Sailor Moon/Anime-Only Tropes

The tropes found in the anime version of Sailor Moon.

The Abridged Series (Sailor Moon Abridged)
Achilles in His Tent: The standard plot happens a little differently to demure Mercury, who starts as the only Sailor Senshi without offensive abilities, and is too nice to storm off. Instead, she's offered a chance to study abroad and further her goals of becoming a doctor, which will remove her from the Sailor Senshi. She's about to take it, but changed her mind at the last moment so returns in time to get her mid-season power upgrade (which finally makes her more action-geared) and rescue the rest of the team from a monster only weak to ice, and she returns to the fold.
Adaptation Expansion: Being pretty much four times as long as the manga, the anime has plenty of time to detail the characters outside of the main ones (supporting cast and villains) more.
Adapted Out: In the anime, various Sailor Guardians are cut: Sailor Ceres, Sailor Pallas, Sailor Juno, Sailor Vesta, and Sailor Cosmos. Eventually, the first four showed up, including the villains that have done a Heel Face Turn but never became Sailor Senshi.
- Shadow Galactica's many villains, like Sailor Heavy Metal Papillion, got the important parts of playing non-existent in the finale.
Agony Beam: Various baddies have them, a notable use (though without an actual beam) is during R when Rubeus increases his ship's artificial gravity to 10 and more G's to torture Sailor Moon. She stands up.
Ain't Too Proud to Beg/Villains Want Mercy:In the English dub, Tellu begs the Senshi to save her when her own giant plant attacks her. They don't.
Alternate Continuity: The anime bares only a passing resemblance to the manga, which progresses as the series moves on. While most of the manga's cast appears, they frequently have completely different motivations, personalities, and backstories. This leads to each plot arc playing out completely differently in the anime compared to the manga, only occasionally sharing a story beat or two.
And Knowing Is Half the Battle: "Sailor Says", from the English dub of the first two seasons only.
Anatomy of the Soul: Each season had at least one new item. The Death Busters transform the "pure hearts" of humans into crystals in the anime, in the manga human hosts are used to hold Daimons. In the anime, the Dark Moon Circus first try to search the "dream mirrors" of humans for Pegasus, then later try to search for one with a golden mirror. In Sailor Stars, Shadow Galactica rip the star seeds out of people as they search for special star seeds, and then turn their victims into phages.
Annoying Laugh: Esmeraude. The first time she laughs in front of the Sailor Soldiers they cover their ears in pain.
Armor-Piercing Slap: Usagi slaps Mamoru for forgetting her birthday in episode 101. As it turns out, Usagi never actually told Mamoru when her birthday was, nor does she know when his birthday is. She immediately runs to apologize when she realizes it was her fault for overreacting.
Ascended Extra: In the manga, the roles of most villains were extremely small and they were often killed off without much ado. In the anime, their roles and characters were greatly expanded. The Sailor Starlights were also given a similar treatment, becoming a major focus of the final arc.
Attack Its Weak Point: The monster Iguara in episode 5 has a huge white blinking spot at the base of its tail that is its only vulnerability.
Battle Royale With Cheese: In the first and last season
Berserk Button: It was established in the 13th episode that anyone who makes sexist remarks within earshot of a Sailor Senshi is in for a world of hurt, as Jadeite learned the hard way when the then-Power Trio of the Sailor Senshi used Plane Fu on him for that offense.
- Queen Nehellenia's berserk button is people giving her pity for her miserable, ugly life.
Bicep-Polishing Gesture
Big-Budget Beef-Up: The animation quality takes a noticeable jump about midway through R and again for S onwards.
Big No: Usagi during the climax of the final season after Mercury, Mars, Venus, and Jupiter throw themselves in front of Sailor Moon and the Starlights to protect them from Sailor Galaxia's attack. The attack removes their Star Seeds causing them to fade into orbs of light before vanishing altogether. She says it rather weakly at first then lets out a chilling scream of it. Turns into a Skyward Scream after she starts yelling.
- Another Big No comes from Usagi after the Disney Deaths of Sailors Uranus and Neptune at the start of episode 111 in the S season.
The Blank: One makeup-themed Monster of the Week accidentally erased her own face. She was trying to draw it back with eyebrow pencil when Sailor Moon zapped her.
Bragging Theme Tune: Not the original theme song, but some of the foreign versions, particularly the English Dub. The theme for Stars and the live action show might count, though.
Brother Chuck: Season one had a fairly large supporting cast, including Usagi's parents and little brother, Rei's grandpa and his assistant Yūichirō, and various folks from their school. Almost all of them had vanished completely by season three, though a couple made a token appearance or two in later seasons (usually as monster attack victims), and the writers were nice enough to awkwardly pair off Usagi's main two school chums before they vanished. Only Yūichirō kept on because of his status as Rei's "love interest" (its...complicated).
