Sailor Moon / Tropes One

All spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned.

Here are tropes found in both the anime and manga versions of Sailor Moon.

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A–F

• After the End: As far as the Moon Kingdom goes, the series is this as Queen Beryl's reign of terror laid complete waste to the once thriving kingdom and forced its queen to exile the survivors to Earth to begin new lives far into the future. By the present day, the Moon Kingdom has long since ceased to exist, its legacy living on in the Sailor Senshi and their allies.
• Age Is Relative: Despite great variations in their appearance, most of the Sailor Guardians are aged within a year of each other. This is obscured by the fact artists draw Haruka and Michiru as much older looking than the other characters, who gushed about how mature they seemed. The '90s anime even poked fun at the idea that Haruka's hobby of car driving doesn't really make legal sense.
• Alien Abduction: Crimson Rubeus, Prince Demand and Wiseman of the Black Moon Clan, aliens from the planet Nemesis, succeed in abducting multiple protagonists with some variation by medium.
  • In the Black Moon arc of the manga, three of the Sailor Senshi (Sailors Mercury, Mars, and Jupiter) are captured by Rubeus; only Sailor Venus and Sailor Moon remain. Eventually, Sailor Moon is captured as well when she is teleported from Crystal Tokyo to Planet Nemesis. There, Demand tries to brainwash her with his "third eye", but fails, and they soon free themselves en masse, only to have Wiseman kidnap Moon's young charge, Chibi-Usa, to successfully brainwash her for his own purposes.
  • In Sailor Moon R, Crimson Rubeus captures all the Sailor Guardians except Sailor Moon, who frees them after defeating Rubeus. In a later episode, Prince Demand captures Sailor Moon and tries to brainwash her into being his bride, but Tuxedo Mask intervenes and saves her. One episode later, Wiseman kidnaps Chibi-Usa as in the manga.
• Aliens Speaking English: Or Japanese, as the case may be.
• All Women Are Lustful: The entire team is insanely boy-crazy. Usagi gets three love interests established within the first two episodes (two of them turn out to be the same person but still), Makoto frequently talks about how each new guy she meets reminds her of her old sempai (including a dog) while Rei and Minako are obsessed with teen idols and male models. Even bookworm Ami gets a love interest and has many Covert Pervert moments relating to boys. This even extends to the villains—Queen Beryl is desperate to make Mamoru her lover and Mimete chooses her victims of the week based on whatever attractive male celebrity is in town.
• Amicable Exes: Ami's mother seems to bear no ill feelings toward her ex-husband, but this has never stopped Ami herself from angsting about it.
• Amnesiac Lover: Endymion/Mamoru in season 2.
• Amusing Injuries: There's a slapstick routine in Act/Episode 1 involving Usagi trying to "Sailor V kick" Shingo for irritating her just after she got booted from the house for failing a test. Usagi misses and kicks the closed door, then clutches her foot in pain and melodramatically wails to be let in.
• Anachronism Stew: The names of the planets in our solar system were given to them well into recorded history, and relatively arbitrarily at that. The Sailor Guardians, on the other hand, have been around for eons. It really makes no sense that a Sailor Guardian's powers would be based on the powers of a deity her planet was named after long after she came into being.
  • In the manga, all the Senshi have ancient castles named after moons belonging to their respective planets; the exceptions are Mercury and Venus, whose castles are named after American spacecraft sent to probe those planets in the latter half of the 20th century...
    • One possible explanation is that the myths and Roman names came from Sailor Senshi.
    • There's a theory which handwaves the anachronisms via Sailor Pluto and her father.
  • The Soldier's powers being based on the deity the planet was named after only applies to Jupiter's lightening attacks and Venus' love-based attacks. All the other Soldiers have attacks based on the Japanese name for the planet. For example, Mercury in Japanese is Suisei, which literally means "water star." Hence, Sailor Mercury has water-based attacks.
    • Venus and Jupiter DO have the name-themed attacks as well though. For Jupiter, it's plants. (Flower Hurricane, Coconut Cyclone) Venus has Metal (Venus Love-Me chain, Wink Chain Sword, Manga version of Love and Beauty Shock.
• Ancestral Name: The Queen of the Moon Kingdom during the Silver Millenium age is named Serenity. Her daughter is Princess Serenity, who is reincarnated into Usagi Tsukino after the Kingdom fell. In the future, Usagi will rule Crystal Tokyo in the new Silver Millenium as Neo-Queen Serenity, and she will bear a daughter named Princess Usagi Small Lady Serenity (nicknamed Chibiusa).
• Annoying Younger Sibling: Usagi's younger brother Shingo (Sammy in the original English dub). Later, Chibi-Usa.
• Arc Hero: Done in every sequel arc of Sailor Moon.
  • In the second arc, we're introduced to Chibi-Usa, Usagi and Mamoru's daughter from the future who also becomes a Sailor Guardian by the end of the story. We also get to know the mysterious Sailor Pluto.
  • The third arc expands the idea of Sailor Pluto into an entire Outer Senshi team, bringing Haruka (Uranus) and Michiru (Neptune) as the focus of many episodes, and Hotaru (Saturn) as the ultimate McGuffin.
  • On the fourth story arc, Chibi-Usa befriends a Winged Unicorn named Pegasus which becomes central to the plot to the point of being the McGuffin all along.
  • The fifth and final arc introduces us to the Sailor Starlights and Chibi-Chibi who the main mysteries from the storyline surround.
• Art Evolution: One of the most notable examples is Shingo, who is one of the few characters to visibly age between seasons. He starts out drawn much like other children are in anime and manga with short limbs and very rounded features. Later on he looks (appropriately) more like a pre-teen, he's had something of a growth spurt (making him only slightly shorter than his sister) and his face has lengthened too. Part of this may be due to an undefined timeline, particularly due to two major continuity hiccups which occur in the show. To complicate matters, the anime, which was produced over 5 years, seems to only really take place over the course of three years. Which three years is hard to say as an onscreen date, printed on a visible newspaper in season 1 says it's 1992, while a similar date in Stars says 1996.
• As Long as There Is Evil: Chaos. In the manga, as long as stars are born, Chaos will continue to be reborn as well. In the anime, it simply returns to the heart of all humans.
• Author Appeal: All over the place. The entire series is basically a big spoonful of things Naoko Takeuchi likes, such as astronomy (the entire friggin' concept), gemology and minerology (most obvious in the villains' Theme Naming), fashion (several splash pages and particularly distinctive character designs can be directly traced to specific high-fashion ad images), and Cool Cars (Nephrite and Haruka).
  • She also loves white-haired pretty boys, especially villainous ones, made apparent in that each story arc has one. The Dark Knigdom arc had Kunzite, the Black Moon arc had Prince Demande, the Infinity arc had Professor Tomoe, the Dream arc had Helios/Pegasus, and the Stars arc had Yaten (who is actually a crossdresser or Gender Bender depending on the adaptation).
  • The Sailor Fukus, however, are editor appeal, as Takeuchi revealed in one Animerica interview (I said, "I always wanted to do a Hero of Justice story." He said, "I want a Heroine of Justice in a sailor suit.") Tuxedos, on the other hand, are reflective of Takeuchi's tastes.
• Author Avatar: In an interview with MixxZine, Naoko Takeuchi stated that Sailor Moon is most like her own personality (clumsy but with a kind heart) and Sailor Neptune is the one most different to her (calm, serious, and ruthless).
• Back from the Dead: Done as a reset button. This is only vaguely defined and downplayed in the show for the sake of tension. However, healing powers up to and including resurrection is one of Sailor Moon's principal abilities in the manga, so much so that the Senshi actually plan to have Sailor Saturn kill everyone on Earth, just so Sailor Moon can bring back everyone but the bad guys. This is also played with at the end of the First, Second and Fifth story arc.
