Sailor Moon/Awesome

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General

• The fact that this manga, which Naoko Takeuchi wrote for fun after a few earlier series like The Cherry Project, became an international sensation. Takeuchi herself admitted in her memoir comics that she wasn't ready for the onslaught of success, but put all her effort into every manga page and piece of art.
• A thirteen-year old girl constantly late to school and failing classes becomes the world's savior. She grows as a character, finding ways to study and keep up with her classes.
• Haruka and Michiru transforming on the back of a motorcycle. About two seconds of pure win.
  • Tuxedo Mask did it once too, which was incidentally on top of looking cool, also beat the pants of the actual transformation sequence he'd been given in the first series.

Manga

Dark Kingdom saga

• While it's played as a gag in the anime, Sailor Moon's sonic cries are a dangerous attack to youma. She uses them twice to incapacitate them. When rescuing Rei from Jadeite, Luna has to warn Sailor Moon not to use them because the dimension where they're fighting is unstable.
• Usagi doesn't want to fight scary monsters as a soldier. That is, until she and Luna find out that her new friend Ami is going to a cram school where the CDs have energy-draining technology, meaning it's a Dark Kingdom trap. Usagi declares that she has to rescue Ami!
• Sailor Venus incinerates Zoicite when the latter nearly kills Sailor Moon, with a well-placed Crescent Beam. And that's how she makes her debut.
• The Senshi discover the Sword of the Silver Crystal, also known as the Holy Sword, on the Moon. Writing on it reveals that the sword's purpose is to protect Princess Serenity. Venus recalls that she used it to kill Queen Beryl in the past. She tests it out on a diamond ring that Ami owns, and the ring shatters. Diamond is the hardest substance in the world.
• A brainwashed Makoto try and steal the Silver Crystal. It's Usagi against the super strong Makoto, she's doomed, right? Cue Minako knocking Makoto out with a single kick.

Black Moon

• Doubling as a Tear Jerker, Sailor Pluto breaks protocol and abandons her post when she realizes that Chibi-Usa must be in danger. She then stops time, a forbidden taboo, as Demande is about to bring the Silver Crystal of the past and future together, which will cause an apocalyptic time paradox. The price of that taboo is that she will lose her life. Sailor Moon uses the time stop to retrieve the crystals just as Pluto collapses. Seeing Pluto die in front of her reverts Black Lady back to her child self, and makes her a Senshi to boot.

SuperS

• The scene where the Inner Senshi have been captured by the Amazoness Quartet and the Outers - who they haven't seen for quite a while - show up to save them. Complete with Sailor Saturn, who has stopped, well, being a baby.
• Nehellenia's defeat. She tried to steal the Silver Imperium Crystal from Super Sailor Moon, and, naturally, it didn't work. It leads to a moment where Usagi and Mamoru embrace, and in that embrace, the two are able to take back the crystal as they combine their love and their power. Naoko Takeuchi weaponized a romantic embrace. It gets even better as Sailor Moon delivers a "The Reason You Suck" Speech to Nehellenia in her One-Winged Angel form.

Queen Nehellenia: This can't be!!! Sailor Moon: You can't take power! Power is created. And it can't be created alone... nor can it be used alone! I'll show you what our power is made of!

