Sailor Uranus vs Kurama (Stats Equalized)

The mangaka behind Sailor Moon and Yu Yu Hakusho are a married couple with a story that goes around that they were introduced by voice actress Megumi Ogata who voice acted for both their most famous series, Naoko calling her the "cupid" of their relationship. Megumi Ogata is known for voicing relatively androgynous characters both male and female including Sailor Uranus and Kurama. Unfortunately Sailor Moon and Yu Yu Hakusho are on relatively different power scales making it difficult to do most vs content with them, but if stats were equalized and Haruka and Kurama were to come to conflict, who would win?

This is going to be both characters end of series, Haruka in her Eternal Sailor Uranus form without the lambda power, Kurama in base but can go Yoko at will. Because Haruka can access a greater degree of power using her talisman which overflows with a greater power

A power that made Sailor Uranus go from weaker than Kaorinite to being relevant to the daimons god-leader Pharaoh 90

and Kurama can access a greater level of power from his Yoko transformation, going from a power level of 1,902 to 152,000, an increase of about 80 times. 

I'm going to be assuming for this equalization that Base Kurama is equalized to Sailor Uranus' power and that Yoko Kurama's power is equalized to the Talisman's power.

So while both characters strength and speed is equalized, their secondary stats aren't. So I'm going to compare the two in other regards.

Skill:

In terms of skill, the Outer Senshi are more skilled than the Guardian Senshi in general as their role as to guard the outer solar system from primary threats, while the Guardians' role was to protect Princess Serenity.

Due to her vast lifespan, Sailor Uranus has undoubtably gathered much combat experience, as is suggested numerous times. She is also a black belt in judo, and was able to easily defeat Makoto, another black belt, via turning her own force against her with a throw.

As mentioned in prior blogs, I categorize skill broadly into F Tier (Superhumanly Unskilled), D Tier (Unskilled), C Tier (Proficient), B Tier (Master), A Tier (Superhumanly Skilled), and S Tier (Transcendently Skilled.) As a black belt who can easily defeat other black belts, and a character who has a likely superhuman amount of combat experience, Haruka naturally qualifies for a B Tier fighter.

Kurama is a demon who has lived over 1,000 years, spending the vast majority as the demon fox bandit

He's regularly defeated other demon fighters of similarly superhuman ages of centuries, and performed superhumanly well at several points such as when his body was paralyzed and he fought a similarly powerful warrior using just his hair to control his whip

He's also used martial arts moves that the demon tournament announcter Koto claims have "never been seen before" and was able to help train a group of humans to S-Class power, an unprecented feat given that a single S-Class was beyond Spirit World's power.

Kurama pretty easily qualifies as an A Tier, a superhumanly skilled fighter and has the clear advantage here.

Intelligence:

Intelligence might seem an obvious one given that Kurama is known for his craftiness and Sailor Uranus has a reputation for her impulsiveness direct plans. That said it's not quite that simple. 

Sailor Uranus, particularly, manga-wise is actually very intelligent, the Outer Senshi being viewed as mentor-like figures towards the Guardian Senshi and with greater knowledge in general due to their higher positions. Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune were able to inflitrate Mugen Academy, stated to be a school for geniuses and Haruka herself is referred to as a genius personally

In doing so, Haruka had to decieve the Witches V, perfect daimon, that disguised themselves as the teachers of Mugen Academy and which are stated to have the intelligence of a hundred humans

Viluy one of the Witches V was even able to create nanobot technology that dissolved a person's body

The Outer Senshi also act as teachers to Hotaru who herself attended Mugen and has an intellect vastly more advanced then her age would suggest, able to quote Einstein and Yeats despite being physically 5 years old at the time.

With that said Kurama himself is incredibly intelligent, gaining knowledge over his 1,000 year lifespan. He was able to easily defeat the genius intellect Yu Kaito twice, once in doing better in exams then him

and later defeating Yu Kaito in his own game when Yu Kaito used his psychic territory to create a death game, showing rapid adaptation, quick thinking and cunning despite the odds being stacked against him.

