The Cursed Mirror: Mamoru Caught in a Nightmare

An unexplained illness spreads through the city, sapping people of their will and leaving them fixed on their own reflections. Comparing notes with her friends, Usagi notices that Mamoru's recent withdrawal matches the victims' condition. Setsuna and Hotaru arrive bearing a grim warning that an approaching event will bring one thing to a close and turn everything toward ruin, with the Princess as its true target.

Girls across town murmur to their mirrors while shadows shaped like Queen Nehelenia gather unnoticed. A classmate's compact nearly curses Usagi before Makoto slaps it away. Worried, Usagi lets herself into Mamoru's apartment and finds it crowded with mirrors and Mamoru lost in his own reflection, snapping at her before apologizing and asking to rest. At the Hikawa Shrine, Rei and Michiru both sense that mirrors lie at the center of the danger. Uranus and Neptune battle the glass Mirror Paredri outside the building with Space Sword Blaster and Submarine Reflection, but the creatures regrow from their own shards until Pluto and Saturn arrive with Dead Scream. Sailor Moon reaches Mamoru as Nehelenia herself forms in the glass, blaming the guardians for her lonely imprisonment. Borrowing her friends' power, Usagi becomes Eternal Sailor Moon and clears the monsters with Starlight Honeymoon Therapy Kiss, but the strain drops her from that form, and Nehelenia carries Mamoru into the mirror.

Before departing, Nehelenia warns that Mamoru will remain hers only until the next dawn, and that unless he is rescued from her castle by then, his own nightmares will destroy him. The episode marks the first time Sailor Saturn appears without her Silence Glaive, and the first use of Space Sword Blaster and Submarine Reflection in a main anime episode, both techniques having previously surfaced only in the SuperS film. Ittou Asanuma makes his sole anime appearance here. It aired in Japan on April 13, 1996.