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The is a group of fictional characters in the Sailor Moon manga series by Naoko Takeuchi. They are the chief villains of the first story arc in every version of the series, and were first introduced in the first chapter of the manga, "Usagi – Sailor Moon", originally published in Japan's Nakayoshi on 28 December 1991. In the DIC English adaptation, the Dark Kingdom's title was changed to "Negaverse".

In each variation of the series, the characters—led by Queen Beryl—attempt to steal life energy from humans and the Silver Crystal so they can release the evil Queen Metaria, who was imprisoned by Queen Serenity during the destruction of the Moon Kingdom during the Silver Millennium period.

Creation and conception

The Dark Kingdom is first referenced in Naoko Takeuchi's Codename: Sailor V, which features Sailor Venus as the main character, who confronts a group of villains called the Dark Agency. In the final volume of Codename: Sailor V, the Dark Agency is revealed to be a subset of the Dark Kingdom, which leads to the beginning of Sailor Moon. Takeuchi developed the Sailor Moon series and the Dark Kingdom when Codename: Sailor V was first proposed for an anime adaptation. The idea was ultimately dropped, but Sailor Venus became part of a new group alongside Sailors Moon, Mercury, Mars, and Jupiter, and instead of fighting the Dark Agency, they fought the Dark Kingdom.

The names of Queen Beryl and the Four Kings of Heaven are derived from minerals: beryl, jadeite, nephrite, zoisite, and kunzite.

In the DIC Entertainment English adaptation, the Dark Kingdom's name is changed to the "Negaverse", a portmanteau of negative and universe. Beryl and her cohorts use "nega" as a prefix to show their devotion to wickedness and to underscore their dimension's inherent negativity—e.g. "negapower" and "negahistory".

Key figures

Queen Beryl

, named after the mineral beryl, is the first main antagonist in the Sailor Moon series. Beryl has immense magical power and uses it to channel the life energy harvested by her servants into the entity Queen Metaria. In most versions of the story, Beryl has the ability to corrupt others into her service.

Before the events of Sailor Moon, Beryl is a young girl on Earth during the age of the Silver Millennium. Beryl is in love with Prince Endymion, but her love is unrequited. After discovering Endymion's relationship with Princess Serenity, she sides with Queen Metaria and is corrupted. Beryl is able to summon the reincarnated Prince Endymion, Mamoru Chiba, to her side, as a lifeless thrall after he dies and is revived with a fragment of the Silver Crystal inside him.

In the live-action series, Jadeite and Nephrite are rivals for her affections; Zoisite is more loyal to Endymion than to her, and Kunzite sets his sights on taking Metaria's power for himself. At one point, Beryl creates a shadow of herself, Mio Kuroki, who sets out to ruin Usagi's reputation while being Beryl's eyes and ears. When she learns that Mamoru Chiba was Prince Endymion, Beryl forces him to come with her by showing him that she can easily kill the Four Kings of Heaven with Nephrite as an example. Once she has the object of her desire under her services, Beryl has Jadeite implant an item in Mamoru's body that will shorten his life when he is with Usagi. However, Mamoru still risks his life for Usagi and Beryl loses control over Metaria's actions due to the overuse of the Silver Crystal. She is killed when her castle crumbles under the stress of a distraught Princess using the Silver Crystal to destroy Earth. However, for all her sadness, she is not alone as Jadeite stays by her side after she removes her mind-control spell on him, saying that Beryl is his master by choice.

In Sailor Moon Crystal, Beryl's role in the reboot is the same as the manga. Unlike the manga, Beryl's demise was altered to have her necklace that maintained her existence shattered by the Holy Moon Sword wielded by Sailor Moon.