Broken Aesop: The dub-invented "Sailor Says" PSAs would have these from time to time; a particular stand out example would be in the episode where Molly gets her energy sucked by Neflyte. The Sailor Says segment says that Molly was being true to her heart when she told Neflyte how she felt about him and treats this as a good thing and an important lesson...even though it put her in a coma. Naturally Sailor Moon Abridged has fun with this.

SMA Serena: When Molly told Neflyte what she felt, she was being true to her self! See what that got her? Stupid bitch should've kept her mouth shut.

- Another episode in the same arc scolded "Laurie" the animator for cheating, because she used the pencil enchanted by Neflyte to work. That's right - the villain possessed her and compelled her to use an item until he could steal her soul, and the show instead scolded her for her ethics.
Brother-Sister Incest: Al and En in the second season have hints of this because they were created from the same being, a la Adam and Eve; surprisingly, this wasn't removed from the English dub.
Car Fu: Episode 13 features an instance of Plane Fu.
- And let's not forget that impressive bit of Motorcycle Fu that Haruka and Michiru pull off in their debut.
Caretaker Reversal: In one episode of Sailor Moon R, when Minako plays nurse to her friends, but ends up sick herself by the end of the episode, when Usagi and Chibi-usa return the favor.
Cats Are Snarkers: Luna and Artemis constantly rip on the antics of their charges throughout the series.
Chained Heat: Sailors Moon and Uranus in episode 98 of Sailor Moon S. This also starts to clue Usagi in to Uranus' identity as Uranus holds her the same way Haruka does earlier in the episode.
Chekhov's Gun: There are many, but a particularly interesting one - because it's also a Red Herring - is when Luna and Artemis explain that Uranus, Neptune and Pluto "were not supposed to be reborn" and only would have if their cause was "an emergency." In reality, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto's rebirth was an accident; when they gathered to witness the destruction of the Moon Kingdom, they didn't know that the combination of their talismans would mean the summoning of Sailor Saturn and with her The End of the World as We Know It. So Luna and Artemis were wrong about the Outer Sailors' rebirth meaning something new/significant about the nature of that arc's mission. But the explanation does provide The Reveal for something else: Hotaru being Sailor Saturn.
Circle of Friendship: The Sailor Planet Attack.
Color Coded for Your Convenience
Combination Attack: The SNES RPG game has this but arguably it also happens in the anime too such as Mars firing a fireball with Jupiter casting lightning around it as one such example.
Continuity Nod: In the first season we find out that Minako lived in London for a while. A few seasons later she's shown as the one most fluent in English.
- Season 4 finale provides one on epic scale. Nehellenia gloats that the Golden Crystal that could defeat her was powerless because humans stopped having good dreams... Cue all of that season's Victims Of The Week, targeted specifically because each of them had a good dream, recharging it.
Costume Test Montage: Minako, in the opening of the S movie.
Crash Into Hello: Subverted in one episode where Rei goes Wrong Genre Savvy and tries to deliberately engineer this to meet Mamoru. She ends up falling flat on her face and he steps on her head.
- It still works.
Cryptid Episode: They find a sea monster while on vacation. It doesn't have any connection to the magic of the show.
Cute Shotaro Boy : Perle in the SuperS movie and Helios in the Super S season, though both are probably quite a bit older.
Demonic Invaders: In the dub, half of the bad guys were said to come from some nebulous dimension of evil called the Negaverse.
- Ironically, the final Big Bad in manga is treated in a similar way, as if the source of most of the series antagonist's powers
Diet Episode: Usagi tries to go on a diet but fails in an early episode that involves the villains taking energy from girls who are obsessed with getting thin.
The Doll Episode: An early Series 1 episode featured Shingo's friend Mika, a doll maker, getting selected by Nephrite as his victim of the day and possessing her with a doll that later turned into a doll-themed Monster of the Week. Para Para also uses dolls for some of her schemes and attacks.
Do Not Adjust Your Set: Galaxia does this right before the final battle against her in Sailor Stars. This is fitting because her base is the Ginga TV station, which her minions claim they work for when they use their disguises.
Dropped a Bridge on Him: The anime isn't much better than the manga. Princess Kakyuu gets about 2 episodes worth of screen time before she gets killed. She gets better after the final battle due to Sailor Moon.
- In Sailor Moon S, Mimete teleports herself into cyberspace, makes a big intro, and announces that being in the computer increases her power tenfold. Just as you're expecting an epic battle, Tellu walks in and pulls the plug, effectively 'deleting' Mimete.
  - The final three members of the Witches 5 all go out like this - Tellu gets killed fighting with her own plant the very next episode, Viluy gets essentially eaten alive by her own nano-machines in her ONLY episode, and Cyprine and Ptilol kill themselves in their only fight with the Senshi by being tricked into shooting each other. In comparison, Eudial and Mimete had several episode arcs to themselves before meeting their untimely deaths.