Chaos Galactica

• Sailor Galaxia is an awesome villain. In the manga, she kills most everyone, resurrects their corpses, and turns them against Usagi. And in the anime, she basically kills everyone on Earth because she can, and laughs about it the whole time.
• Sailor Nyanko while posing as a student tries to be transphobic towards the disguised Star Trio, telling Usagi that it's unnatural for girls to wear boys' uniforms. Usagi's response is nuts to that and she befriends the trio. Also an awesome one for Naoko Takeuchi, who wrote this in the 1990s.
• Sailor Moon basically telling Sailor Chi to take a long walk off a short pier before blasting her in the manga was awesome.
• Oh, and tanking a Planet Attack from all the bracelet-controlled evil-Senshi, repairing her broken staff and blasting them all to dust with a single attack while still kneeling on the floor.
• Sailor Moon's Heroic Sacrifice in the climax. She finds the Cauldron of Stars, and finds out Chaos emerged from it. Chaos created all the villains that killed her friends, destroyed their planets, and caused so much pain. She could destroy the Cauldron,...but it would also destroy new life. Sailor Moon instead merges with the cauldron, sacrificing her physical form to purify it. Chaos is dispelled, not defeated but severely weakened.
• Chibi-Chibi reveals her true form as Sailor Cosmos. She was locked in an eternal battle with Chaos in the future, but ran away after dealing with burnout. Sailor Cosmos was hoping to ally with Sailor Moon and find a way to defeat Chaos once and for all. Seeing Sailor Moon face Chaos after losing everything and everyone she loved, however, motivated Cosmos to return to the future and defeat Chaos in her time.
• Usagi wakes up as Neo-Queen Serenity in Crystal Tokyo. All her friends are alive, and so is Mamoru. What's the next thing to do? Arrange a wedding As she walks down the aisle, Usagi feels herself pregnant with Chibi-Usa, and thinks about the better future she has brought to her home.

Anime

Classic

• The first episode has Usagi doubting that she can be a Senshi. She at first thinks that Luna talking to her must be a dream, and realizes she's in over her head while rescuing Naru from a youma; Morga doesn't play fair and sics hordes of brainwashed people on her. Then Usagi starts crying loudly; her powers amplify the cry into a sonic scream that incapacitates everyone in the room, including Morga. Luna teaches Usagi quickly how to toss her tiara. Sailor Moon does, and to her surprise, the tiara turns Morga into dust.
• Episode 2 has a fortuneteller youma brainwash Umino and the other boys into acting like delinquents. Usagi and Naru confront Umino for flipping Ms. Haruna's skirt, saying that was a mean thing to do. When he creepily hits on Usagi, she starts crying, nearly activating her sonic screams again. This forces him and the other boys to back off and return to the fortuneteller building.
• In episode 3, Sailor Moon attempts to attack Jadeite head-on after defeating his radio co-host youma. It doesn't go well; he curbstomps her and knocks her a few feet away. Pretty awesome of Jadeite, since he also stops her tiara with his powers.
• Just as the youma in "Episode 6" has Sailor Moon dead to rights, by freezing her to ice, two roses shoot at them. One injures the youma. The other frees Sailor Moon from the ice. Tuxedo Kamen knows how to make an entrance! Sailor Moon quickly uses the distraction to hit the youma with a well-aimed tiara.
• In episode 13 the Senshi run Jadeite over with a plane for making sexist comments about them. Ouch.
• One moment wasn't even for a Sailor Senshi in the Beach Episode. So a little girl, Sakiko has psychic powers and can take a form as a ghost. She does it and the ghost goes out of control and starts wreaking havoc. Her father and her are just waiting to be killed by it but by that minute you think, Tuxedo Mask should appear right? Wrong. Instead she gets out of her father's hold and releases a bunch of energy to beat the ghost-thing. Wow.
  • • Sailor Jupiter/Kino Makoto (Lita) also had a Crowning Moment of Awesome in her first episode. She beat up three street punks who almost went after Usagi (Serena) for bumping into them while running to school, she decked Zoicite in the face (but not before throwing her rose earring at her) while trying to save the crane game guy (in America, he's known as Game Machine Joe), and when Game Machine Joe turned into the video game-based Youma, Makoto (Lita) picked the demon up and hurled him into the bushes. All of this before it was revealed that she's Sailor Jupiter.
  • The Jovian symbol appears on her forehead during that last part, which makes it even more awesome.
• Yuuichirou gets one in the episode (30) he first appears in, where he jumps in the way of a youma, saying "If it's to protect you, Rei, I wouldn't mind dying!"
• In the skiing episode, the youma's magic nearly buries Rei, who navigates the course with ease, and a stumbling Usagi, alive via avalanche. They're okay fortunately, if trapped by large snowbanks. Seeing there's no way to climb above the heavy snow after a few failed attempts, Rei prepares to transform and blast her way through the banks. Then she hears a familiar voice. Yuuichirou dug through the snow to find them, despite not knowing where Rei and Usagi were, and tells them the tunnel he made is a way out, while saying he's relieved they're okay. It's at this point the youma appears and knocks him out, much to Rei's anger.
• One from the backstory, as shown in Kunzite's last episode: Queen Serenity from the Silver Millenium defeats the Dark Kingdom single-handedly. Made doubly awesome (and sad) by the Xanatos Gambit she also set: she's dying pretty much alone, but she arranges for Princess Serenity, Prince Endymion and all the Sailor Senshi to be reincarnated when it's time, sending Luna and Artemis into a Convenient Coma so they can be their guides. She was awesome, no doubt about it.
• Heck, just take the entire first season finale and call it one big Crowning Moment Of Awesome. There wasn't a single thing done wrong in those two episodes.
• Sailor Moon Episode 45 has several.
  • Villainous one: the DD girls are the only youma that managed to have a body count. They succeed in killing most of the Senshi. That's something not even the Shittenou achieved in this version.
  • Jupiter, while being attacked with electricity, smirks and says "You dare attack me with lightning?!" before suicidally electrocuting her tormentors with her own giant bolt of lightning. She manages to take two of them out in one go, while lasting long enough to say farewell to Usagi.
  • Have we forgotten Mercury? After a DD Girl has her within, for all intents and purposes, a giant ball of fire, virtually helpless and nearly electrocuted:

