Chapter 1 - The Melancholy of Mako

The first of the Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon side stories in the Exam Battle set, this chapter was written and illustrated by Naoko Takeuchi. Buckling under the strain of her high school entrance exams, Makoto keeps slipping away into cooking, tidying, and tasty treats, and her craving for distraction attracts a creature that thrives on exactly that kind of restless energy.

Set after the Infinity arc yet before the Dream arc, while the girls stand on the brink of their high school exams, the tale opens on Makoto dreaming of greeting a husband on their first anniversary before the smell of burning jolts her awake to a meatloaf still sitting in the oven. Her friends gather for a study group and admire her cozy apartment, though Ami keeps nudging them back to their books. When Makoto lays out an elaborate spread she spent a whole day assembling, Ami scolds her for burning hours in the kitchen, only to soften once Makoto explains she simply wanted to feed everyone well. A plane on the television startles her, prompting her to reveal that a crash took her parents, a confession that moves the group to tears.

A dismal test score sends Makoto toward the gardening club, where classmates shoo her back to studying. Sour hibiscus tea from Unazuki at Fruits Parlor Crown briefly lifts her, and she tracks down the cute shop in Azabu Juuban that sells it, only to find the tea gone. At the next study night she again drifts into cooking and fussing over snacks, and when Ami labels her behavior pure escapism, Makoto freezes in dismay.

Outside that same store a genius loci named Touhi-chan awakens and, sensing how the shop lures young people desperate to flee their worries, decides to feed on them. Drawn by a sweet scent, a drowsy Makoto stumbles into the shop's big sale and gorges on cheap tea and cakes, resolving that she no longer cares about her weight or her exams; her friends burst in to find her collapsed with Touhi-chan looming over her. Usagi's plea that they become beautiful high schoolers together rouses Makoto, who transforms into Sailor Jupiter and destroys the spirit with Jupiter Coconut Cyclone before fainting. A closing panel shows her, exams behind her, in a fresh high school uniform. The chapter finally accounts for Makoto's dread of airplanes, rooted in the crash that killed her parents, a fear the anime incarnation lacks, since she boards a plane calmly in episode 188. In 2015 the Sailor Moon Crystal voice cast performed a live read-through of this story during a Niconico event for Usagi's birthday week.