Dub Name Change: Just about all of them changed at least one of the characters names. Notably Hotaru was the only Sailor Senshi whos name did not change at all (Though they pronounced her last name differently, the spelling remained the same)
Dub Text: Sailors Uranus and Neptune.
- Also, the meme of how TALENTED Jupiter is.
  - Which makes a certain Hooter's commercial that ends with the girls huddled around a table yelling, "This team's got talent!" absolutely hilarious.
Dub-Induced Plot Hole: On top of just plain inconsistent dubbing, some incredibly unique plot inconsistencies popped up in the dubbing.
- How did Kaorinite know that Uranus and Neptune were cousins?
- The original name of that trope was "My Name is Prince Darien" for one of the most notorious flubs.
- A ridiculous amount of plot inconsistencies spring up in the final episodes of the Dark Kingdom arc because of both the dropping of episode 42 and the hack and slash job that combined episodes 45 and 46 into a single episode to cover up all the characters who died.
Everything's Better with Spinning: The Title character beyond a doubt. Almost all of her transformations and attacks feature at least one spin. Also Jupiter Oak Evolution and Mercury's Shine Aqua Illusion. The monster pair that showed up in the episode with the animation studio would even chant "Spin and spin and spin!" when they attacked the Senshi.
Evil Costume Switch: Endymion, Galaxia, and especially Black Lady (who even gets a new body out of the deal).
Evil Plan: Galaxia awakening Nehellenia to ensure that Sailor Saturn appeared again.
Evolving Credits: The first two series switch to a different opening partway through to reflect new plot developments and changes in cast. The other series just make slight modifications to the existing openings (SuperS and Stars have two variations each, while S has three). This YouTube Channel has all of the openings from the first four series.
Evolving Music: The first four series all use "Moonlight Densetsu" ("Moonlight Legend") as the opening theme, but Classic and R use a version by DALI, while S and SuperS use a cover by Moon Lips. Stars used a different song entirely, "Sailor Star Song".
Executive Meddling: The sudden 180 in tone after the second season is believed to be the result of this trope - there were concerns that the original audience for the show was growing out of Sailor Moon. Hence SuperS jettisoned even mentions of the Outer Senshi and the darker and more complex storylines, and refocused the show to spend more time on Chibiusa, a younger character who could theoretically appeal to kids better. Aside from creating a lot of fan animosity towards the character and being precieved a poor adaptation of the original story, it led to a ratings slump the series never completely recovered from. It also led to Kunihiko Ikuhara's departure due to frustration over the lack of creative control (which also led to his formation of Be-Papas and Revolutionary Girl Utena).
Fairy Tale Motifs: The first part of the fifth season is very predictable if you're familiar with Hans Christian Andersen's "The Snow Queen".
Family-Unfriendly Death: Nephrite. Even the original version used green blood to tone down the violence a bit, but being impaled by thorns and hurt by burn marks was pretty gruesome.
- Viluy was devoured alive by her own nanites, screaming in agony the whole time.
Famous Last Words: If you're a Sailor Senshi, expect to get some.
Fate Worse Than Death/And I Must Scream: Jadeite from the first season - after getting run over by a plane, he's trapped in "eternal sleep" inside a giant crystal. Mimette from the third season is technically alive inside the computer system, but with no way of ever getting out.
Festival Episode: An episode of R takes place during the academy's culture festival.
- Another one in the S season, Chibi-Moon's debut episode.
- And yet another one in Super S, episode 146.
Field Power Effect
Fighting Down Memory Lane: In the second season, Wiseman and Sailor Moon call on Chibi-Usa's memories during her corruption and redemption.
Figure It Out Yourself
Filler: Probably the biggest complaint of the anime is the copious filler used to pad out the plot points.
The Final Temptation
Finger-Snap Lighter: Sailor Mars.
Flanderization: Minako, who in the anime goes from being more mature and experienced despite her occasional ditziness, to being arguably worse than Usagi in terms of ditziness by the the last season.
- There's also Makoto's issues with falling for guys who remind her of her old boyfriend (sempai in the Japanese version). One of which is a dog.
- Ami's extreme study habits become a running gag starting in R, though they'd already been used for humor in the first series as well.
Flight of Romance: when Chibiusa goes flying in the dream world with Helios.
From Dress to Dressing: When taking a rest whilst fleeing from Zoisite in a park, Naru patches up Nephrite's arm with a strip of cloth she rips from her pajamas. After Nephrite's death she keeps the cloth which was all that was left when he faded away eventually she gives it to Umino to show she's moved on, and is now interested in Umino.
Full-Moon Silhouette: An occasional lead-in to the In the Name of the Moon speeches.
Genre Savvy: Poor Naru gets attacked so many times, by season two she's actually wary when she gets invited to an audition. And rightfully so, because she got attacked AGAIN. The very first episode of R even had the cats wondering why she was always a victim.
