THE LEGEND OF SELENE AND ENDIMION
This love story is a very old greek legend:
In the days where Gods and humans lived one nears others, and in the world there weren't still Evils, lived in Caria a very handsome prince named Endimion, son of Etlo and Calice, king of Elide.
The Goddess of the Moon, Selene daughter of Elios, one day saw him, and felt inlove with him, returned. But the handsome prince was a human, and Selene was an immortal Goddess: she would soon loose her love! So she went to Zeus, and she asked him one grace. Zeus gave her the chance to choose, and Selene asked for her love to be immortal. Zeus granted the desire, but Selene forgot that she had to ask even the eternal Youth. So she decided to make her love sleep forever, and still today Endimion, handsome and young forever, dreams about his loved Selene somewhere in Latmo.
THE LEGEND OF THE MOON BUNNY
As averyone here knows, the real name of the main character of this serie is "Usagi Tsukino". If you read the family name first and the first name second, ad the japanaise do, you can read "Tsuki no Usagi", that is "Moon Bunny". This image, that hasn't meanings for us, is full of memories for a japan boy. Infact, if you watch the moon by Japan, and you try to daydream on the moon spots, the picture you can see is a little bunny that beat the mochi in the pestle. The Mochi is a traditional cake made grinding the rice in the pestle: it's seems like candy floss. This cake is prepared during the New Years Day festivity in Japan, remembering the Shôgatsu (New Year), an old festivity that was even the old name for January (now Ichigatsu, first moon). In this festivity, the families go to temples giving reguards to their dead persons (you can see this thing in a lot of anime), asking that new year will be better than the old one.
But this tradition came from an old legend, that now I will tell you:
An old pilgrim, tired for his journey, one day stopped in the forest, resting. He met three animals: an ape, a fox and a bunny. They decided to find something to eat for the pilgrim, so they went in the forest searching. The ape went on the trees, and arrived with a lot of friuts. The fox went hunting, and arrived with a bird to cook. But the little bunny couldn't find anything. He looked at the old man, and he saw that he was very sad for him. He thought that he was angry with him, and, desperate, he makes a fire, and jumped into it, offering himself to the pilgrim. This thing excited the pilgrim's pity, and he revealed he was a God. He takes the little body of the bunny, and he brings it on the moon, where the bunny sleep forever, emblem of bravery and sacrifice.As you can see a lot of the topoi of Sailor Moon went from these legends: the second legend explain why Usagi and Mamoru's name in Silver Millennium is Serenity (from Selene=>SE-RE-NE=>Serenity) and Endymion. And the first legend explain the name of Usagi in her new life, so particular, and why she always has the hair styled as a bunny.