

For the longest time, I was very confused about this. I still am, which is why
I'm asking.

It appears as if only "season 1" is actually called "Sailor Moon". The rest
are called different things:

  1. Sailor Moon (1992–93).
  2. Sailor Moon R (1993–94).
  3. Sailor Moon S (1994–95).
  4. Sailor Moon SuperS (1995–96).
  5. Sailor Moon Sailor Stars (1996–97).

Is this common in Japan? Do they not like to call things "seasons" (USA) or
"series" (UK)?

Up until today, I thought that these were some sort of separate "alternative
shows".

There was also:

  * Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon (2003).
  * Sailor Moon Crystal (2014).

But those seem like much later and quite different.

Note: I haven't yet quite finished the first season, so I don't know how the
rest is, but I have a strong feeling that it will lose its charm once Usagi
and the other girls know that she is a Moon princess and all that stuff. I
like the first few episodes the best, which I watched when I was still a kid,
because everything about the demons and even Luna is not yet explained and
Usagi was just a confused and clumsy school girl who regularly transforms into
Sailor Moon.


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question
sailor-moon
Why do the different Sailor Moon "seasons" have separate names?


> It appears as if only "season 1" is actually called "Sailor Moon". The rest
> are called different things:  
>  Sailor Moon (1992–93).  
>  Sailor Moon R (1993–94).  
>  Sailor Moon S (1994–95).  
>  Sailor Moon SuperS (1995–96).  
>  Sailor Moon Sailor Stars (1996–97).

You are correct. Only Season 1 is actually called _Bishoujo Senshi Seeraamuun_
( _Beautiful Solider Sailormoon_ = 『美少女戦士セーラームーン』) and is often referred to as
_Sailormoon_ (Seeraamuun =『セーラームーン』) (written run together on official
merchandise) or, lesson commonly, referred to as _SeraMun_ (『セラムン』) for short.  
(In other countries, the title is generally called _Sailor Moon_ , splitting
the name into 2 English words. Because this StackExchange is mostly read by
people outside of Japan, I will use " _Sailor Moon_ " to refer to the original
show in this post.)

The second season uses that same _Bishoujo Senshi Seeraa Muun_ to indicate
that it is a continuation of the same show, but adds the letter _R_ ,
pronounced as " _Aaru_ " ( _R_ = 「アール」). The company had various words
starting with R in mind, but the meaning of the R is left ambiguous and up to
the viewers' imaginations. The addition of something tacked on after the prior
season's title signals that this is a different season and story arc but a
continuation of the same show.

The third season uses that same _Bishoujo Senshi Seeraa Muun_ and adds what
looks like the letter S but is not pronounced as "S"; it is instead pronounced
as " _Suupaa_ " ( _Super_ = 「スーパー」).

The fourth season uses that same _Bishoujo Senshi Seeraa Muun_ but instead of
an S pronounced as " _Suupaa_ ," it changes to " _Suupaazu_ " ( _SuperS_ =
「スーパーズ」), which is not pronounced as "Super S" but, rather, is pronounced as
"Supers" as if the word "super" could become a plural.

The fourth season uses that same _Bishoujo Senshi Seeraa Muun_ and adds "
_Seeraasutaazu_ " ( _Sailorstars_ = 「セーラースターズ」), where, in official
merchandise, Sailorstars is a single run-together word (whereas overseas, it
is usually broken apart into 2 English words: " _Sailor Stars_ ").

Three of the seasons each featured a theatrical film, one season also included
an anime adaption of _Ami-chan no Hatsukoi_ (A _mi-chan's First Love_ =
『亜美ちゃんの初恋』) side-story manga as an anime short, and there were also specials.
Each film and special used the title of the current season at the time that
they were released.

The seasons are liberally-adapted from the story arcs used in the manga:  
Season 1 corresponds to the _Dark Kingdom_ arc,  
_R_ (Season 2) corresponds to the _Black Moon_ arc (with the original addition
of the _Makaiju_ [ _Tree of the Demon World_ = 魔界樹]) arc,  
_S_ (Season 3) corresponds to the _Mugen_ ( _Infinity_ = 「無限」) arc,  
_SuperS_ (Season 4) corresponds to the _Yume_ ( _Dream_ = 「夢」) arc,  
_Sailorstars_ (Season 5) corresponds to the _Stars_ arc (with the addition of
a brief 6-episode arc featuring the return of the villain from Season 4 before
it starts the _Stars_ arc proper).  
Interestingly, only the title of the 5th manga arc was included in the title
of the 5th anime season.