Getting Crap Past the Radar: The Monster of the Week in season four's Beach Episode attacks with various colored balls, announcing the color in advance. When she gets to "gold", her face goes red and says she can't say it out loud; that's because kintama literally means "golden ball", but it also means, ahem, "family jewels".
- Depending on why the scenes of Amara and Michelle as a couple were left in in the dub (that is, on purpose versus out of laziness), they might count, and the two might only have been called "cousins" in order to appease Media Watchdogs. More details on the Headscratchers page.
- The elephant joke, which was itself a Shout-Out to Crayon Shin-chan.
- While the English dub was heavily censored, whoever was in charge of making the "Sailor Says" segments must have had a sense of humor about it because they frequently included scenes that had been cut out of the episode for content.
- An episode in Sailor Moon R featured a gust of wind blowing Berthier's skirt up over her head, making a Panty Shot. Whoever censored this out for the dub left a few of the incriminating frames in anyway, which were spotted by viewers who taped the episode and paused quickly enough.
Ghibli Hills
Hide Your Gays: In the US anime, Zoisite was changed into a woman because of his romantic relationship with Kunzite.
- The Swedish dub also changed Zoisite into a woman, but for a different reason. They didn't want to portray homosexuals as villains.
- Fish Eye was also a man in the manga and Japanese version, and changed to a woman in the dub for the same reasons as Zoisite/Zoycite.
Hide Your Lesbians: Haruka and Michiru in the English dub. They are changed into cousins, Amara and Michelle. Notable in that such characters being in a magical series where the relationship was simply part of the characterization was novel, to the point most newer magical teams have at least one Situational Sexuality pairing in fanon.
Hoist by His Own Petard: A number of villains do themselves in this way. Most notable would be Mimete (killed by a machine built by Eudial, whom she had killed), Tellu (killed by her own plant), Viluy (killed by her own nanites), and Cyprine/Ptilol (killed by shooting each other) of the Witches 5.
- While technically it was Sailor Mars that altered the course of the planes that ran over Jadeite (though that didn't kill him), it was his own magic that caused them to start moving on their own. She simply made HIM the new target.
Holding Your Shoulder Means Injury: Sailor Venus does this in one episode, even though there was no hint of her being hit in the shoulder.
Hypnotize the Princess: Quite a few times. Prince Demand is especially notable.
Hypocritical Humor: Many Sailor Says segments, when you consider that Serena's the one doing them.
Idiosyncratic Wipes: The DiC-produced episodes added CGI scene wipes. Cloverway was too cheap to be bothered, so they didn't do any.
Ignored Enemy: In one episode of Sailor Stars most of the main cast ends up at Usagi's (small) house and so does the Monster of the Week. When Sailor Star Maker attempts to attack him the other Senshi grab her to stop the attack from ruining the house, the other two Starlights try to pull them away, and an argument results. Said Monster of the Week is forgotten and even attempts to get Star Fighter's attention, getting punched for his trouble.
I Have the High Ground: Mostly Tuxedo Mask, Uranus and Neptune.
- Sailor Moon does this from time to time though, and the 3rd Season opening does this to all the Sailor Senshi.
Image Song: Most of the main characters have several, even Mamoru. Beryl and Galaxia also got image songs. And not shockingly, several of the songs made it into the show to sell the albums.
In a Single Bound: Tuxedo Mask is fond of this. From time to time, even the main characters will do this as well, making you wonder why they worry about things like motorcycles.
Interim Villain: The Makaiju aliens Al and En, the filler arc villains in Sailor Moon R.
Is That Cute Kid Yours: Chibi-usa, who is Usagi's kid, and Chibi-Chibi, who isn't... Probably.
It Has Only Just Begun: Episode 111. (Ep 21 of Sailor Moon S)
Karmic Death: The fate of most of the villains who don't do a Heel Face Turn. When you look at it, aside from final antagonists (Queen Beryl, Queen Metaria, Wiseman, and Pharaoh 90), the only major villains to be directly killed by a Sailor Senshi are Kunzite, Esmeraude (who'd turned into a dragon), and Germatoid. The other major villains to die are killed by other villains.
Lampshade Hanging: While it's true that the series contained many ridiculous elements, it never shied away from self-parody. Examples include episode 104, which pokes fun at Chibi-Moon's theatrics, and episode 184, where the senshi are forced to fight in the Tsukinos' kitchen and Sailor Moon keeps knocking things over with her wings. Sailor Iron Mouse also repeatedly points out how boring it is to listen to the same speech over and over again.
- Best of all, Fish Eye once stopped a battle to ask if Sailor Moon and Chibi-Moon were embarrassed with constantly jumping and kicking in such short skirts.
Leitmotif: Most the cast has some piece of unique music, all of which are listed on the page corresponding to the trope. Most notably, Sailor Moon had a unique piece of music for every transformation and attack, the most out of any individual character.