Beryl appears in the first musical, Gaiden Dark Kingdom Fukkatsu Hen, and its revision, in a similar plot to the series' first story arc. She is then revived in the semi-original musical Eien Densetsu and its revision by Sailor Galaxia, who merely uses her as a puppet to awaken Sailor Saturn. Beryl dies while protecting Sailor Moon from a stab by the evil Tuxedo Mask mud puppet, her last statement being "This time I die for passion". Similarly, in Shin Densetsu Kourin, Beryl kills the evil King Endymion mud puppet to give Sailor Moon a fighting chance against Galaxia. Several times in the musical, Beryl and Sailor Pluto share the song Onna no Ronsou, which explains why betrayal by Endymion in the past killed Beryl's emotion of love. Each time this song is played, Sailor Pluto would always begin with "Because we are the same" or a similar phrase.

In the anime series, her voice actress is Keiko Han. During recording, this contrast resulted in occasional fits of giggles among the cast when Han would change from Luna's cute, catlike voice to the deep, evil tones of Beryl. Sometimes, she would accidentally play Beryl with Luna's voice. In Sailor Moon Crystal, she is voiced by Misa Watanabe. In the DIC English adaptation, she is voiced by Naz Edwards with Jill Frappier as a stand-in during a clip show in Sailor Moon R. In the Viz Media English adaptation, her voice is supplied by Cindy Robinson. In the stage musicals, Beryl has been played by two actresses: Yuri Nishina and Akiko Miyazawa (who previously played Sailor Venus). In the live-action series, she is portrayed by adult J-pop idol Aya Sugimoto.

Queen Metaria

is a malignant, amorphous energy being, and the true mastermind of the Dark Kingdom. She was born as a result of an abnormality in the Sun. While the first official English release of the manga in English spelled her name as "Metalia", it was a translation error; reprints of the manga in English as well as multiple reprints in Japanese consistently depicted the character's name spelled as "Metaria" in Latin letters.

Being responsible for the fall of the Silver Millennium, Metaria used her power to corrupt the majority of Earth's population, including Beryl, whose affections towards Endymion were exploited into attacking the Moon Kingdom as Prince Endymion and Princess Serenity were to wed. The battle came to an end when Metaria was sealed away by Queen Serenity in the area of the North Pole known as D-Point.

The Four Kings of Heaven appeared in several musicals. In many of them, they are paired with the Sailor Guardians. In musical adaptations of the last arc, the Four Kings are revived by Sailor Galaxia to work under her service, but in some versions, they betray her. The musical Kakyuu-Ouhi Kourin had a group that which called themselves the Neo-Four Kings of Heaven (Neo-Shiten'ō). The members of the Neo-Four Kings of Heaven were Kunzite, Hematite, Hiddenite, and Kalunite. Hematite, Hiddenite, and Kalunite looked identical to Zoisite, Nephrite, and Jadeite respectively. In La Reconquista, the Four Kings of Heaven disguise themselves as a boy band known as Pandemic 4. The group consisted of Kunza, Jed, Nephra, and Zoi. The band appeared in the Pandemic Love game, in which they used the game to drain energy for Beryl, and had one song, .

In the live-action series, their past becomes more frequently seen. In the Sailor Moon: Another Story video game, the Four Kings of Heaven appear as ghosts who help four of the Sailor Guardians get the respective gems of each of the Four Kings of Heaven when Mamoru ends up injured by the Opposito Guardians.

In Sailor Moon Crystal, the "Four Heavenly Kings" are kept alive beyond their deaths in the manga. They rediscover their past lives but are once again brainwashed by Beryl. During the final battle, Venus reveals that the Sailor Guardians and the Four Heavenly Kings were originally lovers much like Serenity and Endymion respectively. When the Sailor Guardians manage to reach the Four Kings during the former group's assault on D-Point, they regain their full memories before being obliterated by Queen Metaria for outliving their usefulness.

Jadeite

is the first of the Four Kings of Heaven to appear. In her Materials Collection, Naoko Takeuchi describes him as 'a typical beautiful person' and a ruthless, serious type. He is about 18 years old in appearance, making him the second-youngest, while in the live-action series he is the youngest. He is the head of the Dark Kingdom's far-eastern division and is named after the mineral jadeite.

