted to Queen Serenity but Makoto may have had numerous past lives. Finally the best argument for Makoto being smarter is in Ami's first love, which is from neither of their perspectives there is a gag where Ami is asked what her ideal man is and she answers "Albert Einstein." The senshi, Makoto included, all give a reaction of disbelief save for Usagi who asks "Who's Albert Einstein?" This seems to me to be the most direct comparison of intelligence and it strongly favors Makoto. I should note at one point we see Makoto score a 50 and Usagi score a 35 in Melancholy of Makoto, however this isn't stated specifically to be the same test so it may not indiciate an intelligence comparison, although on a narrative level it does seem that way since the context is Makoto's scores improving a little while Usagi's are not. 

8-7: Rei and Minako

This is not a tie, I will say which one I put higher, but they're SO close I wanted to empathize you could reasonably put either higher. The article in Rei's section only really notes that she's a psychic which relates to her intelligence because it means "she has a good head on her shoulders" and in Minako's section basically says she has a good strategic mind and she's a lot smarter in the manga which supports my thinking is about the manga.

Rei and Minako are thematic opposites and a study in contrast. While Minako does poorly in school, unlike Usagi and Makoto this has absolutely nothing to do with her school being hard and everything to do with Minako being lazy and just not doing the work. Minako is regularly shown as being very tactically clever and good at improvisation often tricking members of the Dark Agency which are fighters of a cutthrough system. Minako archetypally is the gifted child that is an underachiever and she clearly regularly demonstrates that she doesn't want to put in more effort then the minimum.

Rei in contrast is book smart. We don't know how smart Rei is naturally because she's a perfectionist whose always training; body, mind, and soul. She attends an elite private school and given her personality it's likely not because her father wants her too but just to maximize her potential. This level of formal intelligence can be seen when Ami quotes Shakespeare to try and make the others study more and Rei casually responds with a quote from Francis Bacon without even looking up from her book. Rei clearly has a masterful level of formal education for her age; she archetypally is the student who gets elite scores at an elite school not from natural giftedness but purely through hard work.

Comparing the two is difficult because the different means of getting intelligence means they excel in different areas. If the two were to come into a mental confrontation Rei is far likely to make a better plan then Minako but Minako is much likely to adapt and improvise to something unexpected better. I personally would put Minako higher in the short story about them Minako seems to get the edge on Rei more, but that's open to interpretation.

6: Hotaru

Hotaru and Mamoru are the characters the article did the most dirty. The article basically says that it's about Hotaru rather then Sailor Saturn (seemingly misinterpreting how the Saturn spirit works), and that Hotaru is a little girl and "naive." In act 44 we learn about the young Hotaru who has apparently read all the books in Michiru's study already and can quote Vergil, Blake and Einstein from memory including entire poems by Vergil. All this in six months despite her being a toddler at the time. Hotaru's a genius level intellect by adult standards, let alone the standards of her age.

This isn't even going into the psychic level of awareness she has. In the manga, Hotaru's character is supposed to be like the creepy child in a horror movie that knows more then she should. She's got just outright better feats of intelligence then Rei or Minako and also attended Mugen Academy, which was a school comprised of only genius level intellects. Now, in fairness, Mugen was run by Professor Tomoe, her then father at the time, so her getting may not really be due to her intelligence but there's no indication she struggled academically there.

5: Mamoru

As mentioned Mamoru and Hotaru were the characters the article most downplayed. The article goes on a bizarre tangent about how in most series the single male character in a cast of female characters would be the smart one but SM is progressive because he's outranked by the vast majority of the Senshi, mixing is misconceptions that Mamoru is just a distraction in combat. All of these are downright wrong; outside of ecchi series if a series had a singular male character who was the smart one in the last few decades people would immediatly blast it for being sexist. If anything the problem now is the inverse where women are treated as inherently intelligent and men inherently stupid, something which is sexist in its own right and unfair to both sexes, something SM does NOT do but the article seems to think it does.

Going over Mamoru's intelligence; Mamoru goes to a school with a 90 point differential, a school so elite that it's beyond any school in the real world before being accepted to Harvard College on scholarship. Mamoru uses crowd sourcing before the term is thought up in the real world to find the Silver Crystal at a rate more efficient then the Dark Kingdom, a literal magical kingdom of people devoted to finding it. Mamoru not only regularly shows tactical and clever thinking but is also treated as somewhat relative to the Outer Senshi and is probably peak human intelligence at the very least for his age. Comparing him to Hotaru; I think he's probably smarter as Hotaru seems to be roughly genius level intelligence while Mamoru is moreso peak human level.

