Hello, I am Imperator100. Without meaning to be too boastful, I consider myself one of the leading experts in Sailor Moon in the context of versus debating and I see a lot of misconceptions, wanking the verse, downplaying the verse or some other form, towards the Sailor Moon verse in versus debating. As such I thought I would clear up some misconceptions towards my favorite series.
I apologize if somethings are phrased strangely, this is not my first language.
1: Canon
Sailor Moon the series has a very simple canon, while the franchise has a somewhat complex canon.
If you just want the canon Sailor Moon series it's pretty simple. It's basically just what was direction written by Naoko Takeuchi. This is the 60 chapters of the manga (52 originally but revised and expanded) as well as some short stories. The only contentious point is the Lover of Princess Kaguya a short story that kinda doesn't fit into the timeline. I still content that it is canon as Naoko Takeuchi still wrote and didn't give any indication it was meant to be non-canon like she did right up front with Parallel Sailor Moon another side story she did but immediately indicates it doesn't take place in the same universe.
The bigger franchise is a bit weirder. There's a lot of cases of one-way canon, ie where A is canon to B but B is not canon to A. The 90s Anime is a single canon separate from the manga. The 90s anime is canon to the 3 movies, and the first 2 are canon to 90s anime but the third movie is difficult to place timeline wise and so is arguable (think DBZ movies pre-battle of the gods and you'll get the idea). The first 3 arcs of both the manga and the 90s anime are canon to the video game Another Story where due to time warping actions of the villain Apsu the events of both are twisted into one timeline. The Stage Musicals are a set of different timelines called stages, and the first season of the 90s anime is canon to the first Stage. The events of the first musical of the first stage reference the first season of the anime and take place right after the first season (Nephrite mentions his love affair with Naru, the death of Beryl and the Shitennou is mentioned after they are reborn through the power of hatred). The Live-Action series PGSM and the latest anime Sailor Moon Crystal are both their own canon. Unlike a series like Saint Seiya or CLAMP, these are not confirmed part of any larger multiverse, though I personally wish they were.
Neither PGSM or Sailor Moon Crystal are canon despite some contention. PGSM is a highly expanded form of the first arc based on Naoko's ideas. That said it still was not written by her. Likewise Sailor Moon Crystal is also not canon despite being much closer to Naoko's manga as it was not written by her and diverges from the manga, most notably in having the Shitennou survive longer then they did in the manga. Some people have also stated that Movie 2 is canon because Naoko wrote it however this is inaccurate. While she was more heavily involved in it's creation as it was adapting her most-liked short story Lover of Princess Kaguya, the actual screenplay was by Sukehito Tomita and Naoko has not indicated it being canon.
2: Sailor Moon has multiple timelines
While this has not been directly disproven, it is fan conjecture. Sailor Moon time travel, I must confess, doesn't make a lot of sense to me that said it is fairly consistent that the timeline is a singular entity that is affected from the past. Sailor Galaxia's actions in the present affect the future distorting history (Act 53). The Senshi of the future are seen in the second arc and it includes only the 4 guardian senshi in their base forms (Act 26). Despite this they attain super and later eternal states. Likewise when Mamoru is thrown into the Galaxy Cauldron by Sailor Galaxia, his daughter Chibiusa fades from existence (Act 59 1 2)
There is a parallel universe shown in the aforementioned Parallel Sailor Moon. Note how this is clearly a different universe by the fact that Chibiusa had already grown way past the age Crystal Tokyo was established and Usagi had become Neo-Queen Serenity (Parallel Sailor Moon 1 2 3). Likewise Nehelenia's universe is called a dark parallel universe (Act 39). That said while these are alternate universes, there is no confirmation of connected timelines within SM outside of conjecture.
3: Sailor Moon is only planet/galaxy level
Whenever I say SM is universal someone seems to randomly assume it's because the Silver Crystal's power is called infinite a lot in the manga. It is but that's certainly not why I do.
The biggest things to me are that Chaos claimed with the Silver Crystal it could create a universe (Act 57), the Lambda Power's ability to restore the static "Cosmos" (Act 60) and near the beginning the Silver Crystal's ability to create the universe is foreshadowed as early as act 3 where it called the source of all energy (Act 3). I've heard a bizarre argument that it being all energy in the universe is not stated so it's not all energy in the universe. This is a bizarre argument to me as no limit is given, it is merely the source of all energy, and how immediately after it is stated to give dominion over the entire universe. Also Chaos say he's going to create a universe with it. It's almost...like it's consistent or something. This made the Top Tiers Universal.
