Imp-Verse Tiers

 I wanted to make a tier list for all my favorite fictional pieces of media mostly by power/speed. This doesn't have everything, if only because it's been a while since I've seen some of these, but I think it hits all the important points. This tier gives basically everyone the benefit of the doubt, mostly in scaling speed to reaction speed rather than movement speed just to make it easier to adds tiers from series where the characters effectively fight at a speed rather than how fast can they normally move from point a to point b. It also doesn't really take into account how hax characters are save for the very low tiers or very high tiers since most of the time that's not very easy to tier. This was made so that characters from one subtier could usually fight even-ish with characters one subtier up or down depending on circumstances.

12: Lower Human Tier

This tier includes all the characters that are basically just the strength of normal humans without being particularly dangerous. Some can have abilities but things that wouldn't apply to most fights such as water-breathing. 

Low Tier 12: Child Tier

This is the subtier for characters that are weaker than most people like most children, as well as as abnormally small characters.

• This includes children from every series that lack feats or child protagonists without unusual abilities such as Coraline from Coraline or Hogarth from The Iron Giant.
• This tier includes familiars (the mascot type characters) from some magical girl series like Masha from Tokyo Mew Mew which is a small flying robot that can project holograms but does not in canon have any particular combat capabilities. Most fairies from Pretty Cure are arguably here given they are usually treated as being physically akin to small stuffed animals. Uzura from Princess Tutu would be here, being a small living ceramic doll come to life. While she technically has resistance to fate manipulation, this would not come up in most fights. 
• There arguably should be an even weaker Tier 13 for tiny characters, but they can be put here to make a totally new tier. This would include the super small characters from the Atom's adventures in DC Comics, the Poncle from Okami, and the Lego People in "the Real World" from The Lego Movie. These somewhat break the mold as they're not even-ish matches for others in their subtier, or even really each other ranging in size from insectoid to subatomic.

Mid Tier 12: Civilian Tier

This is the subtier for normal humans, including most likely you, the person reading this.

• This includes all civilian tier characters without particular feats. Pretty self-explanatory. Examples are so universal it's rarer for series to not have characters on this tier, if only because the fighters tend to have non-combatants friends and family who are usually here. Some of them do have powers though, just not ones that would apply to most situations. For instance Newton Pulsifier has anti-technopathy that causes technology to stop working, Haruka Doumeki from xxxHolic who had the ability to exorcise evil spirits, and Mikey Dowling from Zatanna's series who is immune to magic.

High Tier 12: Strong Human Tier

This is the tier for physically capable humans including athletes and warriors without their armor or weapons. Similar to the above, this tier appears a lot, though not quite as often. 

• A lot of the characters in low to mid Tier 11 without their weaponry would be here. 
• Normal criminals/thugs and police from series with street crime such as DC Comics, Freedom Force, or the human thugs that fought Kuwabara's gang in Yu Yu Hakusho would be here, assuming they don't have weaponry on hand.
• Brainwashed violent humans from verses, a recurring element in many of these series, would be at least here as they are human level physically but presumably fighting with abandon.

 Tier 11: Upper Human Tier

This tier includes the characters who are roughly on the level of humans armed with weapons and armor or most powerful wild animals. 

Low Tier 11: 

This subtier is for characters with pre-gunpowder type weaponry and armor or who have equivalent superhuman powers like an attack with as much force as a sword swing, natural durability similar to armor, or enhanced speed similar to fast wild animals.

• The Roman Soldiers from Julius Caesar would be here armed with their weaponry having Roman era armaments. 
• The Soldiers assuming they had their weaponry or the Night Watch from Much Ado About Nothing would be here having middle ages era weaponry
• The general guards and soldiers of Skyrim would be here, having pre-gunpowder era type armaments. 
• Thugs with Bats are a basic enemy type from Freedom Force that would be here, being basically strong men with baseball bats as improvised clubs.
• Low E Class Fighters from Yu Yu Hakusho such as Beginning of Series Kuwabara would be here given Kuwabara's ability to easily walk off having his head repeatedly indented into the ground by Yusuke and having a wooden sword broken on his body, a level of durability similar to armor
• Stanley from The Stanley Parable would be here as he was able to tank falling an immense distance
• John Harker and the other humans from Dracula would be here due to exaggerated speed feats including Harker being able to escape at night through a large forest from Dracula's wolves and them being able to corner Dracula during daytime when his speed is compared to a panther
• Wall-E, despite his short stature, is a highly durable robot that resisted being crushed and thus has the durability to be in this tier. 

Mid Tier 11:

This subtier is for characters with early modern weapons or can fight those with them, most notably guns. This includes characters with generally low superhuman stats across the board, often from just the natural exaggeration that comes with being fictional, or with superhuman abilities that would be particularly helpful in combat due to the point they could likely beat a person with a gun.

• The fighters from Les Miserables as they are aimed with early 1800s guns. 
• The Samurai and the Bandits from The Seven Samurai as they have Sengoku era guns or fight against those that have them.
• Witches from Good Omens are normal humans physically but have extremely precise knowledge of the future to the point of being able to predict the exact moves of potential enemies
• Yuuko's agents from xxxHolic such as Watanuki and Doumeki have slightly exaggerated stats for humans such as surviving long falls and moving as slight blurs. Doumeki also has spiritual trainings and abilities.
• Jonouchi Katsuya from Yu-Gi-Oh! has exaggerated feats of power and speed and was able to defeat a professional assassin and an ex-soldier. 
• San and Lady Eboshi would be here as San has exaggerated human stats, able to keep pace with wolves and survive at close range a small explosion, with Lady Eboshi being presented as an equal to her. San also defeated numerous enemies with guns.
• Middle E Class Fighters from Yu Yu Hakusho such as start of series Yusuke would be here from being able to move unrealistic fast, easily catching the tiny demon Gyaki zipping around him and indenting Kuwabara's head into the ground on numerous instances. 
• Tactical Robots from Interstellar along with their enhanced information processing are robots with enhanced durability coming from being made of metal that can turn into wheel forms to carry people at superhuman speed

High Tier 11: 

This is the subtier for characters that can consistently handle those with modern weaponry. This includes speeds not necessarily able to dodge a bullet, but able to blitz normal humans before they can fire or durability not necessarily touch enough to tank bullets but tough enough, like a bear for instance, to endure them much better than humans. This would also include characters with normal human physical stats but such strong abilities that they can easily beat humans in most circumstances such as reality-warping. Defeating a character on this tier conventionally in one-on-one combat for a normal human would be likely impossible, though special tactics like ambush/sniping them, usage of poison weapons, or attacking them with superior numbers could still work.

• Orcs, a relatively normal monster from Midgard in Magicka are able to casually bust through walls suggesting most Magicka monsters would be around here.
• The Knights from Monty Python and the Holy Grail would likely be around here as they and their servants were able to withstand large animals being catapulted on them by the French. Tim the Enchanter would also be here for being normal human level physically but having potent magic. 
• Laura from American Gods was able to flip an ice cream truck with ease with her enhanced strength. The Leprechaun Mad Sweeny and Shadow Moon are not as strong but in similar tier able to take casual strikes from her and do things like kick wooden benches in half as well as all of them having combat useful powers.
• Most of the entities in the Dreaming, magical humans, or the people of Fairy from The Sandman would be here due to often having strong powers sometimes powers strong enough to affect Tier 1 characters like with Cain or Jill Presto with Dreaming entities having wall level physical feats and the Fairy Puck being able to move as a blur. 
• Enhanced Humans from Tokyo Mew Mew such as Ryo or the Mew Mews in their civilian states are generally at least here able to move as fast as a blur and withstand long falls.
• The Pilgrim Tier of Wirt and Greg from Over the Garden Wall are fast enough to be at least here as Wirt and Greg were able to dodge the giant teardrops of the large creature Papa that almost instantly filled a clearing
• The Beldam from Coraline is spider-like witch with reality-warping. While she has human level physical stats, she has cosmic reality-warping able to create the entire of the other world's contents.
• Angels and Demons in their physical form from Good Omens would be here being physically human level but with reality-warping miracles

Tier 10: Lower Metahuman Tier

Metahuman are characters who fights are beyond human capability in generally and usually have significantly superhuman power and speed. This tier is lower metahuman as very often characters "without powers" can get to this tier just due to the natural exaggeration that can come with being a fictional character. The middle of this tier is a very common stat combination; subsonic and wall level, which is sort of a basic lower metahuman. Low Tier 10s are basically just a degree lower in power or speed, and High Tier 10s are just a degree higher in power or speed.

Low Tier 10:

This subtier is comprised of the characters a degree lower than a basic low metahuman, having subsonic speed but only slightly superhuman power or only slightly superhuman speed but wall level power.

• The strongest knights from Monty Python and the Holy Grail would be here as not only are they are strong as the ones in last tier, but they were able to run away from, and King Arthur blocked a strike from, the Killer Rabbit of Cannerbog who could blitz the normal knights. The Black Beast of Aaaaargghh would also be here for being clearly stronger than them and just from size.
• The "Weird Sisters", Dracula's vampiric minions would be here as they are likely faster in nighttime then Dracula is during the day where he's described as being like a panther, and vampires are stated to be immune to any weapon of the time period.
• Lego Batman within the Lego World would be here, as would his villains as Lego Batman was able to kick at 13.5 meters per second, as well as tanking a collision with the JNL calced at 687 kilojoules
• Low Level SAO Players in Sword Art Online Abridged would be here scaling from Lisbeth the Blacksmith who withstood a long fall, as well as numerous instances of characters generally being able to move at unrealistic speeds in game.  
• Audio-Animatronics from Tomorrowland are Robots that can tear each others metal limbs off, tank being hit by a car as well as catch up to a car in motion. Athena also has a self-destruct that could replicate the effect of a kiloton-level bomb, but this would not generally be helpful in combat.
• High E Class fighters from Yu Yu Hakusho like Gouki are here from Gouki being able to easily tear apart trees, have skin as tough as stone, and scaling to Beginning of Series Yusuke in terms of speed
• Fred the talking horse from Over the Garden Wall would be here, scaling to the Pilgrims in terms of speed and being stronger than a human being a horse.

Mid Tier 10:

This subtier is a very common stat combo, subsonic and wall level.

• Martial Artists from Ouran High School Host Club would be here from Chika sending Honey flying with a pole weapon which Honey tanked, Honey indenting the wall with a strike, and Honey and Chika fighting as blurs. Notably in the anime it was Tamaki who indented the wall, which would scale to everyone, but makes notably less sense.
• The Soldiers from Mulan would be here as their training sequence shows them breaking stone blocks with their head, a feat calced into wall level, and casually avoiding whole barrages of arrows.
• Strong Lego fighters from the Lego Movie in the Lego World would be here as Wyldstyle could dodge around blaster fire and Emmet can both survive long falls and break through Lego walls.
• Most of Superman's civilian allies are here scaling from Jimmy Olsen and the Newsboy Legion being able to contend with a clone of the original Guardian who could blitz normal humans and scales to weaker metahumans include Arm-Fall-Off Boy and Matter-Eater Lad surviving explosions
• Most of the Quinntuplets, Harley's gang would be here scaling from general criminal tier feats for DC humans and being able to somewhat contend with the Riddler who downscales from the small building explosions most of Batman's rogues can withstand. 
• The Super Young Team from Final Crisis, save Well Spoken Lightning Flash, would be here from being able to survive explosions as well as usually having individual wall level feats, and being able to avoid bullets. 
• Parademons and Eyes of the Adversary from the DCEU would be here, both being able to fight DCEU Batman who has subsonic speed feats. Parademons ar eable to casually break metal and are able to contend with the Amazons physically, the Amazons sparring with Pre-Godhood awoken Diana who can easily bust through walls. The Eyes of the Adversary are able to tank normal gunfire.
• The Golden Age Heroes from Freedom Force would be here as they are able to physically overpower Gorillas, Blackjack is stated to attack faster than the eye, Tricolour is heavily implied as being able to parry bullets, and Sky King can create a sonic boom though with very little control. 
• Ashitaka from Princess Mononoke is fast enough to be able to catch arrows and has enhanced strength to the push open a massive gate by himself and shoot the limbs off people with his arrows
• The strong animals of the Unknown like the bear in Over the Garden Wall should be as strong as normal bears, and are fast enough that they can keep pace with the Pilgrims for a bit
• Most monsters in Undertale are here, scaling above start of game Frisk falling into the Underground, tanking it, and with various wall-level feats such as a random Wolf monster throwing an ice block and with speeds fast enough to be somewhat a threat to Frisk who can dodge a dog's bark. 
• Shades in the Inferno are durable enough to withstand various torments for eternity such as being submerged into a river of boiling blood, and are strong enough to roll boulders their own size, as well as being fast enough to travel to the horizon before Dante can say "amen."