Kurama constantly defeats his opponents often stronger than him via outwitting them and manipulating them and is smart enough that arguably the smartest character in the series Yomi respects Kurama's intelligence and wanted him specifically for his wit.

While I would probably say Kurama has the advantage in intelligence if only due to his patience and cunning, it's a lot closer than I think people realize. If I had to guess I would guess Kurama is maybe around the intelligence level of Sailor Pluto in Sailor Moon, slightly smarter than Sailor Uranus. Conversely if you think Haruka is "just" general genius tier she'd be around the level of Yu Kaito who is also a genius, and Kurama is notably smarter than. Personally I think Haruka is smarter then Yu, but not quite as smart as Kurama. 

Stamina:

In terms of stamina, neither really has any issues with stamina. Even early in the Three Kings Saga, Yusuke was able to run 5 days without effort

and end of series Yusuke was able to fight Yomi for 60 hours straight

and while Kurama isn't as strong as Yusuke, he's probably roughly similar in terms of stamina at least.

Sailor Uranus doesn't really have any notable stamina feats but doesn't have the anti-feats the Guardian Senshi have. She and the Outer Senshi were fine after the Guardian Senshi collapsed from exhaustion despite them going through much more

And as mentioned before, they would have to patrol by themselves the outer rim of the Solar System.

Kurama has way better stamina feats and probably much larger stamina, that said it's not a particularly huge advantage as its unlikely he just wear out Haruka, though if the fight goes long enough his greater endurance and stamina may allow him to outlast.

Range:

This one unsurprisingly goes to Uranus pretty easily.

Kurama only ever fights at melee range or the range of his rose whip. His options at ranged are pretty limited. It's possible his Reiki could extend into an aura or alter the environment at a much longer range like how when Sensui fought Yusuke, both weaker then Kurama by End of Series, they were creating giant cyclones with their reiki

However this would be mostly out of Kurama's control, and not something he can control like that. His sensory range is also basically normal human range normally. He does have a mildly enhanced sense of smell and all people with Reiki can sense the energy of others

Conversely the planet power of the Senshi can destroy, even at the beginning of the series, entire dimensions

The Talismans themselves extended over a large area, holding in Pharaoh 90 to prevent him from assimilating the planet.

Sailor Senshi also consistently have cosmic awareness and enhanced senses on the cosmic scale, Sailor Uranus for instance being able to see the Silver Millennium on Earth's Moon from her outpost at Uranus

Sailor Uranus obviously has the advantage in range.

So with that out of the way I'm going to go into the character's abilities and how well if at all I think the other character could counter, starting with Haruka.

Sailor Uranus' abilities:

Sailor Uranus like all Sailor Senshi can manipulate her own stellar energy, and she in particular uses it to create wind based attacks, her most famous being "World Shaking"

She also has flight as all the Sailor Senshi do

There's not much suggesting Sailor Uranus can't just fly above the battlefield and bombard Kurama with wind attacks. Kurama would be immediatly reminded of Jin who uses very similar tactics.

Kurama actually does have plants that can temporarily give him flight meaning he can hypothetically pursue Haruka

There are vulnerabilities to this counter, relying on plant wings increases his size and if his wings are destroyed he would just fall from the sky, becoming temporarily vulnerable. Also the two flying at similar speeds still gives Haruka the advantage due to massive range advantage like a dogfight between two fighter planes where one actually has guns to fire with and the other relies on basically a long advanced melee weapon. Also it's unlikely Kurama has much aerial combat experience while Haruka is the soldier of the skies basically reversing the skill difference.

Given that Kurama has seen Yusuke defeat Jin and also trained him for the Demon World tournament, it's likely he has some understanding of the strategy's strengths and weaknesses however. While he doesn't have the spirit wave like Yusuke did, Jin due to his light-hearted "airy" personality repeatedly flew down to engage in melee with with Yusuke and if Kurama tried to manipulate Haruka into doing the same, it actually would likely be similar. Haruka also has an "airy" light-hearted personality, prone to impulsive behavior, which would give Kurama something of a counter to Haruka's flight and ranged attack strategy.