• Battle Baton: A number of the attack items could qualify, even though none are explicitly stated to be majorette batons, but are rather referred to as wands, sticks or rods. In particular Sailor Moon's Spiral Heart Moon Rod is depicted as 'baton-like', as in the anime Sailor Moon's attacks with it are accompanied by a significant amount of wand-twirling, that she doesn't do nearly so much with the other items she had previously or she gains afterward.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: Usagi and Mamoru initially meet when she hits Mamoru in the head with a test paper, leading to Mamoru insulting her test score and Usagi screaming at how much she hates him. This progressed in both to rather heated meetings, though it became quickly clear the characters were developing an attraction to each other. This was drawn out much longer in the anime, and each encounter even had its own theme music. In both mediums, however, Usagi and Mamoru eventually realized they were not only Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask, who share a more tender and heroic relationship in combat, but also learn they were lovers in the distant past as Princess Serenity and Prince Endymion. Unlike a great deal of these examples, the tension is actually resolved rather early in the series and the drama with the pair after that comes from outside forces trying to force them apart.
  • Played with in the fifth season of the anime, where Seiya (who is on the receiving end) assumes this is what Usagi does when she's attracted to someone before realizing she's not interested in him.
• Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: Usagi (blonde), Umino (brunet) and Naru (redhead).
• Brainwashed and Crazy:
  • Most notably Mamoru as Prince Endymion in Season One. In the manga it's somewhat of a recurring theme for him. In the manga, the original Quirky Miniboss Squad of the Dark Kingdom also falls into this.
  • And in the manga, Amazoness Quartet and, in the final arc, just about every character from the present, except Usagi.
    • Notably, in the anime victims always manage to break out of this. In the manga, not nearly.
• By the Power of Grayskull!: "[Planet] [Something] Power, Make-up!" The original English dub usually just took off the "Make-up!", but sometimes you got things like "Moon Cosmic Dream Action!"
• Calling Your Attacks: All the Sailor Senshi. They don't have to call out their attack names (we know that because they don't always do it), but they usually say the name. Theories on why vary.
  • The original English dub also gives multiple names to single attacks. For example Sailor Moon's finishing attack in R (Moon Princess Halation) has 3 different names in the original English dub:
    • Moon Scepter Elimination (episodes 45-65 and 83)
    • Moon Scepter Activation (episodes 66-82)
    • Moon Princess Elimination (R movie)
• Cannot Spit It Out: The entire cast tend towards silently worrying over important plot points and conflicted emotions rather than discussing them with the rest of the ensemble. Usagi sits and stews in wistful silence over her emotionally-charged interactions with Mamoru during the Dark Kingdom arc or Haruka in the Infinity arc; Rei and Mamoru brood over portentous visions and psychic dreams in several storylines without mentioning them to the rest of the team until the significance becomes clear in some other fashion, and so on. It's somewhat understandable early in the series when the cast are still getting to know each other, less so in later arcs when they've been established as a team for some time.
• Can't Catch Up: Poor Mamoru. Let's just say there's no Super/Eternal Tuxedo Mask. Not shockingly, he gets kidnapped/killed a lot.
• Cats Are Magic: The characters find out they are Sailor Senshi with magic powers because two talking cats with crescent moons on their foreheads, Artemis and Luna, appear to inform them and guide them as they try to save the world. They can even make magical items appear by doing backflips.
• Chandler's Law: The introduction of Chibi-Usa. The series was initially planned to end after it's first arc. How was it extended? By a little girl falling from the sky and aiming a gun at Usagi. It was more pronounced in the manga, where the scene was a Cliffhanger ending.
• Chastity Couple: Haruka and Michiru
• The Chosen Many: It turns out there are Senshi all over the galaxy! Heck, there's even a Sailor Galaxia!
• Clothes Make the Legend: The Sailor's fuku.
• Combined Energy Attack: "Sailor Teleport", "Sailor Planet Attack"
• Conflict Ball: Sailors Neptune and Uranus clutch it tightly more often than not, especially in their introductory arc.
  • In the Infinity arc of the manga/Crystal they spend nearly half the arc stubbornly refusing to tell Sailor Moon and her team anything about who they are or what's going on. Their reasoning is eventually explained as "we feel that this is our responsibility to handle as Outer Guardians and we don't want to risk you being hurt by getting involved" - never mind that they had previously attacked Sailor Moon rather than explain this, and that the lack of communication placed her and her team in greater danger by inspiring them to investigate on their own without knowing what they're up against.
  • The S arc of the '90s anime depicts them as actively antagonistic to Sailor Moon and the Inner Guardians, despite the fact that by this point Usagi and her team have saved the world no less than three times.
• Cosmic Motifs: The series most prominently has this among the Sailor Senshi — there's one for each planet (including Pluto) and the moon. Some of the supporting cast are also named or themed after objects in space; for example, the cats have moon motifs and lunar-related names.
• Cryptic Background Reference: StarS is made of this trope. The anime teases you to a degree with the idea of there being countless guardians and planets out there; the manga offers you brief glimpses of alien worlds, including one where the inhabitants apparently have fish for heads. Not fish heads, fish for heads.
• Crystal Landscape: Crystal Tokyo is a future Tokyo with a massive crystal palace in the center of the city.
• Dangerous Forbidden Technique:
  • If Sailor Moon unleashes the full power of the Silver Crystal, it will kill her.
  • Played for Laughs with the "Sailor Special Garlic Attack" in one story.
• Dark Is Evil: Every enemy organization have names associated with darkness: Dark Kingdom, Black Moon Clan, Death Busters, Dead Moon Circus and Shadow Galactica.
• Death Is Cheap: One of Sailor Moon's powers is explicitly resurrection, so expect main characters to die at least once per storyline. This is more prevalent in the manga than in the anime; in the latter, Sailor Moon cannot really control this power, so the Senshi tend to die a lot less often.
• Debut Queue: Done much faster in the manga (and Crystal, for that matter) in which four of the six chapters in the initial volume are dedicated to introduce one Senshi each. The original anime, on the other hand, took its time, introducing Ami only in the sixth episode and Rei in the tenth, for example.
• Determinator and Plucky Girl: Usagi might serve as a poster girl for this trope. Other Sailor Senshi and Tuxedo Mask have remarkable Heroic Willpower as well.
• Disc-One Final Boss: Beryl, Demand, Mistress 9 and Sailor Galaxia.
• Distressed Dude: Poor, poor Tuxedo Mask. Does not help, that female Big Bads except anime Galaxia seem to be fixated on turning him into their lapdog. Manga Galaxia forces him to kiss her boots, then kills him again. Just to mess with Usagi.
• Dress-Coded for Your Convenience: The villains always have a unique theme to their clothing style for each group. The good guys tend to look roughly the same.
• Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: Sometimes, as in the S movie where Ami's water attacks (More specifically, attacks that result in ice instead of water) do nothing to the ice-powered villain; sometimes not.
• 11th-Hour Superpower: Princess Serenity typically appeared during final battles.
• The End of the World as We Know It: Looms as a threat every damn arc/season. Actually happens a few times. The last season involved this for the entire Milky Way galaxy. After the final battle, only Sailor Moon is left alive in both versions. (In the anime, the Starlights and Galaxia also survive; in the manga, Chibi Moon and the Sailor Quartetto come from the future and also live.) The entire galaxy gets better, though.