Luminescent Blush: Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask, upon learning Chbi-Usa is their Kid From the Future.
Memetic Hand Gesture: The winking-with-a-"V" Sign one, along with her thumb-index finger-pinky gesture that has been come to be known as the "tsukini kawatte oshiokyio" pose.
Minion with an F In Evil: Poor Doorknobder. Despite her fearsome appearance, all she was really good for was locking things up. Other than that, she was a coward with little to no combat skill.
- And Sailor Moon did not even seem to be aiming for her with her finishing move. She was aiming for Eudial, but Eudial reflected it away and it hit Doorknobder and destroyed her.
- Togetoge too. As she pointed out, she never even got a chance to do anything before Sailor Moon destroyed her, with CereCere trying to force her target's dream mirror down her throat. Sailor Moon seemed to be aiming for CereCere (or both) in this scene as well.
Missing Episode: Quite a few in international dubs. The English Dub, for example, skipped all these episodes: 2, 5, 6, 20, 42, 67, and the entirety of the fifth and final season Sailor Stars episodes 167-200. Also, episodes 45 and 46, the two parts of the first season finale, were combined into a single episode.
Mono-Gender Monsters: The vast majority are female or non-human in the first four seasons. Fan theories ranged from originally being a shoutout to Cutey Honey or an avoidance of wanting to show male monsters attacking girls. This is strangely averted to some extent in the fifth season, possibly because certain star seeds can be technically be carried by either sex.
- Played with a few times. Quirky Miniboss Squad Members Jun Jun (a tomboy) and Fisheye (an effeminate gay man) use male monsters.
Monster of the Aesop: Some really, really bizarre youma came about depending on the episode's theme, including such things as an elephant vacuum cleaner, "Cinderella", race cars, and even a syringe... Though the most bizarre example would have to be the Stars season's Sailor Guts, a football player transformed into a beefy, pink-skinned guy in a sailor suit about three sizes too small for him. Who throws giant, caustic globs of sweat as his attack. Ew.
- Of special mention is Professor Tomoe, who engineered his Aesop-monsters on purpose after awhile.
Monster of the Week: Roughly three-quarters of the episodes feature one. Most of the episodes that didn't were plot episodes.
Never Say "Die": The dub, which instead said "captured by the Negaverse". Though strangely, it did not dance around Neflyte's rather brutal on-screen death.
- Averted nicely in the dub of the 2nd movie, "Hearts On Ice". Sailor Moon says "death" while confronting the Big Bad. Later on she plans to beat the Big Bad with the Silver Crystal, the power of which will invariably cause her death. Sailor Venus calls her out on this, and Uranus resolves to prevent it. Skip to 5:50 and 6:17 respectively if you're interested. It should be noted however, the movie listed above was dubbed from by a different company than the original dub.
- Though it was stated twice that Queen Beryl was "blasted back to the Negaverse" (which, by the way, was destroyed along with her when she was reduced to skin and bone and completely disintegrated), Artemis does say in Episode 3 of Sailor Moon R that Beryl was "completely destroyed".
- Eventually subverted later on within the series.
Non-Serial Movie: All of them.
The Nose Bleed: A rare female example with Minako.
Won't Work On Me: The fight against Sailor Galaxia in Season 5 of the anime is full of this.
Not a Date: Rei with a one-shot female character, Maya Touno.
Oddly-Named Sequel 2: Electric Boogaloo: R, S, SuperS, then Sailor Stars
- Actually, the single letters were in place for a word pertaining to the theme of that season. Sailor Moon Romance (focus on romance between Usagi and Mamoru), Sailor Moon Super (for Super Sailor Moon's premier), Sailor Moon SuperS(as in "supers," or the plural form of "super" because the entire team ganied Super forms), and Sailor Stars was named for the introduction of the Sailor Starlights.
One True Sequence: The Rainbow Crystals
Orcus on His Throne: Compared to the manga version, villains are extremely reluctant to engage the Sailor Senshi and generally do stuff personally, due to copious Monster of the Week Filler.
The Other Darrin: Almost the entire main cast was replaced in the English dub (most recasting was during the transfer from DiC for the first two seasons to Cloverway for the next two) and the European Spanish dub (the last season was dubbed by a new company quite a few years after the earlier ones, and the previous actors became hard to contact); notable exceptions were Jupiter (always voiced by Susan Roman) in North America and Mars (by Pepa Agudo) in Spain. The original Japanese only had a minor example with Usagi, who was voiced by Kae Araki for a few episodes while Kotono Mitsuishi was sick.
Overtook the Manga: The Makaiju/Doom Tree arc is a product of this, mainly because they didn't expect either to go beyond a single series.
- The Rainbow Crystal sub-arc from season 1 was also a case of this.
- The Nehellenia villain arc extended into Sailor Stars to pad out the fact that the final storyline of the manga was far shorter than the ones preceding it.
