Episode 171
Sailor Stars
For the Sake of Love! Endless Battle in the Dark World
Sailor Mars and Neptune are trapped together in one of Nehelenia's dimensions. They're running together but Neptune suddenly stops and tells Mars that she senses someone up ahead.
Nehelenia steps out from behind a tree and attacks them with a purple fire that surrounds them and begins to burn Mars' skirt. Mars begins to panic but Neptune calmly puts it out with Neptune Deep Submerge revealing it to be an illusion. Sailor Mars thinks to herself how much more powerful Neptune's intuition is to hers.
Nehelenia changes the scenery to the black void. She then teleports behind them and captures Neptune with her hair. Mars activates a Mars Flame Sniper arrow. Neptune commands Mars to shoot and not worry about hitting her but Mars hesitates and is attacked by Nehelenia which destroys her arrow.
Neptune reminds Mars of their duty to save 
the princess. Mars realises what Neptune is planning and stands up, creates another arrow and fires it at Nehelenia. At the last minute, Neptune moves her waist out of the way, freeing herself and letting Nehelenia be destroyed. This Nehelenia though transforms into a Mirror Palais Dolly and shatters.
Neptune weakly walks towards Mars and tells her that her intuition is indeed powerful and collapses in a puddle of water. Mars also collapses, weak from Nehelenia's attacks. They're both then trapped in mirrors.
Elsewhere Sailor Venus and Pluto are on the edge of a cliff. Suddenly they're attacked by an army of Mirror Palais Dollies with the only route to escape being a rope bridge. Pluto tells Venus that she needs to go save their princess and that 
she'll hold them off. Venus remembers her duty and slowly begins walking across the bridge as Pluto begins fighting off the Dollies.
Serena meanwhile is still in her snowy dimension but it quickly changes to a warm flower field.
She hears a small voice ask her who she's looking for and looks down to see some talking flowers. She tells them that Darien is caught in Nehelenia's curse and the flowers suggest that she stay here where it's safe. Slowly Serena begins to forget where she was going and even Darien's name. She kneels down with the flowers as her eyes glaze over, hypnotised.
Back at the cliff face Pluto yells out for Venus to keep going as she is needed as the leader who inspires others. Pluto then attacks the Dollies with Pluto Deadly Scream which destroys them but they quickly rebuild themselves and begin to beat Pluto.
Venus runs back and shatters them with Venus Love and Beauty Shock, grabs Plutos hand and together they 
both run across the rope bridge.
All the Dollies follow them though and with all of their combined weight the ropes snap. All the Dollies fall to the bottom of the cliff while Sailor Venus manages to save herself and Pluto with Venus Love Chain Encircle.
While hanging from the magical chain, Sailor Pluto asks Venus why she came back. Venus replies by saying that as her leader she's decided that they should all stick together. They both laugh.
They then hear Nehelenia laughing and look up to see her holding the other end of Venus' chain. She releases it, making Venus and Pluto fall and be captured in mirrors like the others.
Back in the flower field, Nehelenia is standing over Serena 
and promises that this nightmare she's trapped her in won't be happy forever and that she'll hurt her again and again.
She moves to scratch her with her nails but is stopped by Sailor Jupiter. Jupiter attacks her with Jupiter Oak Evolution but Nehelenia blocks it with her own flowers.
Nehelenia asks Jupiter if her princess is worth laying down her own life for. Jupiter tells her that Serena lights up their lives just like the Moon itself and that her friendship is so pure that she will sacrifice herself without a moment's thought. Nehelenia thinks back to how Sailor Moon dived after Mini Moon in the SuperS finale. Jupiter asks her if she's never had a friend like Serena.
Nehelenia becomes furious and zaps Jupiter repeatedly and yelling that someone like her has no need of friends.
Jupiter falls next to Serena. One of her rose earings falls off. As she slowly falls into one of Nehelenia's mirrors she whispers Serena's name, but Serena doesn't hear her. Jupiter falls asleep in her mirror.
Serena sees the rose earing 
and begins to get memory flashes of Tuxedo Mask. She awakens from the curse and stands up. The world shatters and is revealed to be the dark void that's right next to Nehelenia's castle.
Nehelenia invites her to make it to her castle and free her prince and disappears. Serena goes to walk up the road to the castle but is stopped by the appearance of heaps and heaps of thorny vines. She steps right in and begins her way through the thorns to save Darien.
Nehelenia appears at the top of the road near her castle and thinks about how stupid Serena is.
As she turns to enter her throne room she's confronted by Sailor Mini Moon and Sailor Saturn. Saturn spins her glaive, aiming it at Nehelenia's neck and commands that she release her prince and princess.
Interesting Facts
It's interesting how this arc seems to be finally implementing aspects of the characters' manga counterparts. A perfect example would be Sailor Venus being referred to as the leader of the Sailor Soldiers, something that was very apparent in the manga though had never really been mentioned in the anime up until now.
This was the final time Venus Love Chain Encircle would be used in the anime.
Something keen-eyed Moonies would have noticed in this episode is just how similar some scenes where, particularly the ones with Venus and Pluto, to scenes in an episode of Sailor Moon S. Not only is the idea of the Sailor Soldiers being trapped in different dimensions almost the same but so is the concept of them being trapped in mirrors (in the Sailor Moon S episode, glass cards).
The similarities get even more apparent with the realisation that some of the background plates and even Sailor Venus' Love Chain attack were reused from this episode.
Strangely enough while the director of the Sailor Moon S episode, Noriyo Sasaki didn't direct this episode she did direct Episode 168 which is also in the Nehelenia arc. Not much of a stretch to assume she helped out in other episodes in that arc and helped with the concept and design.
Shopping Info
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Sailor Stars Vol.1Read My Review / Buy from Amazon.jp 
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