Sailor Senshi (SMCU)

Sailor Senshi is a term referring to the main female protagonists of all versions of Sailor Moon media, including fan fiction works such as the Cinematic Universe. They are also referred to simply as Senshi.

Description
Prior to transforming, the Senshi look like average girls. They use transformation items to turn into their Senshi forms. Sailor Senshi, as classic magical girl heroines, have both civilian and magical identities. Each Senshi has a transformation sequence which grants her a uniform in her own theme-colors and her own kind of elemental power; these powers come from an object called a "Sailor Crystal" (also called a Star Seed) said to be within each of them. Accessories gained with their uniform, such as Sailor Moon's tiara, can also be used as weapons. Usually during their initial awakening, the Sailor Senshi would have the symbol of their respective planet display on their forehead. The majority of Sailor Senshi are female, and there is at least one male, Mamoru Chiba, who has a Sailor Crystal and is a guardian over the Earth and gives himself the pseudonym "Tuxedo Mask", though he isn't called a Sailor Senshi. In the Omega portion of the Cinematic Universe, the de jure Sailor Senshi of the planet Earth is Naru Osaka, or Sailor Earth.

Powers
Each of the Senshi have different elemental powers, sometimes connected to their respective ruling planets. In addition to their elemental powers, the Senshi possessed abilities common to all of them like flight, unnamed energy attacks, teleportation, and limited telepathic connections among themselves.

In many cases, the Sailor Senshi had a civilian form in which they spent most of their time. By use of an item such as a Transformation Pen or Transformation Brooch, they could assume their Sailor Senshi form at will. Although transforming into a Sailor Senshi usually involved nothing more radical than a change of outfit, outside observers were not usually able to recognize even close friends or family members once they had assumed Sailor Senshi form. The mechanism that caused this was not known, although it was just as effective upon Sailor Senshi themselves as it was upon non-Senshi.

Uniforms and Power-Ups
The uniform worn by the Sailor Senshi resembles a popular style of Japanese school uniform. The uniforms of the Senshi not only show their femininity, they "perform it excessively in frilly, girly fashion". As the Senshi gain additional powers and insights, the features of their uniforms change to reflect these advances. Most of them have unique traits to begin with (such as Sailors Mars' and Uranus' back-bow color alternating from her front bow, Sailor Pluto's lack of sleeves, Sailor Neptune's neck-pendant, or Sailor Saturn's flower-petal shaped sleeves and the spiky, star-shaped brooch on her front bow), but as the group becomes more powerful, their individual uniforms become more similar, until finally color schemes mark the only differences. The Guardian Senshi are frequently exceptions, but over the course of the Cinematic Universe (particularly the Omega portion), the characters pass through four phases:

1. Their original forms resemble each other closely, but have some individual variety. The sub-groups show traces of theming: for instance, the Outer Senshi do not have stripes on their collars, while the Inner Senshi each have one, two or three (in the manga). In the manga, the Inner Senshi gain a few upgrades before fully changing to their second forms, as with the alteration of their brooches from circles to hearts.

2. Their second forms, the “Super forms”, become a little more similar to each other, but allow for some distinctions to remain, such as earrings and shoe-style. When Sailor Moon and Sailor Chibi Moon take on this form, they become "Super Sailor Moon" and "Super Sailor Chibi Moon".

3. Their third forms, the “Eternal forms”, replicate each other entirely in form, and generally reach an ornate peak. When Sailor Moon takes on this form, she becomes "Eternal Sailor Moon", gains wings and loses her tiara; the others do not reflect any of these three changes.

4. Their fourth forms, the “Omega forms”, reach a point where the uniform becomes entirely golden. The Senshi will gain wings and ribbons based on their respective color. Sailor Galaxia was among the first Senshi to achieve the Omega form when she adopted it at the age of 3,000.

Example based on Sailor Moon.

The Sailor Crusaders, although being Senshi of the solar system, do not follow the standard progression of power-ups. Instead the Sailor Crusaders' uniforms combine elements of those worn by the Solar System Sailor Senshi in their first forms and in their final forms, with the Crusaders' own image colors. The uniforms have one-layer skirts, belts, chokers and back-bows like those on the Solar System Senshi's first uniforms, with boots, gloves, brooches, leotards, and tiaras the same as the final forms. Their shoulder pads reflect the style of the final uniforms, but in white. Each member has unique earrings.

Sailor Moon, whatever form she takes, always has a more elaborate costume than any of the others. Among other things, in her first form she has hair ornaments, in her second she adds a multi-colored skirt, and in her third she gains wings and a three-layered skirt. She also gains minor, individual power-ups more frequently than any other character. Sailor Chibi Moon progresses in similar fashion, down to the hair-ornaments, and her uniform as Super Sailor Chibi Moon is almost identical to her predecessor's. Her third form, on the other hand, is more similar to that of the rest of the Sailor Team than to that of Eternal Sailor Moon.

Senshi originating from outside the Solar System generally have very different and widely varying outfits, but one single feature, the sailor collar, connects them all.

Supreme Sailor Senshi
Throughout the lifetime of the universe, a small number of Sailor Senshi would become worthy to become a Supreme Sailor Senshi, the most powerful class of Sailor Senshi. In the Cinematic Universe, two Senshi have attained the Supreme Sailor Senshi title: Sailor Cosmos and Sailor Galaxia.