Pacing Problems: Each member of the Quirky Miniboss Squad from Sailor Moon S had decreasing amounts of spotlight in order: Kaolinite lasted for thirteen episodes, Eudial for nine, Mimete either eight or nine (depending on how you look at the episode where she is killed by her successor), Tellu for two (counting the episode where she kills Mimete), and Viluy only one. Cyprine and Ptilol, the most powerful of the Witches 5, only lasted for half of an episode.
- A similar problem occured with the Quirky Miniboss Squad of Stars, with each of them lasting a shorter amount of time than the one before (Iron Mouse had 9 episodes, Aluminum Siren had 7, Lead Crow had 5, and Tin Nyako just 3.)
The Paragon Always Rebels: Sailor Galaxia.
Pastel-Chalked Freeze-Frame: Most notably EVERY time Haruka and Michiru show up, as it's accompanied by a very distinctive chorus.
Pinky Swear: Used a few times in the series by main characters and minor characters.
Poisonous Friend: Fiore in the Sailor Moon R movie...though in his defense, he's also being possessed by a psychotic plant.
Pragmatic Adaptation: Happens with every adaptation, but sometimes forgotten if the resulting job was done sloppily. Cloverway's dub largely ignores the previous dub except in Broad Strokes.
- Taken to great lengths in promotional material. Consider having to adapt and translate stuff from the later half of a series many hadn't officially seen yet, and making it mesh with earlier stuff already adapted a different way (certain names, certain premises). It's pretty telling that most of the merchandise for different adaptations tends to be less censored and changed compared to the more mainstream show.
Press-Ganged: In the first season, this is how Yumemi Yumeno finds her models for her paintings. She grabs Usagi and Mamoru (almost literally) and begs them to be her models.
Recursive Canon: Sailor Venus sometimes reads her own Sailor V comic. In fact it appears to be a favorite comic of Usagi and Rei as well.
The Renaissance Age of Animation: This series and Dragonball Z are what started the North American Anime craze of the mid-late 90s.
Redemption Earns Life: Al and En, Professor Tomoe, Queen Nehellenia and Sailor Galaxia in the anime only. The latter two only in Sailor Stars.)
- Played with especially in Super S when HawksEye is killed by one of PallaPalla's henchmen, and TigersEye and FishEye sacrifice themselves to save Usagi. As a result, Pegasus brings all three back to life AND gives them dream mirrors; they then depart to dwell in the dream world of Elysian forever. Also, the Amazones Quartet do a Heel Face Turn and survive.
Redemption Equals Death: Anime only -- Nephrite, Saphir, Demand, the Amazon Trio.
Red String of Fate: In one episode of SMR Makaiju arc; also mentioned in episode 69.
Relationship Reset Button: The first season ends with everyone losing their memories of everything relating to the Moon Kingdom and their time as heroes and as friends, including Mamoru and Usagi forgetting their relationship with each other in both the present and the past (though they meet again in a Call Back to the first episode when Usagi hits him with a crumpled up test paper). In the second series, Usagi is the first person to get her memory back, but it's not until the second episode that the rest of the girls get theirs back - and it's not until the end of the Makaiju Arc that Mamoru gets his own back. The entire arc deals with Usagi's attempts to get him to remember her again.
Sanity Strengthing: Al and En in the Makaiju arc start out as yanderes. In the finale Al and En attack the Sailor Scouts with the intent to kill and seriously hurt them . It all gets better in the end, though, and Al and En leave Earth together and free of their bitterness and insanity.
Satellite Character: The anime downgrades Mamoru to this by because the series director from R, S, and Super S, Kunihiko Ikuhara, far preferred stories about lesbians (hence the extreme spotlight on Haruka and Michiru in S...and his other series.)
Say My Name: Al screams out En's name rather chillingly (at least in the original Japanese version) when it appears En is dead
Schrödinger's Cast: Many characters differ from manga to anime, but the ones in the Death Busters villain group are probably the most notable.
- Also, several characters who were killed off like the mooks they were in the manga are instead redeemed in the anime. This made for a bit of a problem in the Stars anime when Hotaru was reintroduced to the plot - in the manga, Tomoe was dead and Hotaru had been adopted by the Haruka, Michiru, and Setsuna. In the anime, he was given a new lease on life and chance to raise her himself. This led to a very awkward scene where Setsuna simply comes and picks up Hotaru from her father and he's never shown in the series again.
Sculpted Physique: The monsters' aesthetics
Sealed with a Kiss
Shojo: One of the most famous examples.
Shout-Out: Amy's first dub actress sounds almost exactly like how Patty Duke played Cathy on the Patty Duke Show. The character also has a very similar personality.
- The show's Super Sentai roots got a call out in an episode where an obvious Ranger parody, called "Redman" in the Japanese version, was putting on a show at a park and was accidentally turned into the monster of the day by Zoisite. The English dub was well aware of this, and while he was not given a name, the dubbing for the character was clearly intended to match the style of acting used by the American Power Rangers franchise.