• Epileptic Trees: An in-universe example, when Chibi-Chibi first appeared the inner Sailor Guardians began spinning a theory the minute they met her that she was Usagi and Mamoru's second daughter from the future who got jealous from hearing about Chibi-Usa's adventures in the past and decided to go back to have a few of her own, which was promptly jossed by Setsuna showing up. The manga version has this jossed by Queens of the Silver Millennium only being able to have one daughter and Chibi-usa josses it being her daughter stating she didn't feel any connection to Chibi-Chibi.
• Everyone Is Bi: Nearly all major characters show both opposite-sex and same-sex attraction at some point, and the girls blush just as freely over girls as they do guys.
• Evil Plan: Each Big Bad in the rotation has their own plan to drive their season but they all involve collecting Macguffins like mana or Heart Drives from humans.
• Facial Markings: Common across many characters.
• Fairytale Wedding Dress: The dresses in the "Wedding Day Blues"/"Dream of a White Dress" episode.
• Family-Unfriendly Death: The cats in the manga, Sailor Venus in the anime. They get better.
  • Or did they? The cats are never seen again after their death scene in the manga.
  • Who are we kidding? All the deaths are rather unpleasant. Mercury falls into a volcano, for Pete's sake.
  • The manga had bad guys and innocent people alike are killed in rather horrifying manners. Flesh melting off of bones, anyone?
• Feminist Fantasy: The series has a strong focus on the feminine as a source of power, with the Princesses of various celestial bodies acting as the protectors of the universe. These powers are passed from mother to daughter, with Word of God explicitly stating that there is no current Sailor Earth because men cannot become Sailor Warriors. Tuxedo Mask, the Prince of Earth, is The One Guy of the group, and primarily there to provide support to the women rather than to rescue or protect them. Female sensuality and sexuality are subtly and respectfully explored in the series, avoiding equating purity with Virgin Power as the heroine is both the purest of heart and intimate with her boyfriend. The relationship between Haruka and Michiru is portrayed without the typical fanservice related to lesbian couples, instead focusing on the strength of their devotion to each other.
  • The 20th-anniversary series, Sailor Moon Crystal, is even more blatant right in its Opening Theme, Moon Pride.
    "We all have unshakeable wills, we will fight on our own without leaving our destiny to a prince!"
    "We are not helpless girls who need a man's protection."
  • The notable thing about the series, however, is that it doesn't go and present the path of an idealized 'super tomboy' as an alternative, but contains large amounts of pink and frills and unicorns... and turns them into symbols of cosmic power, generally avoiding the message that you have to fit into a certain "box". Sure, there's one tomboyish character, but she's not defined by that and gets intricate motivations and characterization. There's a princessy hopeless romantic, but also someone who wants to become a doctor. What really set the show apart (especially compared to the American cartoons of the time who just had a token smurfette, Betty and Veronica or at best a Tomboy and Girly Girl contrast where the character is completely defined by their possesion or lack of whatever "girliness" is supposed to be) is that the various female characters have distinct, varied personalities not built around stereotypes related to their gender, but something that is sensibly related to the plot, such as the elemental powers associated with their planets.
• Five-Man Band:
  • The Inner Guardians compose one: Sailor Moon is The Leader, Mars is The Lancer, Mercury is The Smart Girl, Jupiter is The Big Gal and Venus is The Heart.
  • In the manga, Chibi-Usa has her own Five-Man Band in the future: Chibi-Usa/Chibi Moon, Ceres, Pallas, Juno, Vesta, and as well as Saturn being the Sixth Ranger.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Usagi is ditzy, fun-loving and lazy, while her younger brother Shingo is much smarter and more responsible.
• Foreshadowing: In both the manga and anime, Chibi-Usa wants to make a copy of a grail she once saw in her mother's room out of clay as a school project. In the manga she's actually called out on this and asked if it was something Sailor Moon used for an attack, but Chibi-Usa doesn't know. What she ends up creating eventually turns out to be a replica of the Holy Grail, the object Sailor Moon uses to become Super Sailor Moon.
• Forgotten Phlebotinum: This happens in both incarnations early on.
  • In the first chapter of the manga, Sailor Moon can use her mask as a Spider-Sense to see that Naru is in trouble. The anime adaptation of this story showed the jewels in her hair blinking and projecting Naru's cries for help, alerting her to the same circumstances. Despite how obviously useful this is, neither ability appears again.
  • The Disguise Pen only made a handful of appearances before being phased out early. The disguises themselves were usually not that necessary, though they did always turn Usagi into adult bodies, making it useful when she needed to slip into certain situations that required authority a teenage girl doesn't have. By Sailor Moon R (and the Black Moon arc of the manga), it was gone entirely as plots requiring this element were dropped. The Pen's final (and most memorable) appearence was in an episode in Sailor Moon S in which Sailor Venus used it to dress up as Sailor Moon.
  • Episode 5 of the anime showed Usagi using a skill called "Moon Tiara Stardust" that recycled the stock animation of her normal attack, but the effect allowed her to heal children possessed by the monster of the day. This power only showed up once, and by the time she was needed to heal humans again, she used the newly-acquired Moon Stick (which unlike "Moon Tiara Stardust" did actually show up in the manga.)
• Four Is Death:
  • The four Shitennou, the four Ayakashi Sisters, the first four of the Witches 5, the Amazoness Quartet, and the four members of Shadow Galactica under Galaxia (in the anime only - the manga had more).
  • If one considers all Sailor Senshi in Sailor Moon S and Sailor Moon Super S not introduced before to be Outer Senshi, then Sailor Saturn is literally death.
• Frilly Upgrade: Contributes to the image. Eternal Sailor Moon takes this trope to ridiculous levels. At least Super Sailor Moon looked nice.

G–M

• A God Am I: Happens a lot, at least once in every season. Beryl, Metaria, Wiseman, Mistress 9, Nehellenia, and Galaxia all increase their power to god status. Of course, they each get defeated by the Sailor Senshi. Subverted in that (in the anime) Esmeraude tried to become a godlike queen, using a crown that Wiseman gave her. Had she realized Wiseman deceitfully rendered the crown to turn the wearer into a mighty dragon, she probably wouldn't have taken it.
• Götterdämmerung: The final confrontation in the battle that ended the Moon Kingdom was a fight between an Eldritch Abomination and an effective demigod. The result was the death of every living thing on the Moon - including the demigod - and the abomination becoming Sealed Evil in a Can.
• Good Princess, Evil Queen: The heroines are reincarnations of space princesses, while the Dark Kingdom and Dead Moon Circus antagonists (Beryl, Metalia, and Nehellenia) hold the rank of Queen. Downplayed in that there was also a Queen Serenity, Princess Serenity's mother.
• Grand Finale:
  • Notably, the conclusion of the 1st arc was supposed to be this as the latter four seasons/arcs were not initially intended. The anime for example ends Season 1 with a "Everybody Dies" Ending. Obviously everyone got better for Season 2.
  • The manga ending for the entire series is this in spades. It ends with Mamoru and Usagi's long awaited wedding, with all the main Sailor Senshi in attendance, sans Chibi-Usa (unless you count the implication that she's already been conceived).
• Gratuitous English: And Greek, Latin, French, and Portuguese. Most of the By the Power of Grayskull! and Calling Your Attacks.
• Gratuitous Princess: There's Princess Serenity, and in the manga and original English dub, the inner Guardians are all princesses as well. The Outers are also Princesses in the manga. Technically speaking, every series of Guardians throughout the galaxy has a true princess they protect.
• Hand Blast: Sailor Venus' Crescent Beam emanates from her fingertip.
• High-Class Gloves: The Senshi wear long gloves as part of their outfits (given their royal past lives).
• Higher Education Is for Women: Averted. Only three of the main characters have ambitions that actually require a university degree and The One Guy is one of them: Mamoru and Ami want to be doctors and Setsuna is a physics major at university. Male Book Dumb characters in the franchise are a rarity.