High Tier 10:

This subtier includes character one degree higher in power or speed than the previous subtier, either supersonic wall level or subsonic small building level.

• The Beast from Over the Garden Wall is considered the uncontested most feared thing in the Unknown likely stronger than Papa, a creature the size of a small house, and who a part of him turned a dog into a Beast-Wolf able to briefly withstand enough force to crack a mill apart. He also should be as fast as the Pilgrims or relative to them.
• Batman from the DCEU and similar tier opponents would be here from Batman being able to send Superman through several stone pillars with his armored suit, which was explained by the director does not actually make him stronger. He was also able to avoid close range bullets. 
• Very similarly, Luka Redgrave from Bayonetta before becoming the Arch-Adam withstood being sent through several stone pillars and could accelerate to subsonic speeds with his grappling hook
• High-Level SAO Players in SAO like Kirito would be here, being able to completely blitz normal humans like Rosalia and block the attacks from giant monsters like the minotaur boss or fight the ice dragon boss.
•  Panther Claw Agents, Base Honey, and Natsuko from Re: Cutie Honey would be here scaling from tons of feats of super casually dodging bullets and surviving comical explosions or car pile-ups.
• Low Tier Champions like Teenage Champions from the Champions Universe would be here. One of the first missions in the game during the Qularr Invasion is to destroy rubble trapping civilians, and bullet-based attacks are one of the first types in the game which can be dodged by the enemies, as well as how dodging bullets is cited as something the mundane detective tier characters can do in the sourcebooks. 

Tier 9: Upper Metahuman Tier:

This tier is for characters who are dramatically superhuman, moreso forces of nature than normal humans, but can still be stopped by human civilization fairly reliably, if at great cost.

Low Tier 9:

This subtier includes characters with abilities beyond normal exaggeration including power on the scale of tons of tnt or speeds as fast as hypersonic, or supersonic speeds and small building level power. Characters on this tier are impossible for normal humans to beat with conventional weapons.

• 3 Giant Ants from Freedom Force, a typical minion, were able to create a large building sized hole in the ground extremely quickly with their tunneling.
• The Amazons from Wonder Woman are typically here, able to fight Batman's rogues who can withstand small building level explosions and wage war with the Atlanteans that can tank the pressure at the bottom of the ocean, as well as consistently block bullets. 
• Superman while "powerless" like under a Red Sun will often still be depicted as this strong, as are his "normal" rogues such as Lex Luthor being able to fight Joker who scales to aforementioned small building level feats and Superman being able to bullet-time. 
• Incubus from the DCEU would be here, being fast enough to fight the Suicide Squad and powerful enough to destroy numerous buildings with his lightning bolts.
• Giant Villains from the Lego Batman movie like the Kraken and the Eye of Sauron would be here from sheer size
• Master Builders from the Lego Movie in the Lego World would be here with their powers as they can create building-level constructs at superhuman speed
• Low C Class Demons from Yu Yu Hakusho would be here scaling from Byakko who could endure being submerged in lava, and Saint Beasts arc Kuwabara being able to extend his Spirit Sword at Mach 1.39. Funnily enough, Koto is arguably here as she was able to withstand the yoki pressure from Toguro that was erasing the weaker demons.
• The strongest monsters, the bosses, from Undertale would be here from Mettaton being able to super casually tear through a wall, as well as Undyne and Frisk tanking a house explosion, and Frisk being able to dodge the barks from a dog's bark and Undyne able to run from her house to Papyrus' house in less than a minute
• The Heart Shards and Princesses from Princess Tutu would be here as the Heart Shards can create dimensions of significant size with Tutu being able to withstand their attacks and Kraehe being able to threaten Tutu.
• Third Sphere Angels are able to fight fast enough outside things seem still and are stronger than the aforementioned Luka
• The strongest normal fighters of Skyrim can casually arrow time and fight against the giants who can smash the grounds to create shockwaves strong enough to launch people (calced at 2 tons of tnt)
• The Micronations from Hetalia are the represenations of the micro-nations, which would generally be of about this size
• Eve Units from Wall-E are fast enough to create sonic booms and can fire with enough power to destroy a ship calced at 1.75 tons.
• Well Spoken Lightning Flash of the Super Young Team in Final Crisis' special power is his superhuman speed, and is capable of running around at speeds of at least hypersonic potency.

Mid Tier 9:

This subtier includes characters who are walking WMDs, able to destroy towns or cities with one-shot (or fight those who do), or travel at hypersonic speed destroying sections of a city at once. It also includes characters who are able to move as fast as lightning, massively hypersonic speeds.

• Count Dracula was able to create with his dark powers a storm that was the greatest on record, maintaining it for days, and shot lightning at the Countess Dolingen that shook the expanse of Heaven
• The Raven from Princess Tutu is a monster the size of the town, with the Prince being able to stalemate the monster for a long time.
• The Forest Spirit from Princess Mononoke is a giant entity whose fall replenished the entire forest
• The Iron Giant in its Normal Form was able to vaporize a tank, a feat requiring 50 tons of tnt worth of energy and fly into space at hypersonic speeds
• Wraith-Infected Humans are able to destroy buildings in one shot and move at dramatically superhuman speed, likely hypersonic just comparing to general DC street tiers speed. 
• Artemis of the Bana-Mighdall is strong enough to knock down buildings with one blow and as one of the strongest Amazons should scale to Harley who underwent Amazon Training, Harley being able to explosion-time. 
• Cutie Honey and the Panther Claw Agents called the Four Gods in Re: Cutie Honey regularly destroy portions of the city in their fight, and Cutie is fast enough to cut dozens of missiles midair.
• Mid-C Class Fighters from Yu Yu Hakusho like Seiryu can fodderize demons like Byakko and punches hundreds of times instantly
• Mages from Yu-Gi-Oh! scale to Yami Yugi who withstood an attack from the High Priest of Darkness who caused the destruction of sections of buildings with his attacks, and can react to electricity moving through water in the labyrinth duel. 
• Harley Quinn was able to keep up with Batgirl Stephanie Brown who lightning-timed against Livewire and kept up with Livewire in general who is stated to be as fast as lightning. She also survived a small building explosion and scales to the Batfamily generally having feats of doing similar.
• The Kirema are mutant animals varying in power but all of which can keep up with the Mew Mews who can lightning-time.
• The Incubators from Puella Magi such as Kyubey are sub-human level in terms of attack potency and likely durability but can avoid attacks from Homura, scaling from her to Massively Hypersonic speeds
• Clow Cards have powers that are sometimes not especially helpful in combat, but they are mostly similar in speed, with even the weakest being similar in speed to the Lightning which is made of lightning itself and Sakura who could dodge the Lightning's lightning blasts
• Most monsters from God of War and Human Soldiers would be here from numerous feats of extreme durability such as Icarus, a crazed normal man withstanding being smashed through numerous stone pillars, or skeleton warriors jumping down onto the arm of a titan from an immense height. Athenian Soldiers are able to fight the Harpies who can fly up Olympus in seconds, Olympus being the size of a small planet.

High Tier 9:

Characters on this subtier are one degree lower than the subtier baseline above, MHS Town Level. As such they are Hypersonic Town Level, one degree lower in speed, or are Hypersonic and in the Tons of TNT range, one degree lower in power.

• Mages from Shamanic Princess scale to Demon Tiara who could fight a copy of herself created by the Throne of Yord that created a dimension with a whole forest and punched Demon Leon outside a city past the horizon before flying after and reaching him in a couple of seconds
• Child Mages from the Owl House scale to King who withstood a fire glyph that vaporized large amounts of wood, calced at 37 tons of tnt, and can generally lightning time.
• Mages from Magicka can create large scale effects with their magic such as freezing lava or rivers and can fight lightning elementals, keeping up with them somewhat, lightning elementals being comprised of lightning.
• The Magic Knights and their enemies from Magic Knight Rayearth can create attacks that encompass building sized areas or larger with their attacks and can physically block lightning or even light with their attacks.
• Stronger monsters from God of War like the Minotaur can pulverize a human of the prior tier with their axe swing and scale to similar speeds
• High C Class Demons from Yu Yu Hakusho like Suzaku can create immense explosions encompassing the entirety of a large dome (calced at 6.205 tons) and utilize lightning as an attack, even making it faster with his yokai, which Yusuke at the time was able to avoid
• Batman, after his 1 year training during 52,  has been able to fight Killer Croc after his mutation where he was able to casually overpower the containment cell made for his pre-mutation self which was nearing building level. Batman and Deathstroke in the New 52 also has other feats nearing a ton of tnt in power.
• Spider-Man and his villains in the Sam Raimi series scale to the Andrew Garfield Spider-Man's version of Electro who depending on his anger level can reach energies around 10 tons of tnt and attacks at lightning speed which the Spider-Men and villains can lightning-time around.
• Beginning of series Danny Phantom cratered the ground with 737 tons of tnt worth of energy and scale to the Spectre Speeder in speed which was calced at nearing 1% the speed of light giving near top tier power and speed for this tier.

Tier 8: Lower Champion Tier

Tier 8 centralizes around a very common stat combo, MHS City Level. Low Tier 8s are basically just a degree below that and High Tier 8s are a degree above that. 

Low Tier 8: 

Characters in this tier are not quite at that MHS City level, either because they're only Hypersonic, or they're only town level, but are close enough to clearly compete with them.

• Elemental Clow Card Spirits from Cardcaptor Sakura are usually at least here, as the Snow could create snowfall across all of town, and the Flower created a rain of flowers threatening to drown the town. They are also relative to the Lightning which is made of lightning.
• The Sailor Senshi in PGSM (The Live-Action Series) and their enemies are on this subtier as Sailor Jupiter with her awakening passively caused a thunderstorm across the city and her attacks of lightning are reacted to by various youma.
• The Mew Mews were able to withstand a blow from Deep Blue that pulverized a city block, calced into the Kilotons and can lightning time. 
• Lok from Magicka is shown creating mushroom clouds with her power and scale in speed to other mages that can fight lightning elementals, made of lightning.
• Tamaranians would in prehistoric times fight things they they were monstrous wild animals (really spaceships) that could vaporize cold mountain lakes and scale to general DC street tiers in speed
• Space Pirates scale to Samus who tanked a kiloton level spaceship crash in her Zero Suit. Zero Suit Samus also can run at supersonic speeds on a planet with 960x gravity, equating to MHS speed normally
• Spider-Man's rogues in general scale off Electro's lightning in terms of speed and scale to a very early Spider-Man pushing the Hulk out of the way off of an anti-matter bomb as well as numerous supporting feats of both power and speed.
• B Class Demons from Yu Yu Hakusho scale to a small portion of Yusuke and Hiei's strength in the Dark Tournament Hiei's Dragon of the Darkness Flame calced at over 500 Kilotons at least, and Yusuke's Spirit Gun even cuffed and suppressed reaching over 3 megatons. 
• Stardust from Yuki Yuna tanked the strongest weapons of humanity and created natural disasters measuring in the megatons, and were implied to be faster than the greatest of humanity's weapons including hypersonic missiles.
• Adult Mages from the Owl House are comparable or superior to Start of Season 2 Luz who created a massive ice structure calced into the kilotons and can broadly lightning-time.

Mid Tier 8:

A very common combination in fiction, city level power and massively hypersonic speed. This includes two odd tiers of hypersonic island level characters. 

