Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon: Sailor Stars

Sailor Moon Sailor Stars is one of the more memorable seasons of the 90's anime. Sailor Moon Sailor Stars is one of the more interesting seasons of the anime. Please note that the Nehelenia arc will be considered a part of Sailor Stars, as it aired with the season. That said, let's begin there, since it's easier to talk about. Nehelenia's story arc in SuperS, while lacking, was expanded greatly and gave her some moments in Sailor Stars, that fleshed her out from a somewhat vain but dangerous character, into a woman whose tragedy is relived in full. The vengeance she takes against the White ... Moon (particularly, against Usagi) cannot be understated and is the driving force for the entirety of her story arc. In short, if Queen Beryl represented jealousy and envy, and how a grudge will follow you into a next life, Queen Nehelenia doubles down on this and adds true heartbreak and tragedy to an already grim tale where there's seemingly no happy ending at all. It really truly fits poetically as a footnote to Sailor Moon SuperS too, because as much as that season was focused on light-hearted, playful and goofy antics, the Nehelenia arc is nothing short of nightmarish hallucinations, trickery, and pure evil, intended to sadistically destroy Usagi from the inside out. And Usagi's endless resolve in even this endeavor to never give up is what allows her to finally reach her ultimate source of power, even against the most impossibly trying times when hope already seems completely lost. In fact, the same can be said about the Sailor Star Song itself, which not only adds to the pathos of the entire arc, but is a masterpiece that even rivals the genius of the other series' moments. In short, the Nehelenia arc is one of the most beautiful and emotional arcs in the entire anime, and is a pure joy to sit through. As for the majority of the season, things get a bit more complicated.

To start with the good of Sailor Stars, we should mention that the entire situation has been changed massively in incomprehensible ways with Sailor Senshi. Opening the path for villains to become Sailor Senshi sets such an expansive level of world-building into the plot that it's truly mesmerizing. If Sailor Saturn being revered as essentially the "evil" Sailor Senshi in S was a moment that made the series seem dark, consider it nothing but foreshadowing for the truth of Sailor Stars. This truly does twist the series, as only "good" characters were previously confirmed to be Sailor Senshi, and audiences had assumed it was only our primary ten. By adding this level of world-building, they can truly flesh out and adopt new characters in extremely unique ways, such as the quirky Sailor Iron Mouse, the comedy duo-like Sailor Aluminum Siren and Sailor Lead Crow, and Sailor Galaxia, with a cold bloodlust for power. What's truly interesting is that they don't share any traits with the Sailor Senshi at all; despite the fact that Haruka and Michiru may have had different views than the Inner Senshi in S, this is nothing compared to the vast difference, which works out well.

The Sailor Starlights are a different case entirely, however. The Sailor Starlights tend to play in a role that was identical to the Outer Senshi did in S, albeit from outside the solar system, rendering them an enemy to all Solar System Sailor Senshi, aside from Usagi. Despite the originality in this concept, it plays off too similarly like the Starlights are a stand-in for another variation of the Outer Senshi's role in S, which isn't far from how things are presented. Even though this does set up interesting dynamics, the plot somewhat tends to not focus on the drama much of the time. Instead, the primary part of the season where this would come into play is delegated towards the Starlights' time as idols and Seiya's attempts to romance Usagi, which is the next thing I'll be discussing.

Initially, Seiya's attempts to romance Usagi come off as, mildly put, off-putting at best and weird at worst. The primary issue with these concerns is the fact that Usagi explicitly states that Mamoru is her boyfriend, and Seiya shows a lack of boundaries and continues his romancing of Usagi despite that, as well as Usagi herself stating her explicit disinterest most of the time in these endeavors. This means that for most of these attempts, Seiya's behavior borders on creepy, self-righteous in his pursuit of love at best, while at worst, Seiya appears to be violating Usagi's boundaries, his behavior bordering on harassment. The other issue with the Starlights is the way their characters are portrayed; in the way they're presented, their characters are condescending on humans at best, taking advantage of women's love for them and having a cold, blatant disregard for the concept of Earth love. At worst, the Starlights are self-righteous and fickle, seeming to decide at whim when an issue is their concern or not. As an example, the Starlights at one point complain about not wanting to be burdened in helping take care of the Earth, but regularly save the Sailor Senshi and relying on them. That said, this can be difficult to deal with, since the Starlights take up a significant amount of screentime.

