Sailor Moon’s Multiple Timelines, Explained

It’s often glossed over, but Sailor Moon includes a shocking amount of time traveling that you might not see that often in a series where it’s not a core mechanic used by the main characters. There’s even a Sailor Scout, Pluto, whose job is guarding the Space-time Door, and who can manipulate time but risks her own well-being if she does so, as it’s forbidden. However, other characters mess with the flow of time in ways that undoubtedly lead to the creation of multiple timelines, and probably some paradoxes, too. You even witness Sailor Scouts try to rewrite time more than once throughout the storied and iconic series.

While decisions made in the series certainly lead to the existence of multiple timelines, it’s easy to ignore this because you never actually see those other timelines. Instead, the series remains focused on Sailor Moon as she vanquishes evil with the help of the Inner Senshi, along with other Sailor Scouts depending on the situation. During these battles, Sailor Moon’s powers are considered the most common catalyst for the creation of new timelines.

Sailor Moon, Chibi Moon, and Chibi Chibi Fracture the Series’ Timeline

In terms of the narrative, it’s an uplifting occasion when Sailor Moon uses her powers as Princess Serenity to reverse the damage done to the Earth. You see her use these abilities during arcs such as the Sailor Saturn one, where Saturn uses her glaive to save an extremely damaged Tokyo, and Princess Serenity reverses the damage, which reverts Saturn to an infant as well. As a result, this action either creates a new timeline that splits from the original timeline by undoing the damage, or it erases the previous timeline to rewrite it. Whichever option is true would also end up being the consequence every other time Princess Serenity reverses damage on a large scale.

Then, you have Sailor Chibi Moon, the daughter of Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask. She travels hundreds of years back in time to be trained by the younger version of her mother in order to use her powers properly. But she doesn’t travel back and forth between the past and the future just once and instead visits multiple times to stay for a while in the past. What’s interesting is that she’s wary of Sailor Moon at the start because of her strained relationship with Neo Queen Serenity.

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Chibi Moon warms up to Sailor Moon, but it raises the question of how her time travel impacted the future. This is the case since forming a relationship with Sailor Moon would mean that their relationship would be better in the future if Sailor Moon knew her daughter from the past. This means that it’s possible that Sailor Chibi Moon creates one or more new timelines when she travels to the past because interacting with her parents would likely mean their relationship in the future is better.

Finally, you have Sailor Chibi Chibi from Sailor Moon Cosmos, who is later revealed to be Sailor Cosmos. She goes back to the past with the intention of changing the future, setting it on a course where Sailor Chaos will never be created. With this ability, she certainly creates new timelines when she decides to use it. It’s another case where there are either infinite timelines or where timelines are continuously being destroyed every time a character decides to change the decisions — or heal the damage — of the past.

Since the series focuses just on the core timeline, it’s impossible to say what actually happens when Sailor Scouts meddle with the timeline. However, it could mean that Sailor Moon has infinite spinoff potential if those alternate timelines can be explored.