- Mercury's visor in the first series had a Robocop joke in the readouts.
- The appearance of Moonlight Knight has long baffled international viewers who wondered why Mamoru was dressing up like an Arabian knight for the Makaiju story arc. The character is actually a reference to the oldest tokusatsu hero in Japanese television, Moonlight Mask, who similarly dressed in a white costume with a turban, face covering, and adorned with a crescent moon brooch. It's also Toei doing a bit of a shout out to its roots, as they created the original Moonlight Mask theatrical films.
Short Run in Peru: The last 17 R episodes aired in Canada long before they aired in the USA.
Shut UP, Hannibal: After Nehellenia has tossed Chibi-Usa off the bit of the Dead Moon Circus floating up to the New Moon, she starts saying how Usagi's lost what she loves most, and has lost her happy future, and that maybe now she can understand how Nehellenia actually feels. What does Usagi do? She jumps off the the platform after Chibi-Usa, but not before telling Nehellenia she won't give up to her. (In the English dub, Serena says "I still pity you.")
Sick Episode: Let's just say that Nurse Venus' bedside manner leaves a lot to be desired, shall we?
Signature Sound Effect: Each planetary Senshi has one that's usually heard at the end of her Transformation Sequence.
Sixth Ranger: Initially, Venus though she's less distant than the usual examples. Then the Outers, later the Starlights.
Solemn Ending Theme: The Japanese version of season 3 has one; the Cartoon Network replaced it with an instrumental version of the opening credit theme for its US airing.
Space Whale: Michiru did a painting of one.
Spank the Cutie: Chibi-Usa goes over Usagi's knee three times for misbehavior - though all of these were cut from the English dub.
Spoiler Opening: Multiple examples:
- The first season had several openings. The first opening clearly shows Sailors Mercury and Mars well before their official introductions. This opening was actually used until Sailor Jupiter joined, which at least helped hide Jupiter's identity...though her introductory episode spoiled it in the title. The second opening for the series debuted two episodes later, and clearly shows both Sailor Venus (not Sailor V) and Sailor Moon becoming Princess Serenity a full 7 and 8 episodes early (respectively).
- The original English dub opening is even worse. Showing the identities of the entire team, Sailor Moon as the Princess, and the final battle in the opening that was used since day 1.
- Later seasons were generally better about this...but Sailor Moon R still included King Endymion as part of the opening well before even Chibi-Usa appeared (let alone the start of the Crystal Tokyo plotline). However, the ambiguous nature of the character in the opening doesn't give nearly as much away.
- Sailor Moon S averted this cleanly and had three openings, which were all reworks of the original opening for the series that were simply updated as new characters joined and left the cast and new plot points were uncovered. Unfortunately, due to issues with Toei not giving them all of the openings, the original Pioneer/Geneon R1 DVD release had to use the third and final opening on every episode, thus spoiling every plot point right out the gate if you only watched the subbed DVD release.
- The Italian openings routinely blew major plot points by using mainly footage from the show itself. The S opening in particular used every single grand revelation from the finale, including Hotaru becoming Mistress 9, Sailor Moon transforming into Super Sailor Moon for the final time, and Sailor Moon returning with baby Hotaru in her arms. Yea, Italian viewers didn't really get much in the way of mystery.
Spoiler Title: Many titles, including Episode 25 as named directly above. The various dubs sometimes to downplayed or averted this where the original Japanese played it straight. For example, Episode 10, which introduced Sailor Mars, was called "Cursed Buses! Fire Senshi Mars Appears" in the original, but "An Uncharmed Life" in the English dub and "The Temple of Lovers" in both German and Dutch.
- Probably the most blatant spoiler was Episode 45: "The Sailor Senshi Die! The Tragic Final Battle".
Spotlight-Stealing Squad: Chibi-Usa in Super S and the Sailor Starlights in Stars.
Statuesque Stunner: Sailor Jupiter and Sailor Uranus.
Stealth Pun: In episode 6, Usagi meets a composer called Amade Yusuke.
Stock Footage: The transfomation, attack, and heroic introduction sequences.
Surprise Santa Encounter: In the S movie.
- It gets WEIRD to think about when one realizes its the middle of SUMMER when the movie takes place— the villains' snow-based powers notwithstanding, and one has to wonder where the hell Mamoru managed to get the stuff from in the middle of summer break.
Taken for Granite: Jadeite's encased in crystal in the first season. A similar fate almost happens to Rei as well when she was bitten by a snake that promptly turned to stone afterwards, but it might have just been an illusion. Another monster encased women in wax, trapping Ami and Makoto.
Tap on the Head: If there are any innocent bystanders around during a monster attack before the Sailor Senshi have transformed, chances are they'll either be hit once by the monster and be knocked out, or they'll simply faint, allowing the girls to transform without worry.