Another issue with Sailor Stars is that the Outer Sailor Senshi are highly inconsistent in their screentime. From the time the Nehelenia part of the storyline ended until midway through the main season, the Outer Senshi are inexplicably completely absent, with no mention at all as to their whereabouts or what happened to them whatsoever. Hotaru and Setsuna are treated even more unfairly in this regard, as they are inexplicably gone until the last third of the series, with absolutely no questions asked about where any of them have been. More than inconsistent, this feels disrespectful to the characters, who at least had explanations given for why they left in S. Despite these flaws, Sailor Stars is truly a groundbreaking season which capitalizes on the opportunities set up for it by the previous seasons' extensive care in worldbuilding, resulting in a fleshed out finale that embodies the core values of Usagi Tsukino to the end of the series. In this sense, Sailor Stars is truly the perfect end a series could ask for, holding on to hope even after all seems lost, as Usagi herself does. Because of these, Sailor Stars gets a 10/10.

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As for the entirety of the Sailor Moon anime in itself, Sailor Moon is one of the most groundbreaking magical girl shows to ever exist for a plethora of reasons. Sailor Moon arguably has some of the best character development and worldbuilding of almost any other magical girl series, with each of the characters not only having thorough personalities that hold great degrees of depth, but also feel like natural real people. The Sailor Senshi think and rationalize as normal humans would, giving their actions, thoughts, and emotions weight. Usagi herself is the most significant case of these developments, as she grows throughout the series from a selfish, immature and lazy crybaby with no sense of responsibility at the beginning of the series. By the end of the series, Usagi has not only grown and matured significantly, she has become a person who would willingly, literally or metaphorically, leap into the fire to save the lives of others, representing her true nature and change into a person who accepts all, a true embodiment of hope and beacon of light, in a literal and non-literal sense. This can be seen throughout the series in numerous forms, such as her bonds with Chibiusa or learning of the trauma of her past life, but being duty-bound to fight, to countless others. Usagi has seen hope and joy, which is tempered by depths of despair, anguish, and loneliness, forming her into the person she is.

Sailor Moon's storyline is also quite intense, being filled with countless twists, turns, and exciting plot revelations. While at times the formula does show its age of course, the series handles story events and light-hearted filler with ease, maintaining a perfect and entertaining balance that is sure to bring a smile to many a viewer's face. Sailor Moon's primary theme is love, which is shown to exist in numerous forms, whether it be the romantic love of Princess Serenity and Prince Endymion, to the loving bond between a mother and her daughter, to sympathy such as that exhibited toward Nehelenia.

Ultimately, Sailor Moon is a highly enjoyable franchise and is one of the most well-known magical girl series, despite it being fairly old by now, for a reason. Sailor Moon has withstood the test of time and continued to be highly enjoyable and is filled with many important takeaways that numerous viewers may even come to different conclusions upon viewing. Sailor Moon was an absolute pleasure to rewatch and is rewarding not only in a plot sense, but in terms of romance, friendship, action, and many other values. The entirety of the franchise receives a 10/10 and a strong recommendation.

The last season of an iconic classic. While not my favorite season of the show, Sailor Stars manages to be a tight and satisfying conclusion to the long, LONG running anime that is Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon. While not flawless, and overall not as good as the S arc, I really can't imagine this show ending in any other way (ok, well if Rei and Usagi got together then there is one other ending I could imagine..). The drama, like S, is engaging and meaningful. There's a lot of dark moments, and generally the atmosphere feels different from every other season of the show. Some ... of the most disparaging episodes come from this season, like the Nehelenia arc and the entire finale.
The new focus here is the titular Sailor Stars. I've seen distaste for them as fans say it takes away from the development of the inner senshi, but personally I thought that both had great moments this season. Obviously Saiya gets more screen time compared to the other two Stars, but they're all great. Galaxia is a pretty interesting villain, not my favorite but I do have to give her a lot of credit for what I'll mention later. I do think the biggest issue with character writing this season is Mamoru. This has been an issue since R basically, but Mamoru literally doesn't appear for like, 90% of the episodes here, even if it is for a plot relevant reason.
Ultimately the final "fight" is perfect. It's a beautiful display of the core theme of 90's Sailor Moon, which is that fighting solves nothing, and conflict can only truly be solved through love, compassion, and understanding. And while it does sound corny, it really is quite beautiful.
I adore this entire series. Even with low points like R. Sailor Moon is a very special anime to so many people for a good reason, and I hope it continues to keep spreading it's wonderful characters and messages for another 30 years. Flaws and all, it's a series that always manages to put a smile on my face, and has helped me through rough patches in life. It's a bit disappointing knowing no more of the original series is here for me to watch, but it's good that things came to a positive conclusion in the end.
Season Rating: 9.5/10
Entire Series Ratings: 10/10

Only slightly better than SuperS

Sailor Stars is the final season of the show and unfortunately, it's not as good as it's fans say it is. It's definitely an improvement over SuperS but not by much. While SuperS is considered the worst season of the series, Stars is the season that "jumps the shark" changing details from the manga just to be more controversial. SuperS somewhat explored the relationship between an adult horse and a young girl and Stars pushes women's sexuality, possible infidelity and a non-binary theme that Naoko Takeuchi herself didn't agree with.