• Byrne Era Superman has numerous megaton level feats including lifting a mountain, and could outpace lightning. Livewire is stated to be able to destroy a city and moves as fast as lightning, and a gathering of Pre-Crisis Superman villains had it be said that every one of them could destroy a city. 
• Spider-Man's stronger villains are as physically strong as Spider-Man who can destroy Doctor Octopus' arms which could shield him from a nuclear blast, allowed him to overpower Morbius who can punch with the force of an H-Bomb, and is comparable to Iron Fist who hits like an H-Bomb as well and beat Radion whose power is measured in hundreds of megatons.
• The Four Elemental Clow Cards are superior to the Lightning which is made of lightning and can affect things on a city-wide range, with the Earthy being able to create city-threatening earthquakes, and the Firey being able to instantly vaporize the snow covering the town.
• Panty and Stocking were able to create an explosion that destroyed Daten City and Stocking was able to run into space at MHS speeds
• Bebe, a rather pitiful seeming witch in Puella Magi was thought by Homura to have created a barrier containing an exact copy of a city, and its surrounding area, with witches having similar dimension feats in general. They can also move relative to Madoka's arrows which traveled into the sky at MHS speeds.
• High B Class Fighters like Toguro and Yusuke scale to Yusuke's Final Spirit Gun in the Dark Tournament which Toguro was able to just barely block which traveled at quadruple digit mach and measured and had a force of 45 megatons.
• Xiaolin Dragons-in Training along with Jack Spicer survived handily the explosion of Wuya's citadel which encompassed a large hill, calced over a megaton and can keep up with the Serpent's Tail which quickly traveled the radius of the Earth.
• Dragons from Skyrim can create large storms with their power, and the Dragonborn can attack with and react to lightning as well as slay dragons from early-game.
• The DokiDoki Cures are comparable to the Dragon Melan whose fire encompassed a large part of an island and are able to lightning time as well as Cure Heart fighting Proto Jikochou into space
• Mew Mews empowered by Mew Aqua are the same speed as before but strong enough that Mew Zakuro with one burst broke a dome across all of Tokyo the military couldn't break
• Superheroes and Supervillains are in the same range of power as Pan who can move his own flying island around, as well as Nuclear Winter's presence causing it to become so cold as to snow across a Cuban Village in Summer. They are also faster than the Subterrestrials that burrowed to the Surface of the Earth from the Center at Entropy's command.
• Bronze Saints in Saint Seiya scale off Seiya in training cratering the ground, atomizing the area displaced, and later as an actual Bronze Saint hitting Shiryu's weak point in 1/10,000th of a second, a feat of hypersonic speed

High Tier 8:

This tier includes characters notably more powerful than the prior tier, reaching as high as country level in power (there weren't any MHS Island Level characters) or including Relativistic characters. Relativistic Country Level also seems to be a fairly common combo, so this is the subtier that reaches the combo on one side. 

• Silver Saints from Saint Seiya are dramatically stronger than the Bronze Saints who were verging on country level, and the fastest of them can reach the speed of lightning.
• Second Sphere Angels and their equivalent Demons from Bayonetta are said to be able to one-shot civilizations and can casually lightning-time.
• A Class Demons from Yu Yu Hakusho are said to be able to destroy nations, with one, King Enma being able to create a massive volcanic eruption, and scale to quadruple digit from the B Classes.
• Isabeau from Tart Magica was able to create a barrier upon first gaining her powers covering all of France and was threatening to send all of Europe back to the Dark Age, only to be stopped by Magical Girl Tart. Speed scaling is above the prior tier.
• The Titans from Teen Titans can avoid the light attacks from Doctor Light and scale to the power of Base Raven and Terra who help up Titans Tower, calced at over 3.7 kilotons. 
• Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons normally would be in this tier as she scales to Hawkman whose Earth-3 counterpart Sky Tyrant created a shockwave calced at 11 kilotons, and was able to lasso a photon with the lasso of truth. 

Tier 7: Upper Champion Tier

This tier is structured around the relativistic country to continent level combination that's generally common in fiction being in the middle, though I don't personally have many in my favorite series.

Low Tier 7: 

This subtier includes characters stronger than the prior subtier with MHS Continent level characters and Relativistic City to Island Level characters, one degree weaker than the hypothetical Relativistic Country to Continent Level Mid Tier 7.

• The Greybeards from Skyrim shook the world with their Thu'um which scales to Mid-Game Dragonborn and can react to lightning.
• S Class Demons from Yu Yu Hakusho like Sensui can put pressure on the planet with their spiritual energy and scales above the same MHS feats as before, Manga-wise.
• Sister Jill and Max I-System Cutie Honey from Re: Cutie Honey were able to control and hold back the energy from every nuclear weapon on Earth at once and react to a nuclear blast at point blank, requiring relativistic reactions
• Season 2 Danny, and most strong ghosts from Danny Phantom scale off several island level feats including Skulker creating his own ghost domain which is an island, and Dorothea clearing the clouds over another ghost territory with her fire breath. They also scale speed-wise off Technus ghost rays calced at 12 percent the speed of light.

Mid Tier 7:

This tier includes Relativistic Country to Continent Level characters, but mostly FTL characters from town to city level.

• Season 3 Danny and the strongest ghosts are in this tier generally as Fright Knight and Vortex both were able to create planetary storms, requiring trillions of tons of tnt as well as scaling past Technus Ghost rays.
• The Countries from Hetalia are the representations of the countries and can dodge the Pictonians attacks which are beams of light
• The Master Mages scale off Guru Clef who created a megaton level explosion and can control the Rune Gods in flight traveling at speeds that can quickly travel between planets as well as react to a monster made of light
• Youma from Sailor Moon are able to withstand Sialor Moon's ultrasonic crying which could destablize a dimension and scale above fodder aliens that can travel between star systems
• In Toei Sailor Moon characters on par with the Season 1 Senshi like the Youma can maintain dimensions and Jadeite is stated to be able to burn down the city, and Season 1 Sailor Moon also outpaced a flash of light from a camera.
• Any Villain of Townsville scales above the citizens of Townsville which survived a nuclear blast that devastated the city of Townsville, and scale to the Amoeba Boys who fought evenly with the Pilot PPG who traveled to the Sun in seconds and are older than the Movie PPG who traveled from an asteroid to Earth instantly, calced at just over lightspeed
• Mid-Tier Earth Champions and Villains scale off several villains like Sunburst and Armadillo that got their powers from withstanding the Project Sunbust Nuclear Powers, surviving the blast. Lightspeed travel is also a fairly normal travel power for the Champions with dedicated speedsters for this tier reaching eight times the speed of light.
• Spider-Man scales to the aforementioned city levels and through his Spider-Sense can fight FTL opponents like Quicksilver and Speed Demon. His strongest enemies like the Symbiotes also have FTL reactions, though are not physically strong or even really faster then most of his villains.

High Tier 7:

Characters in this tier are a degree stronger than the Mid Tier 7s, including Small Planetary level characters and FTL Country level characters, characters that are an immediate threat to the entire world.

• Deep Blue is stated several times to be able to vaporize the Earth, and can blitz the lightning-timers
• The Go Princess PreCure in Base were able to beat Dyspear who could move the entire Earth at Massively Hypersonic Speeds
• Walpurgisnacht at her peak could stop the rotation of the Earth, and scales above all the MHS Magical Girls.
• The Iron Giant in its war form in a possibly canon scene is shown to be created to destroy planets and flew into space at upper range hypersonic speeds.
• The Boss Monsters from God of War scaling from the Furies would be here, scaling above the Warriors of Zeus in the ascension multiplayer who have FTL burst speed and are confirmed slower than Castor and Pollux who are weaker than the Furies, the Furies being also able to create a dimension with its own sea.
• The Heavenly Kings from Sailor Moon scale above fodder aliens that can travel between star systems, one of whom, Zoisite, created a storm across all of Japan for numerous days
• Spider-Man with the Other Amp, as well as Kaine with the Amp were able to beat a version of Iron Man with country level feats and has the same FTL reactions via Spider-Sense as earlier.

Tier 6: Lower Demigod Tier

Tier 6 is centralized around another common stat combo, FTL Planet Level. 

Low Tier 6: 

This tier involves speeds from Relativistic to FTL Speed, and Continent to Planetoid Level power.

• The God Tiers from Panty and Stocking scale to the planetoid sized Ghost from the Transformers ep, which would be here from pure size
• Demigods from God of War can kill monsters like the Basilisk that can casually eat Cyclops which built the planetoid sized Olympus seemingly without advanced tech and scale significantly above the country level Furies
• The Heroes the last version of the Hero System in Yuki Yuna are capable of fighting the Leo Vertex even in base as of the midquel game which could wipe the surface off the Earth and can travel somewhat comparable to the Mankai vines which reached to the orbiting Vertex Soul instantly and scale reaction speed wise to Gin who could block light-rain
• The R-Era Sailor Senshi in the Toei Sailor Moon-verse were able to withstand the attack from Wiseman that was stated to be able to lifewipe the planet, and scale above Season 1 Sailor Moon who could outpace the flash of light from a camera
• The Ascended from Commedia can fly from celestial sphere to celestial sphere, and can make the celestial spheres shine brightly, and probably scales above Satan who withstood being thrown to the center of the Earth, sending all land in one hemisphere to the other

Mid Tier 6:

This tier includes characters that are FTL and Planet Level or close to it.

• Kryptonian Tier characters in the DCEU are close to the Flash in speed, the Flash being able to run "much, much" faster than the speed of light and are close to the speed of their Heat Vision which moves at lightspeed. Superman was able to withstand the energy of the Mother Boxes which could destroy worlds.
• Pre-Training New 52 Superman was able to lift the weight for Earth without Sunlight for days and travel from Pluto to Earth quickly
• The First Sphere Angels and equivalent Demons are stated to be able to destroy worlds with fractions of their powers and can fight a rusty Bayonetta who can light-time
• The Throne of Yord is transdual being at one with all things including light, and maintains the existence of two worlds
• Characters comparable to the Pillar from Magic Knight Rayearth scale here since the Pillar can maintain the world of Cephiro passively and the Rune Gods are similar in speed to starships that travel between planets quickly
• Princess Sailor Moon was stated to be able to destroy the Earth and her power traveled from the Moon to Earth almost instantly
• Heartcatch Cures in Base beat Baron Salamander which could destroy planets and outpace the flash of light from a camera
• The Xiaolin Apprentices regularly fight against planetary threats including the Fearsome Four stated to be able to destroy the world, were able to somewhat compete with Chase Young who scales to the Fancy Feet which scale to the speed of Xiaolin Showdowns, which can move things at hundreds of times the speed of light

High Tier 6:

High Tier 6 characters are a degree stronger than Mid Tier 6, being either FTL Large Planet Level or thousands of times the speed of light

• The Collector Spirit from The Owl House was able to casually move the Moon, his power traveling at likely FTL speed, to shift it in front of the Sun, requiring likely large planet level power
• Kryptonians from All-Star Superman scale to Superman who was able to lift a weight three times that of the Earth and is stated to be able to destroy the world, and was fast enough to get a flower from another star system during the time Lois Lane was showering
• Wudai Warriors from Xiaolin Showdown were able to somewhat compete with Fancy Feet's FTL speed, and scale to Chase Young slicing the Earth in half at MHS speed, calced at large planet level
• Gods from American Gods in their true state can casually reach down and bring the Moon to Earth, showing FTL power speed reaching the Moon quickly and large planet level power from moving it at relativistic speeds afterwards
• Metroids from Metroid were able to withstand the impact of the Leviathan which was planet level, though they only withstood part of the energy due to surface area. Samus was also able to fight Gorea who destroyed a galactic civilization in months. 
• Duel Monsters in Yugioh strictly within the context of the game of Yugioh are determined by a game master AI to be able to destroy the Moon, and some of which in flavor text are stated to be able to return from the end of the universe, outpacing the expansion of the universe at 10,000 times the speed of light
• The High End Champions and Villains of Earth, as well as the low Galactic Champions and Villains scale to numerous planetary feats such as Gravitar being stated to pull the Earth in two with her gravity manipulation. Standard galactic speed for Galactic Champions is thousands of times the speed of light.

Tier 5: Higher Demigod Tier

Tier 5 characters are threats to a star system

Low Tier 5:

Characters in Low Tier 5 either have star to star system level power, but are subluminal in speed, or is millions of times the speed of light.

