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In episode 8 of Sailor Moon Crystal, we see Tokyo being hit by some sort of
citywide energy drain right after Minako leaves the other Sailor Senshi when
they run into her (or some point in time around that). Everyone _except_ for
the Sailor Senshi and Tuxedo Mask has passed out.

This makes sense as a trope in the magical girl genre - I'm pretty sure I've
seen similar things in, say, the few bits and pieces I've seen of Pretty Cure
- but I'm wondering if there's any _in-universe_ reason (e.g. maybe something
in their brooches?) for why the Sailor Senshi and Tuxedo Mask (and their cats)
seem to be immune to these energy drains.

The fact that Minako hasn't been affected makes sense because Kunzite is
trying to capture her, but this to me still doesn't quite explain why the
other Senshi (and Tuxedo Mask, who doesn't seem to be as "known" as the Senshi
are to the Dark Kingdom people) aren't.


CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-10-20T03:15:35.923
14571
2014-10-22T02:07:38.560
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question
sailor-moon
Is there any in-universe reason why the Sailor Senshi aren't affected by the citywide energy drain?


You're correct that there is no sufficient reason for anyone other than Minako
to have eluded the energy drain in this episode. Good observation!

It is possible that the energy drain only applied to humans, which could
exclude the cats. It's possible that the energy drain was localized, whereas
only the blackout was citywide. In that case, as long as the girls and Mamoru
had not happened to be standing within the range of where the civilians were
drained of energy, they could be excluded (along with all other civilians also
out of range); it was not specifically stated that the energy drain happened
to every single Tokyoite. But they did seem to be in rather close proximity to
people who'd collapsed. If the girls had been transformed into senshi form at
the time of the drain, we could hypothesize that as senshi they have a higher
strength tolerance than regular humans and thereby could retain some energy
even if an equal amount had been drained from them, but 1) they were not in
transformed form at the time, and 2) even if they had been, in the _Crystal_
canon, Mamoru dresses up as Tuxedo Kamen but he does not transform into it
magically as an alter ego in the same way as the senshi do (which he had been
able to do in the classic anime series), so Mamoru retaining consciousness
would still be unexplained. It cannot be on account of their transformation
brooches possessing a special power because Mamoru doesn't own any
transformation item.

This does not make sense as a trope of the _mahou shoujo_ genre. _Sailor Moon_
was the first _mahou shoujo_ series which combined _sentai_ (team fighting,
such as _Power Rangers_ , usually involving saving the world and protecting
civilians from aliens/monsters) with _mahou shoujo_ (which previously had not
commonly involved any need to save the world; the classic magical girls used
their powers for _nichijou_ [daily life] activities such as disguise, Good
Samaritan action, or to carry on a secret career). If other _mahou shoujo_
series that involve team fighting, such as _Pretty Cure_ , jump the shark in
the same way as this episode, then it is following suit from the influence of
_Sailor Moon_ , which pioneered the combined _sentai_ -with- _mahou-shoujo_
style of _mahou shoujo_. In other words, this was not a trope in _mahou
shoujo_ prior to _Sailor Moon_ , so _Sailor Moon_ needs to have an in-universe
explanation for this that cannot be chalked up to a trope.


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2014-10-22T02:07:38.560
14608
2014-10-22T02:07:38.560
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