Sailor Moon

Lore & Background

In *Sailor Moon Eternal*, Usagi Tsukino and Chibiusa receive a vision from a pegasus named Helios asking for their help, and Mamoru Chiba gets a stabbing feeling in his chest. The Dead Moon Circus arrives on a flagship and its members conjure a dark barrier around the area where the circus tent is. That night, Chibiusa dreams of riding Pegasus, who tells her that he needs the Golden Crystal to save his home realm of Elysion. When Chibiusa tries returning to the 30th century with Diana, the dark barrier stops her and prompts the Amazoness Quartet to send a tiger to investigate. Usagi and Chibiusa's brooches are upgraded, allowing them to transform into Super Sailors Moon and Chibi Moon. The Amazoness send some Lemures to fight the Super Sailor Guardians, but they quickly destroy them. The circus' ringleader Zirconia is instructed by her master, Queen Nehelenia, to let the Super Sailor Guardians' nightmares take hold of them so she can obtain the Silver Crystal.

In Their Own Story

In *Sailor Moon Eternal*, six months after the Mugen Academy incident, Usagi Tsukino and Chibiusa receive a vision from a pegasus named Helios asking for their help, and Mamoru Chiba gets a stabbing feeling in his chest. The Dead Moon Circus arrives on a flagship and its members conjure a dark barrier around the area where the circus tent is. That night, Chibiusa dreams of riding Pegasus, who tells her that he needs the Golden Crystal to save his home realm of Elysion. When Chibiusa tries returning to the 30th century with Diana, the dark barrier stops her and prompts the Amazoness Quartet to send a tiger to investigate. Usagi and Chibiusa's brooches are upgraded, allowing them to transform into Super Sailors Moon and Chibi Moon. The Amazoness send some Lemures to fight the Super Sailor Guardians, but they quickly destroy them. The circus' ringleader Zirconia is instructed by her master, Queen Nehelenia, to let the Super Sailor Guardians' nightmares take hold of them so she can obtain the Silver Crystal. PallaPalla sends the Amazon Trio members Fish Eye, Tiger's Eye, and Hawk's Eye to trap Ami Mizuno, Rei Hino, and Makoto Kino in their respective nightmares, one Guardian at a time. However, the girls break free of them and transform with their respective Sailor Crystals into their Super forms, enabling them to destroy the Amazon Trio. Helios reveals that Mamoru's incessant chest pain are caused by Nehelenia's curse on Elysion, a sacred place within Earth, which also caused Helios to turn into a pegasus, imprisoning him in a cage from which he is astral projecting. Sailor Moon promises to heal Mamoru and hugs him, but is given the same curse as Mamoru. Minako Aino is unable to transform, and the Amazoness VesVes sends two knife-throwing twins, Xenotime and Zeolite, after her. In the ensuing conflict, VesVes sends Minako falling to her death, but Artemis intervenes and gives Minako her crystal, enabling her to transform into Super Sailor Venus and destroy Xenotime and Zeolite. PallaPalla then traps the four Sailor Guardians in vines. Usagi then falls ill from a black rose inside her, and Zirconia brings darkness to Earth with the nightmare energy she has accumulated.

Reader's Guide

In *Sailor Moon Eternal*, Usagi Tsukino starts as a teenage girl who transforms into Sailor Moon. Her powers center on the Silver Crystal, allowing her to manipulate light, heal wounds, and unleash devastating energy blasts like Moon Healing Escalation. As she progresses, she gains abilities to control time, purify evil instantly, and fly without restriction. Defining moments include her transformation into Super Sailor Moon after her brooch is upgraded, her promise to heal Mamoru, and her ultimate ascension as Eternal Sailor Moon who destroys Nehelenia and her mirror and restores Earth and Elysion to normal. In the film, Usagi and Mamoru are teleported to Elysion by Helios to save their lives with what little purification power it has left. Helios explains that the Golden Kingdom used to exist in Elysion, and the Golden Crystal is Earth and Elysion's counterpart to the Silver Millennium's Silver Crystal. Usagi then realizes the Golden Crystal is inside Mamoru, just as the Silver Crystal was sealed inside her. After Helios sends Usagi and Mamoru back to the surface, Zirconia incapacitates them with a fog around Jūban. In a dying act, Helios sends Elysion's purifying crystals to Earth, blocking Zirconia's fog, and heals the group. Zirconia attacks Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask, and spreads nightmares, but Tuxedo Mask breaks himself and others free from the nightmares, and the Sailor Guardians use their combined powers to blast and weaken Zirconia who flees into Nehelenia's mirror. Sailor Moon follows her inside and frees Sailors Chibi Moon and Saturn, with the latter taking the four orbs containing the Amazoness Quartet with her. The others break the mirror and free them all, but Nehelenia disappears and Zirconia remains inside the mirror. The Dead Moon Circus disappears, but the darkness remains throughout the city. The Sailor Guardians and Tuxedo Mask teleport to Elysion, where Nehelenia appears inside her mirror and deflects Super Sailor Moon's attack, sending everyone into a flashback of Nehelenia's past: Nehelenia had arrived uninvited at the party celebrating Princess Serenity's birth. After their exchange was escalated, Nehelenia was permanently sealed inside her mirror by Queen Serenity, but not before cursing the princess and the Silver Millennium to their downfall. Nehelenia takes the Silver Crystal from Super Sailor Moon, but before she can kill the Super Sailor Guardians and take over Earth, Usagi and Tuxedo Mask kiss, breaking free of Nehelenia's nightmare and getting the Silver Crystal back. Super Sailor Moon transforms the other Sailor Guardians into their princess forms and summons Luna, Artemis, and Diana in human form. The other Sailor Guardians, after gaining new Eternal forms, and Tuxedo Mask, using his Golden Crystal, transform Sailor Moon into Eternal Sailor Moon, who destroys Nehelenia and her mirror and restores Earth and Elysion to normal.

Did You Know?

• Sailor Moon Eternal is the first film in the franchise to screen in Japanese theaters in 26 years, the last one having been Sailor Moon SuperS: The Movie, released in 1995.
• The two-part film was co-produced by Toei Animation and Studio Deen, and distributed by Toei Company.
• Kazuko Tadano, who handled character designs for the first two seasons of the 1990s Sailor Moon anime series and Sailor Moon R: The Movie, was chosen as character designer for the film.
• The film's original name was Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Crystal The Movie -Dead Moon arc- before being decided as Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal The Movie.
• Yoshitsugu Matsuoka voiced Pegasus/Helios in the film, as announced in April 2020.