Sailor Mercury: [looking at her micro-miniature supercomputer] This may be the last time I use this. (She then proceeds to smirk, hit the illusion-creating DD Girl with it - destroying her ability to torment her friends via illusions - and die. Epically.)

• • Tsk, tsk, tsk. No Sailor Venus? Granted, her moment may not be as awesome as everyone else's (especially not Mars), but disintegrating one of the DD Girls with one shot of her Crescent Beam was still awesome.
  • Usagi at first is broken and prepared to surrender the Crystal for her friends' lives. Then the DD Girls cackle they wouldn't have made the deal anyway-- they will kill all the girls and take the Crystal from their corpses. As the last two corner Mars and Moon, Sailor Moon refuses to let Sailor Mars fight them alone. The Viz dub has her order Rei to go back to Tokyo, let her face the youma and Beryl alone. Usagi is crying and barely holding herself together, but she was prepared to go solo so that Rei could live.
  • The quintessential one for fans is when a badly beaten and dying Sailor Mars seemingly lies lifeless after having taken down one of the DD Girls (from inside an ice mound, something in itself pretty awesome). The last remaining DD Girl threatens Sailor Moon, Sailor Mars grabs her enemies vine-like arm, and shoots flame up it incinerating her. A good deal of awesome comes from the delivery:

Sailor Mars: [softly] I'm not done yet. DD Girl: [look of horror] A-ah! Sailor Mars: [softly] fire [rageful scream] SOOOOUUULLLL!

• Episode 46
  • Usagi has lost all of her friends in one go. A brainwashed Endymion resists her Healing Escalation, smacks her with his sword, electrocutes her with a black rose, and chokes her before tossing her to the ground. Beryl then taunts Sailor Moon that all of her friends will have died for nothing. Usagi flashes back to her friends' corpses on the ice. She gains a Death Glare hits Endymion with a tiara at point-blank range-- something that could have killed him given what it does to youma-- before showing him the locket he gifted her. It restores Mamoru back to normal, much to Beryl's shock.
  • Mamoru dies protecting Usagi from Beryl. She considers kissing him, but thought of how her friends weren't able to kiss the ones that they loved. Sailor Moon gets up, walks away, and faces Beryl out in the open. She proceeds to turn into Princess Serenity when Beryl attempts to bury her in an ice floe, and summons one final Healing Escalation.
  • How Usagi wins the Beam-O-War: she thinks of how her friends believed in true love, and in the planet Earth. Including grumpy Rei, withdrawn Minako, and optimistic Makoto. She calls on the spirits of her friends, who comforted her in the previous episode, to remind her of reasons to fight for their home. Gloved hands join hers, and the Senshi's ghosts contribute their remaining power. Beryl isn't just killed; she is disintegrated.
  • Usagi manages to make one final wish as the Silver Crystal shatters, and she collapses in Senshi form. She asks for tomorrow to be a normal day, that she's late for school and upset about another F. Though she is dying, the Crystal encases her and her friends, as a sad reprise of "Moonlight Densetsu" plays.
  • The creators confirmed that Usagi's wish turned back time by a year. That's why her day restarts exactly the way it did in the pilot, with her accidentally tossing her failed exam at Mamoru, and how she and her friends lost their memories. That is one powerful Crystal, and a more powerful wish.
    • It also means that the Rainbow Crystal holders were never awakened. They all got to have ordinary lives, including Urawa who feared becoming a monster and hurting Ami.