• Angels and Demons from Good Omens true forms are incorporeal and can warp reality to the point of creating nebula
• God from Monty Python presumably scales above the dancing Sun in the Weather Animated Section, the Sun being star level for....obvious reasons, and usually orbiting the Center of the Galaxy at MHS speed
• Cutie Honey's transformation from Cutie Honey Flash could destroy the planet at relativistic speeds calced to small star level, nearly lightspeed and star level. Misty Honey and Prince Zera scales to this form of Honey
• S-Era Sailor Senshi from the Toei Sailor Moon-verse can fight the Daimon which can overpower the Beginning of S Silver Crystal which is stated to be able to destroy planets and has overpowered other planetary threats
• The Egyptian Gods from Yu-Gi-Oh! are stated to be able to recreate the world as a world of darkness and are comparable in power to the Blue Eyes White Dragon who can travel between star systems in seconds
• Dark Samus and Samus' strongest armors can use and fight with the energy that stabilizes entire planets, and scales to Samus gunship which can travel between galaxies over millions of times the speed of light.

Mid Tier 5:

Mid Tier 5 includes FTL Stellar to Star System Level. It would also include a higher degree of MFTL  like Billions of times the speed of light, but there aren't any planetary characters at that tier.

• Princess Serenity from Sailor Moon with her emergence created energy mistaken for a supernova which Kunzite's forcefield withstood. 
• Four Heroes in Mankai  from Yuki Yuna is a Hero were able to push a fireball compared to the Sun
• Hyper Honey from Cutie Honey multiples her power and speed by two making her FTL and Star Level
• Collectors and Titans from the Owl House when grown to full adults can manipulate multiple stars as a Light Glyph and can travel around the cosmos
• The Hugtto Cures in base were able to fight Deusmast who merged with a star and attack Deusmast at FTL speeds
• Grandmaster Dashi from Xiaolin Showdown changed the Sun into a Taijitu and created the Shen Gong Wu from his power including the Fancy Feet

High Tier 5:

Characters in High Tier 5 are quadrillions of times the speed of light large planet level to small star level, or a slower degree of MFTL Star to Star System Level

• Imps from Okami can take attacks from the Celestial Brush which can casually create stars with a dab and can react to Amaterasu's attacks which reach many lightyears away instantly
• Black Moon Clan members including fodder droids can survive energy that disrupted Nemesis, a black hole the size of a planet that's used to teleport
• The Super Sailor Senshi from Super S are small star level being able to withstand a large portion of the power of the Golden Crystal which is stated to be able to destroy the stars, and are similar in speed to Base Sailor Saturn who could fly to the center of a living universe in minutes
• Golden Age Superman during that period was able to create a star by slamming two planetoids together somehow and fly through space at MFTL speeds

Tier 4: Lower God Tier

Characters in tier are broadly a threat to the Galaxy, at least overtime.

Low Tier 4:

Characters in Low Tier 4 are trillions to quadrillions of times the speed of light and star level to large star level, able to threaten large swaths of the galaxy quickly as well as small galaxy tier characters.

• Sailor Moon Characters on the tier of Death Phantom or higher scale to Nemesis' durability, which conservatively as a Black Hole the size of the Solar System would require a power thousands of supernova to destroy it. Prince Demande is on a similar speed, being able to personally conquer the universe in a normal human lifespan requiring speeds likely billions of times the speed of light. 
• Stars-arc Super Senshi from the Toei-verse Sailor Moon scale to the full strength of the Golden Crystal which can destroy the stars as Sailor Jupiter personally beat Nehelenia who withstood its power directly, and Super Sailor Moon traveled to the center of a living universe in seconds
• The Reality Gauntlet from Danny Phantom hypothetically is on this tier given its power to control even the stars in the sky with its reality-warping
• The Superheroes and Supervillains from The Powerpuff Girls scale to HIM who created and maintained a chalk dimension encompassing a space to the sun, and are in a similar tier to Monkey who towed the Solar System at FTL speeds. The Powerpuff Girls have also been able to fight exponentially increasing nanobots, calced at 230 trillion times the speed of light.
• Post-Byrne Era Superman and Post-Training New 52 Superman were able to contend with the Lantern Corp or even fight enemies that could fodderize most of them like Doomsday, Lanterns being able to patrol entire space sectors and withstand supernova and black holes.
• The Wonder Girls are able to survive Black Holes and fight Lanterns that could travel across the universe and patrol space sectors
• Starfire and Blackfire are Amped Tamaranians are able to fight the above Wonder Girl, Starfire regularly sparring with and beating Donna Troy when they were both Titans. Starfire has also fought Lanterns on numerous instances

Mid Tier 4:

• X'Hal, the Tamaranian Goddess created the solar system and would threaten it with her death. 
• Late Post-Crisis Superman was able to withstand a supernova 50 times that of the Keplar Supernova, despite being weakened by Red Sun Radiation and scales to High Tier Green Lanterns that can cross the DC Universe in 10 hours.
• Wonder Woman when her power was slowly being diminished from the absence of the Olympians scale to the same Lanterns as above
• Sailor Senshi from Sailor Moon: Another Story involves a merging of the Toei-verse Sailor Moon and Manga Sailor Moon as of the third arc, scaling to Super Sailor Moon's speed, Super Sailor Moon in the Toei-verse being able to travel to the center of a living universe in seconds, and above the manga S-Senshi who scale above Death Phantom.

High Tier 4:

Characters in this tier can destroy entire galaxies, all of whom have speeds trillions to quadrillions of times the speed of light, a speed capable of traveling inter-galactic distances.

• High Tiers from Okami scale to Amaterasu mid-game spinning the Whirlpool Galaxy at 69 trillion times the speed of light
• Wander from Wander over Yonder was able to plug a galaxy-threatening black hole with his finger
• Cosmic Spider-Man is comparable to Thor, who I am told at the time was able to travel across the universe quickly and was galaxy level from being able to destroy the material Celestials' armor is made of which can withstand galactic explosions
• Pharaoh 90 was able to move the galaxy, the Tau Nebula, closer to the Earth at MFTL speeds

Tier 3: Higher God Tier

Tier 3 characters are characters that are threats to the entire universe.

Low Tier 3:

Low Tier 3 characters include characters that can warp or destroy the universe broadly but lack any big speed feats, or characters that are a degree stronger than High Tier 4, Galaxy Level characters that are quintillions or sextillions of times the speed of light, or Multi-Galaxy Level characters that are quadrillions to times the speed of light

• The Narrator and stronger entities from the Stanley Parable can control the game universe the Narrator made, and even load up different game universes and control them 
• Mokona from Magic Knight Rayearth can create universes and their rules
• Shinju from Yuki Yuna is a Hero created a universal sized barrier and fought the Heavenly Gods which destroyed all the universe, except what Shinju protected
• Zorc from Yu-Gi-Oh! created all darkness and was beaten by the "creator" Horakthy
• God Monsters from Undertale can crash the game and format its reality
• Lord Dominator and Lord Hater with the Power of Rage or Love are strong enough to create a shockwave that could wipe our armies of Star Nomad tier characters to the horizon
• Kryptonians without their Mental Blocks are stated to be able to destroy galaxies without breaking a sweat and withstand galaxy-busting bombs with Superman in Final Crisis being able to travel at sextillions of times the speed of light to stop a reality-blitzing missile and being comparable to the speedforce users that outran the Big Bang
• Wonder Woman with her full power given from Olympus is comparable to Unrestrained Kryptonians and was able to block the piece of the Shattered God at quintillions of times the speed of light

Mid Tier 3:

Mid Tier 3 is a degree above Low Tier 3 in power or speed, either multi-galaxy characters that are quintillions or sextillions of times the speed of light, or more commonly characters that are universal to macrocosmic in power and quadrillions to quintilllions of times the speed of light

• The Gold Saints in Saint Seiya have numerous universal feats and battled the Sealed Titans who created their own universes. They also numerous quintillions of times the speed of light feats such as exchanging attacks from universes away. They can grow higher via cosmo
• The Top Tiers from the Toei-verse Sailor Moon have the same universal-crossing speed feat, and scale to Base Sailor Saturn destroy Pharaoh 90, which was a living universe
• Eternal Sailor Senshi from Sailor Moon scale above Queen Nehelenia who maintained and controlled her own mirror universe and were able to react to and move comparable to the Lambda Power moving the Senshis' star seeds, scaling above the Silver Crystal's light which instantly traversed the entire universe
• Demon Apsu from Sailor Moon: Another Story replaced the Tower of Time warping the timelines together, and scales to the Toei Sailor Moon-verse's Super Sailor Senshi speed feat.
• All Cures amped by the Power of Friendship can reach a tier comparable to Cure Black and Cure White who were able to fight Dark King who was destabilizing the universe and stronger than the Dark Seeds, parts of the Dark King who can travel between universes quickly
• The largest physical body of Kami Madoka was stated to have the universe as part of her dress, which would be here from sheer size
• The Dimensional Witch Yuuko from xxxHolic scales above others mages magic able to quickly traverse an entire dimension to collapse it and scales above the Collector Ghost, tanking his attacks, whose mansion includes a room which contains an entire universe
• High End Galactic Champions and the "Supergods" from Champions are entities that can fight universal threats and can travel across the universe in seconds
• Kryptonian Demigods and Early Age Bronze Superman are much stronger than even normal Earth-1 Kryptonians, with Early Bronze Age Superman being hit with the magnetic force of a hundred galaxies

High Tier 3:

High Tier 3 are characters that are universal to macrocosmic and between sextillions to septillions of times the speed of light

• God Cloths from Saint Seiya are massively stronger then they were pre-God Cloth, able to fight Gods like Hades that maintain dimensions seemingly quintillions of times the size of universes, and scale to Capricorn Shura performing a miracle and exceeding the speed of the Big Bang
• Gods from God of War scale to the Fates who weave, measure, and cut the threads of life for every living entity in the universe at once, speeds calced at septillions of times the speed of light. The Primordials are a race of deities that created the universe with their fighting, and are considered relatively weak for the deities, as well as Norse Deities scaling to Thor and Jormander splintering the World Tree which encompasses all 9 universal sized realms

Tier 2: Infinite Tier

Tier 2 is for characters that have infinite power and/or infinite speed or abilities that make speed irrelevant.

Low Tier 2:

Low Tier 2 is for characters that have either infinite power or infinite speed.

• Yggdrasil and the Staff of Imbalance made from it in Magicka gives the ability to warp the infinite multiverse but finite speed
• Death from Good Omens is a conceptual entity that can exist outside time as well as the God of the Good Omens universe
• Alduin from Skyrim as well as End of Game Dragonborn would be here as Alduin regularly consumes the universe at the end of cycle and exists outside spacetime
• The upper end Speedforce Users from Justice League can reach infinite speed, speeds that can travel the infinite multiverse in finite time
• The Homo Magi, as seen in Justice League Dark, have universal reality warping and the ability to warp the rules of the universe at will, and able to transcend time and affect the past with acausality
• By the end of Pre-Crisis Superman had reached this time, as would his end of Pre-Crisis enemies. Superman was able to withstand the Big Bang and traveled the infinite multiverse in finite time

Mid Tier 2:

Characters in Mid Tier 2 are a degree lower than High Tier 2. Either Infinite Speed Macrocosmic Level, or MFTL characters with Infinite Power

• Clow Reed from xxxHolic and Cardcaptor Sakura was able to passively warp the multiverse with a stray thought but only MFTL speed scaling from other Sorcerers like Yuuko
• The Lords of Order and Chaos broadly can affect the entire multiverse being born in its creation and with a relatively normal one Vandaemon being able to warp the multiverse and can travel the universe at MFTL speeds
• Kratos from God of War and other top tiers can react to and tag Hermes who can travel at infinite speed and scales above Thor and Jormungandr splintering the World Tree
• Hades and other High Tier Gods are likely at this tier as their reaction speed seems to scale reaction wise to Cronos whose power can encompass the infinite multiverse, and maintained three realms, one being quintillions of times the universe
• Lambda Senshi scale dramatically above universal with even the Super Multiplier being seemingly 10,000x and has both acausality and time travel, able to protect herself in the past
• Rebirth-era Kryptonians are stronger than their Pre-Crisis selves and scales to Rebirth Green Lantern who can compete with the Electromagnetic entities
• Wonder Woman with her Goddess powers as well as most of the other Olympians in their physical bodies can compete with Rebirth-era Kryptonians
• General Justice League High Tier Members are depicted as somewhat relative to Superman, Wonder Woman, and Green Lantern
• New Gods in general are cosmic entities that are conceptual entities far bigger than universes to the point that universes are like bubbles on their worlds

