HaruMako

HaruMako is the femslash ship between Haruka Tenou and Makoto Kino from the Sailor Moon fandom.

Canon
In episode 96 of the classic anime, Makoto almost gets run over by a motorcycle. The driver turns out to be Haruka, and she is very concerned, asking if Makoto got hurt anywhere. Haruka wraps Makoto's injured hand with her scarf, and tells Makoto she's very brave. Usagi has to snap Mako back to reality from her dreamy state of mind.

Later Makoto asks Ami and Usagi if they know Haruka's address. Usagi becomes suspicious and asks what she's going to do with it. Makoto gets nervous and says she wants to return the scarf. A sudden gust of wind blows the scarf out of her hand, she cries, "If I don't have that, I won't have an excuse to visit Haruka!" and chases after it. After school, she comes back to look for it, and runs into Usagi, then Haruka and Michiru. Haruka says she's glad she bumped into Makoto, and asks to go for a drive with her because she wants to talk. Makoto is eager to, but Usagi questions it. Haruka wonders if it's so wrong for two girls to go out on a ride together, and Makoto joins her and they drive away.

Makoto gets attacked by a Daimon and has her pure heart stolen. Neptune and Uranus help to return her pure heart, but only when they see that it's not a talisman. Sailor Jupiter gets angry at Uranus for not caring about the people whose pure hearts are being taken from, and charges at her. Uranus blocks her punch and guts Jupiter, causing her to double over, but not without Uranus getting her hand hurt. Uranus un-transforms and pretends to be knocked out. Makoto finds them and is relieved to see they're not hurt.

In the end, Usagi directly asks Makoto if she is in love with Haruka, after which it is revealed that the former was delighted with Tennou not because of her romantic attraction, but because of her courage to live freely and not feel discomfort due to inconsistency with one or another gender expectations, which Makoto herself has always dreamed of.

Fanon
The shipping between Makoto and Haruka started from episode 96 of the anime, since it spotlighted Makoto and Haruka. Since they only get one episode together and otherwise don't have any personal interactions together, it is a less popular pairing. Especially since it has much larger rivals such as HaruMichi, MakoNeph, and MakoAmi.

However, since her admiration for Haruka as a role model can be easily interpreted as romantic, this ship has always had a small but stable following, even though canon portrayed Makoto as boys crazy. It also helped that while Makoto detailed her platonic interest in Haruka in the manga, the anime adapts her dialogue with Usagi in a more confusing way, and when combined with the original material, makes their relationship more ambiguous for the viewer.

Fandom
FANFICTION