• Holy Grail: The grail is an equal-opportunity P.D.A. however, as it can lead to world salvation (like giving the Messianic Archetype her Super Mode) or The End of the World as We Know It (like summoning a Big Bad Eldritch Abomination from another galaxy) depending on who wields it.
• Hostage for MacGuffin: Attempted more than once by the villains. Sailor Moon always caves.
• Human Aliens: Lots of them, both good and bad. The main cast originated from other planets in their past lives; although they were reborn as humans in their current lives, many villains and side characters have extraterrestrial origins.
• Human Resources: The show's first two arcs hinges on gathering human life force to feed a demonic force. Badiane's Black Dream Hole is powered by the "Sugar Energy" of sleeping children. See also Anatomy of the Soul under the Anime section.
  • Depending on how liberal your view of the trope is, the harvesting of Heart Crystals in the second half of Sailor Moon S, or collecting the Star Seeds in Stars, may also count.
  • Might want to count Ail and An's harvesting of human energy in R in there too.
• I Just Want to Have Friends: Usagi is a Type A, while Ami and Makoto are Type B. See the page for details.
  • Also that Usagi/Super Sailor Moon is a Messianic Archetype, though that may not count.
• Immortality Begins at Twenty: Averted; aging for magical characters is more of a matter of one's magical development than actual physical aging, which leads to Chibi-Usa looking like a kid at 900 and Sailor Saturn aging as the plot demands rather than on a timetable.
• In the End, You Are on Your Own: More than one series ends with Usagi as the last person standing and forced to finish the job herself.
• In the Name of the Moon: The Trope Namer
• Invisible Parents: Ami's mother, Minako's Parents and Rei's Father are never shown in the anime. They all appear in the manga at least once, though Minako's are restricted to the Sailor V manga.
• Invisible to Normals: Nobody notices that Usagi looks exactly like Sailor Moon. Subverted in the manga, where (gasp) Usagi realizes that Haruka Tenoh and Sailor Uranus look exactly alike, and calls Haruka out on it. In the manga, many people put two and two together faster. A handful of people figure out identities on their own in the anime - Minako's volleyball skills out her to an old friend. And while Shingo never recognizes Usagi and Sailor Moon to be one and the same, Usagi still hides from him when she appears as Sailor Moon.
  • They do not really attempt to hide in the manga because they rarely appear in public (Sailor V and early-chapters Sailor Moon wore masks, so they could afford some open acting), and most of the villains can sense their powers anyway. Mamoru actually recognized Usagi as early as in Act 3, though not until Act 7 did Usagi finally recognize Mamoru. Later, Motoki recognized the girls out of costume. The anime, on the other hand, was very, very bad about this.
  • On a smaller scale, Jadeite in the anime frequently shows up in front of Usagi without only the smallest attempt to disguise his appearance (i.e. wearing a hat or a pair of clear glasses)... and yet even after she's already met him, knows his real name, AND knows he's a bad guy, Usagi repeatedly fails to recognize him. He only attempts a proper disguise once (changing his hair and skin tone).
  • Similarly, Nephrite only changes his clothes when on Earth. In his case, he tries to keep a low profile and adopts a human identity in Masato Sanjouin. However, Usagi meets him in his first episode in his human identity and both she and Naru see him later as Nephrite and immediately recognize him as the same person. From this point on, the Senshi recognize him in his human identity - though strangely, they never tell anyone about the murderous millionaire living on the hill.
    • Who would they tell??? The police so they can get murdered by him?
  • All four of the Ayakashi Sisters appear in both human identities and their actual identities in front of the main characters with the only difference being a change in clothes. No masks, nothing. Nobody ever recognizes them until they reveal themselves. Kooan in particular gets into Rei's shrine twice, in front of her and Yuuichirou, and Rei never recognizes her as Kooan - even when she's seen Kooan in a human identity.
  • The anime gives some implication that there's some actual Clark Kenting letting the girls get away with being seen by everyone but only rarely recognized, but its not consistent. This could presumably explain why the villains can keep getting away with running around in public without anyone spotting them.
• Joshikousei: Sailor Moon is the patron saint of this trope.
• Kid-Appeal Character: Two in the main cast - Ami was the Teen Genius of the Guardian Senshi, Chibi-Usa served as the Ankle Biter of the group when she joined the team as a Senshi after the Black Moon Arc. Chibi-Chibi has this to a greater extent in the anime.
• Kissing Under the Influence: In the masquerade ball chapter of the manga and the episode of the '90s anime which is based on it, Mamoru steals a kiss from Usagi after she's fallen asleep due to mistakenly drinking alcohol.
• Large Ham: The characters particularly shine when they make their In the Name of the Moon speeches. A special award must be given to Professor Tomoe, who randomly shatters a test tube while laughing hysterically over his lack of sex life (complete with spinning camera and over-the-top music).
• Late for School: Usagi. Always.
  • Averted in the second act in the Manga where she shows up on time for once, largely for the sole point of hearing about Ami's massive intellect.
• Leotard of Power: Hence the numerous shots of the skirts flying up (all cut from the original English dub of course).
• Life Saving Misfortune: In the princess training episode, Usagi was surprised to see the others attending the training in the last lesson, which was ballroom dancing. All the other students, including Ami and Makoto, pass with flying colors while Usagi, Rei, and Minako flunk rock bottom. Ami, Makoto, and all the passing students are escorted out, but then they get turned into plaster statues by the Monster of the Week, as the whole princess training class was a trap. It was BECAUSE of Usagi, Rei, and Minako flunking that they were spared the same fate, as the whole thing was a ruse to root out who the real Sailor Moon is. Hilariously, the reasoning behind it was that the real Sailor Moon is too much of a ditz to be a proper princess. More insulting for Usagi when Rei and Minako actually accept the logic of their thinking.
• Light Feminine and Dark Feminine: Serenity (either one) and Queen Beryl.
• The Little Shop That Wasn't There Yesterday: The villains set these up all the time. The main characters never think to get suspicious.
• Living Memory: The hologram of Queen Serenity.
• Living Relic: The hologram of Queen Serenity. Possibly Sailor Pluto.
• Local Hangout: Game Center Crown and the attached cafe Fruits Parlor Crown.
• Lord Country: The planetary senshi, when in their princess forms, are known as 'Princess (Planet)', ex: Princess Mercury, Princess Venus, Princess Uranus, etc.
• Lost in Translation: Beryl's four lieutenants are usually called "Four Kings of Heaven" in English translations (including the Viz Media English dub); this is the literal translation of the title "Shitennou," which is drawn from the four Buddhist gods of the cardinal directions, and has given rise to a whole host of Fanon regarding the four of them being literal kings of various regions of the Earth during the days of the Golden Kingdom. However, in Japan the term "shitennou" is often used to refer to groups of four particularly powerful or accomplished people. This is a difficult term to translate, and there's no answer that works in every context, but in this case a better choice might have been "Elite Four", the option taken by such works as Pokémon and Kill la Kill.
• Madonna-Whore Complex:
  • Zigzagged. While the female villains are always provocatively dressed, positively-depicted females are always dressed, if not actively conservatively, in socially acceptable variations on uniforms. On the other hand, Usagi is shown sleeping with her boyfriend several times throughout the manga series, including the very end of the manga, when he asks her to marry him. She's shown very clearly to be a good person. And not only that, but Naoko Takeuchi often draws Usagi in lingerie or naked, often alongside a naked/half-naked Mamoru. And she's never denigrated for that.
