The Breakup Breakdown

When showing Sailor Moon to Husbo for the first time, the breakup arc was a hurdle to get through. In this house we like our boy Mamo. This was a trial by fire sort of deal where it'd make or break his investment in Sailor Moon. Husbo is someone not used to long running shows, or anime at all for that matter, so I was trying to minimize filler as much as possible since I didn't know when he'd lose interest.

I didn't know how to sort out the Breakup Arc for a curated viewing at the time; my best guess was hoping it'd appeal to the part of his brain that loves to redraft and that a promise that Mamoru never ever does it ever again would suffice to get him through it.

It went similarly to what I'd assume is most people's experience with it; rolling your eyes at every on-screen reminder that the breakup arc is currently happening. If you're lucky you walk out of it with a creative-writing exercise, and if you're not charitable you might as well throw the entire romance component of the show in the trash as our romantic lead is now ruined beyond repair.

This was before we took a scalpel to Sailor Moon. It might have, in fact, had a hand in our strange fascination for it. Turns out the Breakup Arc is a pretty fun guy once you get to know him, but that does not change the fact it's a tough cookie to crack.

We argue that this arc presents a fascinating opportunity within Sailor Moon's story that gets an unfair treatment for the way it's handled, so in this article we'll be going through the cold, hard facts about it to dispel the negative predisposition people have when coming onto it and hopefully come up with solutions that you can try at home to improve your watching experience, since it's not going away on any re-watches of the show any time soon. Might as well make the most of it, right?