Sailor Moon: The Most Powerful Attacks Worth Transforming For
Each of the Sailor Senshi on Sailor Moon has a signature attack that can shake the Solar System.
Who would have thought a high school freshman is hiding something with extreme magical powers in her makeup compact, which has powers of its own?
Whether they hide their weapons in a compact, wield a magic mirror, or blow a kiss that only looks innocuous, The Sailor Senshi of Sailor Moon may appear like everyday schoolgirls until you realize their extracurricular activities involve fighting off galactic forces of evil. Led by Usagi Tsukino or Sailor Moon, who finds out she is the heiress to a long-lost kingdom on the moon, this army of teen girls who each have a ruling planet are on a mission to destroy Queen Beryl, Queen Nehelenia, and their leagues of evil minions. Never mind that they also have to face the destructive forces of Chaos.
Whether they turn fire and lightning into mythical creatures, literally slay with a kiss or even freeze time itself, the most powerful attacks of the ultimate mahou shoujo are not to be underestimated.
Mercury Aqua Rhapsody
You would think a harp is supposed to be soothing, but Sailor Mercury transforms hers into an instrument of war with her Mercury Aqua Rhapsody attack. She uses Mercury Crystal Power to conjure a harp made entirely of water—and weaponizes it.
Anyone out to get Sailor Mercury shouldn’t be mesmerized by the magical harp’s beauty for too long. Once she begins to play, it releases an extreme blast of water in their face. VesVes the Amazoness learns that the hard way after trapping the Sailor Senshi in a computer and sending the frog-faced Kerokero (a Remless from Queen Nehelenia’s monstrous Dark Moon Circus) to devour their dreams. The melody of water is powerful enough to break the rest of the Senshi out of their digital prison.
The music of this harp can wash away enemies in waves of destruction, including Zirconia, the ringmaster of the Dark Moon Circus.
Fire Soul Bird
You don’t mess with someone, even a teen in a school uniform, who can shoot fire from her fingertips. As if that isn’t enough, by putting her hands together and aiming at the enemy, Sailor Mars can morph that fire into a flaming phoenix.
Fire Soul Bird levels up Sailor Mars’ already scorching Fire Soul attack. Unfortunately, Fire Soul is useless against Seiren, a creature that sucks energy from the other Sailor Senshi. This monstrosity that looks like an evil mermaid extinguishes the flames by vomiting water. Sailor Mars then uses a magical charm to turn Fire Soul into Fire Soul Bird, and Seiren is no match for the phoenix that emerges and flies right through her watery counterattack.
There is more that Fire Soul Bird can do. When it burns through Seiren’s body, it releases beams of energy that she has harvested from the Sailor Senshi and other humans.
Supreme Thunder Dragon
Sailor Jupiter wears a tiara like the other Sailor Senshi, but hidden in that tiara is a lightning rod that crackles with electricity that it gathers from the atmosphere when she is about to strike.
The only time she ever uses this attack is against Utonberino, another extraterrestrial being unleashed on Earth to steal human energy. This one has Sailor Moon and Sailor Mercury in her grasp when Sailor Jupiter sends forth an epic spectacle of an attack. Bolts of lightning from her tiara keep gathering strength until they shoot into the sky and take the form of a dragon which snaps the evildoer up in its mouth. After the dragon dissipates, Utonberino’s limp and scorched body falls to the ground.
Along with Sailor Mars’ Fire Soul Bird, Supreme Thunder Dragon has to be one of the most visually majestic attacks any Sailor Senshi can pull off. It’s electrifying.
Venus Love and Beauty Shock
Sailor Venus is definitely not flirting with anyone when she releases this attack, even if it does manifest as a glittering circle of hearts. She only looks like she’s blowing a kiss.
When Sailor Venus sets off this attack, her lips shimmer for a moment, but what is coming is far more dangerous than lipgloss. The hearts surrounding her become one enormous ball of energy that takes the enemy out. Though the wicked girls in Queen Nehelenia’s Amazoness Quartet think they can handle this, preparing to launch counter attacks of their own, they have nothing on the Sailor Senshi whose planet is named after the goddess of love and beauty.
