Nothing's more of a downer for me than to find a cool otaku senshi who's creator forgot to give they a reason to exist.  Though I must admit, it's probably the hardest part to make solid when creating a character.  Its mildly easy to pick some fuku colors, pull a name out of the sky (sometimes literally) and give it a birthdate and a personality, but to really have an otaku senshi with substance, she must have a duty; it may be to serve, it may be to protect, or in certain personal circumstances, it may be to destroy.  ^^;;  Whatever their mission, it is essential in how other are going to view your character.

Take for example the ever popular otaku senshi name: Sailor Sun.  Regardless of how many people claim there can't be a sailor sun, for whatever reason, the world of otaku senshi allows for you to stretch your creativity wherever you want, including our nearest star.  So say you make a Sailor Sun, and she's brilliant (no pun intended)... but after all you've done to make her the most original Sailor Sun there is, all you have for her to do is 'help out Saillor Moon.'

::yawn::  See what I mean?  There are already plenty of soldiers who's duty it is to help Sailor Moon!  In fact, there are TONS of them.  So why not choose something more interesting for your character?  Maybe your Sailor Sun is a reincarnate of a demon-woman that terrorized Earth thousands of years before the Silver Millennium.  Maybe she ate babies, and drank blood and she was systematically killing all life on Earth, until a powerful group of sorcerers trapped her and send her to her fiery grave at the center of the Sun.  But when they used their powers to banish her, they didn't realize that she was in fact a living undead of a sailor soldier from another galaxy, and when she went crashing into the fires of the Sun her powers were awakened and she grew in strength until on day, in the twentieth century, she burst forth from the Sun to claim this solar system as her own and vowed to devour anyone in her path!  Dun dun dun!

Okay, so that's a little nuts, but you get the point.  Sure, the ideas you come up with might be a little strange, and maybe you won't even like the first few.  But keep trying!  Use your friends as sounding boards and see if they have any input.  A little brainstorming session can go a long way, let me tell you.

And for all of your hard work, not only will you have a super cool, butt-kicking Otaku Senshi, but she will also have a purpose, a mission, and a story that is terribly interesting, original, and all your own!  ^_^

Questions? Comments? E-mail Sakura: Sakura@sailorastera.com