R

Makaiju Arc

• Luna at first hesitates to awaken Usagi's memories because she knows how traumatic it was for the poor girl, to see her friends die in front of her. Then when a Cardian threatens Usagi and her non-Senshi friends at a sleepover, Usagi tries to defend them and shouts, "In the name of the Moon, I will punish you!" She pauses, unsure why she said that. Realizing that her memories are awakening already to protect her friends, Luna steps in and restores the rest of them. Despite screaming and crying, Sailor Moon transforms and defeats the Cardian with her tiara. It's the only time her tiara works in taking down a Cardian.
• Even though Usagi's PTSD is surging forward, she tells Luna that she doesn't want her friends' memories to be awakened. So she prepares to face the next Cardian alone, despite being outclassed.
• Without their memories, the Senshi still put up a fight against the Cardian when it attacks them at an audition for a film role. Rei smacks one with her ofudas, and Makoto smashes it with a chair. Luna realizes they need help, and quickly reawakens their memories.
• Makoto faces a Cardian that nearly murdered her childhood friend, while weak from donating blood, before it can kill Sailor Moon. She defeats it singlehandedly.
• Kenji-Papa, of all people, in Sailor Moon R! When a Cardian is attacking the virtual reality theatre, and Shingo is threatened, Kenji-Papa turns Papa Wolf by blasting the Cardian with a fire extinguisher once they realize that it's not a fake monster. His reasoning? "It's a parent's duty to protect their beloved child!" Way to go, Dad!
• The Badass of the Inners? (Jupiter Thunder Dragon.)
• The Festival Episode
  • Rei organized an entire musical festival while balancing her shrine duties. She also wrote all-original music. Usagi even mentions that it was awesome of Rei.
  • The Cardian attacks Rei mid-song, draining her before the Senshi can break the tentacles. The Cardian proceeds to latch on them to drain their energy. When Rei transforms and launches a fire attack, she's only strong enough to sever the tentacles but her friends collapse unconscious. Then the Moonlight Knight appears as the cavalry, and the Cardian makes the mistake of knocking out Rei's original music. She flashes back to the hours spent in front of the piano and despairing. Cue Mar's dragon fire attack, which knocks down the Cardian and restores everyone's energy.
• One for Ail and An; they are part of the enemies that the Senshi face who are not obliterated out of necessity. The others are the four Black Moon sisters, Professor Tomoe once he's freed of his brainwashing, the Amazon Trio, and Galaxia. Unlike the others, Sailor Moon didn't need to purify them; once they understood they were in the wrong, the twins back down, apologize, and leave to start a new life. Helping is that they had the most sympathetic motives, to save the Makaiju tree, their mother, and save themselves as well. 
• When the Makaiju starts lashing out in pain, its vines lash out and attack Ail. An sees that a vine is about to hit Ail and leaps in front of Ail, shouting at their mother to not hurt him. She gets impaled and collapses, but it shows that they understood what real love was, rather than their obsessive infatuation with Mamoru and Usagi respectively. What's more, it's this that causes Ail to stop fighting the Senshi, as he helds An's prone body.
• How Usagi stops the Makaiju's meltdown; she screams for it to stop, and a flashing light bursts out. The tree stops writhing, and starts talking. It thanks Usagi for giving it a voice, and explains its tragic backstory, how its children fought each other after coming to life. The tree never needed human energy to survive; it needed love, and came to Earth so that its last surviving children, Ail and An, could learn about what love was. Ail is truly regretful that he didn't understand. The tree tells Sailor Moon that she can heal it, with her selfless love. A princess halation does the trick; the tree revives as a sprout, and An awakens as well.

