Do you think Stars could have saved Sailor Moon?

After SuperS, the rating went down a lot, and Naoko was also out of her ideas.

But even though it might not be able to continue the series, it still could have given the show a very good ending.

The beginning was fine, very intensive. But the later episodes went back to the old MotW way again without much real change from S/SuperS. I also think too much focus was on the Starlights.

The ending was the worst part like I've said before.

Compare to SuperS which have a clear theme but wasn't liked by the audience and had very slow mainplot progression, Stars didn't have a clear new theme other than the romance of Seiya/Usagi. The later part felt very rushed and didn't communicate well with Naoko.

All “Sailor Moon” seasons followed the “MOTD” format—and Stars was no exception.

If Stars had aired after S, I believe the franchise would have originated more seasons because Stars brings back the outer senshi, we get to see the birth of Sailor Saturn, and it is a mysterious season (e.g. what happened to Mamoru?)

The focus on the Starlights was necessary because Naoko was still writing the manga and all she gave TOEI was a basic outline of the story she was writing (the anime ended before Naoko’s manga did).

I love Stars, but agree with some critics that Stars is a rehash of S. In any event, I believe that a rehash of S would be better than SuperS because SuperS wasn’t an appropriate sequel to S.

I'm ok with MotD, I just think the way has been the same: victim of the week. It could use some new methods.

I think Stars>SuperS overall other than the ending was way too awful.

it would have been nice if they did something different, but I don't mind MOTD format what I did mind in terms of the weekly badies were the fact that most of them were silly I wanted to see more serious fights or something closer to but not a copy of Inners Vs Ayakashi Sisters epic battle from R but with the Animamates for example

I don’t get why people didn’t like the ending—I did.

I think the premise of the ending of Stars is similar to that of the manga: Galaxia kills everyone and chaos returns to wherever it came from—because it cannot be defeated.

We didn’t get Sailor Cosmos because Naoko possibly had not fully created the character yet, but the outline of her ending was there.

Again, I respect everyone’s opinion; I dislike SuperS, many people like it, so...

Sailor Cosmos was scheduled for the 90s anime.
She was supposed to already appear in 191, when Chibi Chibi collected the incense burner from Princess Kakyu.
We learn this in the production notes of Sailor Stars (Blu-Ray booklet).

That would have been cool, but I sincerely was satisfied with the ending as it was. I feel that the ending was essentially the same as that of the manga: chaos continues existing, but so does the light of hope—the metaphor is the same.

Personal preference.

After that I think the Sailor Cosmos version anime was going to differ from the manga.

Even though in 186 it is said that Chibi Chibi shares the same aura as Usagi.

The finale with the shadow of Sailor Cosmos (light of hope), it merges with Sailor Moon, and therefore by default Sailor Moon becomes the new "light of hope" and therefore has in she, a part of Sailor Cosmos at the end.

For me, the Star Seed of Galaxia is unique, it harbors within it, the light of hope, the balance of the cosmos.

Chaos can be defeated, they just didn't choose to. The anime never showed much about balance between light and darkness, so it wouldn't work.

10 Senshi VS Galaixa should have been the finale.

Chaos cannot be defeated in either the manga or the anime.

In the manga, Sailor Moon temporarily neutralizes him but he will return in the future (Sailor Chaos).

In the anime, whether with the strength of Sailor Moon and Galaxia, he hasn't been defeated so far, he's returned to where he belongs (on his planet) and so free will is in place.

My only real issue with Stars, was how much the nerf bat smacked the crap out of everyone, compared to the Manga. Admittingly, it made the ending seem not as big a deal, at least in my opinion. Far more dramatic in the manga.
But hey, the fact Mamoru was dead for all but a few episodes, is bonus points lol.

I've made my feelings about what I dislike most about Stars clear. I still think opening up the "Sailor Guardian" eligibility to every planet in the cosmos was a big mistake.

Indeed, one of my biggest pet peeves of the anime is why after Sailor Moon R did it abandon the idea of targeting crowds in a scheme (edit: I kinda forgot about the latter three Witches 5 in S...so, 3 out of 40 episodes in S were minions targeting crowds). What made Classic work is that there was a mixture of aims of each mini-boss. R has a similar strength. However, from S onward, there was the idea of targeting one person instead of multiple people at once. Worse yet, instead of reusing the vast cast that was present for the first two seasons, most of the victims were one-shot random people one never saw again.

It's really egregious in Stars because the show reverts the whole Rainbow Crystal arc formula in turning the victim of the day into the monster of the day. I personally like this trope, but how it is implemented makes no sense. There's no clear reason why the extraction of "fake" star seed turns a person into a Phage, and unlike other previous arcs, Phages aren't shown to be Galaxia's minions in the same was as Youma, Lemures, etc. were clearly underlings,

What does Sailor Galaxia do? She visits a planet, defeats its Sailor Guardian, takes their Sailor Crystal, and occasionally recruits a new henchwoman.

So what would have been cool instead of cheesy Phages of the Week? If Galaxia had approached people in the Sailor Team's lives - people like Naru, Unazuki, etc - and manipulated them into becoming Sailor Animamates. That would have raised the stakes and done the "Sailor Moon has to battle her brainwashed friends" trope in a different way. (Also: obvious opportunity for fan service is obvious.) Like, Naru could have been turned into Sailor Copper Macaw or whatever, and we could have seen this evil Naru working with the regular Animamates from the manga to terrorize the people of Earth and lure the Sailors into traps to destroy them. That could have been so interesting!

Alternatively, the season could have / should have focused on Mnemosyne and Lethe instead of the Starlights. (My bias may be showing.) Like, they have powers over memory, right? So Galaxia attacks their home world and they use their powers to (at least temporarily) wipe Galaxia's memory and escape to Earth. There, still traumatized, they constantly wipe/interefere with the memories of every human they encounter, unintentionally resulting in the formation of tulpas / thought monsters. The Sailor Team has to defeat these Monsters-of-the-Day while also trying to figure out who/what's responsible until finally, halfway through the season, they meet Mnemosyne and Lethe. At this point, the group splits in two: the Inners, Outers, and M&L go off into space to find Galaxia, allowing for some fun interstellar adventures, while Chibi Moon, maybe Saturn?, maybe Tuxedo Mask and the cats?, the Sailor Quartet (who have appeared/returned), and the Ayakashi Sisters (who have also returned) stay on Earth to defend the planet in case Galaxia and/or her minions arrive, which also allow for the episodes to go back and forth between the two groups. Eventually the season culminates in a giant battle against Galaxia and Chaos at the center of the galaxy.

The cats didn’t die and that’s all I care about.

Maybe they are dead. In any case, all the inhabitants of the Earth died in 197 (even if we only see Tokyo).

Cats are shown alive and happy in the last episode—that is all I care about.

Logical, since everyone is coming back to life. If the cats are killed in the 197, they come back to life in the 200.

Yes, this is a big reason why I’m not a big fan of the final 3 series

Classic changed its formula from Targeting crowds for energy >targeting specific people>targeting specific people but also turning them into a monster> using attractions to lure out Sailor Moon and also the person in charge is a monster


R was pretty much just the same “targeting crowds” the whole way through but it still offered variance. S- Sailor Stars was the same ol “victim of the day” formula. Sailor Stars recycling the old “turn a human into a monster” formula from the second half of Classic doesn’t make it unique but just show how tired things were at this point.

Basically almost every episode of the final 3 seasons is the Nephrite and Rainbow Crystal arcs all over again.


ETA: Also yes, I’m not a fan of the Sailor Soldiers are female magical girl answer to the Green Lantern Corps