tek's rating: pending

Sailor Moon: Sailor Stars (season five; 34 episodes)
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streaming sites: Amazon; Google Play; Hulu; iTunes; Vudu

Queen Nehelenia arc
It begins with baby Hotaru enjoying a lovely day. Then Setsuna (Sailor Pluto) shows up to "borrow" her from Professor Tomoe. Meanwhile, Usagi and her friends are happy, because they're about to start high school, which they'll be able to attend together. (They hadn't all gone to the same junior high schools, so this will be convenient.) Also, Chibi-Usa and Diana are going to return to the 30th century. However, somewhere out in space, Nehelenia is awakened by a mysterious voice. We don't see where it's coming from, but it releases her from her seal, and shows her that Usagi and Chibi-Usa are still alive. (I don't recall whether she'd ever actually learned the identities of Sailor Moon and Chibi Moon, but I'll let that slide.) The voice goads Nehelenia into outrage that her enemies hadn't died, as she thought. It then convinces her to shatter her own Dream Mirror into countless tiny shards, which fall to Earth. The Guardians and Mamoru all think it's a meteor shower. However, one of the shards falls into Mamoru's eye. He just thinks it's dust, and doesn't worry about it. Also, the shower apparently prevents Chibi-Usa and Diana from returning to the future. Meanwhile, Haruka and Michiru (Uranus and Neptune) are also enjoying the "meteor shower," until the shards land and grow into crystalline monster women (called Paredri), who attack the two of them. Then Pluto shows up to help Haruka and Michiru. However, whenever they destroy Paredri, the shards simply regrown into even more monsters. It's not until baby Hotaru bestows greater powers on them that the three Outer Guardians are able to defeat the Paredri. And then... Hotaru grows into a five-year-old girl, and warns that Princess Serenity is in danger. And I shall say more as the arc progresses. (But it does seem more clear this season that Haruka and Michiru are lovers. So that's good.)

Unfortunately, after just a few episodes, my internet got too slow to watch Hulu, so I have no idea when I'll see any more of the season.

Stars arc
(I haven't seen any of this arc yet, and I don't know when I will.)
You may notice that seasons 1, 3, and 4 each had one story arc, while season 2 had two story arcs. (Some might say season 4 had two arcs, though I think that's more about the manga than the anime.) Since I've never read the manga, I don't really know anything about the arcs and how any of them differ between manga and anime, but I'm fairly sure there are some manga story arcs that never appear in the anime, and vice versa. Also I think some of the manga story arcs that do appear in the anime might have different titles, though I'm not really clear on that, either. In my reviews of each of the first four seasons, I'm reasonably comfortable with the names I list for each of the five arcs (Dark Kingdom, Makaiju, Black Moon, Death Busters, and Dead Moon), whether or not I'm really sure those names are from the manga or the anime or both. But this season, I'm less confident, particularly about the main arc. I gather "Stars" is the name of the same arc in the manga, but I'm unsure whether it properly applies to the anime. I guess it's not really important, but I did want to mention the fact that I am uncertain about it.