Black Moon

• Sailor Mars' upgrade comes when Koan injures her grandfather. As you can tell, Rei is pissed, and pushes Sailor Moon out of the way of Koan's Dark Fire, saying that it's her turn. But that's not the awesome moment. The awesome moment comes when both engage in a Beam-O-War, and Mars, focusing on her injured grandfather, uses Burning Mandala for the first time and utterly decimates Koan's attack. As a bonus, Koan's skirt is on fire when she teleports away!
• Even the local Butt Monkey Yuuichirou (Chad) has his own CMOA in the R season when he shields Rei from Koan's (Catsy's) attacks and shuts her up when she mocks him by saying he's doing it because he wants to, despite knowing that Rei doesn't love him that way.
• Episode 68, Sailor Moon R. Moon has taken quite a beating from Rubeus for shielding Chibi-Usa from him. Rubeus tells the injured Moon to just let him kill Chibi-Usa - and her reply?

Moon (gets up, still weak but VERY determined): You... You really think I'm that weak? I will prove to you right now... THAT I CAN PROTECT THIS LITTLE GIRL!

• • Also, in Episode 74, when Rubeus multiplies the gravity around Moon, enough to make her sink into the ground, and she still gets up!
  • It was Chibi-Usa's fault that Rubeus captures the Senshi. She knows it, as Usagi nearly smacks her for her stupidity and Mamoru has to stop Usagi from doing something she'll regret. Then Sailor Moon prepares to face Rubeus alone rather than sacrifice a child for her friends. Chibi-Usa follows, because she feels guilty about getting the other Senshi captured. As Sailor Moon faces Rubeus, Chibi-Usa runs for the generator affecting the gravity and keeping the Senshi captive. Despite getting shocked multiple times, Chibi-Usa manages to dislodge it, making up for her previous error.
• Esmeraude sends a droid to ambush the time-traveling Senshi. It's powerful enough to withstand their attacks, as Ami studies on her computer, and can send them back to the girls. Ami says that the droid is vulnerable while using her attack, but they need to use the Sailor Planet attack to destroy her. Chibi-Usa says that she's on it, using her upgraded toy to distract the droid. The Senshi use their Sailor Planet Attack, obliterating the droid.
• Dimande ambushes the Senshi in Crystal Tokyo, and uses his Third Eye to immobilize them. Sailor Moon tries to challenge him, but he uses telekinesis to grab her and nearly gets an unconscious Chibb-Usa. Since he figured out that she is Neo-Queen Serenity's past self, the Black Moon would have won then and there if not for Endymion telling Mamoru where to go and stage a rescue.
• One could argue that Prince Dimande's final act could be considered one. As Sailor Moon is trying to convince him Wiseman is evil, Wiseman shows up and gives Dimande a You Have Outlived Your Usefulness speech and attacks him. To which Dimande replies

Dimande: So you have shown your True Colors. I am Prince Dimande, leader of the Black Moon! Take me down if you can!

• • But wait, there's more! The two engage in a Beam-O-War. Wiseman turns to Sailor Moon and sends a HUGE blast at her, when Dimande jumps in the way and continues his fight, saying "Do not underestimate me!" Wiseman disappears, supposedly dead. Dimande collapses in Sailor Moon's arms, and delivers a Final Speech, possibly counting as both a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming and a Tear Jerker ending with:

Dimande: Sailor Moon...I love you.

