110 Fun Facts About Sailor Moon

How does Sailor Moon's catchphrase "In the name of the Moon, I'll…" end?

Punish you is a bold threat from a heroine the series introduces as a clumsy crybaby who would rather be a normal girl than fight evil.

Which accessory does Sailor Moon throw like a discus in her first signature attack?

Her tiara is her first weapon, and she needs coaching to use it: in episode one she is still wailing when her cat adviser tells her to throw it at the monster.

Read in Japanese name order, Usagi Tsukino's name is a pun meaning what?

Rabbit of the Moon is how Tsukino Usagi sounds aloud, echoing an East Asian folktale about a rabbit seen in the Moon's face, which is why bunny motifs cover her belongings.

What is the name of the talking black cat who awakens Usagi as Sailor Moon?

Luna looks like a black cat, but the manga reveals she is an alien adviser from the planet Mau, as is her fellow cat Artemis.

What color is Artemis, the cat who partners with Sailor Venus?

White Artemis shares his name with the Greek goddess of the moon and the hunt, and Minako teases him for being named after a girl.

Which magical artifact are the Sailor Guardians searching for and protecting?

The Legendary Silver Crystal belongs to the Moon's royal line, and the Dark Kingdom wants it so badly that a brainwashed Tuxedo Mask is turned against Sailor Moon to get it.

In which Tokyo district does Usagi live?

Azabu-Juban is a real Tokyo neighbourhood, and Usagi's home borrows from life too: her parents, Kenji and Ikuko, are named after Takeuchi's own mother and father.

Which Guardian is rumored to have an IQ of 300?

Ami Mizuno, Sailor Mercury, studies so hard that classmates trade the rumor, yet she secretly loves romance novels and gets embarrassed when anyone finds out.

Rei Hino, Sailor Mars, works as a miko at which Shinto site?

Hikawa Shrine is home to Rei, her grandfather and two crows named Phobos and Deimos, like the moons of Mars; Takeuchi based the job on her own time as a shrine maiden.

Why is Makoto Kino, Sailor Jupiter, rumored to have left her previous school?

She was expelled for fighting, or so the rumour goes; what is certain is that Makoto has lived alone since her parents died in a plane crash, and has become a talented cook.

Which Sailor Guardian first starred alone in an earlier Naoko Takeuchi manga, before Sailor Moon began?

Venus came first, as the lone heroine of the one-shot Codename: Sailor V; when an anime was proposed, Takeuchi reworked the idea into a team with a new lead.

What is Minako Aino's dream career?

Famous singer and idol is Minako's dream, but in the manga her first role is a riskier one: she poses as the Moon Princess, a decoy to draw the Dark Kingdom away from the real one.

What is Tuxedo Mask's civilian name?

Mamoru Chiba lost both his parents and his memories in a car crash as a child; in the manga he turns masked thief to hunt for a jewel that he believes will bring those memories back.

Which teasing nickname does Usagi's hairstyle earn her from her future boyfriend?

Odango, a kind of rice dumpling, mocks her twin buns, and the name sticks: later in the series Seiya, a rival for her affection, starts using it too.

What was Usagi's past-life identity in the Moon Kingdom?

Princess Serenity loved Earth's Prince Endymion, and both died when the Moon Kingdom fell; reborn in modern Tokyo, they meet again as Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask.

What is the name of the ancient kingdom on the Moon the Guardians once served?

Silver Millennium was wiped out in a war with Earth, and its princess, her prince and the Guardians who died defending it were reborn in present-day Tokyo.

Who leads the Dark Kingdom, the first arc's villains?

Queen Beryl commands the Dark Kingdom, the English dub's Negaverse, yet she is a servant herself, gathering human energy to free the dark being Metaria.

Where is the Dark Kingdom's base in Sailor Moon's first story arc?

The North Pole hides the base, at a spot called D-Point; in the 1990s anime the other Guardians die there one by one so that Sailor Moon can get through, and are later revived.

Most of the series' villains are named after what?

Beryl, Kunzite, Zoisite, Kaolinite and Zirconia are all real minerals.