Some people claimed to me to that Nehelenia had a universal feat of maintaining her own universe, because when she was killed, her dark parallel universe ended (Act 49) and this universe was at least large enough to contain constellations (Materials Book). I was reluctant at first. I considered it similar to Aries Mu's feat from Saint Seiya of destroying the universe of Iapetus containing many stars and thus just a multi-stellar feat. That said people seem now insistent that both this feat and that feat of being universal feats so I guess it's ok though I still am not 100% sure of using it.
If that's the case then pretty much everyone in the fifth arc scales easily, because Usagi was tanking the power of civilian Galaxia greater then any previous opponent while in her civilian form (Act 55), Tin Nyanko's attack was enough to harm Eternal Sailor Moon (Act 54) and Eternal Sailor Mars attack briefly stalemates similar Animamate Sailor Lead Crow's attack (Act 53). Also the Eternal Senshi under Galaxia's control harm Eternal Sailor Moon before calling down more power from Galaxia (Act 58).
There are some other more minor supporting things but these are the main things.
4: Sailor Moon is Multiversal
Some people seem to think I claim this? I have never claimed this. I would argue this if it was brought up around me. Some of the characters arguably have inter-universal range (like Nehelenia affecting the main universe from the mirror universe) but that is not at all the same thing.
There are some alternate universes in Sailor Moon but I know of nothing saying that the Lambda Power restored them as well as the main universe or that the universe that would be created by the Silver Crystal would include these alternate universes. The Lambda Power, ultimate power of the Sailor Moon-verse is described as restoring the static cosmos, and cosmos literally means universe. While you could argue this is not a limit because universe does not strictly have a limit (Universe denotes all that is, the idea of multiverse is multiple observable universes), I don't see why people are assuming the lambda would affect these.
This is especially true with the corridor of spacetime. The corridor of spacetime is not a universal area and restoring does not make the lambda multiversal. The corridor of spacetime is an area outside of spacetime without concepts of distance and direction (Act 23). Wiseman at the end of time says that Chibiusa crossed the corridor to get to him by the strength of her wishes (Act 21) showing that to some degree crossing it is no longer decided by physical body but by the mind. Unless we want to say that PRE-AWAKENING Chibiusa is quadrillions of times the speed of light, saying that the spacetime corridor is universe sized doesn't make sense.
5: Pre-Stars Sailor Moon is only City Level at max
This comes from the fact that Galaxia's energy who was in a league beyond all enemies seen before was only destroying a city. Pretty simple to debunk, the range of an attack is not equal to it's power. This is true in all verses. What, is Nemesis a giant balloon? (Act 26)
6: Sailor Moon is infinite in speed
Moving in zero time is not infinite speed. Speed is change in space divided by change in time. Saying that moving in zero time is infinite speed is backdoor way of trying to get 0 in the denominator and you can't divide by 0. No the answer to x/0 is NOT infinity. Infinity does not satisfy that equation. Nothing satisfies the equation x/0 unless x is equal to 0 in which case literally any number satisfies the equation.
Infinite speed is certainly possible in fiction if the character's speed is explicitly stated to be infinite, or they move an infinite distance in finite time. But moving in zero time does not get infinite speed, and there's certainly nothing higher physically speaking. There is no feat in canon Sailor Moon that is either of the above nor is there I think in non-canon SM though I am less sure of that.
7: Sailor Moon would get blitzed
In contrast to that, I sometimes see people thinking that against some really fast verses that SM would be totally defenseless. Ignoring SM's personal speed for a second I disagree.
First of all is Usagi's Time Travel and Acausality. Sailor Moon has the lambda power which allows her to use Pluto's powers including temporal bfr. (Act 20). She has been able to make contact, even kiss her former self (Act 59) despite this theoretically causing paradox (Act 26). If Sailor Moon was threatened by a speedblitz, her future self could come back in time and protect her. We know this because her future self has protected her before, both physically (Act 55 1 2 + Act 59) and through her spirit (Act 22).