    "Usagi is pure-hearted, but she isn't "pure" in the archaic sense. She’s sexual. And I love that she can be both. She's the amaranthine avatar of goodness and love and serenity in the universe—she is every cherished ideal we hold of what it means to be a "magical girl." She stands for truth and freedom and hope. She wears floaty pastel clothes and enormous pigtails and her weapons are covered in hearts and stylized angel wings. She's often drawn with angel wings herself! And she has sex. It doesn't make her dirty, or suddenly inappropriate as entertainment for young girls. She doesn't lose her power or her magic. She is a multifaceted young woman who loves sweets and comics and vanquishes the forces of evil and also has sex."
  • Subverted by the Sailor Starlights, a trio of heroic aliens whose outfits are pretty revealing.
  • Subverted with Makoto and Minako: both have a tendency to chase boys, especially the latter in the manga, with Minako sometimes wearing somewhat revealing clothes, yet they're superheroic, especially Minako, who has a rather pronounced Chronic Hero Syndrome.
• Magic Music: In the anime, Al from the R series can summon his Cardians by playing a flute. The Three Lights' songs in the Stars season also allow them to send mental messages to people - with the side effect in the manga of drawing the attention of enemies.
• The Man Behind the Man: Queen Metaria with Queen Beryl and Galaxia with Nehellina in Season 1 and Season 5 of the anime, respectively.
• Mass Hypnosis: In the first Act/episode, the Monster of the Week achieves this by disguising herself as a jewelry merchant and selling enchanted Hypno Trinkets that both enslave and drain the Life Energy of the wearer. At her command, a crowd of women assemble and attack Sailor Moon.
• Meaningful Name: Has its own page here.
• Mid-Season Upgrade: Usagi gaining the Silver Crystal, which powered up her Moon Healing Escalation in the first season, and gaining the Holy Grail which gave her a Super Mode, powering up her Moon Spiral Heart Attack into the Rainbow Moon Heart Ache in S.
  • And in Stars, Chibi-Chibi upgraded Eternal Sailor Moon's Starlight Honeymoon Therapy Kiss attack to Silver Moon Crystal Power Kiss.
    • A lesser example, the Inner Senshi gaining their Super Forms.
• Mind-Control Eyes: Seen in any brainwashed character, particularly Mamoru. Those who had their Pure Hearts stolen or were trapped by the Dead Moon Circus also had them until rescued.
• Mind Rape: Dead Moon Circus did this to their victims in Super S. It's also how Chibi-Usa became Black Lady in R.
• Mini Dress Of Power : A number of the female villains wear these.
• Mirror Morality Machine: The anime has lots of them. Beryl's brainwashing pod for Endymon which failed to make him completely evil. And Wiseman's "dark energy bath thingy" used on Chibi-Usa to make her into Black Lady (Wicked Lady in the DiC English dub), which again, was not absolute. Finally, existence-support bracers that Shadow Galactica members wear, which effect, surprise, surprise, also was successfully resisted by Uranus and Neptune - not that it helped them any. Although the latter might be straight Mind Control devices.
• Monster and the Maiden: Despite being a reincarnated goddess, Minako Aino/Sailor Venus is a relatively normal high school girl. Her mentor, Artemis, is a sapient white cat from outer space.
• Mood Whiplash: The series has a tendency to switch between lightheartedness, melodrama, and just plain silliness at the drop of a hat.
• Morning Routine: Usagi waking up and rushing out of the house due to being late is a regular staple of the earlier episodes.
• Mukokuseki: Yyyyyep. One of the really famous examples. Our main cast - consisting of two blondes, a light brunette, a natural blue and a single raven-hair, all with huge, variously-colored eyes (most being blue) and very light skin tones - are, in theory, all totally Japanese in ancestry. Passing them off as Americans in the original English dub was not particularly difficult.
• My Significance Sense Is Tingling: This happens a number of times with Rei, who is stated to possess psychic abilities and often notices when evil energies are present. This also occasionally happens with Mamoru in the anime, in particular when both he and Nephrite (in his Masato Sanjouin identity) pass by each other and both freeze up from the reaction. On one occasion, Luna also has a strong reaction to being in Jadeite's presence when he's in disguise and she's inside of a basket but not able to see him.
• Mysterious Protector: Tuxedo Mask, Moonlight Knight in the Makaiju arc of SMR.

N–S

• Necessarily Evil: The Outer Senshi, especially Uranus.
  • They get better in the manga though. Uranus and Neptune not so much in the anime though, as seen toward the end of Stars where they KILL Saturn and Pluto out of necessity.
• New Transfer Student: Makoto, Urawa, Ail and An, Chibi-Usa, the Starlights, and Tin Nyanko.
  • In the DiC English dub, Ami (or "Amy", as she is called in that dub) is also described as a new transfer student in her first appearance.
• The '90s: The franchise has become an iconic action series from the nineties, especially because at the time the idea of an all-female superhero action series aimed at both girls and boys was a novel concept. In the original anime and manga, early 90s fashions, technology, and lingo abound - to the point that later adaptations have had to update aspects of the show to stay contemporary.
• Obstructive Code of Conduct: Pluto had three of them: 1: Don't let anyone use the Door of Space time. 2: Don't leave your post at The Door of Space-time. 3: Do not use your powers to stop time. Needless to say, she breaks all three of them.
• Official Couple: Haruka & Michiru, Usagi & Mamoru, Luna & Artemis. Chibi-Usa & Helios, heavily implied.
• Ojou Ringlets: Neo Queen Serenity, Chibi-Usa and Chibi-Chibi.
• Older Alter Ego:
  • Early on, Usagi had a pen that let her age up and take on a disguise, such as a reporter, like older, traditional Magical Girls like Creamy Mami and Minky Momo. This was all but forgotten once other girls joined her, except it was used once in the R season.
  • Minako has a compact that serves the same purpose in the manga. It first appears in her own manga, Codename: Sailor V.
• Omnicidal Maniac: Almost all of the Big Bads. In the manga, it's probably due to the fact that all of them are either the manifestations of the same being - the final Big Bad, Chaos - or under its influence.
• One Extra Member: Witches 5 in the third season actually has six members. However, Cyprine and Ptilol are really the same person manifesting in two different bodies, so it's justified.
• One-Gender School: Rei goes to a Catholic all-girls school.
• Only Six Faces: Aside from the hair, most of the girls look alike given the art style.
• Ordinary High-School Student: The Sol Senshi. (Save the Few who aren't in Highschool/Jr. High: Pluto (college) and Chibi-Usa (elementary school)
• Out-Gambitted: Sailor Moon, after trying to pull a Fake Defector at the end of the first arc.
  • Also the reason for Dead Lesbian Syndrome striking Sailors Uranus and Neptune a second time in Stars; they apparently didn't notice Galaxia wearing the very same brand of bracelet that can sustain you even after your star seed is removed.
• Out-of-Clothes Experience: Pops up often, even remaining in the original English dub. Like in the transformation sequences, however, nothing explicit is observable. It is particularly relevant at the very end of the final episode of Stars, Sailor Moon spends the last episode completely naked and with wings on her back.
  • And you wonder why that season wasn't licensed until 2014...
• Paper-Thin Disguise: No-one can tell that the Guardians and their normal selves are the same people because they are wearing tiaras. The world must just be one huge Idiot Ball.
  • Fanon holds that the Senshi have a some sort of magical glamour. This is supported by the fact that even Senshi can't see through them without it being revealed to them: When Uranus and Neptune show up the other Guardians spend a number of episodes in the dark about their civilian forms despite having met them. The reverse happens when Pluto shows up in her civillan form the first time, a whole arc after being introduced as a Guardian, Usagi needs to be clued in as to who she is at first. The same thing happens between the Starlights and the Sailor Guardians of Earth, though in the Starlights' case they are disguised as men (but with the exact same giant ponytails...)