Jadeite's mission is to track down the Silver Crystal but eventually changes to gathering life energy to awaken Metaria. He has very little interaction with the other Four Kings of Heaven. He expresses an attraction to Sailor Mars and is the first one killed when Rei uses her Akuryo Taisan technique. After Jadeite's death, Nephrite vows to exact revenge as he preserves Jadeite's skeleton in a glass coffin. In the later side story Casablanca Memories, Zoisite also tries to avenge Jadeite.

In the original anime adaptation, hunting energy is Jadeite's primary mission. He uses the alias "J. Dite" during his missions and has his Monsters pose as different people. After Jadeite fails numerous times and at one point costing Beryl the life of Thetis, one of her top Monsters, Beryl gives Jadeite one final chance to destroy the Sailor Guardians and threatens him with Eternal Sleep should he fail. Upon Jadeite's failure, Beryl fulfills her promise and condemns him to Eternal Sleep by freezing him in a large crystal. She then warns everyone present to let Jadeite's fate be a warning to all of them before appointing Nephrite to be the monsters' new commander.

In the live-action series, Jadeite is totally subservient to Beryl, for which she rewards him with her favor, sending him on missions that range from gathering energy to spying on his fellow warriors to attacking the Sailor Guardians directly. He disappears early in the series, reverting to crystalline form due to an injury from one of his battles, but is revived by Metaria. Firmly loyal to Beryl, he rejects Endymion as his true master until the series finale, where he stays with Beryl as the castle collapses around her.

In Sailor Moon Crystal, Jadeite survives the battle against Sailor Mars, but Beryl sends Nephrite to continue fulfilling their mission. In his past life, he was the love interest of Sailor Mars. Jadeite is killed by Metaria along with the other Kings of Heaven in Episode 12.

In the original Japanese series, he is voiced by Masaya Onosaka. In Crystal, he is voiced by Daisuke Kishio. and his mortal alias to Maxfield Stanton, and he is voiced by Kevin Lund. In the Viz Media English adaptation, his voice is supplied by Liam O'Brien. In the live-action series he was portrayed by Hiroyuki Matsumoto, and was portrayed in the stage musicals by Toshikazu Seike and Karen Yoda.

Zoisite

is the third of the Four Kings of Heaven. Of the four, his character has undergone the most drastic changes from version to version of the story. He is the youngest, at about 16–17 years of age, described by Takeuchi as the least mature and most effeminate. He is introduced along with Nephrite, mocking him in each episode. At one point when Beryl spared Nephrite from Eternal Sleep due to bringing energy despite failing to take out Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask, she told Zoisite to remember his position and to focus on finding the Silver Crystal. Later, he orders her Monsters the Plant Sisters to kidnap Naru and kill Nephrite. The Plant Sisters succeeded in their mission. After Metaria's awakening, Beryl appoints Zoisite to find the Rainbow Crystals, fragments of the Silver Crystal sealed within the "Seven Great Monsters". He obtains the seven crystals from the hosts of the Seven Great Monsters. Mamoru saves Usagi from certain death by intercepting Zoisite's attack. The two are then revealed to be Princess Serenity and Prince Endymion. Infuriated that Zoisite has injured Endymion, Beryl uses an attack from her scepter to fatally wound Zoisite who later dies in Kunzite's arms.

In the live-action series, Zoisite is a pianist, using magical songs to hunt for the hidden Moon Princess. In addition to his own "Requiem for a Princess", he plays such compositions as the "Fantaisie-Impromptu" and the "Moonlight Sonata". He cares very little for Beryl and comes to recognize Prince Endymion as his master long before the others. After being killed by Sailor Venus and later revived by the power of Metaria, he ignores Beryl and uses his music to attempt to reach out to Endymion and to restore the memories of their collective past life to his fellow Kings of Heaven. His loyalty to Endymion is such that he offers his own life in exchange for the Prince's, and when Beryl asks for Usagi's life instead, Zoisite sets out to kill her. Diverted from this course of action by Endymion, he dies protecting Sailor Moon instead.

