List of Sailor Moon Sailor Stars Episodes - Overview

Overview

This season takes as its basis the fifth story arc (Stars) of the manga by Naoko Takeuchi. Given the existing popularity of the series, Toei Animation started adapting Stars into an anime even before Takeuchi had finished the manga. The anime follows the same themes and depicts many of the same characters and events as the manga, but with fewer new characters and some significant divergences, especially towards the end.

Sailor Stars is divided into two arcs. The first arc is relatively short with six episodes that re-introduce the previous season's villain, Queen Nehellenia, as well as the four Outer Senshi, who meet her for the first time (they did not appear during the fourth season). Sailor Pluto's arrival together with Sailor Saturn meant that a new and more powerful enemy is approaching the Solar System who has distorted the timeline already as Sailor Pluto explained to the inner senshi group. These episodes originated as filler to allow Takeuchi time to begin her new story-arc; afterward the season follows the manga. The second arc is relatively long, and is the basis of the Sailor Stars theme which focusses mainly on this new unknown enemy's eventual arrival on Earth. Its plot branches out to introduce new characters and even new Sailor Senshi from other planets, including the Sailor Starlights, Princess Kakyuu, and ChibiChibi. As in the manga, Chibiusa returns to her own time after the final battle with Nehellenia, but is not a participant in the climatic events of this story arc. The sailor senshi discover that the other sailors - the Sailor Starlights, are actually running away from another threat and they are very dedicated to finding their princess of their own Solar System, which was taken over by this main threat. The sailor starlights believe that their princess is actually "The Light of Hope" who can save them from running away and fight back against this new enemy - hence their search for their princess takes them to search through the people on planet Earth, the last realm untouched by the enemy. The main threat turns out to be Sailor Galaxia, queen of an organization called Shadow Galactica and a powerful former sailor senshi - the most powerful sailor senshi of the whole galaxy. Sailor Galaxia is forced to rule the galaxy by her own evil within herself. By collecting "true star seeds" (the equivalent of the manga's Sailor Crystals) from Sailor Senshi's throughout the galaxy, her powers increases. However, Sailor Galaxia knows within herself the fate which awaits her upon meeting the receiver of the Light Of Hope, the light ray which she sent before she became corrupted by Chaos, and so secretly seeks her to rid of her evil within herself.

Of the five story arcs, Sailor Stars is the only one featuring recurring villains of only one gender; all female, because they are all parody-Senshi.

Takeuchi, however, expressed disappointment with some of the changes made in the adaptation from the manga, stating that many of things she had wanted to see included in the anime did not appear, including the Senshi's final uniforms and characters such as Sailors Kakyuu, Cosmos, Lethe, and Mnemosyne. She also expressed surprise when she learned that the Sailor Starlights, whom she regarded as minor supporting characters, played leading roles in the anime. In particular, she was strongly displeased that the Starlights physically changed gender, from man to woman when they transformed, feeling that it undermined her rule that only girls could be Senshi.

Broadcasts have also taken place in several non-Anglophone Western markets, including parts of Latin America and Europe. Tokyopop has translated the corresponding manga volumes into English. According to Anime Insider magazine, this season was never dubbed into English due to licensing issues in the U.S.

Sailor Stars uses three pieces of theme music:

1. "Sailor Star Song", written by Naoko Takeuchi and performed by Kae Hanazawa, plays as the series opening theme.
2. Though Stars does not use "Moonlight Densetsu" for the series opening (as do all the other Sailor Moon series), the song is later used for the ending theme of the final episode.
3. The rest of the series uses the song "Kaze mo Sora mo Kitto...", performed by Arisa Mizuki, for its endings.