This is only one method. As demonstrated earlier, Sailor Moon could use the Pluto power to exit spacetime and enter the spacetime corridor and from there could be immune to any physical speedblitz as she would exist outside conventional spacetime. The Silver Crystal will also grow automatically to protect Sailor Moon (Act 20) though she can still act from within it as she did to empower her younger self (Act 22). The Silver Crystal can distort all of spacetime (Act 22) and given how speed is change in space divided by change in time, distortions in spacetime would likely mess up speed and an attempted speedblitz. With the Golden Crystal, Sailor Moon can gain information from her future self as well (Act 18) giving her pre-cog as well.
I don't think an attempted speedblitz would very well against End of Series Sailor Moon.
8: Galaxia couldn't create a galaxy
Sailor Galaxia wanted the Silver Crystal to create a galaxy (Act 57). If she's a universal entity, how is that she can't create a galaxy?
I can't believe this is actually an argument. Literally the very next page is the one where Chaos says the it will create a new universe with the Silver Crystal. Being able to create a galaxy does not preclude the ability to create a universe. If a Darkseid Avatar appears on Earth, fights the JL and then says he will destroy the planet, does that mean everyone there is only planet level because he didn't say he would destroy anything more?
Furthermore, creation abilities are not inherent from being powerful. Lucifer Morningstar expressly can create nothing from nothing. Does that mean he is powerless? To create something requires more then just energy. Sailor Galaxia is the soldier of destruction, the soldier of solitude. The planets under her rule are turned into worlds of death where nothing grows (Act 54), why on Earth would that give her the ability to create anything?
9: The Galaxy Cauldron Regenerates...
No no no. This one really annoys me because you just have to be not paying attention.
The Galaxy Cauldron is the place where star seeds and potential are born. Things are born there and go there to die and be recycled. Things are not regenerated there, that is absolutely contrary to the purposes of the Cauldron. Galaxia throws the sailor crystals of Usagi's friends into the cauldron to try and bring her anger to it's zenith and make her release the full power of the Silver Crystal (Act 59 1 2). If the Galaxy Cauldron regenerated things then this scene would make absolutely no sense. Why would this make Usagi at all angry. Right afterwards, Galaxia throws Mamoru into the Cauldron and his daughter Chibiusa disappears from existence. Is that just a coincidence?
The Galaxy Cauldron erases things from existence including star seeds, the more fundamental thing in the SM-verse. The Galaxy Cauldron does not regenerate things, that's absurd.
Sailor Cosmos directly states that the Senshi were regenerated by the Lambda Power, which is it's purpose, restoration of the static cosmos (Act 60)
Some people think Galaxia said something to the effect of the Galaxy Cauldron regenerating things (Act 59) but this is a mistranslation. This is official Kodansha's translation (Act 59) and nothing even remotely like that is said.
10: The Sailor Senshi didn't fly here, they teleported
Several speed feats of SM people try to "debunk" on the notion that the Senshi didn't fly there, they teleported.
Sailor Teleport is not actually used that often in SM, my guess for the reason being it's somewhat imprecise given how Luna and Ami needed Usagi to henshin to lock onto her energy to teleport Ami to Usagi. (Act 3).
You'll notice something else from that scan. Their teleportation is literally their henshin. IE if they do something in civilian form, they clearly didn't teleport because otherwise they would have transformed.
So for instance Minako going to Venus in Codename Sailor V chapter 1? (Codename Sailor V Chapter 1 1 2 ). This is not teleportation. She hasn't even awoken as a Sailor Senshi yet, even partially, how would she be able to use Sailor Teleport. Sailor Teleport literally is their henshin. She doesn't know it yet. You literally see Venus getting closer on panel.
Likewise Hotaru flying off to help Setsuna when Galaxia attacked her at Charon Castle. Not teleportation. She is clearly still in civilian form when she gets there and if she had used teleportation/henshin she would have been transformed (Act 55)
There's also the feat where The Eternal Senshi fly across the galaxy to get to Sagittarius Alpha Star. They specifically say they are gonna fly there, not teleport, and they mention there's no guarentee they'll land safetly (Act 56). Unless there's anti-teleportation abilities in the Sailor Moon universe, something never established before then it's pretty clear they are physically moving there as in flying.
So yeah that's 10 Sailor Moon versus misconceptions. I'll probably do at least one more 10 SM versus misconceptions just because I can easily think of at least 10 more common misconceptions. I don't see why this happens, Sailor Moon is not a hard plot to follow. It really is a fun story that takes you along and shows you everything.
If you have any SM versus questions feel free to ask in the comments and I will do my best to respond.
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