In the 1990s English dub of Sailor Moon, Chibiusa was renamed what?

Rini replaced a nickname that only works in Japanese: Chibiusa is short for 'little Usagi', because the girl from the future shares her mother's given name.

Which future city does Usagi rule in the 30th century?

Crystal Tokyo is where Usagi reigns over people her power has made all but immortal, and that long life is the 'crime against nature' that the Black Moon Clan rebels against.

The Black Moon Clan operate from which planet?

Nemesis supplies the clan's Malefic Black Crystal, but the clan itself is being used: its adviser Wiseman is steering the war on the future for his own ends.

Which school is the Death Busters' base in Sailor Moon's third story arc?

Mugen Academy looks like an elite school, but it was built by Professor Tomoe, one of the Death Busters' own leaders.

What did Haruka Tenoh, Sailor Uranus, aspire to be before becoming a Guardian?

A race car driver was the future she set aside for her mission; Haruka still loves speed, and she dresses in menswear so often, school uniform included, that strangers take her for a man.

Which instrument does Michiru Kaioh, Sailor Neptune, play?

Violin: Michiru's is a Stradivarius she calls the Marine Cathédrale, and in the manga she even fights with it, in an attack named Submarine Violon Tide.

How did the North American dub disguise Haruka and Michiru's romantic relationship?

It made them cousins, a new answer to an old worry: an earlier English dub had hidden another same-sex couple by turning the male villain Zoisite into a woman.

What is Sailor Pluto's lonely duty?

Guarding the Space-Time Door comes with a rule against stopping time; in the manga Pluto breaks it to save her friends, knowing that it will cost her life.

What weapon does Sailor Saturn wield?

The Silence Glaive turns a whole world to dust when Sailor Saturn swings it down, and in the manga she did it once before, sweeping away the ruins of the fallen Moon Kingdom.

In Sailor Moon SuperS, the priest Helios enters Chibiusa's dreams under which name?

Pegasus is a disguise born of need: the Dead Moon Circus holds Helios's body prisoner, so his spirit takes the form of a winged horse and hides in Chibiusa's dreams.

Who leads the Dead Moon Circus?

Zirconia is the ringmaster only because the circus's true queen, Nehelenia, is trapped inside a mirror; the Golden Crystal they hunt is the key to setting her free.

What do Sailor Galaxia's forces steal from their victims in the final arc?

Star Seeds are what her soldiers tear from their victims; in the anime Galaxia was once the galaxy's greatest Guardian, corrupted after she sealed the evil Chaos inside her own body to end a war.

The Sailor Starlights disguise themselves as what?

A pop idol group called the Three Lights is no vanity project: the Starlights hope that their songs will work as a beacon and reach their missing princess, Kakyuu.

In the Sailor Moon manga, what is Usagi's ultimate future form, revealed to be Chibi Chibi in disguise?

Cosmos ran from a far future laid waste by her war with Chaos and hid in the past as little Chibi Chibi; she calls herself a coward, until Sailor Moon's example sends her home with new hope.

What does Tuxedo Mask throw to stop Sailor Moon's enemies in the 1990s anime?

A red rose does double duty in the anime: he pulls one from his pocket to become Tuxedo Mask, then throws others like darts to stop an attack in its tracks.

Which studio produced the 1990s Sailor Moon anime?

Toei Animation proposed an anime before Takeuchi had drawn the first chapter, which is why the show reached television in March 1992, barely ten weeks after the manga began.

In which magazine was the Sailor Moon manga serialized?

Nakayoshi was home turf for Takeuchi: she had won one of the magazine's prizes for newcomers as a teenager, years before it launched Sailor Moon.

Which two words end Sailor Moon's Japanese transformation call, "Moon Prism Power, …"?

Make Up! closes every Guardian's transformation call in the original Japanese, but the 1995 English dub cut the words and left just "Moon Prism Power!"

Which season of the 1990s Sailor Moon anime came straight after the first?