> Is this common in Japan? . . . Up until today, I thought that these were
> some sort of separate "alternative shows".

Yes, this is very common in Japan: the same basic title alerts the potential
viewer that this is the show you already know of (so people who enjoyed the
prior season but aren't hardcore enough to be following when the next one will
begin airing can notice the title they're familiar with when they look at TV
listings), but tacking on the addition of something (whether a letter, word,
multiple words, and/or typographical symbol) communicates that this is a new
story arc (so if you didn't watch the previous arc[s], it's not a bad place to
jump in for the first time, or to jump back in). So if you never watched the
first season, you could realize from this title style that you can start
watching from the start of the new arc without feeling completely lost as to
what is going on in the plot, but you would be aware that the characters'
relationships are already established and ongoing from a prior arc.  
This was originally the case with the franchise _Purekyua_ ( _Precure_ =
『プレキュア』) (which is called "Pretty Cure" outside of Japan). It started like
_Sailor Moon_ did, with _Futari ha Purekyua_ ( _The Two of Us are Precures_
『ふたりはプリキュア』), got a second season called _Futari ha Purekyua Max Heart_
(『ふたりはプリキュア Max Heart』, and a third season called _Futari ha Purekyua Splash
Star_ (『ふたりはプリキュア Splash Star』): in each case, the base title was the same but
something was tacked on to the end to indicate a new story arc featuring the
same ongoing characters.

What is less common in Japan but has risen in number after the era of _Sailor
Moon_ is a (perhaps confusingly) similar format for alternate shows derived
from a common premise. After its initial three seasons of _Futari ha Purekyua_
, the _Precure_ franchise shifted to a system different from that of _Sailor
Moon_. This franchise morphed into many series which each have their own
protagonists, villains, worlds, and plots; the only thing that ties all of
them together is that the protagonists are always a type of _mahou shoujo_
(magical girl) called precures (regardless of how different from each other
their visuals and abilities and backstory were in each series), and the
animation company began making crossover theatrical films/specials where
characters from different worlds meet each other and, in recent years, they
even make a few crossover TV show episodes - but every series is separate and
self-contained, and does not require having watched any of the other series.  
The titles of each of these series always include the word "precure," but
other than that, the titles differ (for example, _Furesshu Purikyua!_ ( _Fresh
Precure!_ =『フレッシュプリキュア!』), _Sumairu Purikyua!_ ( _Smile Precure!_ =
『スマイルプリキュア!』), _Dokidoki! Purecure_ ( _Heart-pounding! Precure_ =
『ドキドキ!プリキュア』), _HUGtto! Precure_ ( _HUG-squeeze! Precure_ 『HUGっと!プリキュア』), and
_Sutaa☆Toinkuru Purekyua_ ( _Star☆Twinkle Precure_ =『スター☆トゥインクルプリキュア』).  
In a rare case, the creators decided to add a subsequent season to a highly-
popular particular set of characters, in which case they used the title style
of _Sailor Moon_ and _Futari ha Purekyua_ , by tacking something onto the end
of the previous season's title: _Yes! Precure5_ ( _Iesu! Purekyua5_
=『Yes！プリキュア5 』) got a second season called _Yes! Precure5GoGo!_ ( _Yes!
Purekyua5GoGo!_ =『Yes！プリキュア5GoGo！』).

> Do they not like to call things "seasons" (USA) or "series" (UK)?

This is a confusing point: the Japanese use both words somewhat
interchangeably (Season 1 can be referred to as _dai1shiizuun_ (1st season
=「第１シーズン」) or as _dai1shiriizu_ = (first series = 「第１シリーズ」), but they also use
the word _shiriizu_ (series =「シリーズ」) to refer to an entire franchise like
_Precure_ even though it is comprised of disparate shows.

> There was also:  
>  
> Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon (2003).  
> Sailor Moon Crystal (2014).  
>  
> But those seem like much later and quite different.

"Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon" is what fans outside of Japan took to calling
the live-action TV series in order to easily differentiate it amongst
themselves from the prior anime, but its Japanese title was exactly the same
as that of the 5-season-long anime: _Bishoujo Senshi Seeraamuun_ ( _Beautiful
Solider Sailormoon_ = 『美少女戦士セーラームーン』), so Japanese fans in Japan do not
consider the live-action series to have a different title from the manga or
from the prior anime in any sense.  
Rather than think of this live-action series as a reboot of the anime, it is
more accurate to think of it as a different adaption from the original manga.
It does not expect any former knowledge of the characters or plots from either
the manga or the prior anime, and starts from the beginning of the first manga
arc. Like the previous anime series had done, it took some liberties by
featuring original content not found in either of the prior versions, such as
its Dark Mercury, Sailor Luna, and puppeteered Princess Sailor Moon personas.  
  
