Tuxedo Mask

Hip, Hip, Hooray for everyone's favorite male lead, Tuxedo Mask!

Tuxedo Mask's real name is Darien Chiba (Chiba Mamoru in Japanese, Darien Shields in the translated manga) and he is a college student in the anime (about twenty-one) and a high school student in the manga (about seventeen). He has a sporty little red car and a motorcycle too, as well as several other incarnations.

Besides being Tuxedo Mask, in the past he was Prince Endymion of Earth, in the present he has also been the Moonlight Knight, and in the future he is Neo-King Endymion of the Crystal Millenium. Plus, he was even Evil-Prince Darien for a while in the first season.

As Tuxedo Mask, Darien throws red roses, and wields a cane. As the Moonlight Knight he throws white roses and carries a scimitar. As Evil-Prince Darien he throws black roses and wears goofy sunglasses. These are no ordinary roses, they often injure the sidewalk. Let's just say that Darien is not exactly a weakling because he throws roses.

Darien also has this bizarre habit of perching on anything that's high up, or out of reach, i.e. trees and lampposts (those are his favorite).

Darien was promised to Princess Serenity of the Moon Kingdom during the Silver Millennium, and since she has been reincarnated as Sailor Moon (Serena Tsukino, Tsukino Usagi) he finds it necessary to protect her whenever she's in danger. This has made him the master of the grand entrance. Although the goofiness of Tuxedo Mask's opening lines often rival the goofiness of Sailor Moon's, perching on a lamppost does help.

When Darien first started changing into Tuxedo Mask, he didn't know what was happening to him. He'd suddenly loose consciousness, then wake up hours later and not know what had happened, however, Darien eventually figured it out when he began having dreams directing him to find his Moon Princess. Of course, he, like the Sailor Senshi, had no clue who this Princess was (although, even in the hazy dreams it's pretty obvious that Serena's the princess). In these dreams the princess also directs him to collect the seven rainbow crystals so the Imperium Silver Crystal can be found. For a while during these dreams, Darien doesn't know if he's working for or against the Sailor Senshi who are also trying to collect the rainbow crystals.

Eventually Zoicite challenges Tuxedo Mask to a duel and Tuxedo Mask must accept because Zoicite has discovered who he really is. The prize of this duel are the seven rainbow crystals (Zoicite has five, Tuxedo Mask has two), and an already injured Darien is forced to go to the Starlight Tower with his crystals in tow. Unfortunately, along the way he meets up with Serena who follows him after she figures out that he's injured (good old considerate Usa!) And ends up party to the duel.

Like the nice guy Darien is, he tried to guarantee Serena's safety, but Zoicite is a cheater who wants Darien dead, so she (he in Japan) seizes the rainbow crystals and attempts to 'accidently kill Serena and Darien. Serena is forced to transform in front of Darien, much to his surprise. Later he has to transform in front of her and she is likewise amazed. (Of course, Darien is so smart in the manga, he figures it out almost right off the bat).

During the battle with Zoicite, Tuxedo Mask is injured and the Silver Crystal is reformed. Sailor Moon nails Zoicite with it and brings back Tuxedo Mask's memories of the Moon Kingdom before he loses consciousness and she collapses. While they're down, Malachite nails the other four scouts and proceedes to kidnap Tuxedo Mask. Sailor Moon is not too pleased about this when she wakes up.

Malachite presents Darien to Queen Beryl and she is pleased (she has a thing for him), but not pleased enough, so she kills Zoicite, much to the Dismay of Malachite. Queen Beryl then proceeds to use the powers of Metallia (deity of the Dark Kingdom/Negaverse) to brainwash Darien so that he become Evil-Prince Darien, loyal only to Beryl.

Malachite doesn't like Darien very much (well, he's bucking for Malachite's position) so he tries unsuccessfully to get Sailor Moon to kill Evil-Prince Darien. Sailor Moon manages to partially heal him several times, but Beryl always snatches him away at the last minute.

Not until the last battle with Beryl does Sailor Moon revive Tuxedo Mask with the star locket (and that was no piece of cake either). He kills Beryl with a rose to the heart and then dies (don't worry, everyone gets reincarnated, again).

After Sailor Moon kills Queen Beryl all of the Senshi are reborn again (kinda but not really, for lack of a better word, they are reborn) even Tuxedo Mask. Unfortunately, Darien doesn't remember who he is, and Luna won't wake him (for mysterious reasons of her own). However Sailor Moon is called back into service, so she needs a protector, and thus Moonlight Knight appears.

Moonlight Knight is the walled off portion of Darien's soul that does remember the past. Throughout the Doom tree Saga, Moonlight Knight protects Sailor Moon until the showdown where his identity is revealed and he merges again with Darien.

Darien and Serena's problems are not over by a longshot. With the Doom tree issue reconciled, a pink haired girl (with a familiar hairstyle) falls out of the sky one day (literally) and brains Serena in the park. Darien immediately likes Chibiusa (Hmmm, little rabbit, hmmm) and Serena gets jealous (Chibiusa does not like Serena). The Black Moon family of the future wants to capture Chibiusa, however an it's up to Darien and Serena as Tuxedo Mask and Sailor Moon to defend her.

Soon after this Darien begins having terrible nightmares that warn him to stay away from Serena, or she'll die. He does, even though it nearly kills both of them emotionally. Eventually it is revealed that Darien's future self, Endymion (who wears a lavender suit) sent the dreams to make Darien and Serena's relationship stronger (isn't that the biggest plot device you've ever heard), and it is revealed that Chibiusa is their daughter.

Neo-Queen Serenity/Serena and Neo-Princess Serenity/Chibiusa (Rini) defeat the Black Moon family and everything is better again.

Or at least it is until the Death Busters show up. Super Sailor Moon, the Messiah defeats them, Mistress 9, Pharaoh 90, and restores the Silent Messiah, Sailor Saturn by using the holy grail.

Once again, everything is peachy until the Dead Moon circus shows up. This story centers around Super Sailor Chibimoon and Helios (the pegasus). Super Sailor Moon and the other Super Sailor Senshi defeat Queen Nephrenia and everything is good again.

That is until they send Darien off to Harvard (and out of the show) and try and replace him with the Sailor Starlights (now way, we want Tuxedo Mask). Then Galaxia kills Tuedo Mask outright by taking his star seed (in the timeline this happens at the beginning of the season, we just see it in a flashback). This season of Sailor Moon would be a whole lot better if it had Tuxedo Mask in it for more than ten seconds.