Sailor Moon R, whose letter is said to stand for 'Return' or 'Romance', opens with the heroes living ordinary lives, their memories of the first season wiped until new enemies arrive.

Which director took over the Sailor Moon anime during its second season?

Kunihiko Ikuhara stayed through the fourth season, then quit in 1996, frustrated at how little creative control he had over an adapted story, and formed his own group to make Revolutionary Girl Utena.

Which song opened the first four seasons of the 1990s Sailor Moon anime?

Moonlight Densetsu was recorded first by DALI and later by Moon Lips, and the 1995 English dub kept its tune, writing new English lyrics over it.

Which element does Sailor Mercury command in battle?

Water, in every form including ice, is her power because the Japanese name for the planet Mercury, Suisei, is written 'water star'; her surname, Mizuno, starts with the same character.

What did the 1995 English dub of Sailor Moon call the Sailor Guardians?

Scouts was the dub's gentler stand-in for the Japanese 'senshi', a word for a soldier or warrior; later official English editions settled on Sailor Guardians instead.

On which Canadian network did the English Sailor Moon premiere in August 1995?

YTV showed the dub two weeks before any US station; in American syndication it drew too small an audience, and dubbing stopped with the second season left unfinished.

Which Cartoon Network block revived Sailor Moon's fortunes in the US in 1998?

Toonami's weekday reruns rated so well that seventeen leftover episodes reached national US television that November, billed as 'The Lost Episodes', and two more seasons were dubbed.

Which company began an uncut English redub of the entire Sailor Moon anime in 2014?

Viz Media started again from episode one, uncut, and in 2019 finished with Sailor Stars, the final season that the earlier English dubs had never reached.

Which two countries were the first outside Japan to broadcast the Sailor Moon anime, in December 1993?

Spain and France both began showing it in the last days of 1993, France on the children's block Club Dorothée, more than a year and a half before any English dub existed.

Which actress has voiced Usagi in every Japanese Sailor Moon anime since 1992?

Kotono Mitsuishi has missed only a handful of episodes: when illness sidelined her in 1993, Kae Araki stood in as Usagi, and was then cast as Usagi's daughter, Chibiusa.

Which of the Dark Kingdom's four generals is the first that Sailor Moon has to face?

Jadeite is a master of disguise: in the 1990s anime he works under covers such as the radio host 'J. Dite', while his monsters pose as ordinary people to drain energy from unsuspecting crowds.

Which 2014 anime restarted Sailor Moon's story from the manga?

Sailor Moon Crystal is no sequel and no remake of the 1990s show: it goes back to the manga and adapts it faithfully, dropping the stories the first anime invented.

How was the Dream arc, the fourth arc of the 2014 Sailor Moon anime reboot, released?

As a two-part theatrical film, Sailor Moon Eternal reached Japanese cinemas in early 2021, with characters drawn by Kazuko Tadano, who had designed them for the first seasons of the 1990s anime.

Sailor Moon's 2003 live-action TV series was titled what?

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon retold the first story arc with real actors over 49 episodes and took liberties, such as turning a brainwashed Sailor Mercury against her friends as Dark Mercury.

Which studio reportedly planned a 1990s live-action Sailor Moon film with Geena Davis as the villain?

Disney was reported by Variety in 1997 to be acquiring the rights for Stanley Tong to direct, but the project never got off the ground and no film was ever made.

The never-aired 1990s American Sailor Moon pilot, mixing live action and animation, is nicknamed what?

'Saban Moon' is a misnomer: the pilot came from Toon Makers and Renaissance-Atlantic, and Saban's only link was that Renaissance-Atlantic had worked with it on Power Rangers.

By which nickname do fans know Sailor Moon's long-running series of stage musicals?

Sera Myu began in 1993, stopped in 2005 and came back eight years later with a twist: every part, Tuxedo Mask included, was played by a woman.

Besides drawing manga, Sailor Moon creator Naoko Takeuchi is qualified in which profession?

Licensed pharmacist: Takeuchi earned a chemistry degree at a college of pharmacy and qualified, but she had already won a manga newcomers' prize by then and chose comics instead.