The R Movie

• How could this page have gone for this long without mentioning Sailor Moon R: The Movie? It ties into the Makaiju arc with the hints that Fiore was one of the tree's lost children-- his true form, and how he drains energy.
• Fiore recognizes Sailor Moon as the "girl" who was with Mamoru the day before. Most villains don't do that, and Kunzite had failure after failure in trying to find Sailor Moon's true identity. He follows that up by recognizing Tuxedo Kamen as Mamoru by identifying the rose he uses.
• Tuxedo Kamen has been impaled, kidnapped and imprisoned within a healing crystal. He is Forced to Watch Fiore, his childhood friend and semi-stalker, drain his girlfriend of energy out of the belief that Usagi is bewitching them. Fiore also announced that the meteor will send more Kisenian Blossom youma to Earth, wiping out all life. Tuxedo Kamen breaks out of the crystal by sheer willpower, gathers his strength, and tosses a rose at Fiore. It hits the target, just as Fiore is about to kill Sailor Moon. Fiore is shocked as Mamoru collapses on the asteroid.
• It ends up not being Sailor Moon that defeats the Kisenian Blossom, though she does help. Fiore attempts to remove the Silver Crystal from Sailor Moon as she plans to commit a Heroic Suicide and use the crystal's power to redirect the asteroid, before it can make contact with Earth. Usagi talks him down by revealing how she and Mamoru met: Shingo was born the day that Fiore had to leave Earth, and Usagi heard Mamoru crying. She selflessly offered him a flower from a bouquet meant for her mother to cheer up a boy she hadn't met before. Fiore gets a Heel Realization because that was the same flower that Mamoru gave him as a parting gift, and his Heroic Willpower shatters the Kisenian Blossom in one go]].
• For the last six minutes of the movie, which are also a Tear Jerker and a Heartwarming Moment -- and contains Crowning Music of Awesome -- only two words need be said: Moon Revenge.