  • Subverted in the R movie by Fiore.
  • Keep in mind that most of the normal people who would see both the Sailor Senshi and their civilian identities are usually busy trying not to get killed by whatever's attacking at the moment.
  • Of course sometimes its so blindingly and stupidly obvious when the main characters are confused by each other's identities that a full-on Face Palm is guaranteed, as well as the words Epic Fail ripping from your vocal chords. Exhibit A, thankyou manga.
  • Somehow Usagi doesn't recognize a glasses-wearing Jadeite, despite meeting him the previous episode.
  • In Chibi-Usa's debut episode, Usagi mentions that she is the only girl in the city with the odango hairstyle. Now, take into account that the villains do know about this little fact, considering Zoisite has disguised as her in one episode. The only excuse for the villains to not recognize Sailor Moon in her civilian identity is that they're either blind or dumb.
• Parental Abandonment:
  • Ami's father divorced and ran out on her mother years ago.
  • Rei's dad is a high-ranking politician who dropped her off at the shrine after her mother died and only sees her for a monthly lunch date.
  • Makoto's parents died some time in the past and she's lived on her own without legal guardians for a while.
  • Uranus and Neptune already live together by themselves for unexplained reasons.
  • Pluto is a college student when she shows up in present day. Hotaru, on the other hand, is the daughter of one of the key villains in the 3rd arc, and her mother is dead. In the manga, Hotaru lives with the other Outers after her father's death at the hands of the Guardians; in the anime, he loses all memory of his villainous activity and raises her until Pluto comes to get her in the last arc; afterwards she lives with the Outers to match up with the manga.
  • In the manga, Uranus and Neptune state that they have legal guardians/patrons.
    • Doesn't mean they have parents, though.
  • Don't forget, Mamoru's parents died in a car crash when he was six years old.
  • And Chibi-Usa's situation as well. First her parents are both sent into a sort of sleep-stasis by the Black Moon Clan, and she has to travel to the past to save them herself. At various points in the R/Black Moon arc it's also hinted that even when they're awake she doesn't see her parents very often, and that Neo-Queen Serenity rarely even hugs or kisses her. Then her parents send her to the past to be trained as a Sailor Guardian.
• Pimped-Out Dress: the Moon Princess dress; Neo-Queen Serenity's dress. In the manga all of the planetary princesses have their own pimped-out dresses.
• Playing with Fire: Rei/Sailor Mars
• Plot-Relevant Age-Up: Hotaru, and this was after she had an age down.
  • Notably, however, Hotaru is physically younger after her age-up than she was intially.
• Poor Communication Kills: Especially in the manga/Crystal, Neptune and Uranus's stubborn refusal to open any kind of discussion with Sailor Moon and the Guardian Senshi about what's going on during the Infinity arc approaches the absurd. Even after it becomes clear that Moon and her team are not going to stay out of it no matter what Neptune and Uranus say, the pair keep everything they know entirely to themselves, forcing the Sailor Team to fumble around blindly in their own investigation covering ground that Neptune and Uranus have already covered and repeatedly coming into danger as their efforts draw the attention of the Death Busters.
• Power Gives You Wings: Usagi/Sailor Moon occasionally sprouts wings, and in the Stars arc, Sailor Moon, the Starlights, Princess Kakyuu, and Chibi-Chibi all sprout wings so they can fly to the center of the galaxy.
• Power Trio: Sailor Moon, Sailor Mars, and Sailor Mercury for almost half of the 1st season. Also Sailors Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto once the three met up until the revival of Sailor Saturn. And The Amazon Trio. And the Sailor Starlights.
• The Power of Friendship
• The Power of Love: If you couldn't tell by the heart-shaped compact, the heart-shaped rod, which attacks by hitting enemies with a giant heart, this is what causes her upgrade in S.
  • Usagi pretty much runs on The Power of Love (with a helping of The Power of Friendship) during the whole of the anime. Just watch any of her Plucky Girl moments.
  • The original English dub of the R movie almost continuously reminds the viewer of The Power of Love, especially with that ending song.
• Power Levels: The members of the Wicthes 5 are given levels to measure their strength. The levels are as follow: Eudial (78), Mimete (40), Viluy (202), Tellu (404), Cyprine and and Ptilol (999).
• Praetorian Guard: The Guardian Senshi (Usagi's soldiers and protectors); the Shitennou (King Endymion's guardians, before they defected to Queen Beryl's side), and the Sailor Quartet (Chibi-Usa's guardians, manga only)
• Premature Empowerment: Often happens in Magical Girl shows, such as this (though technically, Usagi/Serena was born with the powers and only required them to be activated). All of the senshi were born with their powers and awakened in a similar manner, though the series didn't seem to decide right away whether the reincarnated girls were "normal" girls who just happened to inherit some powers from their past selves, or were planetary warriors all along, reborn with their full power set (it eventually settled on the latter).
• Pretty in Mink: A few furs show up.
• Princess Protagonist: The title character turns out to be Princess Serenity, for whom everyone had been searching. In the manga and The '90s English dub of the anime, all the other senshi were princesses, too. There's an odd aspect to this in the 90s anime, in which, whenever Usagi needs to unlock new powers or tap into the full potential of the Silver Crystal, she always transformed into Princess Serenity, despite the fact that she rarely needed to do so in the manga, and after the second arc always transformed into Neo-Queen Serenity when she did need to do so.
• Prophetic Names: "Tsukino Usagi" is a Japanese homophone for "rabbit of the moon" (the Japanese equivalent of the Man in the Moon).
• Protagonist Power-Up Privileges: Sailor Moon is the first to receive new Special Attacks and Super Modes. In the anime she is also the only one to reach the Eternal Form.
• A Protagonist Shall Lead Them: Eternal Sailor Moon/Neo-Queen Serenity, in 1000 years for the rise of Crystal Tokyo.
• The Psycho Rangers: The Ayakashi Sisters, four of the Witches 5, and the Amazones Quartet.
• Puppy-Dog Eyes: Usagi again
• Put on a Bus: Uranus, Neptune, and Saturn (and Pluto to a lesser extent, though she's dead) in Super S; Chibi-Usa and Mamoru in Stars. Mamoru was put on a plane to be exact, a plane which was attacked mid-flight before ever reaching its destination. Lucky for him Death Is Cheap. Chibi-Usa gets caught in a paradox because of this and ceases to exist outside the memories of the Senshi. Even images of her in photos vanish. Only Mamoru's being put on a bus matched up with the manga, though it doesn't kill Chibi Moon, just makes the future very unstable. She comes back at the end of the manga, but she's almost completely forgotten by the end of the anime.
• Quirky Miniboss Squad: A requirement for villianous organizations. The Shitennou (Four heavenly kings) and The DD Girls both from the Dark Kingdom, The Ayakashi Sisters of the Black Moon Clan, The Witches 5 from the Death Busters, The Amazon Trio and Amazoness Quartet, both from the Dead Moon Circus in, Queen Badiane's unnamed Q.M.S. from "The Black Dream Hole", and the Sailor Animamates from Sailor Stars. Almost all are Bishōnen or Amazon Brigades.
• Rapid-Fire Nail Biting: Usagi does this in one episode of 'Sailor Moon R'' when An (as Natsumi) sets up a Drawing Straws solution on who gets to be Snow White in the school play.
• Really Gets Around: Every man on the planet seems to remind Makoto of her ex-boyfriend/sempai.
• Real Women Don't Wear Dresses: Averted. The girls are reincarnated princesses, their objects of power are things like makeup, jewelry, and sparkly unicorns, and they kick ass in pretty dresses. And this is never Played for Laughs.
• Reed Richards Is Useless: Massively averted: in the future, Usagi resurrects the advanced civilization of her previous incarnation and changes the world forever.