The creator of Sailor Moon is married to the creator of which manga?

Hunter x Hunter is by Yoshihiro Togashi, whom Takeuchi married in 1999; before the wedding she pitched in on its first volume as his assistant, applying the screentone.

Which prize did the Sailor Moon manga win in 1993?

The Kodansha Manga Award came in 1993 for a story Takeuchi had meant to end after a single arc; its popularity had already persuaded her to keep going.

Naoko Takeuchi wanted a story about girls in outer space; who suggested dressing them in sailor-style school uniforms?

Her editor, Fumio Osano, came to the rescue again when she was stuck for a second storyline: bringing in Usagi's daughter from the future was his idea as well.

Which genre did Sailor Moon fuse with the magical-girl formula?

Super Sentai team shows, the colour-coded hero squads remade in the West as Power Rangers, were a favourite of Takeuchi's, which is why her magical girls fight as a team of five.

Which theme park hosted the Sailor Moon 4-D attraction The Miracle 4-D in 2018?

Universal Studios Japan wrote itself into the plot: the Guardians arrive at the park and have to stop a monster on the loose there, and a sequel show followed in 2019.

What fate did Sailor Moon's creator plan for her heroines until her editor vetoed it?

Killing them off was ruled out by her editor, who insisted the series was a girls' manga. The anime staff did it anyway in the first season's final battle, then revived the heroines.

The 1995 English dub of Sailor Moon was made to capitalize on the success of which hit series?

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers was the model, but success did not transfer at first: the dub struggled in early-morning US timeslots and production halted after two seasons.

Sailor Moon's creator gave the heroine's parents and brother the real first names of which people?

Her own family lent the names: the creator's real parents are Kenji and Ikuko and her younger brother is Shingo, exactly like the heroine's household.

Which Western first name did the 1995 English dub of Sailor Moon give its schoolgirl heroine?

Serena replaced the heroine's Japanese name in a dub that westernized names and cultural references and even flipped traffic scenes so that cars drove on the right.

The fighting outfits of Sailor Moon's Guardians are based on which everyday Japanese clothing?

School uniforms in the sailor fuku style inspired the costumes, a choice one scholar says makes it easy for girls to identify with the Guardians.

Which flower does Tuxedo Mask throw like a dart to distract enemies in the Sailor Moon anime?

Rose colour tracks his identity: red as Tuxedo Mask, white in his Arabian-robed knight guise, and black and electrified when he turns evil.

Sailor Moon was one of nine anime characters chosen as mascot ambassadors for which sporting event?

2020 Summer Olympics organisers picked her as one of nine internationally recognized anime and manga characters to represent the host city, nearly three decades after her debut.

Which Cartoon Network series counts Sailor Moon among its strongest visual and structural influences?

Steven Universe draws heavily on it: a critic at Anime News Network called Sailor Moon and Revolutionary Girl Utena its strongest influences, visually and structurally.

Which streaming service gave the film Sailor Moon Eternal its worldwide release outside Japan?

Netflix premiered it on June 3, 2021, everywhere except Japan and mainland China, about five months after the film opened in Japanese cinemas.

Which high school club, alongside the manga club, did Sailor Moon's creator join as a teenager?

Astronomy stuck with her: her years in that club at Kofu Ichi High School influenced a series whose heroines are named for the Moon and the planets.

What did Sailor Moon's first English dub call Chibiusa, the pink-haired girl who falls from the sky?

Rini stood in for Chibiusa, a nickname that is itself a portmanteau of chibi, meaning a small person or child, and her given name.

Which Sailor Moon Guardian has super strength, lightning attacks and a place in the cooking club?

Jupiter fits the Roman sky god's lightning, but her dominant element is wood: the planet's Japanese name, Mokusei, begins with the kanji for it.

Which Guardian, the first discovered by Sailor Moon, wields water in all its forms, including ice?

Mercury's civilian self, Ami, was voted the most popular female character in the magazine Animage's May 1993 poll.

Sailor Moon's heroine fears dentists, ghosts and thunder; what does she name as her greatest dream?

