Fire Soul Bird

Fire Soul Bird is a burning technique cast by Sailor Mars and a straight evolution of her Fire Soul, set apart by flame that attacks in the shape of a bird. It shows up only in the 1990s anime and a few tie-in games. The DiC English dub retitled it Mars Firebird Strike, and its Japanese name reads Faiyaa Souru Baado.

The avian form nods to the fenghuang, the phoenix of Chinese legend said to rule over every other bird. That eastern creature stands apart from the western phoenix rooted in Egyptian myth, though both traditions tie the bird to imperial power and heavenly favor.

Mars readies the move much as she does Fire Soul, chanting while she holds an ofuda before her. She hurls the paper charm, shouts the attack's name, and looses a fireball from her index fingers. The flames swallow the ofuda and stretch into a phoenix-like form. In the Viz Media dub she recites a different kuji-in incantation than the one preceding Fire Soul.

Sailor Mars is the sole user. Her first casting came in episode 54 against the Cardian Siren, who had shredded her music sheets; an ordinary Fire Soul failed when Siren's water doused it, so the upgraded bird tore through the water and destroyed the enemy, freeing all the energy it had gathered. She reached for it again in episode 59 against Ail and An, this time without chanting, and the weakened version could not pierce the aliens' shields.

Across games the technique appears in Sailor Moon R, in Sailor Moon: Another Story where it strikes multiple foes for four energy points and feeds the link routines Fire Dragon and Love-Me Bird, and in the S fighting title Jougai Rantou!? Shuyaku Soudatsusen.