In Sailor Moon Crystal, Zoisite is wounded by Usagi's Moon Healing Escalation technique. However, Beryl nurses him back to health. He attempts to kill both Mamoru and Usagi, only for Minako and Artemis to seriously wound him again and cause him to flee. In his past life, Zoisite was the love interest of Sailor Mercury. He is killed by Metaria along with the other Kings of Heaven in Episode 12.

In the original anime series, Zoisite is voiced by Keiichi Nanba, with Masaya Matsukaze taking over the role for Crystal.

Dark Mercury

In the live-action series, Kunzite attempts an experiment in which he turns one of the Sailor Guardians evil. In Act 20, he kidnaps Ami Mizuno, who at the time is the loneliest and most vulnerable member of the team, and exposes her to Queen Metaria's energies, changing her into an evil alter ego called Dark Mercury. A black motif is added to her uniform, and she uses "dark" powers and an icicle sword. Kunzite keeps her fairly close, being careful to withdraw her whenever Sailor Moon attempts healing but takes advantage of her newly-sadistic personality by allowing her to attend school and antagonize Usagi. While a part of the Dark Kingdom, Mercury is as arrogant as her allies but extends a small amount of kindness to Nephrite. In the end, Dark Mercury almost kills Sailor Moon, but the knowledge that she has injured her friend reverts Ami back to her true form.

Mio Kuroki

is a minor villain appearing only in the live-action series. On the outside, she was a new teen idol whose signature song "Change of Pace" had a following comparable to that of Minako Aino's "C'est la Vie." Also like Minako, she was good at volleyball and claimed to be a good friend of Usagi's. The truth, however, was much more sinister. Mio was a "shadow" of Beryl, created by her and Jadeite sometime between Act 25 and Act 28. Her objectives in life were to be Beryl's eyes and ears in the human world, to give Mamoru Chiba to Beryl, and to generally make the lives of the Sailor Guardians as miserable as possible—especially Usagi's. Mio was the principal player in getting Mamoru Chiba into Beryl's grasp; she also generally watched Mamoru during his time in the Dark Kingdom and mocked him and Rei about the fact that Princess Serenity will use her powers to destroy everything again. However, Mio's treatment of Mamoru inadvertently came back to haunt her when Prince Endymion was possessed by Queen Metaria, who seemingly blasted her out of existence.

However, it turned out that the attack did not completely destroy her, and it took her four years to completely recover without Beryl's power to help her. She returned in the Special Act and attempted to recreate the Dark Kingdom. with her as its queen and Mamoru as the king. After realizing that Mamoru would always love Usagi even when brainwashed, she transformed into her true form: a terrifying, giant black flower with sharp vines. She was finally destroyed when the Sailor Guardians, sans Mars (whom she had managed to incapacitate earlier on) performed Sailor Planet Attack.

She was played by Alisa Yuriko Durbrow.

Dark Agency

In Codename: Sailor V, Minako Aino faces off with the Dark Agency, a group of villains posing as a talent and idol agency. The Dark Agency manipulated idols into helping them gather energy for the Dark Kingdom. In the final volume of the manga, it is revealed that the Dark Agency was established by the Dark Kingdom. Their leader is , named after the mineral of the same name, whose real identity is Minako's love interest Phantom Ace. and Nephrite's monsters having their essence implanted in a person's object and emerging once the human victim had exceed their energy output. These monsters are killed either by Sailor Moon using "Moon Tiara Action" or by other Sailor Guardians' attacks at the end of each episode. Halfway through the season, Zoisite's arc introduces the , the Dark Kingdom's most powerful monsters, reincarnated in the series' current timeline as six normal human beings (with Rei Hino's grandfather among them) and one cat, whose bodies contain the fragments of the Silver Crystal known as the seven . Zoisite uses Nephrite's Dark Crystal to transform the humans and the cat into the Seven Great Monsters. After this story arc, Kunzite also uses the crystal to transform random human characters into monsters to attack the Sailor Guardians. Monsters created from humans are returned to their human form by Sailor Moon using "Moon Healing Escalation" which restores the human while destroying the monster. In the DIC English adaptation, the Negaverse refers to the monsters as their "servants", while the Sailor Guardians and Tuxedo Mask call them "monsters" or sometimes "Negamonsters".

