Sailor Moon: 10 Things That Only Happened In The ‘90s Anime

When the Sailor Moon manga was adapted for animation in the 1990s, the manga was also still ongoing. As a result, not everything in the anime was exactly the same as the manga. There are quite a few “filler” episodes to allow the anime creative team to keep working while the storyline of the manga caught up to the storyline of the show.

In some cases, that meant one-off episodes spotlighting characters that didn’t get as much storytime on the page. There were other cases, however, where that meant whole arcs were unique to the anime. In either case, there are a lot of things Sailor Moon fans might remember about the franchise that actually only happened in the anime.

10 Rei Dated Mamoru

In the manga, it was clear from the beginning, despite their awkward first meeting, that Usagi and Mamoru were meant to be. The anime didn’t entirely make that clear from the get-go.

Instead, Usagi wasn’t the only one interested in him. The introduction of Rei as Sailor Mars also created something of an attempted love triangle. With Rei interested in him, she pursued him, and even went out on dates with him. Mamoru, for his part, thought they were just friends hanging out and didn’t realize Rei was even attempting to date him.

9 Chibiusa Met A Dinosaur

One filler episode of the anime featured Chibiusa on a trip to the beach. Much of the episode followed her adventure alone instead of focusing on her interactions with other characters.

While off by herself, she encountered the show’s answer to the Loch Ness monster – a long-necked dinosaur in the water off the coast of Japan. Of course, the creature Chibiusa encountered and made friends with was still relatively small. Dinosaurs didn’t make an appearance in the manga, the live-action series, or the stage musicals.

8 Mamoru Became The Moonlight Knight

Throughout the franchise, Mamoru Chiba had his own secret identity in addition to his past life as Prince Endymion. He was Tuxedo Mask, lending a hand to the Sailor Senshi whenever they needed it. In the anime, however, he got yet another secret identity – so secret, he didn’t even know about it. 

During the “Doom Tree” arc, Mamoru didn’t have his memory of the Sailor Senshi or his experiences with them. His subconscious memories of Sailor Moon and his love for her, however, created the Moonlight Knight persona, which popped up at fights and mysteriously vanished until the truth was revealed and he regained his memories. 

7 Zoisite And Kunzite Were Romantic

In the manga, there was a whole backstory for Queen Beryl’s generals as Mamoru’s generals in his former life. They were each in love with members of the Sailor Senshi, but that backstory didn’t get included much in the original manga, or at all in the ‘90s anime.

One change made to the generals in the ‘90s anime was that Zoisite and Kunzite weren’t simply working together to help Queen Beryl. They were also in love with one another. Of course, censoring in the English dub of the anime turned one of the men into a woman, making the ‘90s anime unique in both respects.

6 Chibi Chibi’s Origin Story

During the “Sailor Stars” arc of the anime, Chibi Chibi suddenly showed up out of the blue. Usagi didn’t initially know who this little girl (who looked remarkably like herself and Chibiusa) was. Eventually, the anime revealed that she was the sentient form of Sailor Galaxia’s star seed, which Galaxia had removed from herself.

The idea of the star seed of a Sailor Senshi being sentient was never explored in the manga. In fact, in the manga, Chibi Chibi was actually a different form taken on by Sailor Cosmos, a character from a distant future.

5 Sailor Galaxia Was Originally A Hero

Also only appearing in the anime was Sailor Galaxia’s backstory as the one Sailor Senshi to defeat Chaos. She did so by casting out her own star seed and taking the Chaos entity into herself, sealing it there so it didn’t do any more damage.

The result, of course, was that Chaos corrupted Galaxia and made her perform evil acts. It gave the character new layers, but it eliminated her dark manga backstory as a power-hungry Senshi who conquered planets all on her own.

4 The Golden Crystal In Helios’ Horn

Helios, the prince who aided Chibiusa in the form of Pegasus, had a curious feature. He had what resembled a unicorn horn on his head. As it turned out, his golden horn was the very place where the Golden Crystal, the item the Dead Moon Circus was searching for, was hidden.

Sailor Chibi Moon was able to use the Golden Crystal because of her connection to Helios, but it made for a big departure from the manga. There, the Golden Crystal was actually inside Mamoru because it’s what gave him his own magical ability to become Tuxedo Mask. The change might have been made to make it clear that Mamoru wasn’t quite as “magical” as the Sailor Senshi in the ‘90s version of the anime.

3 Minako Became More Flighty

While many of the Sailor Senshi benefited from their own standalone episodes as they discovered new abilities and their personality was fleshed out, Minako got the short end of the stick. Despite being a capable vigilante in her own right and the original team leader, the show had the unfortunate effect of “dumbing her down.”

The longer the anime ran, the more flighty Minako became. Her marks dropped in school, she began paying less attention to the fight at hand, and she became a bit more shallow. By making her less focused, the writers drastically changed her. Sailor Venus was always one of the best strategists of the group, so the ‘90s anime’s take on her is an odd one.

2 Ail And An Came To Earth

The same “Doom Tree” arc that gave the audience the Moonlight Knight also gave us Ail, An, and their Cardians. The two aliens with an affinity for a very large tree that fed on emotions never appeared in the manga.

The two used tarot-like cards to produce their own monsters, believing that they had to feed the tree with fear. By the end of the arc, the two were proven wrong, and the tree, of course, needed love to survive instead. The 13 episode arc was one of the shortest for the anime, and it still divides fans. Purists don’t like the filler, but some anime fans enjoy the aspects of the Sailor Senshi’s personality it delved into.

1 Rei Had An Explosive Personality

Like Minako, Rei changed drastically in the ‘90s anime. She was the one character most likely to fly off the handle when she didn’t get her way. That wasn’t how the character was envisioned at all.

Instead, Rei was originally calm, collected, and very in tune with her psychic abilities. While she didn’t always agree with Sailor Moon and Sailor Venus, Sailor Mars wasn’t someone who tried to usurp their authority or goad them into a fight in the manga. The Sailor Moon Crystal version of the character made her much more like her manga counterpart, but ‘90s anime fans knew her as a completely different person.

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