Haruna Sakurada, also known as Patricia Haruna in the English dub, is the junior high school teacher of Usagi Tsukino. She acts very young for her age in all versions of the series, however her personality does change slightly In the anime and manga, she has long, brown hair, and can be quite strict, especially when it comes to Usagi mucking things up with her laziness. However, she is also lovesick and obsessed with finding a husband, which makes her an easy target for the Dark Kingdom during the first series. Like most of the other minor characters, she fades into the background as the anime series progresses (and, vanishes entirely when the Senshi leave middle school). The kanji in her name mean "cherry blossom" (sakura), "rice field" (da), "spring" (haru), and "vegetables" (na). The "spring" part of her name becomes a pun in the context of other works by Naoko Takeuchi: Haruna appears very briefly in one earlier series, The Cherry Project, which features her sister Fuyuna in one of its side stories. Two other characters with similar names appear in Takeuchi works: Natsuna in Codename: Sailor V and Akina in PQ Angels. The Japanese words fuyu, natsu, and aki mean "winter," "summer," and "autumn."