High Tier 2:

Characters in High Tier 2 are infinite in both power and speed

• The Totemic Deities in the Spider-Man Mythos are abstract concepts governing the multiverse and existing outside space and time
• The Lords of Order and Chaos in the Godsphere have their general multiversal power but exist outside of spacetime
• The Royal Gods in Saint Seiya are the strongest gods with Cronos being able to threaten to wipe out all timelines at once and whose divine cosmo can encompass infinite space in finite time
• Singularity in Bayonetta is an entity who absorbed all chaos energy in the multiverse and was threat to the realm encompassing the entire multiverse whom the Arch-Adam and Arch-Eve were able to beat
• Crisis Tier Threats to the Justice League are threats to the multiverse, usually having power and speed to threaten the whole infinite multiverse in finite time such as Zero Hour Parallex 
• God Brainiac is Brainiac mutated after going into the Source, with power strong enough to easily restrain Zero Hero Parallex, a Crisis Tier Threat and was the secret threat of the Convergence
• Time Master and comparable entities from Freedom Force can threaten the Celestial Clock whose motion provides all motion and change, generating all timelines
• The Law of Cycles from Madoka is a concept governing the multiverse

Tier 1: Transcendent Tier

This is the final tier for characters transcending physical existence

Low Tier 1: Conceptually Infinite

Characters in this tier can threaten a conceptually infinite space

• The Strongest New Gods like Darkseid can affect the entirety of Apokalips or New Genesis at once, those being Platonic Worlds infinite in size. The Monitors are an even stronger race of 5D entities representing metafictional forces affecting DC
• The Strongest Olympians are powerful forces capable of rivaling Darkseid with Zeus fighting Darkseid evenly and being one of the three gods that split the Conceptual Source. Hades has also warped the entirety of the Greek Underworld which itself is conceptually infinite
• The Dukes of Hell like Chronozon can change into Anti-Life a power source Darkseid continually seeks and can warp one of the dimensions in Hell which can extend into infinity
• The Lords of Order as a group are strong enough to wipe out the entire Godsphere, a realm containing 8 conceptually infinite realms. The strongest Lords of Order have the same respect in the Godsphere are powerful deities
• Kismet and Dominus are two of the strongest lords of order and chaos respectively, with Dominus controlling an entire mental multiverse. Rao and Cythonna are implied to be of similar statue to other God Pantheon Leaders. Lord Satanus' power was great enough to warp all of Hell, comprised of infinite conceptual torments in his image after beating Neron with Lady Blaze being relative to him

Mid Tier 1:

Characters can control a metaconceptual infinite transcending concepts.

• The Endless from The Sandman are the concepts that make up all of Creation and it's implied all creations in the void. The strongest of Hell like Azazel are implied to be relative powers
• Wonder Woman fought the Dark Gods, a group of gods ruling over the Dark Multiverse, the dark opposite side to the Creation, who should likely be this high
• The 5D Imps are a race of metafictional tricksters use toonforce powers with Mxyzptlk, strongest of them making the entire infinite Fifth Dimension disappear with the other Imps tanking its disappearance
• The Et'Arda from Elder Scrolls are primordial spirits transcending the formation of reality into patterns and concepts

High Tier 1:

Characters in High Tier 1 are part of the Absolute, participating in reality transcending over all concepts and limits. 

• Golden Superman is possibly here as he was stated to have granted power greater than any metahuman ever had, presumably including his past self where he punched out the World Forger, made from a piece of the Overvoid
• Golden Wonder Woman was able to beat the Darknest Knight, a being stronger than Perpetua a super-celestial who created her children from pieces of the Overvoid
• Father Time and Mother Night are primordial entities whose unions created the Endless representing the primordial darkness and the flow of the temporal dimensions including likely hypertime
• Pralaya from Justice League Dark is the original darkness that was displaced when the Light of God shone, the unconscious of God, the sleep of Brahman
• Anu and Padomay are the two original forms, formed of the Absolute in the Elder Scrolls representing order/stasis and chaos/change, their duality being the source of the Et'Arda
• In Champions the Sefirot are the parts of the Tree of Life representing the Kabbalistic view of God emanating transcending all concepts, with their dark opposite being the Qliphothic Realm ruled by the Kings of Edom
• God in Commedia is presumably here as he is the source of potentiality and actuality, potentiality including the possibility of all numbers and concepts

Obviously I could change my mind on any of these or new information might come to light on some of these, but as of now this is roughly the tier list for the Imp-verse. 

Bishojo Senshi Sailor Moon Act 41 Review

 

The Dream Arc resumes where the last act left off, with Chibiusa running away from Usagi and Helios after coming to think that the maiden was Helios really searching for was Usagi, filled with embarrassment and insecurity at feeling lesser than Usagi. Chibiusa admits to herself that she always thought it was Usagi, that she never really thought the maiden Helios wanted was her, though it still hurts her.

I love how Naoko draws the eyes of the characters. You can really feel Chibiusa's emotions in her glassy eyes in the last panel; how she's not truly surprised at it, it's exactly what Chibiusa thought, yet it's still immensely painful. 

Chibiusa reminiscences to herself of nostalgia times, times as far back as...last act.... where she was happy he called her "maiden", how she thought she might have been able to do something, but thinks she was wrong, that she's weak and small. I have some contention with how this arc presents Chibiusa. Chibiusa has had one of the largest impacts of any character in the manga, only after Usagi and maybe a couple of other characters. She helped in the destruction of Death Phantom. She outsped the Outers to get to Hotaru first. In-Universe, Chibiusa has seriously and successfully aided in the preservation of the universe and narratively Chibiusa has had some of the largest character focus and progression in the series so far, so it doesn't really make sense to me that Chibiusa would be feeling this useless to the point that it's a major focus at the start of the Dream Arc. Her feeling like she can't measure up to Usagi, sure I get that. It's a classic case of the child of an exceptional parent feeling high pressure to live up to their parentage. But she acts here like she's absolutely useless. On some level, I get that's the point, that in stewing in her own negativity here, she's exaggerating it and that her feelings are meant to be irrational but relatable. If you find Chibiusa really relatable in her struggle here I can understand finding this is a lot more evocative even if, or perhaps especially because, it's not really a "rational" feeling.

Usagi and Mamoru try to find Chibiusa before the storm breaks. Meanwhile Helios appears before her, trying to comfort her. Not knowing how else to show his affection, Helios suddenly kisses her, turning into a mystical horned humanoid boy looking a similar age as her as he does so.

Once we again see Naoko's tendency towards making striking imagery, however there are a few other reasons I think this is well made. On a meta level, Chibiusa is an insert for the younger fans of Sailor Moon and most young girls go through a "horsies" phase, so having a boyfriend whose also a horse would be an appealing idea to them. I like how Naoko uses this to build even more mystery around Helios, and what/who he is, similar to how in the first arc Usagi was initially unsure of who Tuxedo Kamen was, and his motive, though the parallels between the two are pretty vague. Finally because the Dream Arc works on a bit more childlike dreamlike fairy tale logic, it would make sense that the princess kiss would turn the cursed person-turned-animal back into a human, if only temporarily. It's just a horse instead of a frog this time.

Helios assures Chibiusa, telling her it is because of her that Super Sailor Moon can be as strong as she is, and that she is always greatly needed. As Chibiusa blushes from her presumably first kiss, Helios tells her she is surrounded by love and that while he has to go because he can't maintain this form long, she shouldn't cry because he knows they will meet again.

I think it's a pretty sweet scene, even if the logic is a bit wonky. It accomplishes its objectives well; to be a sweet demonstration to Chibiusa of the love others have for her reassuring her of her place, as well to invite intrigue about Helios, the pegasus that can apparently temporary turn into a horned humanoid.

Usagi, Mamoru, and Ami catch up to Chibiusa, Usagi basically pouncing on her with a "we were so worried" mom hug, holding Chibiusa, telling her they need to go home or she'll catch a cold. Chibiusa briefly asks about Helios but Ami confirms that Helios left them without saying a word, implying to Chibiusa that she was the one Helios really wanted to talk too. 

Humorously and cutely Chibiusa never stops touching her face during this exchange and continually blushes through it, surprised as the new romantic feelings blossoming in her heart.

However things are not going so well with Helios at the moment. Helios falls in into darkness, appearing again as a pegasus in a cage. Nehelenia congratulates him on being able to temporarily escape but says that soon the land will belong to her as well, that his little astral projection can't stop her. Helios defies her, stating that she can't break his spirit and that the prince and princess will destroy her. Nehelenia shocks him and he thinks at how the planet is in grave danger.

Nehelenia leaves the prisoner to talk to Zirconia. Zirconia holds a projection of the Earth in her witch hands, marveling at its beauty, saying it's like a crystal ball. Interestingly that sorta parallels how Princess Serenity described it in the first arc...as though Zirconia might also be of Lunarian origin.... Nehelenia tells Zirconia that they will start a new reign here soon, that the White Moon Kingdom people having only newly been reborn to this world are like babies which I think is a pretty cool statement reminding that to immortal lunarians the current age of the Senshi, measuring under two decades for even the Outers, is infancy. 

Nehelenia proclaims she will take the Silver Crystal for herself. Zirconia unwisely tries to mention that only the true heir can unlock the power of the Silver Crystal but Nehelenia asks her dangerously doesn't she know she IS speaking to the true heir of the Silver Crystal? Interestingly though, unlike a lot of these types of scenes, Nehelenia doesn't seem to be mad, nor Zirconia in her apology to be scared, possibly because and spoilers later in the arc but, Zirconia is part of Nehelenia, meaning this is moreso a stray doubt in Nehelenia's mind and her own narcissism deflating it. As though to confirm their union, the two being creepily giggling together.

We cut to Rei, the focus of this act, practicing her archery, however her heart's clearly not in it and her lack of focus is commented on. Immediately after Rei is shown with the other Guardian Senshi reading a book on shrine management, causing a funny comment from Usagi that she looks like Ami-chan. Rei explains her grandpa is sick so she has to take care of the shrine. Ami asks if she's hiring and Rei explains no way, that costs money, it's against her principles to waste money like that.

Minako comes up and says she has the perfect plan, which of course means a hairbrained scheme. She suggests that Rei gets married. Rei, angrily asks why she would do that but Minako comments that while she knows Rei hates boys, she can just think of it as a servant. She can just relax while the man does all the work. Rei is temporarily taken by the idea of having a servant and Ami annoyed comments that this isn't the kind of talk high schoolers should be having. Minako and Makoto then engage in "normal high school girl talk", both proclaiming in chorus that they want boyfriends.

This conversation does well to set up the conflict of the act, involving Rei's lack of romantic attraction the way the other girls do, how Minako emphasizes to her that this is what high school girls "normally" do, but it's also just really funny. Minako is the most cartoon-like of the Senshi and her zany antics are just really amusing. I really like how when she's explaining her nonsensical idea of marrying to have the man take care of the shrine for her, the caption underneath says "Minako's Brilliant Idea"  and the character designs are at their silliest for everyone. I also like that despite both Minako and Makoto being the boy-crazy of the Guardian Senshi, they're very clearly different in what they want. Makoto actually wants a traditional wholesome relationship with romance. Minako, as is seen constantly in Sailor V, is more in love with the idea of having a boyfriend, of the coolness and sexiness of being one of the girls with a man, and falls in love extremely easy for the thrill. Similarly Ami and Rei are the non-boy crazy ones but again for different reasons. Ami does want a relationship at some point, but for now wants to responsibly focus on her studies, while Rei just doesn't want one.

The cats show up and comment that tomorrow is opening day for the Dead Moon Circus, when they'll go to investigate. I guess the parts Usagi and Chibiusa went into in Dream 1 and Ami went to in Dream 2 was just... surrounding shops? Rei returns home and attends to her sick grandfather. He cries out for mercy from Buddha, causing Rei to comment in annoyance that this is a Shinto Shrine, which is pretty funny. 