Becoming a bride is her greatest dream; day to day she is a far less focused teenager who loves playing video games and reading manga.

Which Japanese toy giant ran Sailor Moon merchandise in the West and made most of its video games?

Bandai's grip on the franchise went beyond toys: when the company put the long-running stage musicals on hiatus in 2005, they stayed dark for eight years.

Sailor Moon Crystal, the 2014 reboot, was made to follow what more faithfully than the 1990s anime?

The original manga was adapted from scratch: Crystal's executive producer stressed that the new show was a reboot, not a remake of the earlier anime.

Which Dark Kingdom general did Sailor Moon's first English dub make a woman to hide a gay romance?

Zoisite was made female so that his relationship with fellow general Kunzite, whom the dub renamed Malachite, would read as a heterosexual couple.

Which Russian two-time world champion was cast to lead the cancelled Sailor Moon ice skating show?

Evgenia Medvedeva was to headline Prism on Ice, but the show slipped from 2020 to 2021, then to 2022, and was finally cancelled in February 2023.

Sailor Moon names Tuxedo Mask's past self for which Greek mythical lover of the moon goddess Selene?

Endymion was a prince in the series' ancient backstory, and the name was chosen as a fitting nod to the Greek mortal who loved the Moon.

In Sailor Moon, a sword, a mirror and an orb carried by three Guardians combine to create what?

The Holy Grail lets the heroine reach her more powerful Super form; the sword, mirror and orb turn out to belong to Uranus, Neptune and Pluto.

In Sailor Moon R, what name does Chibiusa take when a villain transforms her into an evil adult?

Black Lady is the minion that the manipulator Death Phantom makes of her; the first English dub softened the name to Wicked Lady.

Which frail schoolgirl befriended by Chibiusa is revealed as Sailor Saturn in Sailor Moon S?

Hotaru Tomoe is the daughter of the villains' leader, and the older Guardians so fear her power to destroy whole planets that they at first plan to kill her before she awakens.

Which kitten arrives from the future as the daughter of Artemis and Sailor Moon's own guardian cat?

Diana's arrival confirms what had only been implied: Artemis and the heroine's own cat are a couple, and the kitten is their daughter.

Which best friend of Sailor Moon's heroine was renamed Molly Baker in the original English dub?

Naru Osaka drives one of the anime's most memorable subplots: she falls in love with the enemy general Nephrite, who comes to return her feelings.

Which alien, befriended by Tuxedo Mask as a boy, is the antagonist of Sailor Moon R: The Movie?

Fiore is less villain than victim: an evil plant called the Xenian Flower controls him, and the hero had long assumed the boy was an imaginary friend.

Which Japanese network aired the original Sailor Moon anime in prime time on Saturday nights?

TV Asahi's Saturday 7 p.m. slot was meant to host the show for only six months; average ratings of 11 to 12 percent stretched the run to five years.

Which actress made her acting debut as Sailor Mars in the 2003 live-action Sailor Moon series?

Keiko Kitagawa was a teenage magazine model, chosen as Miss Seventeen in 2003, when she won the part; she later left modeling to concentrate on acting.

Which actress voiced Sailor Uranus in 1990s Sailor Moon before playing Evangelion's Shinji Ikari?

Megumi Ogata was told by the director to play the character as if she and her partner, Sailor Neptune, were a married couple.

Which cereal maker sponsored Sailor Moon's 1997 return to US television after a fan petition?

General Mills took notice when more than 12,500 fans signed a petition to save the cancelled dub, a campaign later seen as an early example of successful fan activism.

The 2003 live-action Sailor Moon series shares which Japanese genre with Kamen Rider and Ultraman?

Tokusatsu, Japan's effects-heavy live-action tradition, got its own take on the heroine partly thanks to the stage musicals, whose popularity is cited as a reason the series was made.

In Sailor Moon's first arc, what do Dark Kingdom monsters drain from humans to feed their ruler?

Their energy is the harvest in the opening arc; later villains raise the stakes, hunting pure hearts and then the mirrors that hold people's dreams.