• Reincarnation: Everyone in the main cast, except Chibi-Usa and her cat Diana, who are the children of Usagi and Mamoru, and Luna and Artemis respectively.
  • In the manga, Pluto reincarnates backwards. She dies in the future, but her soul goes back in time and reincarnates some time period before the plot. She shows up after everyone comes back from said future. So presumably, she's going to wait until she dies in the future, and take her own place. At least this explains why she's not guarding the Time Door. The anime had less explanation of what happened.
• Reincarnation Romance: Usagi and Mamoru. Worded beautifully by Usagi in the manga.

  Even if we're reborn again and again, I know that I'll meet you. And I know for certain that we'll fall in love...all over again.

• Requisite Royal Regalia: Moon's first attack is throwing her tiara.
  • In Sailor Stars, after she becomes Eternal Sailor Moon and loses her tiara, she throws a frozen pizza instead.
• Reset Button: Used as a plot element at the end of some season-long arcs
• Roofhopping: Tuxedo Mask is fond of this. As is Minako, who can do it untransformed.
• Rules of Orphan Economics: Sailor Jupiter's parents both died in a plane crash. How does a 14 year old survive on her own?
• Sailor Fuku: The Sailor Fukus, are editor appeal, as Takeuchi revealed in one Animerica interview (I said, "I always wanted to do a Hero of Justice story." He said, "I want a Heroine of Justice in a sailor suit.").
• Sealed Cast in a Multipack: All the main cast members were killed in a great battle and reincarnated in the modern world. While they were't actually "sealed" the show follows the same pattern of tracking them down and unsealing them.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: Multiple examples.
• Sentai: The series is a hybrid of this with Magical Girl show.
• Ship Tease: Has its own page.
• Shōjo Demographic
• Shoo Out the Clowns: Both straight and inverted.
• Shoot Your Mate: Fake defectors Sailor Uranus and Neptune are asked by Sailor Galaxia, the Big Bad, to kill Sailor Pluto and Saturn by removing their Star Seeds. Which, in a subversion, they do. After that, when they try to attack Galaxia herself, it doesn't work because she doesn't have a Star Seed she removed it long ago. Uranus and Neptune themselves get offed instead.
• Silly Rabbit, Cynicism Is for Losers!: Uranus and Neptune can't seem to get through their heads that choosing the more realistic options will only make the end results worse.
• Simple, yet Opulent: The moon queen and moon princess dresses are grand but simple. Also, many evening dresses the girls wear are simple.
• Slapstick: Both the anime and the manga featured a great deal of physical comedy with the main characters, with Usagi as the most common victim of Amusing Injuries due to her cowardice in combat and her extreme clumsiness. Ironically, Mamoru, the only man in the least likely to be on the receiving end of slapstick humor (though he wasn't immune). The DiC English dub of the anime censored a lot of it out for the first 65 episodes, though this eased off after the licensor switched.
• Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: Obviously on the idealistic end of the scale, very much so in the anime version. There it even actually comes up during mid-combat dialogues between Sailor Moon and at least two of the Big Bads, but, notably, said Big Bads throw their speeches about how the world is rotten and hopeless, when they are Brainwashed and Crazy/Possessed by an Eldritch Abomination.
• So Last Season: Sailor Moon, without fail, will be defeated and get a locket upgrade within the first few episodes. The other Senshi usually just get a casual Mid-Season Upgrade instead.
• Sorting Algorithm of Evil: Every new Big Bad
• Spell My Name With An S: Numerous thanks to the Theme Naming. Just look around this page for examples, and check the full entry there for why this page uses the names it does.
• Stab the Sky: With scepters, not swords, but still fits this trope.
• Stars Are Souls: The final scene of Sailor Moon has Usagi placing her hand over her heart and saying a star was just born (her daughter conceived).
  • Sailor Moon anime has an episode where a dreamy astronomy teacher references this trope during a show in which he and Taiki are participating. He believes that people become stars when they die. Taiki gets annoyed and says that stars can only be made by living people. Particularly interesting because in Sailor Moon a Sailor Guardian's Starseed is her essence — this is what Taiki is referencing in this case. But a Sailor Guardian can be reborn after death as long as her Starseed intact, so it's effectively the same thing as a soul. So it is a reference to this trope, but with a tweaked meaning.
  • The anime also seems to imply that, special cases aside (such as Queen Serenity's final act or the end of Sailor Stars), only those with true star seeds can be brought back to life or reincarnated. Everyone else who doesn't have a true star seed that dies is dead for good.
• Stealth Hi/Bye: The Outers have a habit of doing this.
• Stealth Pun: Sailor Pluto is associated with the gemstone garnet. The Japanese name for garnet is "zakuroishi", which is formed from the words "zakuro" (pomegranate) and "ishi" (stone). In Greek mythology, Persephone had to stay with Hades for half of the year because she ate the fruit of the underworld: a pomegranate.
• Story Arc: Five of them.
• Stupid Sexy Flanders: vis-a-vis Haruka
• Superhero
• Superhero Team Uniform: The team, when transformed, all wear Sailor Fuku.
• Super Mode: Sailor Moon gets one during Season 3 from The Holy Grail with which to save the world from evil. Super Sailor Moon came with a butterfly motif, had a stronger version of regular Sailor Moon's attack at the time and usually transformed back into regular Sailor Moon not long after performing said attack. This version has an altered uniform with new hairclips, transparent shoulder guards, etc., but the most noticeable changes are the white skirt with blue and gold trim and the long transparent backbows. Compare Sailor Moon◊ and Super Sailor Moon◊. Super Sailor Moon is slightly redesigned in Season 4; the butterfly motif is dropped and Sailor Moon is permanently upgraded to S.S.M. Around the same time Super Sailor Chibi Moon debuted, with the same uniform as Super Sailor Moon except that the blue and gold fuku is pink and gold instead. The other 8 Senshi get Super Modes later on in the story, but the differences between their old and new uniforms are less notable than those of Sailor Moon/Chibi Moon. (i.e. the other 8 Super Senshi still have the same color skirts, etc.)

T–Z

• Talking Is a Free Action: Sailor Moon and other cast members frequently make long speeches upon their appearance into combat. They will never be interrupted... unless the episode is making fun of them for it.
• Team Spirit: More than few lessons revolve around the value of the group working as a team. There's also a number of times the team's union can power up Sailor Moon into another form or give her a new power.
• Tentacle Rope: Happens a lot.
• Theme Naming: Several places, including most villains being named after gems; creator Naoko Takeuchi's hometown Kofu, Yamanashi is famous for its gem industry. Also, the Inner Senshi's surnames relate to their planets and/or powers:
  • Tsukino (Usagi) = Moon. "Tsukino Usagi" is a homophone for "Rabbit of the Moon" in Japanese. (While the "no" character used in the Guardians' names means "field," it sounds the same as a particle meaning "of.") The "rabbit" refers to a Japanese folktale which states that a rabbit lives on the moon pounding mochi, similar to the Western concept of the Man in the Moon.
    • Chibi-Usa's full birth name is "Princess Usagi Small Lady Serenity," and she adopts "Tsukino Usagi" for use in the present day, making her theme naming the same as her mother's.
  • Mizuno (Ami) = Water / Mercury (Suisei, meaning "water star"). Her name is sometimes (mis)translated as meaning "friend of water" via Gratuitous French, since "ami" is French for "friend".
  • Hino (Rei) = Fire / Mars (Kasei, "fire star"). Her full name is a Japanese homophone for spirit of fire, similar to one of her attacks.
