#029: Cyrene

First appearance: Episode 6 (守れ恋の曲! うさぎはキューピッド/Protect the Melody of Love! Usagi is a Cupid)
Voice actor: Emi Shinohara

Cyrene is my favorite of Jadeite's Youma, and the first of the Youma that I really love. There's some real thought that's gone into her design, which is good, because she's really the main antagonist of this episode, rather than Jadeite. I think she translated really well to chibi-style. Most of the Youma up until now had quite subdued colors, whereas Cyrene is very bright and colorful. As the series went on, monster designs would continue to move in this direction.

Cyrene also has an amazingly weird pronunciation compared to her name's spelling. It's (more or less) Kuh-re-ne, due to the name's Greek origin. Some people prefer to use the Japanese equivalent, Kyurene, because of this, and to those people, I say: fair enough.

The other notable thing about Cyrene is her voice actress: this was the first appearance of Emi Shinohara, future voice of Sailor Jupiter.