Rei takes over running the shrine and gives some marriage charms to some teenage girls who get all giddy at the prospect of giving them to their crushes. Rei notices this and thinks back to Makoto and Minako's declarations that they want boyfriends and wonders why everyone wants boyfriends so badly. She comments to herself that she never really had a fanciful dream, she just planned to take the Hikawa shrine because that seemed the most natural course of action. Better to swim with the flow of the river rather than against it, if you can.

It's a very common interpretation that this is a 1990s manga way of expressing a character's asexuality, something which will be supported more this act. Rei doesn't really desire a relationship for its own sake. I'm not an asexual but I have read from asexuals before that Rei's internal feelings this act are a relatively realistic representation of it.

Rei's grandfather goes into a flashback thinking Rei, commenting that she was always a strange child, even when she came to him even when she was still in Elementary School. In the flashback Chibi-Rei rushes after the crows at the Hikawa Shrine which come to her. She tells her grandpa matter-o-factly the way only a young child can without arousing suspicion that their names are Phobos and Deimos. Phobos and Deimos are the names of Mars' moons.

Rei's grandpa that someday she will fly away from this place, though where she will go he doesn't know. 

We cut to the Senshi investing the Dead Moon Circus the next day. Usagi and Chibiusa are easily amazed by all the attractions, though apparently it's extremely expensive with 10,000 yen for the best seats in the main circus tent. In a...surrealist type joke, we see after its mentioned how expensive it is ZIRCONIA giggling to herself surrounded by money. The Quartet would obviously make sense, they're bratty children who would want that money for their illicit uses, but Zirconia's some kind of otherworldly witch type character who serves a QUEEN directly and can manifest all this circus nonsense. What she could possibly want the money for is bizarre.

Usagi tries to keep Chibiusa on track for their mission but Chibiusa gets distracted by all the fun attractions around and everyone slowly starts getting swept up in the circus fun. It's possible that this is all the subtle hypnotic suggestion of the carnival, perhaps not even magically induced but just in the normal mundane trickery circuses and casinos use to warp the perceptions of people inside to let go of their worries. Rei is usually the most focused of all them, yet even though she brought Phobos and Deimos with her for safety, she still finds herself no longer that concerned, saying she feels "like a kid again."

Childhood is obviously a theme this arc. Here Rei associates being a child with the feeling of responsibility-less. Rei obviously never had a normal childhood. Her mother died at a young age and in anger at her cold politician father she left for her grandfather's shrine. Even there she was considered a strange child where we saw in the first arc rumors about her and her mystical sixth sense abounded. It's possible Rei is as perfectionist and stubbornly independent as she is because she's always been set apart by others and filled with pressure. Willpower is admirable, but without an aim it is useless, and this act so far has demonstrated Rei's lack of aim, unclear in what she wants to do. It is natural she will inherit the duty as leader of the shrine, and therefore it's only "normal" afterall for a girl to take a boy as her partner, even if she doesn't want to, so that he can bear part of her burdens for her. At least that is what the world seems to tell her, to flow downstream and not to fight the current. To become as a child, without responsibility, is appealing for someone burdened like Rei is, but it means losing one's independence and following the stream even where it takes one where they don't wish to go. 

Palla Palla watching it comments at Rei's declaration that it's because she is at a circus. Rei, thinking she hears something, turns around finding the mirror house and feels inexplicably drawn to it. The manga emphasizes its magical nature as when Rei enters it, immediately the door disappears and Phobos and Deimos can't follow her. Meanwhile CereCere calls out the show is about to begin and the other Senshi go to investigate, though the cats get kicked out because no cats allowed.

The quartet begin their circus show along with the other Dead Moon Circus members that begins to hypnotize the crowd, including the Sailor Senshi. Much like the second arc with Luna-P, it's kind of confusing how this works on the Senshi know when they've previously shown that brainwashing them doesn't work, and it's not like this is made out to be super strong brainwashing. I guess you could say it's because it's more subtle brainwashing and they're not trying to resist it per se but eh. Still feels kinda weird to have our heroes brainwashed so easily. VesVes wonders whether they should make the captive people their slaves or feed them to the lemure. The Senshi are dizzy and pseudo hypnotized until Mamoru notices there aren't' any exits in this place, snapping him out of it.  

Meanwhile Rei's wandering around the Mirror House, noticing some of them aren't showing any reflection. A small Rei appears in the mirror, and tells her it's no trick, that she's an inner Rei here to guide her. I like how Naoko subverts expectation here. Last act we saw a small Mercury appear before Mercury guiding her, but while both Ami and Rei emotionally regressed symbolically into children this act, this little Rei is a trick of the enemy and not a guide of Rei. 

The young Rei recounts Rei's lifestory, that her mother died young, her busy politician father had no time for either of them, and she's lived with her grandpa since then, that she hasn't been happy since she was young. The young Rei tells Rei that she hates how the others relying on her so much, that she wants to be independent. That she should just get friends who do what she wants, and perhaps a boyfriend who adores her, showing an image of the young Rei in the arms of Tiger's Eye.

Rei is a perfectionist type of personality, who strives hard, yet has lost focus of what she is striving for. In the first arc, she was unsure of whether even to BE a Sailor Senshi or not. For someone like that, having less perfectionist friends, especially when working as a team, would seem like they're just taking advantage of her. Of course, that's not really Rei's mindset, but the little Rei is introducing the idea as though they were Rei's thoughts to further confuse Rei. I like the subtle difference between Ami and Rei's confidence demonstrated in their nightmares. Ami's nightmare involved being abandoned and left alone. Rei just naturally assumes she could get more friends, sycophantic ones even, and a boyfriend who would do anything she wanted, if she wanted and her nightmare is more one of betraying her convictions and independence. 

Rei easily banishes Tiger's Eye with a mystic charm, though is clearly drained from the experience. PallaPalla is annoyed but claims that because of the charm she put on the Mirror House, it won't be broken so easily. PallaPalla resummons Little Rei and Tiger's Eye, with Little Rei commenting on how even if she has to kiss boys she doesn't like, that's all it takes to live a life of luxury being married and never having to work, claiming that's what happiness means to girls. 

 

Everything here is made to play on Rei's insecurity that she is not like her peers by deliberately framing it as this is the norm for all girls. By some combination of nature and nurture agreeability is more common among young women and to defy the norms of your peers, to defy what is natural and easy for hard work is looked down upon as arrogance. Rei has the will to defy this, but having lost her aim, Little Rei uses this as a weapon to attack Rei's insecurities. 

Rei tries to transform but the transformation doesn't work due to the darkness preventing anyone from transforming Usagi and Chibiusa saw two acts ago. PallaPalla laughs at her misfortune and tells Tiger's Eye to devour the girl with beautiful dreams, in body and in mind. 

Outside the cats notice Phobos and Deimos flying erratically. The two caw violently and crash through the mirror house, distracting Tiger's Eye temporarily before appearing to Rei in the form of two small flying humanoids. 

This is a really interesting little bit of the lore which will get a bit of expansion in the fifth arc, but Phobos and Deimos are sentient entities who help "Princess Mars" just as Luna does Princess Serenity. Either through Phobos and Deimos' magic or via her sixth sense, Rei senses the others are in danger without her, and Phobos and Deimos grant her the Mars Crystal to transform. 

Mars is reminded of her passion, and feels a new fire arise within her, a stronger fire, that she swore a life of chastity to her princess and transforms. She hears the advice of Sailor Neptune in her mind, that she is the psychic senser of the Guardian Senshi the same way that Neptune is for the Outer Senshi, and it's her job to guide them, but she must hone her focus like an arrow, and as she hears these words she uses her new attack, a bow and arrow made of flame to kill Tiger's Eye. 

Once again we see the contrast of dreams idea. Mars material dream was to take over the shrine, something that made her feel in a daze because it was something she was just doing naturally, and it made her apathetic to the world, feeling like she was just following the flow of things. However, her true dream is to fight for her princess, to guide them with her psychic powers. It's these things that make her feel alive, like she has a "fire" within her. It is in remembering her true dream that she can focus her heart, make her feel like she's putting all her will and passion into something. Her material dreams made her feel alone because she wasn't like the other girls, but her true dream made her feel connected to the others because she remembers she where all her passion is directed, why she has no interest in the things of this world. 

The Mirror House disappears, and Mamoru notices an exit has reappeared. It's a bit of a weird thing time-wise but apparently all that stuff with Mars happened in the time Mamoru was looking for an exit. Possibly a reference to the warped perspective of time in dreams, but I think more likely it's just dramatic timing. The Senshi exit none the wiser about the danger they were in, while the Quartet and Hawk's Eye get annoyed and upset respectively at the death of Tiger's Eye and the failure of their mission. Mars finds the other Sailors and fills them in on the details.

Later the Quartet are brooding on their latest defeat with PallaPalla getting upset. VesVes wants to just attack the Senshi but JunJun reminds her Zirconia told her they'd get crushed in a direct attack. CereCere suggests they just toy with them a little longer and the four face into the distance menancingly.

Act 41 has the unfortunate quality of coming immediately following one of the best acts in the arc, and especially given its similarities in structure, will sort of inevitably be compared to it in my mind and coming up short. While Act 41 touches on subjects as deep as Act 40's, Act's 40 were brilliantly interwoven and interconnected, while Act 41's are harder to connect together. It's not a bad act, it just has a hard act to follow.

Talking about Act 41 itself, it's a bit of a mixed act. I can say numerous things in its favor. I think Helios and Chibiusa are cute together, and Helios' defiance towards Nehelenia is a pretty classic heroic scene. Zirconia talking to Nehelenia is interesting foreshadowing, the Phobos and Deimos stuff was conceptually interesting, and the scene with Minako advocating Rei getting betrothed to get a man-servant was a funny scene that led naturally into the act's symbolisms by contrasting Rei's desires to the feelings of her peers. Rei's character exploration as well touched on numerous deep ideas that are central to understanding Rei; personal independence vs having others rely on you, aromanticism, focus and intuition, the archery metaphor, doing what is natural, what is normal, what is expected of you vs having the ambition to be different, and of course the theme of the arc; the division between the material dream and the unifying beautiful dream.

But that's where my criticism of the act comes in, it only touches on these ideas. It takes a large amount of ideas, more than any Dream Act and briefly alludes to them all. I say this as someone whose quite good at picking out patterns and symbolism and who adores this series, has read it a thousand times over, this act is one of the hardest to explain the symbolism to because the patterns in all these ideas are there but scant and only lightly made. There are some connections; like the connection made of Rei's insecurity expressed by the Small Rei that in her aromantic nature, she is not following the natural course the way the others girls do, but these connections are ones I struggle to make because they're only lightly implied at.

On some level, I would accept that this was intentional, that the broad metaphor being made is like Rei's flame arrow, that for the shot to be fired the act must amp up the tension backward and focus it on a target. similarly this act has a problem a lot of earlier Dream Arc acts have, things just sort of happen. I understand to some this is a feature, not a bug, it makes it more "dreamlike" to just suddenly have Phobos and Deimos break into the other dimension and give Mars her crystal. But for what additions these may give to the atmosphere they gain, in my opinion, by sacrificing plot/thematic cohesion, the sense that everything that happens is meaningful. 

My feelings towards this act are definitely not negative overall. I view this act as an ambitious act that is perhaps a bit disunified. I will say some parts are genuinely great as mentioned at the start. I think pretty much all the parts prior to Rei's sub-plot, the first third or so of the act is classic atmospheric Dream Arc stuff, and I think the Rei plot is pretty good, it just could have been tightened up and focused. I get that Naoko wanted to mix things up and didn't want to do the exact same thing as the prior act with Ami, and things like Little Rei being the one tricking Rei rather than guiding her as happened to Ami is a good misdirect, but the solution still could have been more sensical narratively and thematically. It wouldn't have taken too big a change, perhaps Young Rei in the flashback saying something to Phobos and Deimos as crows about her true dream, to find companions like them and guard them with her life, and then have them reiterate that to her when they rescue her, maybe giving her some kind of expression that they're showing her the same loyalty she did them would have really tied the themes together more clearly. 

