Akuryo Taisan

Akuryo Taisan is a purifying attack that Rei Hino wields through her paper charms, tapping both her spiritual craft as a shrine priestess and her identity as a guardian. It counts among the first powers she demonstrates across every incarnation of the tale, and the DiC English dub rebranded it as Fireballs Charge.

The title borrows a genuine Japanese incantation spoken to drive out demons and spiritual filth. In most releases Rei recites the Kuji-in and orders the evil to be banished, a command rendered in different translations as Evil Spirits, Be Gone or Evil Spirits Disperse. The DiC script instead had her announce that she called upon the power of Mars before letting it fly.

To cast it, Rei readies an ofuda while a menacing silhouette bearing a fanged face, a sword, and a lariat flickers amid flames. The charm rises upright and she presses it onto whatever malevolent force has appeared, making it disappear. The result ranges from pinning a foe in place long enough for her allies to strike, to washing corruption out of a victim, and in the manga it swells into a blaze of energy that can throw up walls of fire or engulf an enemy outright.

Its staging shifts from one medium to the next. The live-action series has her sweep her arms from her chest down to her stomach before thrusting them forward, loosing fire and charms together. The Super Famicom game triggers it on a paired button press at the cost of some vitality, while the arcade title asks for three crystals to fuel a spinning, screen-filling display. Sailor Moon Crystal frames it as her debut flame power crushing Jadeite, though the animators rendered its look unevenly.

Rei Hino, as Sailor Mars, is the technique's central practitioner, and unlike many early moves that vanish once stronger ones arrive, she keeps coming back to it right through the story. She learns the chant well before awakening as a guardian, uses it against ordinary spirits, and later turns it on enemies such as Jadeite, Tiger's Eye, and Zoisite. In the manga, Sailor Venus performs it once as well, destroying a spirit that had possessed Rei, an act that leaves Rei sore about it afterward.