In the live-action series, the monsters serve much the same purpose as in the original anime adaptation. The monsters are portrayed by human actors in suits while two of them are computer-generated. They never speak, are never named, and are commanded by the Four Kings of Heaven. Swarms of monsters with black hooded robes begin to appear after Sailor Moon is revealed to be the Princess. These hooded-robed monsters are loyal to Metaria rather than Beryl and the Four Heavenly Kings and their abilities as Metaria's foot soldiers include earth-swimming and fast movement. In Act 41, the remains of some of these hooded-robed monsters merge into a single, extremely strong monster. In Act 45, Queen Metaria turns the monster into her host in order to absorb every bit of energy in the world. However, Metaria is soon forced by Sailor Venus to leave her host, which is then destroyed by a group attack. This monster was capable of speech when Metaria was using it as a host. In the special act Mio Kuroki, under the alias of "Queen Mio", summons a group of clown-like monsters called Pierrot.

In the musicals Gaiden Dark Kingdom Fukkatsu Hen and its revision, a new monster called is introduced. This monster disguises herself as Haruna Sakurada and acts as leader of other minor monsters. Manegin is portrayed by Kasumi Hyūga in the original musical and by Kiho Seishi in the revision. In La Reconquista, monsters are replaced by Lemures; however, despite their name, they are not related to the minions of the Dead Moon Circus. The leader of these Lemures is , who acts under Beryl's direct command. The other Lemures are unnamed. In one scene, the Lemures organize a Game Show. Baba was portrayed by Mayumi Shintani, while the other unnamed Lemures were played by Ayumi Shimozono, Asuka Yoshidome, Kumiko Saitou, Shiho Tsukagoshi, Moka Kodama, and Miki Shirai.

In the video games, several monsters from the anime make appearances as common enemies while some of the Seven Great Monsters appear as bosses. Naoko Takeuchi herself designed some new monsters for the Super Famicom video game, named HiraHira, MuchiMuchi, and GoroGoro. Manegin from the musicals also appears in other video games.

DD Girls

thumb|right|The DD Girls, who target the Sailor Guardians in Episode 45.

The are a group of five high-ranking monsters introduced in the original anime adaptation in Episode 45, the first of the two-part finale. When Beryl asks her monster subjects which of them would like to dispose of the Sailor Guardians (when they attempt to find their location) and earn their place in Dark Kingdom history, the DD Girls volunteer to kill the Sailor Guardians. They create illusions of people the Sailor Guardians care about (namely Tuxedo Mask for Usagi, Motoki Furuhata for Makoto, and Ryo Urawa for Ami) in danger or pain, to lure the Guardians into a trap. The Sailor Guardians destroy the DD Girls at the cost of their lives, ensuring that Sailor Moon reaches Beryl.

In the DiC English adaptation, their name is changed to the "Doom and Gloom Girls". Episodes 45 and 46 of the original Japanese version were merged into one single episode named "Day of Destiny", altering the storyline such that the Doom and Gloom Girls only capture Sailor Moon's allies, and eliminating "some of the tentacle-filled violence of the original, along with most of its emotional impact."

In the original anime series, their voice actresses are Naoko Nakamura, Asako Satou, Chiyoko Kawashima, Sanae Takagi and Emi Shinohara. In the DIC English adaptation, they are voiced by Julie Lemieux, Nadine Rabinovitch, and Alice Poon. In the Viz Media English adaptation, they are voiced by Tara Platt and Wendee Lee.

The DD Girls appear in the Another Story video game, where they are a reincarnated Beryl's last line of defense. They also appear as bosses in other video games.

Three DD Girls appear in the first musical, Gaiden Dark Kingdom Fukkatsu Hen, played by Hisako Doubayashi, Yuko Nishi, and Mayumi Maikuma, and in its revision, played by Yuriko Nishiyama, Kaori Ishikawa, and Ai Suzuki.