Sailor Uranus can do more things with her energy. Even a basic attack from Sailor Venus seemed to turn Danburite to dust rapidly but not from sheer energy.

Sailor Uranus may or may not have this ability as it may be a Venus-exclusive ability or a general property of stellar energy.

If she does have this and her energy comes into contact with Kurama than he would absolutely die from this. That said Kurama's aura formed of his reiki can hypothetically keep basic energy blasts from touching his skin directly, similar to when Younger Toguro's presence casually destroyed evil spirits headed for him

Stellar Energy to erase like that would probably only come up thus if Kurama was drained of energy, which as mentioned earlier is unlikely to happen during this battle.

Haruka can hold back her energy for basically "stealth mode"

Moving around at extremely quick speeds this might prove helpful against Kurama since he would need to rely on his senses to keep track of her. That said Reiki provides mild psychic abilities like being able to sense danger and being able to beat a rock paper scissors machine 2/3rds of the time that might help him keep track of her position

Also if Sailor Uranus stops moving even if in a place Kurama couldn't see, his powerful sense of smell would likely be able to detect her

Sailor Uranus can use the power of "Henshin," the holy power of transformation which changes a Sailor to her Senshi state. She can use this to teleport, with other Senshi far less skilled showing teleportation through dimensions even taking other people with them

Hypothetically if Uranus used this on Kurama it would BFR him, as he does not have dimensional travel.

Her eternal attack is Space Turbulence which creates an electrical field in an area

This might prove a difficult combined offense and defense for Kurama to get past as his plants, including his whip would presumably be zapped back by lightning trying to get to her.

Sailor Senshi can enchant numerious objects with their energy giving them magical properties and new attacks

The effectiveness of this kind of depends where they're fighting.

Finally Sailor Uranus has her Talisman which obviously amps her power vastly. The Space Sword is a sword talisman that can be used like a normal sword or shoot sword blasts from it

Kurama can counter the increase with his Yoko form and also might be able to disarm Haruka of the Space Sword although she can seemingly summon it to her, so that may not work.

So those are all of Sailor Uranus particularly relevant abilities. Things like anti-magic aren't particularly notable here as Kurama doesn't use magic-based abilities. Now for Kurama's abilities

Kurama's Abilities:

Kurama is mostly known for his plant based abilities. He is most known for his rose whip infused with his energy

He can also kill people via throwing roses through them or creating a "petal whirlwind" around him

Sailor Uranus could probably protect from this with her barrier. Sailor Senshi regularly make barriers to protect them when they fight

Kurama would basically need to wear down Haruka to get any of his plants to touch her skin. This is a trouble for him as most of his plants need to come into physical contact with the opponent to hurt them.

Kurama has a lot of really broken forms of offense, but Sailor Uranus has the light of stellar protection, the metaphysical light that gives Sailor Senshi resistance numerous abilities. So the real question is does Kurama have a type of hax that can get around that?

He can use the Vetch plant which paralyzes and tears someone from the inside out 

Not only would the seed need to get past Haruka's barrier, but Sailor Senshi have both resistance to paralysis and their Henshin energy can restore their body.

Kurama's plants can create a poison that can knock people out

However Sailor Senshi can tank being within a city bombed with a far stronger poison

and were unaffected by Nehelenia's darkness barrier inducing sleep across the world.

Kurama can also use the Tree of Wicked Thoughts to trap his opponent in a series of illusions until it's drained all their lifeforce out

Technically only Sailor Mars and Sailor Moon have shown particular resistance to illusions and both as special abilities suggesting that illusions may actually work, similar to when Nehelenia trapped the Senshi, Uranus included, in their worst nightmares. That said Kurama once again needs to get the seed to Haruka's skin for it to sprout.