Sailor Venus uses this attack many times, and even knocks out a Phage behind the scenes at an idol contest she competes in. It is kind of ironic how Sailor Venus winks at her adversary before delivering the kiss of death.
Silence Glaive Surprise
There is a reason that Sailor Saturn’s Silence Glaive is also known as the Scythe of the Goddess of Death and symbolizes the apocalypse.
The Silence Glaive not only appears like something a shinigami (grim reaper) would carry, but can launch a deadly attack and is capable of blowing a planet to smithereens. Queen Nehelenia shouldn’t be laughing when faced with it. When Sailor Saturn harnesses the power of the Glaive, its blade glows eerily and emits an enormous amount of energy in the form of dark lightning, which becomes supercharged into a glowing ball that shoots beams of violet radiation at the nefarious queen. Shocking.
The energetic explosion that happens in the wake of this attack can be seen and heard from a distance. Silence Glaive Surprise supposedly has even more fight in it, but its full power remains unknown, since Chibi-usa ends up getting in the way.
Space Sword Blaster
Sailor Uranus can cause earthquakes at will, which may shake evildoers to the core, but what really blows her enemies away is her Space Sword Blaster attack.
This is no ordinary sword. While the Space Sword is disguised in a jeweled sheath when not in use, it reveals a glowing blade when unsheathed, and that blade can cut through something without ever touching it. Space Sword Blaster involves Sailor Uranus lifting the sword over her head with both hands, mercilessly slicing through the air and releasing a fiery ringed planet in the image of Uranus, which splits into many more planets that hurtle towards the enemy. They coalesce into one huge energetic explosion when they reach their target. No wonder Queen Nehelenia shrieks in horror.
The sword doesn’t always release a barrage of planets. It can send out waves of pink radiation which can easily topple multiple enemies at once.
Submarine Reflection
Like many accessories on Sailor Moon, Sailor Neptune’s Deep Aqua Mirror looks like something you can find on any vanity—but holds immense power.
Submarine Reflection is capable of both investigation and attack. To find out where an enemy’s weakness lies, all Sailor Neptune has to do is hold the Deep Aqua Mirror in their general direction so it can reflect that weakness, and then send another Sailor Senshi to strike. The revealing side of the mirror could also tell her other things she would have no way of knowing otherwise. She and Sailor Uranus usually carry out this maneuver together. She can also wield it directly against someone, and only has to gaze into the mirror herself before turning it towards an adversary and shooting huge beams of blue radiation at them.
This is the only attack Sailor Neptune uses the mirror for, even though it is her talisman.
Time Stop
Magic that can warp spacetime should be expected from warriors connected to the celestial realm, and Sailor Pluto defies physics with one of those attacks.
Sailor Pluto can actually use her Garnet Rod to stop time. While it sounds like someone could live forever by hitting pause, the purpose of this attack (which hardly lasts long enough for eternal life) is to freeze everything in a perilous situation so she and the other Sailor Senshi will be able to escape before falling prey to enemies. When she holds up her rod, it will emanate a rainbow of light beams, and all time in the universe comes to a temporary halt.
This is how she escapes a swarm of Daimons along with Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune.
Unfortunately, Sailor Pluto is only able to use this attack three times before the immense amount of energy it depletes leads to her death.
The Silver Crystal
Despite her infamous sweet tooth and tendency to sleep in whenever she can, Sailor Moon is the most powerful of the Sailor Senshi. Her arsenal of attacks ranges from hairpins that fire projectiles at the enemy to blasts of radiation that explode from her tiara.
Even with everything she is capable of, the most formidable power Usagi can wield is the Silver Crystal. Not everyone casually wears something that can raise the dead or annihilate an entire planet around their neck or stashes it in a makeup compact (at least what deceptively looks like one). Queen Serenity used the Silver Crystal to resurrect the fallen Moon Kingdom—but this drained so much of her life force that it ultimately killed her.
What else gives this crystal its immense power? Surprisingly, it isn’t a supernatural cosmic force. The strength of the Silver Crystal depends on the purity of the user’s heart.
Sailor Moon is available to stream on Hulu in the U.S.
Written by
Elizabeth Rayne is a she-writer, poet, and aspiring novelist who is owned by a parrot. When not writing, she can most likely be found cosplaying as a…