- Lampshaded once by Sailor Moon Abridged when one of the monster victims didn't immediately pass out from being hit by a monster, leading Sailor Mars to angrily scream at him to just stay unconscious already so she could transform.
Technicolor Death: In the third movie (the SuperS one), the main villain dies in this manner, where it shows her already blob-like face melting and swirling (she's merged with a "black hole" at this point so she looks like a glowing ball with a face on it) and then the whole thing explodes.
Temporary Love Interest: One-shot characters. Many.
Theme Music Power-Up: Both the first and final seasons summon their respective theme songs for the climax of the story arcs.
Theme Tune Cameo: "Moonlight Densetsu" showed up a lot in the original Japanese show. Several characters are shown singing it on their own. The locket that Princess Serenity and Prince Endymion share in the first series also plays an instrumental version of the song. The English dub uses the theme tune in instrumental in a few different places from the Japanese version, but also includes a few of the same cameos. It also has to cut a few of the spoken cameos since the English lyrics explicitly reference the plot of the show, while the Japanese lyrics simply talk about a miraculous romance.
Theme Tune Roll Call: The English dub, which blows the identities of the main cast from the first episode.
This Is a Drill: Black Lady (Chibi-Usa's superpowered evil form) wields an umbrella which she turns into an arm-mounted drill.
- In Super S, PallaPalla's servant Garigari has a drill on her tail which she tries to use on Sailor Moon and Sailor Chibi Moon, prompting them to use the scream attack last witnessed in the first episode of the first season.
Totally Radical: A lot of the dub's lines. In DiC's it's often "Wicked!", "Major!" or "Boss", and Cloverway's was even worse with this. "The bomb" and "trippin'" were common.
Transformation Is a Free Action: One of the more notorious examples and mocked by pretty much everything that's ever had anything to say about Sailor Moon.
Transformation Sequence: All the main cast. Tuxedo Mask once did a very impressive transformation while riding a motorcycle. He also got a "standard" sequence that was only shown twice in the anime.
- Saturn is a slight subversion. She is never shown transforming on screen in any of the 200 anime episodes. The only sequence she has comes from a video game for Sega Saturn.
Translation Correction: The Robocop joke in Sailor Mercury's visor had a misspelling of "innocent" and the wrong name (Mash_ instead of J. Smith); this was fixed in the North American dub.
Two-Timer Date: Minako in SuperS. Ironically, her boyfriends were really TigersEye and HawksEye competing over her dream mirror.
Unusual Euphemism: In one episode, the Sailor Senshi are debating who should have the lead role in a play. In the Japanese version, Makoto says she should have it because she has the largest breasts. The dub changes to "the most talent," but did not alter any of the breast-related visuals, making it painfully obvious what she was really talking about. This lead to fans sometimes playfully referring to breasts as 'talent.'
Verbal Tic: Many monsters-of-the-week have a verbal tic based on their name. Especially played with in R, with most of the droids.
Victim of the Week: The Rainbow Crystal carriers. And Naru.
- In S, SuperS, and Sailor Stars, people are targeted almost every episode for their Heart Crystal, Dream Mirror, or Star Seed, respectively, some of which are characters we already know, and in all three cases include the Sailor Senshi. Mamoru, strangely enough, doesn't get this for the first time until FishEye targets him in Super S. When Galaxia targets him for his Star Seed in Sailor Stars, it proves fatal.
Villain Exit Stage Left: Usually via teleportation.
Villain Song: Queen Beryl and Galaxia in the anime (the former was not sung by her voice actress but nevertheless is still Beryl's song). Virtually every villain that appears in the Seramyus has either a solo or at the very least a group song as well.
We All Do It Together: At the climax of the first season, the spirits of the Sailor Senshi all join Usagi in casting through the Moon Wand by grasping the wand with her. (Unless you're watching the North American dub, in which case they weren't dead, they were just waiting off-screen for the right moment to return.)
Weapon Stomp: In the Sailor Stars anime of Sailor Moon, Sailor Star Fighter falls holding the Sailor Star Yell while fighting Sailor Galaxia. When she attempts to raise it, Galaxia stomps on her hand, breaking the Sailor Star Yell with it.
What Beautiful Eyes!: Prince Demand keeps making remarks about how beautiful Sailor Moon's eyes are.
What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?: Unlike its deadly manga counterpart, Sailor Chibi Moon's "Pink Sugar Heart Attack" is a nuisance at best and often doesn't work at all in the anime. Played for Laughs. Justified because she's s Senshi In Training and doesn't come into real power until SuperS.
- Except for that one time she uses it against Tellu.
What Song Was This Again?: The Optimum dub features a "Moonlight Densetsu" cover with rewritten lyrics, called "(The One Named) Sailor Moon".
Yaoi Guys: Zoicite and Kunzite in the Japanese anime.

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