As a few more minor notes I'd also add: I think Tiger's Eye was an alright episodic villain and I thought it was cool Rei actually had some success against him using her mystic charm even without transforming since Naoko doesn't really use Rei's miko background often in the narrative outside arguably the sixth sense. I think the Quartet really differentiated themselves personality-wise even if narratively they basically act as a group, though it's a bit weird PallaPalla seems to cast all the spells. It was pretty amusing both when Rei's grandpa called out for Buddha and Rei chastized him that it was a Shinto Shrine, and when Ami was annoyed and commented that their talk was not the talk of High School girls. Pretty good act overall. 

Bishojo Senshi Sailor Moon Act 40 Review

 

After a couple of splash pages reminding the reader of the dreams of the Guardian Senshi, the arc resumes. Mamoru's narration comes up as he comments he can't breathe, as though something is blocking his chest, with the visual of a black flower being shown. I think it's a pretty spooky and evocative visual.

Mamoru wakes up and in confusion sees Usagi looking like a child, while Chibiusa looks like a young woman, both happy for him to be awake and alive. In one of my favorite gags in the entire series, the Guardian Senshi burst in having heard what happened, and see Chibiusa in her older state, in fear proclaiming it's Black Lady. 

I love continuity gags like that and Chibiusa's reaction is also really funny. Even Usagi pulls away as though she's completely forgotten what's going on and thinks Chibiusa is Black Lady.

Usagi and Chibiusa explain the situation to the others, how when they returned to their civilian forms, they ended up like this, and Luna suggests that it was the work of the enemy. This prompts Usagi and Chibiusa to mention the part with the tiger, which I guess they just didn't mention before?  Ami analyzes them, and Usagi comments that it doesn't seem like they are any different on the inside, just their outside appearances have changed. If you wanted to really stretch you could argue this has to deal with the themes of maturity; that we feel like the same person as we age, despite thinking we would feel different, but I feel like that's a stretch.

Ami asks her mother to look at them, as it was previously established in the first arc and Ami's side story that her mom a doctor, and for the first time in the series Mrs. Mizuno appears, causing all the other characters to get shocked at how beautiful she is. I don't know what Ami told her mom was wrong but she says that Usagi and Chibiusa seem fine

We cut to Mamoru where a doctor is telling him he has a shadow over his lungs, unlike anything he's ever seen. Mamoru completely lies to Usagi and Chibiusa telling them it was nothing serious. I feel like this was maybe the wrong step. Not morally speaking, that much is clear, but narratively speaking. I get Mamoru is trying to be brave and not burden them when they have bigger concerns, but if they try to rely on him and he suddenly collapses again, it could cause serious problems. This doesn't make Mamoru look like the stubborn but noble man Naoko was probably intending, but short-sighted. 

Mamoru in a paternal sort of way off-handedly compliments Chibiusa's appearance, who blushes as a result. Chibiusa says she's going to go home and use a magic trick on Ikuko and Kenji since they obviously can't go home without causing questions. The others comment on how self-reliant Chibiusa has become. I get both of these scenes are meant to show the maturation of Chibiusa, but it feels pretty soon in the arc for it and more so comes across as the magic turning of Chibiusa mature "makes" her mature.

Ikuko gets a comical confused look on her face at grown-up Chibiusa but she throws Luna-P at her and she's brainwashed into just accepting Chibiusa as Usagi. Ah, comical casual brainwashing, that's our Chibiusa. Chibiusa mentions feeling guilty for what she's done, but then thinks back to Mamoru complimenting her, and blushes.

The Crystal Carillion chimes again and Helios appears. Helios exclaims she's grown up, she really is the young maiden he's been searching for! This is both comical and thematic, as Helios just assumes she is how she appears. It's comical because of how he just assumes she just aged numerous years in a day, and thematic from how Chibiusa protests that this isn't the real her, reflecting her inner insecurity at not being the young maiden he wants. 

Helios says at the moment he doesn't have his sensory powers, but this transformation's dark magic could only be the work of their enemy. I don't know if it's intentional but I find it's an unintentional parallel with the first chapter, where Usagi has to uncover the bandage on Luna's forehead which freed her locator abilities. Chibiusa asks Helios who he really is. He begins to tell her, before saying it's too soon and just pleading with her to believe in him and give him her power.

A cage appears around Helios' form as he begins to fade back into dreams. Helios tells Chibiusa that she is the one holding the key to free him, a young maiden with beautiful dreams, protected by the light of the Moon. A princess soldier, one who can break the seal on the Golden Crystal. Chibiusa wonders if it could really be her that can save him, before running back off to Usagi and Mamoru.

Chibiusa's struggle here I believe is very evocative and relatable. Chibiusa is here the young girl in her mother's oversized clothing and poorly applied make-up. She is a little girl thrust into a duty and an adult world she is not prepared for, unsure of whether she can really fulfill the role equivalent to her exceptional mother. All of us must struggle to live up to the virtues of our parents, in our own ways. But what Helios looks for are terms that could be applied to both herself and her mother, making Chibiusa wonder if the one he really wants is her mother. This is where the pseudo-Electra complex comes from. It's because she is being described with words that are usually only given to Usagi. It's that she admired Usagi's beauty last chapter, and now these terms are applied to her.

Back with Usagi and Mamoru, Usagi is trying to be a supportive girlfriend, asking Mamoru if there's anything he needs as he is resting, despite her child-like appearance. Usagi notes that for the first time in a while, the two of them are alone and attempts to flirtatiously come on to Mamoru, though given her looking like a child, Mamoru obviously can't get into the atmosphere, telling her she looks like Chibiusa. Usagi settles for cuddling up to him.

Usagi emotionally vents to Mamoru about Chibiusa, but Mamoru defends her, talking about her bravery in the face of the loneliness she must be facing. Usagi promises to protect Chibiusa, looking rather comical as she does so due to her tiny stature. Mamoru comments to Usagi that he feels like he's only holding her back as he only has a fraction of her power, most likely referencing her Super upgrade. Isn't this just a repetition of the theme in the second arc?

Mamoru falls asleep in front of Usagi, showing his vulnerability physically now alongside emotionally. Little Usagi comments that she feels like she's causing Mamoru pain, dragging him into things. She feels drawn towards him but wonders if it's wrong for her to bring him along. It's a classic superhero's romance dilemma...except Mamoru also has powers. Usagi tells Mamoru's sleeping form her dream though is to always be with him and plants a gentle kiss upon his face, before snuggling up to him. 

Meanwhile, big Chibiusa is swinging on a swing, feeling sorry for herself that Mamoru and Usagi have each other, and she doesn't have a love. Diana and Luna-P come up to her, trying to console her. Diana says with tears in her eyes that she's become so beautiful, that if the king and the queen were here, they'd be bursting with pride. Chibiusa looks up at the moon and says her dream is to become an amazing lady someday, and then she'll find a prince of her own.

This part I think is really well done here, contrasting Usagi's maturity and Chibiusa's immaturity. Usagi wonders at whether she should be with her love or if she will cause him pain, a mature painful adult feeling to have, putting someone ahead of oneself. Chibiusa in contrast here represents the perhaps slightly selfish but also important developmental desire of a child to grow up and get what an adult has; to become big and capable and to develop a relationship of her own. With Chibiusa abandoning the false childish pursuit of her father, towards an actual love interest, this part represents the blossoming desire in the child not to remain the beloved doted-on child, but to start a family of her own and take on the responsibilities of adult life. I also think the other elements are funny and cute. The way Chibiusa self-assuredly corrects Diana that she is just "Lady" now, or Diana's proud emotional reaction, or how atmospheric the adult-bodied Chibiusa on a swing set looking up at the moon is. Naoko loves putting striking imagery in her artwork, and sometimes that's not over the top, dark, or sexual images. Sometimes it's just images that reflect a particular atmosphere.

There's a brief interlude between the two halves of the act where Helios comes out from the mirror in Mamoru's bedroom asking the sleeping prince to forgive him for being unable to protect Mamoru or Elysian and asking the prince to please help him find the Golden Crystal, causing Mamoru to jolt from his sleep.

We cut to Ami, hard at work on her computer late at night. She's analyzing the aura around the Juuban shopping center, deducing it's a barrier set up by the Dead Moon Circus. Ami has a memory of Setsuna speaking to her, telling her to be confident in herself and to have calm judgment, as she is the "brain" they all rely on. Ami comments to herself that Setsuna always seemed to have all the answers, but she's not here, so they can't rely on her.

This is going to be a recurring motif for the first half of the Dream Arc, the Guardians comparing themselves to the Outers, the Outers being viewed as these idolized figures, to set up for the Guardians' development. However, as will be seen it's not so much that the Outers were right and they just needed to be like them. It's that the Guardians have false impressions born of their own insecurities about what their duties as Sailor Senshi are. Ami is attempting to become like Setsuna by taking on all the responsibility, of isolating herself in a sense. But one of the major themes of Sailor Moon as a whole is the pain of isolation, something Setsuna had to bear at the spacetime door.

Ami feels within herself a new flow of water, a new power being born, but can't tell what it is. This contemplation is cut short by Ami's mother getting home, surprised Ami is still up at 1:00. She apologizes for being home late, asking if Ami already ate but Ami, being the dutiful daughter she is, just smiles and says that she threw something together. Mrs. Mizuno comments that Ami is such a responsible, independent girl, and guiltily says she's a bad mother, devoting her life to helping strangers instead of her own daughter and that she "made so many mistakes." Ami knows what that means and internally thinks of her father, a Japanese watercolor artist who just abandoned them one day to go live in his studio in the forest, only sending back postcards on Ami's birthday. He says Ami works too hard.

This is one of the most real moments in Sailor Moon. The pained look on Ami's face as she looks at a card she got from her father, as though that could ever possibly be enough to fill the hole in her heart. And of course, diligent studious Ami doesn't say a single bad word about him, because of course she wouldn't. Ami says that her parents didn't match at all, and it's painfully evident. Ami's mother is a hard-working woman in the STEM field, representing the rational diligent side of the mind. Her father represents the flighty artistic side of the brain and the sort of irresponsible type of person that would tell people not to work too hard and just abandon his family. With the abandonment of her father, Ami has clung to her mother, becoming like her and making it her dream to follow in her footsteps. It shows so painfully where a girl like Ami comes from. It's a lesson I feel like people would do well to learn, which is not to judge purely on material conditions. Ami's probably the richest girl in her town, and she would definitely give it all up to have her father back. 

Back with the villains, Zirconia is speaking to the mirror again. Nehelenia in the mirror tells Zirconia that now that they know the members of the White Moon Kingdom have been reincarnated, that they cannot be ignored which Zirconia agrees with. Zirconia goes over to start ranting at the Quartet that it was the power of the White Moon that destroyed the Lemure, and how in ancient times they drew from the power of the Silver Crystal to destroy their family, the Dead Moon, basically being a supernaturally expanded version of the "old person yelling at young people about how hard things were back in her day" trope. Zirconia demands they feed them to the nightmares and the first of the Amazon Trio, Fish Eye, submerged in water and floating on a ball tells her to leave it to him.

Fisheye uses his mirror to spy on the Sailor Senshi, asking it to show him one of the Moon Kingdom. Naturally it shows him Ami, which excites him given they are both hydrokinetics. I do like how the design on Zirconia's cloak forms to look like the evil face of a wicked queen, aka Nehelenia, alluding to their connection. 

Meanwhile Usagi and Chibiusa call up Ami proclaiming in tears they didn't turn back when they went to sleep last night. Ami questions why they thought that would work, mentioning that thinking like this is thinking like a dream.

This is funny but also connects to the central theme of the act, and really the arc as a whole. Usagi and Chibiusa think in a childish dreamlike manner which usually works this arc, but it happens to not work here. Meanwhile Ami is a rationalist. She was forced by the abandonment of her father and stressful work life of her mother to grow up fast, be responsible and abandon fanciful thinking, which is what the conflict of the act is. Her rationalist thinking, while correct in this instance, is actually going to cause her trouble trying to conflict with the Dead Moon Circus, whose powers and themes run on dreamlike logic.

Ami goes to investigate the Dead Moon Circus on her own, to see what information she can find, trying to be all responsible, and possibly feeling inspired by the solo mission she did last arc. She comes across a fish shop where she finds a cool aquarium inside. Palla Palla, who Ami has not met before comes up to her telling her that when people long for the water, it's because they are under a lot of stress. She recommends a particular tropical fish to Ami, which Ami agrees to take, with Palla Palla giving a devilish grin as Ami leaves.