Reception

When analyzing the contrast between young heroines and evil older women in manga, Kathryn Hemmann noted that "Queen Beryl is in no way girlish" and that, while the Sailor Guardians have enormous eyes, Beryl's "are narrow and shaded." Mie Hiramoto also established a contrast between Beryl and the Sailor Guardians in an analysis of anime and intertextualities, explaining that while the Guardians use Japanese women's language, Beryl uses the more formal Standard Japanese more frequently than any other character, which is typical of villains in other anime series. The inclusion of Beryl as an evil character in a line of dolls for girls has been described as a "radical idea". While reviewing shinto, feminism and anime, author Sarah Reeves considered that Beryl's overall misconduct and strategies are the result of a lack of husband and children.

Author Patrick Drazen described DIC's name change for Nephrite's disguise, Maxfield Stanton, as "ridiculously soap-opera". However, Drazen later made a later review about Nephrite's death at the hands of Zoisite's monsters and stated that this scene must have been an unexpected development for viewers used to happy endings. Drazen also cited Nephrite's death in Naru's arms as a scene of redemption, saying that him smiling and laughing during his death "would have been beyond him in the past, but love is turning him human." Sara Roncero-Menendez from The Huffington Post stated that the homosexual relationship between Zoisite and Kunzite in the original anime adaptation was censored in the English versions by changing Zoisite's gender from male to female. In her review of the DVD+Blu-ray combo pack of the English dub for Anime News Network, writer Rebecca Silverman compared Zoisite and Kunzite to Jadeite and Nephrite, stating that the former are better strategists than the latter. In this version, Zoisite's dub is male, and Silverman described voice actor Lucien Dodge's job as "convincingly androgynous, sounding more masculine when the character is angry, which works well." In his review of season one episode "Loved and Chased! Luna's Worst Day Ever", Michael Mammano from Den of Geek described Zoisite as "perfect", even with his flaws which are "always consistent and in character". The author went on by saying that Zoisite was, up to that point of the series, the most efficient of the Four Kings of Heaven, "but also the only one of them to be genuinely suited to comedy when the situation calls for it."

IGN writer Meghan Sullivan reviewed most of the episodes of Sailor Moon Crystal, and compared the original anime adaptation's DIC dub to the translation of Crystal, stating "the new translation makes (Beryl's) motivation for gathering human energy much more clear, which in turn makes her look much more dangerous." However, she considered that Jadeite still looks weak in Crystal, due to the failure of his monsters. Regarding Jadeite's demise, Sullivan hoped the writers devoted more time on the confrontation against him instead of the Sailor Guardians tracking him down, since he was supposed to be a formidable opponent. In the review of the next episode, the author described Nephrite as "a more formidable opponent than his predecessor."

Regarding Beryl's flashback scenes in Act 7, Sullivan wrote that it "felt a little disjointed", since it did not fully explain what Beryl was doing in the North Pole and how she managed to open the portal that leads to the Dark Kingdom. Sullivan particularly enjoyed the battle between the Four Kings of Heaven and the four Sailor Guardians in Act 10, describing it as "intense." In contrast, the final showdown of these two groups in Act 12 left the author unsatisfied, since according to her most of the action happened off-screen, and finally describing their demise at Queen Metaria's hands as "frustrating." Sullivan liked the battle against Beryl more, and considered that "learning that she was in love with Endymion this whole time made her feel more like a person and less like a random super villain." The final battle against Metaria was labelled by the author as "everything a Sailor Moon fan could ask for," with the episode itself doing "a great job establishing just how powerful Metaria has become."

In 1993, Animage made a male anime character popularity poll, in which Zoisite was the tenth most popular, and Nephrite was the joint seventeenth, tying with a character from Zettai Muteki Raijin-Oh. The first official Sailor Moon character popularity poll ranked Zoisite as the twentieth most popular character, Kunzite was the twenty third, Nephrite was twenty-fourth, Jadeite was twenty-sixth, Endou was twenty-ninth, Beryl was thirtieth and Metaria was thirty-fourth, out of thirty-eight choices.

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