Which piece of jewellery does a talking cat give Sailor Moon's heroine so that she can transform?

A brooch arrives with a mission attached: the cat announces that an ordinary schoolgirl is destined to save the world from the forces of evil.

Tuxedo Mask holds a Sailor Crystal in Sailor Moon that makes him the guardian of which planet?

Earth is his charge: like the Guardians he carries a Sailor Crystal, and in a past life he was the planet's prince.

The Bishōjo Senshi in Sailor Moon's Japanese title was first officially translated as which phrase?

Pretty Soldier gave way to a new official translation in later editions; the Japanese word senshi can mean soldier, warrior or fighter.

In which Asian country did Sailor Moon lift its broadcaster to third-biggest network in the nation?

Philippines viewers made the anime one of the main draws of the channel ABC, lifting it to third place among the country's networks.

The 1990s Sailor Moon anime aged Tuxedo Mask up from the manga's high schooler into what?

A college student in the 1990s anime, he is still at high school when the manga begins.

Sailor Moon's third and final transformation, Eternal, replaces the bow on her back with what?

Angelic wings, two pairs of them, mark the form she reaches at the end of the fourth story arc, described as the closest in power to her future self.

Which entity is revealed in the Sailor Moon anime's finale to have corrupted the last villain from within?

Chaos had been sealed inside the villain's own body to end an ancient war; the heroine wins not by destroying it but by freeing its host with kindness.

In the last season of 1990s Sailor Moon, Tuxedo Mask leaves Japan to study in which country?

United States is where he is headed, but he never gets there: the season's chief villain strikes him down before he arrives.

The three 1990s Sailor Moon films each opened in Japan in December to coincide with what?

School winter vacation gave the target audience free afternoons; the films ran about an hour each and were usually shown as double features with other anime.

Which voice actor, famous as Gundam's Amuro Ray, played Tuxedo Mask in the 1990s Sailor Moon anime?

Tōru Furuya, also the voice of Dragon Ball's Yamcha, has called the role very special to him and says he influenced how the anime's Tuxedo Mask developed.

Which director of Sailor Moon's first anime season later made Ojamajo Doremi and Princess Tutu?

Junichi Sato directed the first season and the opening arc of the second before handing the series on, and is regarded as a hit-maker of children's television anime.

Sailor Moon fashion dolls outsold which 1967 doll, as popular in Japan as Barbie is in America?

Licca-chan saw its sales decline in the 1990s under pressure from anime-based rivals; Mattel credited the Sailor Moon storyline's blend of fashion and action.

Which comet-borne villain attacks in Sailor Moon S: The Movie, adapted from a manga side story?

Snow Kaguya means to freeze the planet but cannot proceed without a lost fragment of her comet, which a young astronomer has found and kept to study.

Which lost princess, ruler of their destroyed home planet, are the Sailor Starlights seeking?

Kakyuu fled her world to escape the final villain's assault and heal her wounds, which is why her three guardians cross space to look for her.

Sailor Moon's talking cat advisers were born on which planet, revealed in the manga's final arc?

Mau goes unmentioned until the manga's final arc, which also makes it the home world of the villain Sailor Tin Nyanko.

Which Japanese video site streamed Sailor Moon Crystal worldwide with subtitles in twelve languages?

Niconico released new episodes only on the first and third Saturdays of each month, starting in July 2014.

Which alien pair lead the anime-only arc that opens Sailor Moon R, made while the manga caught up?

Ail and An pose as human siblings while tending the Makai Tree; the anime team invented the arc to give the manga time to produce its next storyline.

Which institution yielded the long-lost American Sailor Moon pilot shown in a 2022 documentary?

Library of Congress holdings in Washington supplied both the 17-minute proof of concept and its music video, which fans had presumed lost for decades.

Which actress was the first, and longest-running, lead of the Sailor Moon stage musicals from 1993?

Anza Ohyama originated the part when the first production opened in mid-1993, and decades later was cast as the heroine's past-life mother in a planned ice skating show.