Again not taking into account King Endymion's intelligence which would be above everyone on this list outside Usagi's future self. 

4: Haruka

The article puts both Haruka and Michiru at 7, below the Guardian Senshi which is pretty off not even taking into the fact that the article does not even try to rank between the two.

The Outer Senshi are introduced as older sister type figures to the Guardian Senshi, more powerful, more experience, more intelligent, and more serious then them. Haruka is a world class racecar driver who easily attends Mugen Academy, an academy for geniuses. She and Michiru were able to decieve Viluy and the other professors of Mugen Academy for an extended period of time, the professors of Mugen Academy being perfect daimon with intelligences a hundred times that of a human and Viluy being able to create type 1 level technology like a holographic simulation of a galaxy and nanobots that can destroy a body entirely. Because of this I think Haruka and Michiru are probably low level superhuman intellects, which puts them above Mamoru's intelligence feats. If you don't think decieiving Viluy should mean they're superhuman in intellect then Mamoru might be above them but they'd still be above Hotaru as they as her parents and intellectual guides who were impressed at her development but never expressed that her intelligence eclipsed them.

3: Michiru

Michiru has virtually the same feats as Haruka but is probably at least a bit smarter. A world class artist AND musician, Michiru is not only talented in numerous regards, she also spends more times in studies having many books in her study.

2: Setsuna

Setsuna's intelligence is praised by King Endymion for she has the intelligence of the ages, living across the ages. Setsuna is known for her incredible wisdom and experience eclipsing the other Outer Senshi by a wide margin. Early on even Ami though her intelligence was no match for her claiming Setsuna was a person who knows everything, Ami being a character capable of tracking someone through dimensions and creating inter-dimensional communicators. 

1: Ami

While early on Setsuna is arguably smarter then Ami, a key part of the early Dream Arc is the Guardian Senshi developing to be able to stand besides the Outer Senshi. Ami even early in the series has type 1 intelligence feats and directly decieving Viluy to her face who outright calls Ami the "genius girl" suggesting that she may view Ami's intelligence as impressive. These are intelligence feats that clearly surpass the feats of everyone else on this list and is before her intellectual development.

During Act 40, we learn of Ami's history. Hre mother is a rationalist workaholic working as a doctor, and her father a flighty artistic type that abandoned them when she was young. With her father's disappearence, it was though her creative and artistic self left with him, mkaing her cling to her intelligence, her rational and scientific side just as she clung to her mother, afraid of her leaving too, afraid that people only valued her for her intelligence and if that ever left she'd be alone. Upon realizing that the reason she studied so hard, why she had trained her intelligence was because of her emotions, her love for her friends, she was able to unite the rational and creative sides of her and unlocked a new level of intelligence for herself putting her as clearly the smartest character on this list....

except the article only puts her at 2. Who do they put as one.

Elephant in the Room Time: Luna and Artemis

So the article puts Luna and Artemis, which I'd struggle to think are main characters in any version, as the smartest, smarter then Ami. 

So I could legit sorta understand if the argument was they make these magical technological items for the Senshi to use. I don't think that argument works because they use magic to make them so the level of intelligence required is pretty unknown but at most they should be 2, probably 3, as in Act 3 Ami was able to creates a plan to use Henshin to teleport to Usagi in another dimension before Luna can despite having no memories of her past life as the time showing directly that she's smarter.

But the article doesn't use that argument, it basically says Luna and Artemis because they act as advisors for the Senshi and have knowledge of Moon Kingdom history. While it's true Luna and Artemis do advise the Senshi early on, and that's something of an intelligence feat, this is less true as the series goes on and knowledge of the Moon Kingdom is not unique to them after the Senshi have their memories awoken.

So how smart are Luna and Artemis and where would they place? Well they do know the ancient language and consequently are able to use Moon Kingdom technology although the intelligence needed to do this are unknown. They can seemingly hack into normal video games to put Senshi items as toys to be won by the Senshi and are smart enough that their advise is helpful to the Senshi early on, with Artemis in particular being relative to an early Minako despite her natural cleverness. I'd probably put them between Makoto and Minako/Rei. Between them, it's sorta implied Artemis is smarter then Luna and is actually her superior in rank which is why Artemis retained his full memory while Luna's memory was partially sealed, but there isn't any big gap between them.