  • Kino (Makoto) = Trees / Jupiter (Mokusei, "wood star"). In addition to her lightning and thunder powers drawn from the Roman god Jupiter's dominion over storms and thunderbolts, Sailor Jupiter also has powers related to plants and trees in reference both to the Japanese name of the planet and how the oak was considered sacred to Jupiter. Her full name sounds the same as the Japanese phrase "sincerity of wood."
  • Aino (Minako) = Love / Venus (Kinsei, "gold star"). The "ai" in "Aino" means love, drawing on the classical depiction of Venus as the goddess of love. Additionally, the characters which make up her given name "Minako" have an Alternate Character Reading of "binasu," which sounds the same as a Japanese-speaker's approximation of the word "Venus."
  • Chiba (Mamoru) = Earth. The "chi" in "Chiba" is the same as the first part of the Japanese word for the planet Earth and means "ground" or "earth" (as in soil).
  • The Outer Senshi (minus one) also have names relating to their roles as Sailors:
    • Ten'ou (Haruka) means "Sky King" a reference Uranus, the ancient Greek sky deity and planet (Ten'ousei, "sky king star"). "Haruka" means "distant".
    • Kaiou (Michiru) means "Sea King" a reference to Neptune or Poseidon, the Greco-Roman sea god and planet (Kaiousei, "sea king star"). "Michiru" means "fill" or "overflow", perhaps relating to her water-based powers.
    • Meiou (Setsuna) means "Dark King" and refers to the god Pluto, and by extension, the (former) planet Pluto (Meiousei, "dark king star"). "Setsuna" means moment, which fits her time-related powers.
    • Tomoe (Hotaru) is the Odd Name Out, "Tomoe" being a comma-shaped motif popular in traditional emblems. Of course, The Reveal would lose some of its impact if the Mad Scientist's Sickly Daughter was blatantly named after the one planet that had yet to be represented. "Hotaru" means firefly, which perhaps hints at her true nature. However, her last name does use the same kanji (土) as the Japanese name for Saturn (Dosei, "soil/earth star") — it just uses a different reading.
• Theme Table
• This Is Unforgivable!: Sailor Moon's improvised speech before the standard In the Name of the Moon always ends in "yurusenai", which means pretty much this.
• Tokyo Is the Center of the Universe: Particularly glaring in the first season: it never occurs to the bad guys to collect human energy somewhere they won't be defeated by teenage girls in mini-skirts. Not so glaring in other seasons, where the bad guys were either based in Tokyo from the start, or were exclusively searching for something they knew to be in the area. (On the other hand, one main issue in the manga was that all the active Sailor Guardians were drawn to town by the Dark Kingdom. No matter where they go, the Senshi would have been compelled to go there. Also, Sailor V fought bad guys in Greece and China in the manga, and England in the anime.)
  • Justified, in the manga, the Dark Kingdom says that they have looked all over the world for the Silver Crystal except in Japan.
  • Not to mention that this trope, in-universe, will indeed be taken to word, with the rise of Crystal Tokyo in the future.
• Transformation Sequence: The Trope Codifier for the Magical Girl transformation scenes.
• Trope Codifier: While Magical Girl and even Magical Girl Warrior series existed before Sailor Moon (such as Cutey Honey and Devil Hunter Yohko), Sailor Moon was what codified them into a genre, and many of the genre's defining tropes were codified here as well, such as the magical girl Transformation Sequence and idea of combining them with Sentai series.
• Unsuspectingly Soused: This happens to Usagi twice in the anime, in both cases because she mistakes alcohol for juice:
  • In the first season in an episode based directly on a manga chapter, she winds up Kissing Under the Influence (bad Mamoru!).
  • In the third season, she goes completely la-la at an upscale party for promising international students, and begins speaking gibberish in both Japanese and English. The American guests find her, and her "unique and refreshing" take on the intellectual subject matter they were discussing, delightful.
  Usagi: (butting into a discussion on the theory of relativity) The pudding of relativity? Let's see... Well, in other words, you take milk, eggs and sugar, and stir it all up. Then you put a lid on it, and for about 30 minutes, you steam it... Oh! And if you forget the whipped cream, you're no good as a woman. Yeah.
  • What's even more hilarious about these incidents is that Usagi normally takes no more than a couple of sips of the drink in question. Either that's some strong wine they're having or she's an utter lightweight.
• Villain Teleportation: Present, but Subverted with Eudial and Mimette, from the Witches 5 (in the 90s anime), as they would leave Dr. Tomoe's lab using a car and walking, respectively, and reappearing above ground in illogical locations such as a pond or the middle of a furniture store.
• Visible Sigh: Luna especially is fond of doing this when Serena/Usagi has a facepalmworthy moment.
• We Are "Team Cannon Fodder": In the fourth season, this happens to any sailor senshi who doesn't have 'Moon' in their name. Even after they receive their 'super' upgrade from Pegasus, they spend most of their time standing/running around, performing ineffectual attacks, and saying "Sailor Moon!" And when they do actually do something, they do one attack to stun the enemy, then Sailor Moon finishes them off.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Haruka and Michiru think Usagi was too soft on Hotaru toward the end of the third season to effectively rule them in the future. And practically force her to prove her qualifications by kicking their asses. Which she does easily.
  • Before that, Haruka and Michiru get angry when Sailor Moon willingly gives the Holy Grail to Mistress 9, who then used it to summon Pharaoh 90, practically dooming the world. Sailor Moon suffers a Heroic BSoD as a result of this.
  Sailor Uranus: Are you happy now, Sailor Moon!? Are you satisfied with this!? ....... ANSWER ME!!!!
  • In the manga, it was Sailor Moon's turn to chew them out for one count of attempted murder (in connection to their being a Leeroy Jenkins and trying to kill Hotaru).
• Winged Humanoid: A few monsters of the day, plus Eternal Sailor Moon, the Starlights, Kakyuu, and Chibi-Chibi in the manga.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Hotaru/Sailor Saturn in the Death Busters arc, by way of Demonic Possession and destiny.
• The World Is Always Doomed: In the manga, we know for certain that The Evil Behind All Evils is not destroyed and one day will return with unimaginable power (although there is still hope, thanks to modern-day Usagi). The anime has a more upbeat ending, but the final Big Bad will exist As Long as There Is Evil, so there is always risk of the old nightmare starting anew.
• World of Technicolor Hair: Of the main cast alone, Ami/Sailor Mercury has blue hair, Setsuna/Sailor Pluto and Michiru/Sailor Neptune both have green hair, and Chibi-Usa/Sailor Chibi Moon has bright pink hair that she didn't inherit from either of her parents. Usagi/Sailor Moon and Minako/Sailor Venus are both blondes, which is still rather unusual considering how they're both supposed to be fully Japanese. The villains, who are typically from space, have hair in all kinds of colors.
• Xenafication: Considering that it's the Trope Codifier for Magical Girl Warrior, Sailor Moon essentially did this to the entire Magical Girl genre. Beforehand, magical girls typically weren't fighters and would simply use their magic to solve everyday problems, but these magical girls regularly fight extraplanetary threats.
• You Have Failed Me: This happens rather frequently in both versions.
  • In the anime, Queen Beryl offed Jadeite and Zoisite herself for repeated failures and insubordination. Sailor Galaxia killed three of her the four Sailor Anima-mates for this (one of them died on her own). Zirconia dispatched the Amazoness Quartet to remove the Amazon Trio for their failures. Several villains were killed by other villains, but this was usually not for failure or to make a point, but done out of spite, revenge, or power plays.
  • In the manga, only Sailor Tin Nyanko was explicitly killed by her boss for failing in her duty. Most of the manga' villains actually die at the hands of the Sailor Senshi, but Jadeite was very close to being disposed by Queen Beryl had he survived his third failure.

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