The _Bishoujo Senshi Seeraamuun Crystal_ ( _Beautiful Solider Sailormoon
Crystal_ = 『美少女戦士セーラームーン Crystal』) web anime series and its _Gekijouban
Bishoujo Senshi Seeraamuun Eternal_ ( _Theatrical Edition: Beautiful Solider
Sailormoon Eternal_ = 『劇場版 美少女戦士セーラームーン Eternal』) theatrical movies are a much
later adaption from the original manga. It is the first _Sailor Moon_ series
that had an international fandom in mind in addition to the Japanese fandom,
so it was released as _Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Crystal_ as its
simultaneous official English title (despite the fact that _senshi_ \- which
means 'soldier,' 'combatant,' or 'warrior' and is made up of the Chinese
characters for 'war' + 'samurai' or 'warrior' - does not accurately translate
to the less-violent/aggressive image of the English word 'guardian'; it uses
this to match the official English retroactively-applied to the manga that the
_mangaka_ [manga artist], Takeuchi Naoko, preferred).  
At first, _Crystal_ aimed to mimic the manga as closely as possible, avoiding
any deviations from the manga that had appeared in the prior beloved anime.
However, after _Crystal_ severely bombed with Japanese audiences (likely due
to its poor characterization, plot, and animation quality in comparison to the
character development/plot/art quality of the prior long-running series), the
director and character designer were both scrapped and elements from the prior
anime were then abruptly re-incorporated, but this did not salvage _Crystal_
amongst Japanese viewers, most of whom had written it off after the first
episode. It did so poorly that instead of being able to finance an entire
Season 4 as previously intended, the _Dream_ arc was compressed down into a
2-part theatrical movie. The _Eternal_ films also bombed at the Japanese box
office, not even making it into the Top 10 Anime Films in movie theaters
during the Part 1 release in January 2021 (notice that is not a list of the
Top 10 films released in January 2021, or even the Top 10 anime films released
in January, but was the box office ranking for all anime films in theaters at
that time, which included some that had even already been in theaters for
weeks or even months before _Eternal_ Part 1 came out, and it couldn't even
attract attention/interest away from those). (At the time of writing this
post, whether or not an attempt to adapt the _Stars_ arc into any sort of
_Crystal_ format after such financial failures is unknown. If it does happen,
it would likely be due to hopes for overseas interest, rather than for
domestic Japanese interest in such a project.)

> Note: I haven't yet quite finished the first season, so I don't know how the
> rest is, but I have a strong feeling that it will lose its charm once Usagi
> and the other girls know that she is a Moon princess and all that stuff. I
> like the first few episodes the best, which I watched when I was still a
> kid, because everything about the demons and even Luna is not yet explained
> and Usagi was just a confused and clumsy school girl who regularly
> transforms into Sailor Moon.

If you do not feel that you want to watch through an entire 200 episodes, I
would strongly suggest skipping ahead to episode 173 after you finish the
first arc to resume from the 7th episode of the _Sailorstars_ season, which is
when the _Stars_ arc begins.  
As a child, I enjoyed _Sailorstars_ most of all the seasons because it was fun
and charming but, as an adult (although I have enjoyed noticing commentary
about Japanese society in the first season that had gone over my head as a
child), I most enjoy re-watching _Sailorstars_ because it has very deep,
poignant, and enduringly useful themes, such as intercultural understanding,
gender, punishment vs. forgiveness, etc. It is also impressive when you
contrast the maturity of characters in the 5th season with how they were in
the 1st season.  
Furthermore, some characters appear for the first time in the 5th season: one
of them, Seiya Kou (a.k.a. Sailor Star Fighter), even placed in the Top 10
Sailor Moon characters of all time in NHK's _Zen Bishoujo Senshi Seeraamuun
Anime Dai Touhyou_ ( _All "Beautiful Solider Sailormoon" Anime Grand Election_
= 『全美少女戦士セーラームーンアニメ大投票』) in 2021. Despite many viewers never having watched
that far into the series, the love for this character is so strong among the
fans who have watched through to the end that, 25 years later, he is fondly
remembered enough to beat out many characters who are much more generally
well-known.


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