S

• One for the daimons: it's revealed they are so powerful that they managed to repel the Inner Senshi's attacks, as well as Sailor Moon's Princess Halation, without breaking a sweat. The Outer Senshi have to intervene to take them out. It takes Sailor Moon receiving an upgrade as well to match their skill set.
• How Tuxedo Kamen takes out the daimon that stole Ami's pure heart; he sends a rose flying, and pierces her flotation device. Then he does the same to the inner tube that incapacitated Sailor Moon, so that she can send a Spiral hearts attack at it. Turns out the daimon can't swim; she flails in the water and scrambles for the poolside. That's all the opening that Sailor Moon needs.
• In the end of a two-parter episode arc, Kaorinite has captured Tuxedo Mask in glass and withstood a combined attack of 5 inner Senshi. She then declares it's over for them and just then Uranus (who was injured in the fight) decides to step in - and defeats Kaorinite with one blast by turning her glass attack around.
• Sailor Jupiter destroying a daimon on her own, something only Sailor Moon ever does, completely undermining the episode's Aesop about relying on others and not trying to do things on your own. If Aristotle was right, and anyone who works on their own "is either a beast or a god," well, I guess that makes Sailor Jupiter...
• The episode about Haruka's backstory:
  • Elsa Gray is the next target because of her dedication to sports. She also is the only one that has a sensible response to a woman pointing a gun at her: run! Elsa turns out to be a star track-runner who came in second to Haruka when the latter was an athlete. Eudial misses the first shot, which is also the more awesome since her aim is usually accurate. She has to use a daimon to corner Elsa and remove her pure heart.
  • It's revealed that Michiru was Elsa's friend, and Elsa introduced her to Haruka. Haruka could sense something was different about Michiru, perhaps running from the same destiny. A kid transformed into a youma in front of Haruka. Her transformation wand appears. Haruka reaches out to touch it, but Michiru orders her not to do that. Sailor Neptune then takes on the youma solo, getting bad injuries while restoring the kid to normal. She explains to Haruka that once she touches the wand, her normal life is over. That's not an easy decision. But if Haruka stays normal? She can pursue her track dreams, and a life. Haruka takes a second. She grabs the wand, determined not to run from her destiny.
• The episode where Venus's heart is taken:
  • Minako is feeling inadequate when, during a study session, the girls recount how painful it was to nearly die after they lose their pure hearts. Artemis doesn't help by saying that maybe Minako isn't pure enough to have a heart stolen. Minako decides to figure out what it means to be pure of heart, going on an internal quest of self-actualization.
  • Doubling as a heartwarming moment, Usagi forcibly shakes Minako when hearing the latter wants to be targeted by the Witches Five. She says that forget purity, she refuses to let Minako risk her life senselessly. As an added bonus, Usagi helps Minako win about twenty toys from a crane game by accident, by shoving her against the toys.
  • Eudial soon targets Minako when the latter decides to give blood and lie about her age. After Haruka and Michiru offer her some juice to refuel, Eudial hits Minako in the back. Everyone in the vicinity goes Mass "Oh Crap"...except Minako. She grabs her pure heart, laughs in relief that she has one, and runs off. No victim before was able to even move after losing their pure heart. Even Eudial is stunned, taking a moment before she sends the daimon after Minako. 
  • Minako finally collapses in a parking garage, while the daimon and Eudial are confused that she made it this far. They then find that Usagi, Michiru and Haruka have followed to rescue Minako. Usagi blows her secret identity to transform; Haruka and Michiru do the same. The daimon goes Oh Crap when Minako recovers and transforms; she realizes belatedly that unknowingly attacking a Sailor Senshi was a bad idea.
• Let's not forget in the Marine Cathedral episode, where Michiru is first kidnapped, and upon waking to see Eudial threatening Haruka, proceeds to scream Uranus's name and wrench herself out of the vines and crap tying her to this plank thing, and then run forward as a shiteload of freaking arrows get launched at her several times, while screaming in this horribly painful voice, until Eudial runs out of arrows, just to try to save Haruka, who is typically considered the badass of the two anyway, while Haruka looks on in complete horror. And then Michiru gets her heart crystal ripped out of her body anyway. Totally awesome scene.
  • Which becomes still more awesome when Haruka tells Sailor Moon that "well, it's up to you now", then takes Eudial's gun and shoots herself, ripping out her own heart crystal.
• In one episode a daimon shows a tinge of mercy when she stops to see if a fallen Hotaru was all right. Hotaru—-who up to this moment had been nothing more than a sickly little girl-—looks up and her eyes glint. Next thing we see is the Daimon crashing to the ground fifty feet away. The trench her feet dug was also a nice touch.
• Episode 125
• At the conclusion of the "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight, Hotaru/Sailor Saturn appears by literally burning Mistress Nine away from the inside. The Saturn symbol breaking through the Death Busters' star was very effective.
  • When an exhausted, beaten and emotionally wrecked Sailor Moon who has lost access to the Holy Grail which usually powers her up to become Super Sailor Moon draws on the support of the the other Sailor Senshi and transforms anyway, so she can help Sailor Saturn. It just looks gorgeous for a start and then she forces her way inside a giant fireball. It makes you really wish they'd actually animated the final battle. Damn it.

SuperS

Amazon Trio

• The Amazon Trio learn that they lack Dream Mirrors, meaning they lack a soul and were only pawns for Nehellenia. Zirconia planned to replace them after they had served their purpose as transformed animals. In their quest to find the Golden Mirror, they accidentally shatter Usagi's, causing her to start dying. They all sacrifice the powers that gave them sapience to fix her Mirror and stop the lemure sent after them, reverting to animal form. Pegasus was so touched by this Heroic Sacrifice that he gave them their humanity back, as well as Dream Mirrors, taking them to his home of Elysium.

Amazoness Quartet

• Chibi-usa gets a major CMOA in Super S, when the Amazon Quartet's playing around with Pegasus results in him panicking and catching fire. Her response? To run through the flames, break his magic reins, and embrace him until the fire dies out.
• Episode 166 in season 4 gets a fun one from Usagi when she leaps off of Nehellenia's floating "island" as it rises back up into the new moon's seal, after Nehellenia throws an almost dead Chibiusa off of it about 30,000 feet or so up. Not only does she do that as Super Sailor Moon, she becomes Princess Serenity while she's falling and actually manages to catch Chibiusa in her arms and wake her up so she can summon Pegasus via Golden Crystal and save them both. This almost gets subverted a few moments later, but, being the hero that she is, Usagi manages to save the day. Well, Chibiusa and Pegasus do, anyway.