Kurama is also just noted to have illusion powers

This might work on Haruka although there's very few details, in fact it may just be the above Tree of Wicked Thoughts. Assuming he can make illusions more conventionally this may able to temporarily distract Haruka, though with her enhanced senses I can't see it working too long.

Kurama uses Reiki, spiritual energy which is capable of erasing an enemy's soul.

However Sailor Senshi can resist soul manipulation, even Mimete manipulating the souls of an entire concert hall which an untransformed Minako only felt sleepy at

Sailor Senshi can also regularly see and interact with astral and spiritual entities

Kurama can also use demon yoki to infuse mundane objects with greater force, as he usually does with his whip. This, similar to Sailor Uranus' enchantment ability depends on what's around.

Reiki also allows a very limited ability to manipulate elements. Kurama can create a smokescreen 

and can easily hide his energy

however Sailor Senshi have a degree of cosmic awareness, able to sense danger and suffering of even their allies and even across time

Kurama can rise in power with his emotional state, as emotions can control one's spirit energy. The ultimate expression of this is his Yoko Kurama form. 

Haruka could hypothetically counter this with her Space Sword since the two are equalized although it's never shown that the Space Sword can increase speed as well the same way as the Yoko form obviously does. Now this may not apply since it's stats equalized if you think that means their increases should also be equalized, so it's not something to rely on.

Kurama also has one more ability I don't see people comment on a lot, despite how important it is to his personal story. In his backstory he was injured and to avoid capture by spirit world police fused his soul with a human fetus'

I'm unsure if this would work on Sailor Uranus. Super Sailor Moon was engulfed in Pharaoh 90 and resisted it, Pharaoh 90 being he who planned to "vesselize" the Earth, fusing with it's planetary soul

However while Uranus grows much stronger than this form of Sailor Moon, I don't know if this is a general resistance of the Senshi, or a special resistance given by the Silver Crystal. It's plausible this could work if Haruka mortally injured Kurama.

Weaknesses:

Just quickly going over their weaknesses. Sailor Uranus is characteristically impulsive and stubborn, being hard to dissuade from her chosen path. She's also a notorious flirt towards pretty girls. She's somewhat reluctant to use her talisman as the power is easy to detect and the three talismans together are herald of the end. 

Kurama has a legendarily cool head but he can on rare instances lose his cool when ones close to him are threatened or seeing horrible cruelty. Also, he's reluctant to use his Yoko form as he associates it to a time when he was a cruel demon bandit.

The soldier of the skies comes down to Earth searching for an interstellar criminal from a fox-human world she hears is a threat. In her investigation she accidentally walks into a Psychic's territory that dimishers her power to coincedentially Kurama's level. She sees him from behind and mistaking him comes onto him thinking he's a pretty girl, agitating Kurama and embarrasing Haruka, setting a bad tone for their conversation. Due to Haruka speaking somewhat ambigiously towards her mission, Kurama mistakes her for one of spirit world's enforcers coming for him and the demon fox prepares to fight for his life, a mental shift the Sailor Senshi notices and prepares to answer in kind.

Who wins?

So going over their biggest advantages, for Sailor Uranus its her ability to maintain a longer range with Space Turbulence, flight and teleportation and just blast Kurama over and over, her ability to BFR him at a close range, and to a lesser degree her ability to use stealth and less reluctance to pull out her Talisman compared to Kurama's reluctance to use his Yoko form.

For Kurama his biggest advantages are his advantages in intelligence and skill which are notable but not immense, his potential ability to outlast Sailor Uranus with greater stamina and endurance, and possibly his illusions and soul fusions.

This may immediatly seem to favor Sailor Uranus as her advantages seem a lot more dramatic and to be fair...they are. But it's not quite that simple for the simple fact that almost all Haruka's advantages are things she wouldn't use normally in-character. Haruka is a flashy personality that doesn't use stealth after she's been found out, she usually fights several meters from her opponent and doesn't just blast them from far away, and she has never used her teleportation to BFR someone before. While all these MAY come up, it would at the very least not be things she would immediatly try. Even her less reluctance to use her talisman still would give Kurama some time. 

