List of Sailor Moon Sailor Stars episodes



The following list of episodes of the Sailor Moon anime series covers Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon: Sailor Stars (美少女戦士セーラームーン セーラースターズ), the fifth and final season of the series. Children's TV Asahi, Toei Agency and Toei Animation co-produced the episodes; Takuya Igarashi directed. The series originally aired on Children's TV Asahi between March 9, 1996 and February 8, 1997.

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

Sailor Stars begins with six episodes that re-introduce the previous season's villain, Queen Nehellenia, as well as the four Outer Senshi, who meet her for the first time (they did not appear during the fourth season). These episodes originated as filler to allow Takeuchi time to begin her new story-arc; afterward the season follows the manga. Its plot branches out to introduce new characters and even new Sailor Senshi from other planets, including the Sailor Starlights, Princess Kakyuu, and Chibi Chibi. As in the manga, Chibiusa returns to her own time after the final battle with Nehellenia, and is not a participant in the events of this story arc. The primary villain is Sailor Galaxia, queen of an organization called Shadow Galactica, who seeks to rule the galaxy by collecting "true star seeds" (the equivalent of the manga's Sailor Crystals). Of the five story arcs, Sailor Stars is the only one featuring recurring villains of only one gender; all female, because they are all parody-Senshi. In the anime, it is also the only arc in which all the villains who die are killed by other villains.

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

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

Sailor Stars uses three pieces of theme music:


 * 1) Sailor Star Song, written by Naoko Takeuchi and performed by Kae Hanazawa, plays as the series opening theme.
 * 2) Though Stars does not use Moonlight Densetsu for the series opening (as do all the other Sailor Moon series), the song is later used for the ending theme of the final episode.
 * 3) The rest of the series uses the song Kaze mo Sora mo Kitto..., performed by Arisa Mizuki, for its endings.
 * 4) Even though not considered as theme songs, Nagareboshi e and Todokanu Omoi, sung by the Three-Lights, are often used as insert songs.