Stars

Nehellenia's Dream Mirror

• We've come this far without mentioning Sailor Saturn vs. Queen Nehellenia (restored by Galaxia) in the last anime season? Countless people - including most of the Sailor Senshi - are trapped in the spell of Nehellenia's mirror shards, a de-transformed and exhausted Usagi is struggling through thorns and vines to reach Nehellenia's lair after awakening from her own magical nightmare, and Chibi Moon is on the verge of ceasing to exist due to Mamoru's condition, yet Saturn does not hesitate to threaten her enemy with the devastating power of her nameless planet-annihilating ultimate attack, which would inevitably kill her in the process. When the shocked (perhaps even horrified) Nehellenia demands to know the reason she's willing to "pointlessly" throw away her own life, Saturn replies with "I believe in the Princess" (i.e. Usagi/Sailor Moon/Princess Serenity). Soon after, she makes good on her word, and directs a final prayer to her princess before dropping the Silence Glaive - and although Chibi Moon manages to prevent Saturn from completing her attack, the room is still left a total wreck from the resultant blast. Do not mess with Sailor Saturn or her True Companions! Period!
  • While we're talking about that episode, what about Jupiter's OUR PRINCESS'S LOVE WILL CONQUER EVERYTHING EVER speech that she yells whilst protecting Usagi and consequently being tortured to death by Nehellenia.
    • Actually, that mini-arc was a Crowning Moment of Awesome for all the Inner Seishi. Aside of Mako-chan, we have Rei/Mars refusing to abandon a captured Michiru/Neptune and killing the captor mook with one absolutely precise shot of her Flame Sniper, Minako/Venus plowing through many mooks to rescue Setsuna/Pluto from them, then using a Venus Love Me Chain to keep them from falling into an abyss, and especially Ami/Mercury taking a beating from the mook but refusing to cry or collapse as she searches for its weak point, leaving Haruka/Uranus speechless when she questions Ami and she replies "This... this is my fighting style!" Yeah, I know all of them get caught by Nehelenia and Usagi/Moon ultimately saves the day, but... WOW.
      • Usagi herself takes the Plucky Girl trope Up to Eleven around that time when she's forced to climb a stairway through a forest of thorns on the way to Nehellenia's castle. The thing was: she was not Sailor Moon at the time.

Galaxia and Chaos

• In the Stars anime, Minako gains one (that doubles as Crowning Moment of Heartwarming) during her talk with Yaten in the backstage of the Idol Singer contest. Yaten tries to reprehend Minako for getting herself in when she should be only fighting for the universe, but Minako turns the tables on him and says that not only she has Usagi's blessing, but that even when she wants to save the world, she doesn't want to forget her own dreams in the process. Way to go, Mina-P!
• Episode 191, when Sailor Gamer had defeated Mars, Jupiter and Venus, and was about to kill Sailor Mercury. Mercury repeats to herself over and over that she won't be beaten, then shouts "...this is is not a game!!" She then explodes into battle aura, something that in the manga, only Usagi can do. Just as she's about to die, Star Gentle Uterus comes from left field.
• A flashback shows that unlike in the manga, where Galaxia shot Mamoru in the back in a One-Hit Kill, he put up a fight when she attacked his plane. She admits that she's impressed that he remained Defiant to the End while taking his star seed.
• By the last episode of the series, Usagi has witnessed every one of her friends and her lover die by the hand of Sailor Galaxia, who is possessed by Chaos, the source of all evil and of every previous season's Big Bad. However, refusing to fight Sailor Chaos because she refuses to hurt the innocent Galaxia, Usagi instead offers her hand in friendship to her enemy(who is the source of all evil), and essentially defeats the galaxy's most powerful being by believing in the good in her. Then she helps resurrect every Sailor Senshi in the galaxy and return them to their planets. And she does this naked.
  • It's made even more awesome with knowledge of nudity being a sign of purity in Japan.