Later that night, Ami is looking at her fish, hoping her mom gets home since she hoped to show her the fish before falling asleep, which both literally and symbolically is really sad. The fish is supposed to represent an escape for Ami, yet she's distracted from her escape by the responsibility of her position. Ami awakens to find her mom engaged in a passionate kiss with a stranger, and then bad-mouth Ami, saying that her daughter is no concern, all she does is study. Things start to distort around Ami as she looks around, looking into a mirror to see she has become a young child again. She sees her papa who tells her he can't be weighed down someone who only studies all the time and leaves despite little Ami pleading with him to stay. Ami tries to be rational and tell herself this isn't right, she's never thought this way about her mama and papa.

This part is absolutely fantastic. It perfectly treads the balance of dreamlike and painful reality, symbolic yet potently directly emotional. It's the basic fear of a girl with separated girls; that her parents will give their love to someone else abandoning her or that she made her parent leave. Symbolically with the departure of Ami's father, the artist, the emotional side, Ami was left feeling all she had, all she was, was what her mother represented; the logical, the responsible, the hard-working. She constantly stresses studying to the others because as she showed with her memories of Pluto...she thinks she's just valued for her mind, for her responsible logical abilities, her intelligence, rather than her heart. Though she tries to be an adult, here in her dream that exposes the truth, she is reverted to a child representing her inner sensitivity, her feelings of helplessness. 

Ami sees in another mirror Usagi, Mamoru, and Chibiusa, all together and happy without her. The small Usagi says they don't need anyone else to be happy. Fisheye emerges from the fish Ami got, the thing she got to help her stress revealing that stress' origin. Fisheye clings to Ami, telling her to be honest, that she's jealous of them, right? 

Fisheye lulls Ami into a hypnotic sense, who says that she's always been lonely, wishing for someone to love her...anyone....before Ami snaps out of it declaring angrily it's a lie, it's not true, leaving it ambiguous how much of it was actually true. Ami's mother and the man she saw earlier distort into monstrous visages as the entire building's space distorts and she realizes she's lost in a maze of Lemure, in one of their demented nightmares.

Ami desperately calls on her communicator for help but before she can explain what's happening outside of the enemy is there, she starts getting sucked into a mirror. In a watery mind-space, Fish Eye speaks to Ami telling her it's the dead of night and no one will hear her scream, and that her Lemure have turned this place into a manor of nightmares. Ami feels sleepy and collapses with the wish that no one wake her up, referring to her desire to be free of her responsibility.

This is an area Naoko's particular writing style and the atmosphere of the Dream Arc come into alignment. The strange and surreal atmosphere she's been cultivating allows her to create a strange space like this where the characters' feelings can be made literal, where the space, like water or a funhouse mirror, reflects an imperfect version of reality useful for directing the gaze elsewhere. 

In Ami's mind, however, someone calls for her, and she sees a small part of herself as a Sailor Senshi, who tells Ami that she is a part of her. To me, this immediately connects back to last arc when Hotaru wondered why she kept going on when she felt she had nothing left, but she felt a "greater her" deep within her pushing her on. The small Ami tells her to remember her real dream and Ami thinks of the people she loves realizing that her dream of studying and getting smart was ancillary, it was a secondary dream to her real dream to give them love and protect them, she wanted to grow smarter to protect the ones she loved for. 

This is the major theme of the Dream Arc expressed. We all have a deeper dream rooted in love, a dream that unites us and makes us better. We also have dreams that are more shallow, and that are meant to be tools to draw us closer to our deeper dreams. But if we mistake the lesser for our true dreams, if we forget the purpose of our dreams, it will break our souls and our connections to others. People have material dreams for things like fame and fortune and power. But they want these things for example to feel validated or to feel secure or to feel admired. To forget the reasons why we had our dreams and to mistake the material dream for the emotional dream will end tragically, with us losing the reason we had our lesser dream in the first place. It reminds me of an interesting idea I learned of while studying Dante which stated that the reason idolatry is the most warned against sin in the Abrahamic Faiths is that it is the root of all sin to mistake the created for the creator, lust is to make sex one's god, greed is to make money one's god, pride is to make oneself one's god and so forth. Similarly here the notion is that the development of a proper understanding of the self and proper motives is to recognize that our material dreams are secondary consequences to bring us closer to our true dreams, dreams which unite us. Ami has fixated the whole arc on studying and get smarter, thinking it was all she was good for, but forgot that the reason she wanted to get smarter was to help her show her love to the ones she cares for and protect them and focus on herself as the Senshis' mind alone is detrimental to that goal. 

With her burst of understanding and her true motivation revealed to herself again, Ami's transformation brooch shines blue and she transforms into Super Sailor Mercury. She summons a harp which similar to the Moon Kaleidoscope before is shown to be aware, and attacks with "Mercury Aqua Rhapsody" destroying the nightmare she was trapped in.

Mercury's super attack is a musical attack which is... so perfect. Music is long understood to be closely related to mathematics and through that the classical Greeks thought could be logically understood. But it's an emotional artistic tricky beast, possibly most subjective of the arts, blurring the boundary of the left and right brain. Ami thought she was only one but is now unified again, able to be logical and emotional; a rationalist acting on the principle of love. Incidentally in Greek Mythology, the lyre was made by the trickster god Hermes which the god made as an infant to play songs in honor of his father and mother, similar to an intellectual girl who feels like a helpless child on the inside, honoring her parents nonetheless. Hermes was known to the Romans by the name Mercury. 

Usagi and Chibiusa arrive and decide to try transforming which...returns them to their original ages, kinda robbing that subplot of any real conclusion. They attack and destroy Fish Eye, with Palla-Palla commenting through her mirror first anger, and then in an odd mood whiplash thinking it's interesting, how they were able to transform.

This part is admittingly kinda weird. I would have liked it if Mercury could have defeated Fish Eye by herself, but Naoko seems to have had some kind of necessity, either by her own inclinations or by her editors that Sailor Moon HAS to be constantly the focus, with even last arc there being an added bit by Sailor Saturn on how it was "really" Super Sailor Moon that saved the day by trusting in her. This isn't totally speculation, there is some evidence suggesting that Toei and Naoko had some agreement to really push Sailor Moon as the central focus especially strongly due to brand recognition or something. Though the part immediately after at least tries to narratively justify it. It does also have elements of deus ex machina, with the Lunar Senshi transforming somehow restoring their ages making that plotline feel kinda... arbitrary. It's also not super well explained how unlocking one's crystal unlocks one's super form. The Stars Arc will retroactively kind of explain it with the understanding that the crystals are their Star Seeds, but it still feels kind arbitrary. At best I would say, if the true dream is a force of unity, then coming to self-realization of it might create the unity of hearts that was required for the Super Form. I think that's what was intended, though it's not that clear. 

Mercury greets Moon and Chibi-Moon, happy they've returned to their normal ages but Chibi-Moon gets all insecure again at how strong Super Sailor Moon was, how Chibi-Moon could never compare to the beautiful strong Sailor Moon. This kind of narratively justifies Moon killing Fish Eye since otherwise this would make less sense, though still doesn't feel great. Chibi-Moon starts thinking that her by herself she's useless, going so far as to summon Helios and tell him that Sailor Moon is the one he's looking for, not her. 

It's a show of on some level humility, but mostly of Chibiusa's dramatic nature as a young child and the scope of her sheer insecurity. It doesn't help that Helios' prophesized chosen one is, as he admits, ambiguous such that it could apply to either of them. But Chibi-Moon doesn't view that as a possibility, of it might be her this time, because in her mind she can't possibly compare.

Helios explains the one he needs criteria to Moon and Mercury: a maiden with beautiful dreams, protected by the moon, a princess and a soldier whose crystal can unlock the Silver Crystal. Helios confirms that Sailor Moon is the Princess Serenity, surprisingly seeming to know who that is (which will be explained with his backstory) and Chibi-Moon hearing that and essentially deciding that his asking is proof Usagi was the one he wanted, not her, dramatically runs off ending the act.

Act 40 is a great act, and one of the best acts in the Dream Arc. Sailor Moon has 15-16 of these acts focusing on one of the Guardian Senshi and Act 40 is, next to Act 29 (The Minako Mugen act) is the best of them. Though with Act 29, the stuff with the Lunar family was the best part of the act, with the actual Minako part being not quite as good. Act 40 is the opposite. The lesser part of the act is the part with the Lunar Family though not without merit. However the best part is actually the exploration of Ami, which is the best exploration of any of the Guardian Senshi in the entire manga, and arguably some of the best in the entire Sailor Moon franchise, next to parts of PGSM and Codename: Sailor V. 

Going over Ami's section, it's truly fantastic on a multitude of levels. Just on a basic level while I have seen more evocative expressions of the turmoil left behind in a broken home, and the plight of children in said situation, I have never seen anything that gets the feeling across so efficiently and quickly. It what amounts to a few pages, Naoko shows you everything about where a girl like Ami comes from, the complexity within her character, and what you can learn from her. Ami is a girl dutiful and studious to the extreme because she feels it's all she has representing the mother she clings to while the artsy, irresponsible, and childish seems to have left her with her father, the tragedy of that which is fanciful being that of course it always leaves and never when it should. Ami is introduced in Act 2 as a girl isolated for her intelligence and seeming fortune, yet the people assuming her life is great for those things make the same mistake she makes and develops past in this act; mistaking the secondary goods for the primary good they are used as tools to get. Part of the reason I love this act is one of the reasons I loved Ouran High School Host Club. Without going too much into my personal details, when I was growing I saw numerous kids who were rich, and some were smart and seemingly elite. They still had family problems, some of them were far more troubled than I was regardless of status because no amount of money can buy the value of a loving home, no amount of rationalism can convince yourself you don't need it. 

Similarly I believe the development shown here was really good. Obviously this is one of those broad-scale problems of humanity that there aren't any universal answers for, but for Ami specifically I think the resolution to her internal conflict felt fitting. This is because it is connected to the broad theme for the arc, which in turn is connected to the overarching theme of the series that bleeds into every character's progression. One of the most central themes of the Dream Arc is the division between the primary dreams and the secondary dreams used as tools to achieve the former. The former are unifying between people and ennoble us. The second are useful, but are often material in nature and putting them above primary dreams is forgetting their purpose and will only serve to isolate someone. This in turn connects to the two major themes of the series; the ennobling power of love and the pain of isolation. Ami was lost in the haze of her material dream, her need to be smarter to feel validation, her insecurity that she was only useful to the Guardians as their brain, and her insufficiency as a Sailor Senshi compared to someone like Sailor Pluto, ironically giving her the same pain of isolation that Sailor Pluto herself suffered. It was only in realizing that her material dream was actually a branch of her true deeper dream, her desire to show love to others and to help them, this love being the same force that empowered her by making her realize she was most than just a rationalist mind, that she was her loving heart, that she still had both halves of her within her the same way the spirit of both her parents would always be in her even if they weren't physically there.

The stuff with the Lunar family isn't quite as good, as it suffers from some repetitive beats already seen in the story such as Mamoru worried he's holding Usagi back, Chibiusa feeling like she's not as good as Usagi, and both Usagi and Chibiusa defeating the bad guy yet again. With that said it still has some fairly strong parts. It uses evocative imagery and actions such as Chibiusa in her young adult form lightly swinging on a swing while looking up at the moon, contrasting her outer maturity and inner immaturity, or Chibiusa summoning Helios to tell him that Usagi was the one he was looking forward before running away. It also has the hilarious part where the other Senshi think older Chibiusa is Black Lady temporarily, one of my favorite gags in the entire series as well as some cute parts with Helios and Chibiusa.

Overall Act 40 is great, a real step up to me from Act 39, where the surrealist elements were used to much stronger effect, being a lot more focused on giving an impression and contrasting with the painfully realistic subject matter. I thought the Ami section was an absolutely fantastic and remarkably efficient character study of one of the story's secondary characters and the Lunar Family was mixed, mostly suffering from some repetitiveness, but had some definite highlights making it at least a suitable complement. I almost wish the entire act was about Ami, but as it stands her section is the defacto section of the manga I think of when people try to tell me that "the manga Guardians are boring" or "Naoko is bad at character writing."