Dark Kingdom

Dark Kingdom

Queen Beryl † (クイン・ベリル, Kuin Beriru?) is the first major villain in every version of the Sailor Moon series. She is named after the mineral beryl. Beryl has immense magical power, but she uses most of it to channel the life energy harvested by her servants to the entity called Queen Metalia. In most versions of the story, she has the ability to corrupt others into serving the powers of darkness. Her generals, for instance, were once the bodyguards and best friends of Prince Endymion, and in most versions of the story she is able to use her powers to sway Tuxedo Mask into her service.

In the manga, Beryl was a beautiful girl on Earth during the age of the Silver Millennium. Beryl was in love with Prince Endymion, but her love was unrequited; when she discovered Endymion with Princess Serenity of the moon, she was crushed. She later states that having Endymion was her sole reason for siding with the evil force from the sun, Queen Metalia. She was corrupted and empowered by Metalia, and used her new powers to mobilize the Earth in a war against their protectors, the Moon Kingdom. Beryl killed Prince Endymion as he was trying to protect Princess Serenity, leading to the princess's own suicide. At some point after this, Sailor Venus killed Beryl with the holy moon sword. Queen Serenity, greatly weakened, sealed away Metalia again, and before dying sent the whole of her Kingdom to be reincarnated on Earth. Beryl is "reborn" in the 20th century, but finds Queen Metalia sealed within the Earth while traveling in the Arctic. She becomes Queen of the Dark Kingdom, communicating with Queen Metalia and wielding her reincarnated generals Jadeite, Nephrite, Zoisite, and Kunzite to find the Silver Crystal and defeat the newly-awakened Sailor Soldiers. Queen Beryl is able to summon the reincarnated Prince Endymion (Tuxedo Mask) to her side, but only after he has been killed and merely exists as a mindless zombie. In the end she fails to get the Silver Crystal, and is again killed by Sailor Venus, who drives a sword through her body. As she falls, she says Endymion's name, and murmurs that she had always just been watching him. She is generally portrayed in a more tragic light in the manga than she is in the anime, even experiencing a brief moment of regret as she knows that she can no longer turn back.

In the anime, Queen Beryl is the mastermind behind the various attacks against the citizens of Tokyo while Sailor Moon, and later the other Sailor Soldiers, are searching for the Moon Princess. She also kidnaps and brainwashes Prince Endymion in order to force him to kill his lover. But when he breaks free of her control and attacks her she lies in a swoon and begs Queen Metalia for more power, which results in Beryl becoming Metalia's vessel for the destruction of everything on Earth called Super Beryl. Queen Beryl is soon vaporized along with Metalia when Sailor Moon, who has transformed into Princess Serenity, combines the power of the Silver Crystal with that of the Moon Stick.

In the English-dubbed anime no mention is given to her origin and she is only said to be the ruler of the Negaverse, an evil alternate dimension, from which she was somehow able to escape in order to attack this dimension. Yet while she is an extra-dimensional monster in human form that was never born on Earth, it can be assumed that this Beryl has a similar origin because when she sees Tuxedo Mask without his mask, she recognizes his face and seeks to claim him as her own. Her love for Endymion is not mentioned; indeed, she does not even know anything about love, vaguely saying that she has heard of it when Jadeite mentions it as a human phenomenon. She is, however, capable of carnal lust, as seen with her attraction to Darien/Mamoru. A key difference between the dubbed Beryl and her Japanese counterpart is that with the demotion of Metalia to the dub Negaforce, Beryl is much more assertive, vindictive, power hungry, and possessive (when towards the end of the first season, Darien is freed from mind control, she shouts "Traitor!" and attacks him with a stone spear, screaming "You are mine!"). In the Swedish dubbed version, Queen Beryl's name is Morga.

In the original Japanese anime, Beryl was content to serve Metalia and her chief motivation was loyalty to Metalia. In the English dub, she rules the Negaverse in her own name and is regarded by her foes as a "snake... all twisted and ugly and full of bitterness." Aside from enslaving the entire universe (or even destroying it with everyone in it) for herself, her chief motivation was to avenge her defeat one thousand years ago at the hands of her most hated enemy, Queen Serenity, whom she vowed to have "begging for mercy!". She looked down on Serenity's daughter, Sailor Moon as being a nuisance at best. Beryl was supreme leader and junior partner to her advisor, the Negaforce. Aside from being one of the more ruthless and power hungry of her counterparts, there was almost no sympathy extended to her. The sole exception was when she recalled Queen Serenity imprisoning the Seven Shadows, Beryl's voice actress, Naz Edwards, intoned a sad voice when she read "they disappeared into the Earth's atmosphere..."

At the end of the season, Beryl is said to be merely banished back to the Negaverse when Sailor Moon defeats her. While the narrator who opened the first season opens the second season reiterating that information, there is also a continuity error when Artemis mentions during the second series that Queen Beryl had been "completely destroyed." Ann and Alan also mention her, saying that she had told them about the Earth, though it is not specified at what point this ever happened; before or after Beryl's defeat.

In the live-action series, as in the manga, Beryl sends out her Shitennou to collect energy for Metalia, find the princess, and obtain the Silver Crystal. Beryl had problems, however: Jadeite and Nephrite were rivals for her affections; Zoisite was more loyal to Prince Endymion than to her; Kunzite had set his sights on taking Queen Metalia's power for himself. However, it was soon revealed that Beryl had revived the four and used her magic to bring them into her service, though only Jadeite and Nephrite are completely under her spell as they have forgotten their past memories. At one point, Beryl creates a shadow of herself, Mio Kuroki (Kuroki Mio), who sets out to ruin Usagi Tsukino's reputation while being Beryl's eyes and ears. When she learns that Mamoru Chiba was Endymion, Beryl forces him to come with her by showing him that she can easily kill the Shitennou, 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, to Beryl's dismay. Even more, thanks to Usagi's overuse of the Silver Crystal, Beryl loses control over Metalia's actions. She dies in the finale when her castle crumbles under the stress of a distraught Princess using the Silver Crystal to destroy the world. However, for all her sadness she is not alone, as Jadeite stays by her side after she removes her mind-control spell on him, claiming that Beryl is his master by choice.

Queen Beryl appears as a boss in the "Sailor Moon: Another Story" video game. She is encountered in a cave by the Sailor Senshi following the DD Girls destruction. Super Beryl serves as Queen Beryl's second form. Later on in the past level, it was shown that Queen Beryl had been a sage that lived at the North Pole wanting Endymion to be hers at the time and has followers all over the world.

Beryl's original form appears, blurrily, in a flashback in the later episodes of Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon. Beryl's original form also appears in the manga, where she wears a gypsy-like outfit. In the manga her original form had black hair, but in PGSM her hair was red in her original form.

Queen 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 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 original Japanese anime, Beryl is voiced by Keiko Han, who also voices Luna. During recording, this contrast resulted in occasional fits of giggles among the cast when she would change from Luna's cute, catlike voice to the deep, evil tones of Queen Beryl. Sometimes, she would accidentally play Beryl with Luna's voice. In the English dub, the character was played by Naz Edwards (though Jill Frappier voiced her in a flashback in the episode "Follow the Leader").

In the stage musicals, Queen Beryl has been played by two actresses: Yuri Nishina and Akiko Miyazawa (who previously played Sailor Venus). In the live action series, she is played by adult film star Aya Sugimoto.

The inclusion of her as an evil character in a line of dolls for girls has been described as a "radical idea".