Conversely using intelligence to trick up an arrogant opponent? Using martial arts skill to get in close to an opponent? This is Kurama's bread and butter. 

That said this is still not going to be any kind of piece of cake for Kurama. His ways of getting around Uranus shield basically amounts to "wear it down" which is likely going to take a bit, giving Haruka the time to try her other type of abilities. Kurama if he wants to win this would do best to try and win quickly.

Haruka pretty clearly has the advantage in abilities here. A lot of Uranus' abilities Kurama can only partially counter or not at all while almost everything Kurama has Uranus just tanks. Kurama's advantages are basically just he's a better all around fighter than Sailor Uranus, but Uranus has a way more tricky arsenal of abilities. 

The comparison I really wanted to make for this fight and I think it holds pretty true is that it's very similar to the hypothetical fight of how Kurama vs Jin would have gone if they were matched up in the Dark Tournament. Jin pretty similarly to Haruka is a confident wind-based fighter that is really good at spacing an opponent out and could just keep at range, but wanted to use his super cool close range seem to favor Haruka.

Yusuke struggled massively against Jin and he was a fighter much better suited to fighting Jin, using large scale area attacks like Spirit Shotgun to catch him off guard. Kurama's almost entirely physical arsenal made up of plants wouldn't be nearly as effective as quickly catching him off guard. He'd have to get one of his seeds on Jin, but easier said then done on someone with so much manueverability. And Haruka supplements this with actual teleportation and intellect superior to Jin's.

Kurama could maybe catch her off guard by suddenly going into his Yoko form the way he did to Shachi but that's not really in-character. Haruka is way more likely to just pull out her talisman the minute Kurama seems like he might be a difficult fight. And while Kurama is very likely to be able to react in time to go into his Yoko Form, that no longer gives him an advantage, and if anything the colder more ruthless Yoko Kurama is far more likely to make Haruka take the fight dead seriously. 

Kurama's only two real win conditions are just to outlast until Haruka runs out of stellar energy, something that would likely happen far before he runs out of reiki, or to overwhelm her near the start of the matchup. However Kurama's main style of fighting involves analyzing how an enemy fights and coming up with a strategy to counter their powers. He is not like Hiei who will often try to win instantly. Outlasting Haruka is maybe a viable strategy, she doesn't really have any notable feats or anti-feats of stamina to give an idea how long she could go, but given Kurama's high level of endurance I think may be able to outwit her into taking too long and then surprising her with how much damage he can take.

That said while that's a plausible scenario I don't think it's at all the most likely scenario. if Haruka finds the battle is getting close, even despite her talisman, its not really known what she would do as basically everytime she's used her talisman she's either won or been so hopelessly outmatched that it was clear there was nothing she could do. That said given her intelligence and skill, even if not on Kurama's level, it's fair to think that in an even fight for her life Haruka would try to use different strategies like a range strategy, a stealth strategy, maybe taking the battle into space (and only one of them can survive in space.) Even if Kurama's energy starts to run a bit low and he tries to rely on his natural endurance, generic stellar energy could just disintegrate him. This is basically a fight where one side is a better fight but has no win conditions while the other side is close enough to be competitive and has actual win conditions. As such I think it's pretty reasonable I think that Sailor Uranus probably wins in the majority of scenarios.

Naoko Takeuchi's strengths as a writer is to capture the majesty and elegance of the great and huge, capturing the wonders of the cosmos and the concepts within. Yoshiro Togashi on the other hand is a master of evoking the earthly, the often painful and confused reality of human psychology, and the fullness of emotion it brings with it. She wrote a manga about cosmic guardians, avatars of the gods. He wrote a manga about demons and men, of the triumphs and fragilities they bear in their battles. As such you would expect that a character like Uranus, a cosmic guardian would have a more broken ability set than Kurama who is basically a reformed demon bandit, if famously cunning.