Sailor Moon R

The second season of the Sailor Moon anime series Sailor Moon R (originally released in Japan as Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon R (美少女戦士セーラームーンR, Bishōjo Senshi Sērā Mūn Āru), and later as Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon R), was produced by Toei Animation and directed by Junichi Sato and Kunihiko Ikuhara. According to the booklet from the Sailor Moon Memorial Song Box, the letter "R" stands for the word "Romance", "Return" or "Rose". Like the rest of the series, it follows the adventures of Usagi Tsukino and her fellow Sailor Guardians and contains two story arcs. The first 13 episodes consist of the self-contained "Makai Tree" arc, while the following 29 episodes consist of the "Black Moon Clan" arc which adapts the fourth through seventh volumes of Naoko Takeuchi's Sailor Moon manga. After defeating the Dark Kingdom, the Sailor Guardians are living normal lives, but their memories and powers are then restored after the Hell Tree aliens arrive to harvest energy from people and challenge the Sailor Guardians. Afterwards, the Black Moon Clan travel to the present to steal energy at the Star Points of the future Crystal Tokyo, forcing the protagonists to confront them with Usagi's future daughter Chibiusa.

The season initially ran from March 6, 1993 to March 12, 1994 on all ANN stations in Japan. In the 1994 "favorite episode" polls for Animage, "Protect Chibiusa! Clash of the 10 Warriors" came in eighth place. The following year, "The Final Battle Between Light and Darkness! Love Sworn to the Future" came in seventh place. The season was licensed for a heavily edited dubbed broadcast in English by DIC Entertainment. Their adaptation were ran on the Canadian channel YTV from October 25 to November 28, 1995. Eventually, the remaining 17 episodes aired from October 4 to November 21, 1997, omitting only one of the season's 43 episodes. Starting with the third season, Cloverway Inc. took over dubbing new episodes for broadcast on Cartoon Network. Eventually, Viz Media began redubbing the series from the start for an uncut release on DVD and Blu-ray and released R in two boxsets on July 14 and October 27, 2015.

This season makes use of two pieces of theme music: one opening theme and one ending theme. The opening theme, titled "Moonlight Densetsu", is performed by the idol group DALI. The ending theme "Otome no Policy" is performed by Yoko Ishida. The DIC Entertainment dub uses an English-language version of "Moonlight Densetsu" in their adaptation.