Starting off the season is another mini-arc which follows and concludes the ... plot of SuperS. While the art and animation are inconsistent in some episodes, this arc happens the be the strongest both in tone and storytelling of the whole season. I especially like how some of the Sailor Soldiers besides Usagi got some development along with Uranus and Neptune. Jupiter finally got the respect she always deserved while other soldiers were utterly useless like Sailor Saturn and even Pluto. Overal it's a short but great start.

Unfortunately, it doesn't get much better after this and now the actual Stars arc begins. Chibi-Usa returns to her own timeline again and Mamoru has to move and live in America for his college studies or whatever. We're then introduced to three new male characters, Seiya, Taiki and Yaten who together form a boyband and also happen to be Sailor Guardians but with a twist! The handsome popstars persona is nothing more than a disguise to hide their true identities of three scantily dressed girls, the Sailor Starlights!

Of course, Usagi and her friends never make the connection, as usual... But I suppose nobody would guess that these guys could change genders. Which is cool really, but aside from the gender swapping the Star Lights are by far the lamest Sailor soldiers of the show.

Taiki and Yaten can both be described as discount Sailor Uranus and both second fiddle to the groups leader Seiya. But unlike Uranus and Neptune, these guys are not interesting nor mysterious. In fact, fans only seem to care about their leader Seiya which i'll get to later, but both Taiki and Yaten barely have a personality of their own aside from completing their mission of finding the princess from their home planet. Seiya is like Mamoru but with some opposite characteristics. Seiya is cool, sassy, flirtatious, immature, carefree somewhat like how Mamoru used to be in the first season before he became an idiot. What makes Seiya interesting is the love dynamic between him and Usagi and Usagi's loyalty towards Mamoru. While I'm not a fan I understand why many fans prefer Seiya over Mamoru. We also have a new character called Chibi-Chibi who's basically Chibi-Usa but worse and does nothing of importance until the very end of the season.


The new villain is Galaxia who's after the perfect Star Seed... Just like the previous villains it's the same repeated plot for the past four seasons. So it's very predictable and tiresome but what makes Stars worse is that all of the Inner and Outer Senshis, except for Usagi, get pushed to the background for the Starlights to shine. I get why the writers did this, there are just too many characters and not enough time to dedicate any meaningful development to the already established cast. The problem is the new characters don't get much development either. The only meaningful development here is Usagi's and Seiya's feelings for each other and that's it.

That is where Stars ultimately fails, none of the characters grow in this season. It's the same routine of fighting the monster of the week, saving the innocents, the Starlights show up, get rid of the villain's henchmen and then get rid of the final villain. Usagi keeps going back and forth with her hesitation to face evil, after so many seasons of growth and being the most developed character of the show it's so damn annoying to see Usagi act like an emotional weakling again cause you know she'll survive anyway there are no stakes whatsoever.

I think Sailor Stars has some good parts, for one it takes itself more seriously than SuperS and tries to be more like Super in quality and tone it's just too bad that it copy pastes previous ideas and hopes to win over it's audience again but ultimately falls flat on it's face. The voiceacting is still top notch as ever it's just really bad that the side characters don't get to shine in anything other than filler episodes.

Sailor Stars has the least amount of fillers out of all the seasons but that doesn't save it from it's boring characters, boring villains and horribly paced storytelling. The love triangle between Usagi, Mamoru and Seiya is cute but too bad Mamoru is entirely absent until the very end and therefore irrelevant to this whole season. It's still somewhat entertaining, i liked the filler episode where all the soldiers gather at Usagi's house it was so much fun and i also like the song "Search for your Love" which seems to be the Starlights' only successful song as you'll hear it like 10 times during this season.

But in the end, Sailor Stars is nothing more than a lazy cash grab for those who wanted to see the conclusion of Sailor Moon, you can tell it's not the same director from previous seasons and the soundtrack is also not as memorable as previous ones. Super still is the peak of Sailor Moon anime and unfortunately the last great season we got.