Sailor Moon is one of the most popular manga and anime series ever, but its timeline can be a bit confusing to some, especially after the release of Sailor Moon Crystal – but is this series a reboot of the original one or a continuation of it? The realm of anime has a variety of stories and characters for all ages and tastes, and some have even transcended those barriers and became favorites of viewers who aren’t particularly fond of this genre. Such is the case of Sailor Moon, a shōjo manga series written and illustrated by Naoko Takeuchi.
Sailor Moon follows the adventures of Usagi Tsukino, a schoolgirl who transforms into Sailor Moon to search for a magical artifact known as the “Legendary Silver Crystal”. Usagi later leads a group of fellow Sailor Soldiers (or Sailor Guardians) as they battle against various villains to keep them away from the Silver Crystal and prevent the destruction of the Solar System. The Sailor Moon manga series was originally serialized from 1991 to 1997, and its success was such that it was adapted into an anime series, airing from 1992 to 1997. After that came live-action adaptations, companion books, and a second anime series that caused some confusion among fans.
Titled Sailor Moon Crystal, the series was released in 2014 in commemoration of the original series’ 20th anniversary. The series streamed worldwide on Niconico and is now available to stream on Netflix. Sailor Moon Crystal is listed as the second anime series of Takeuchi’s famous manga, but it’s more than that as it’s a reboot rather than a remake of the 1990s anime series. The purpose of rebooting the classic Sailor Moon TV series was to make a more faithful adaptation of the original manga, and for that, Sailor Moon Crystal had to leave a lot of the original material from the first series behind. This raised the question of where this series fits in the Sailor Moon timeline, more so as the series is very fond of themes like reincarnation, multiple dimensions, and time-travel and constantly added story elements to the past and future, but placing Sailor Moon Crystal in the timeline isn’t as complicated as it seems.
It’s important to remember that the term “reboot” is all about a new start in an established fictional universe, and it discards continuity to re-create the story and characters from the beginning. Unlike remakes, the main purpose of a reboot is to restart an already known universe rather than repeating what it has done before but with different characters and settings. As Sailor Moon Crystal tells the same story as the manga and thus the original series (though, as mentioned above, with more elements from the manga than the first series), its place in the timeline is parallel to that of the original series, so consider it as another branch. Sailor Moon Crystal is not a continuation of the original series, which brought the arcs of all characters to an end and left no loose ends, and instead, it tells the story of the manga series in a different animation style and with the personalities of the characters matching those in the source material.
The Sailor Moon timeline is complicated once you take a deeper look at the events, and all its concepts of reincarnation and more don’t make it any easier to understand. The key to placing Sailor Moon Crystal in the timeline is to not forget that it’s a reboot, and as such, it can go back to where it all began and tell its story without having to pay attention to what the previous series did. As for which Sailor Moon anime series is the best, it’s up to every viewer to decide.
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