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2.
Other fans think that the Sailor Soldiers' accessories disappear into some kind of magical storage - such as a
small, mystically accessible pocket dimension, like the kind where lost socks go 
- when not in use, a place similar to where Luna and Artemis initially
kept the Inner Soldiers' original equipment such as Sailor Moon's transformation
brooch and Moon Stick, Sailor Mercury's miniature supercomputer, and the
various first and second generation transformation pens, which renowned
fanfic author Chris Davies once playfully (and adorably) referred to as
their "Kitty-Space". 
So,
which one of the two is it? It's hard to tell for certain, but if I had
to make an educated guess, I'd probably say it was a combination of both.
In
my opinion, each of the Sailor Soldiers has access to her own individual
and separate pocket dimension where her personal items, accessories, and
weapons can be reversibly stored and retrieved through an act of will,
such as with Sailor Saturn summoning her Silence Glaive (Episode 125).
Since this process is not quite instantaneous and takes a few seconds and assuming that the aforementioned scenario with Sailor Saturn is a typical
example of the mechanics involved, then the items are magically summoned
rather than physically retrieved by the Sailor Soldiers reaching directly
into this storage area with their hands. This being the case, it may actually
be simpler or more convenient for them to keep certain key items such as
transformation pens on their person so that they're immediately available
for use. Usagi, for example, kept the Moon Stick in her backpack early
on so that she could use it to track down the Rainbow Crystal carriers
whenever and wherever they appeared. She almost always wears her brooch
on the front of her school uniform (when she's wearing one) or keeps it
her pocket, which is what the other girls apparently do.
Also, since
calling forth the items in question seems to require a certain amount of focus and concentration (two things
that aren't always easy to come by in the heat of battle or similar situations where an individual is placed under
undue stress or pressure), keeping them easily accessible just might be a good idea.
Of
course, one major disadvantage of removing items from this theoretical
mystical pocket dimension is that once they're outside of it, they're subject
to the same rules as regular items in that they can be stolen
or lost and won't automatically reappear in magical storage if they are
misplaced or taken. Luna barely managed to save the Moon Stick from
falling into a river after it fell out of Usagi's backpack in Episode 28
and Sailor Moon actually did lose it after she died following her battle
with Super Beryl at the end of Episode 46. Probably the best indication
that this is indeed the case is given in Episode 48, where Sailor Moon
tries to use her "Moon Healing Escalation" on the Cardian Minotauron
and is shocked when the attempt leaves her, shall we say, a little empty
handed? 
Some
items, however, seem to possess a kind of magical sentience that allows
them to automatically appear whenever their owners needs them, whether
they've been consciously summoned or not, in order to protect them. There
have been a number of instances where this has occured, such as the appearance
of Haruka's transformation pen when she was confronted with the Proto Daimon
(Episode 106), the sudden manifestation of the Garnet Orb and Time Staff
to protect Setsuna from Tellu's plants (Episode 121), or the Space Sword
and Deep Aqua Mirror appearing to Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune while
they were fighting Germatoid and helping to free them from the Daimon's
clutches (Episode 124).
And
that's my two cents (well, given the length, more like my spare change)
on all that nonsense. 
1.02.
How do the Sailor Soldiers' uniforms get cleaned after getting dirty
or repaired after being damaged in battle?
Apparently
as part of their transformation magic. Each time the girls turn into their
Sailor Soldier alter egos, they're always wearing clean, springtime fresh
uniforms, and that's a very good thing because their clothes would really
start to smell after a while when you consider how much exercise they usually
get while wearing them. 
I have absolutely no idea what the exact mechanics involved here are, but
their uniforms probably either mystically regenerate and clean themselves
or the individual fabric molecules - including those that make up segments
which have been severed, disintegrated, destroyed, or become otherwise
separated from the bulk of the sailor suits and seemingly forever lost
- have some sort of magical affinity for one another that allows them to
reconstitute themselves following the girls' reverse transformation into
their civilian identities.
The
physical damage to the uniforms that can be undone is rather extensive,
incidentally. Most of them took the beating of a lifetime during the final
battle with the Death Busters in Episodes 124 and 125, during which they
were slashed to bits and had their ribbons and skirts shredded so that
thet they hung from the Sailor Soldiers' bodies like paper streamers. And
yet, by the following episode, they were all as good as new. 
1.03.
Do those cheesy introduction speeches serve any real purpose?
None whatsoever.
The introduction speech made by Sailor Moon in the very first episode of
the show was sheer improvisation prompted by the Youma Morga asking her
who she was and has been around ever since. Hitoshi Doi has theorized
that its purpose is to intimidate adversaries, though it does a very poor
job of that and almost immediately became something of a running joke in
the series, first by having Sailor Moon make episode specific variations
of it and later on by becoming a source of comic relief by having other
characters parody it in one way or another or by having villains interrupt
it, use it to make a snappy comeback, or even leave while the speech was
being delivered, for example.
Personally,
I agree with the character Bunny's assessment of the situation in
Exploitation Now. How the heck do all the magical girls out there
say such cheesy stuff without bursting out laughing? 
Out of the mouth of a babe... ;)
1.04. Why do the Sailor Soldiers need to yell out the names of
their
magical attacks while performing them?
Actually, that's a popular misconception. There's a lot of existing
evidence suggesting that the Sailor Soldiers don't need to yell out the
names of their magical attacks to get them to work. Sailor Jupiter just
made an animal noise when she threw her "Sparkling Wide Pressure" at the
flower monster Glycenia in the Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon R Movie,
Sailor Mars charged up and performed a "Fire Soul" while yelling at Fiore
later in the film, Sailor Venus used the incorrect phrase "Hissatsu Love Beam Chain" instead
of the proper "Venus Love Me Chain" during her masquerade in Episode 102,
and Sailor Moon said absolutely nothing the first few times she performed
her "Moon Gorgeous Meditation" and "Starlight Honeymoon Therapy Kiss" attacks.
It's possible that yelling out the name of a magical attack while it's being
performed has some kind of enhancing effect that makes it more powerful,
but it certainly isn't required and seems to apply whether or not the Sailor
Soldiers performing the attack needs a focus for her energies, such as a
hand-held weapon or accessory.
The magical phrases
used by the girls to in order to invoke the power of their transformations items and
turn them into Sailor Soldiers, on the other hand, definitely need to be
spoken.
1.05. Why don't the monsters and villains attack the Sailor Soldiers
when
they're transforming
or charging up their magical attacks?
Maybe it's simply a matter of
common courtesy like Michael Poe suggested in the January 23, 2002
entry of his webcomic Exploitation Now? 
But seriously, even though this is undoubtedly
one of the most frequently griped about, nitpicked, and mocked points in
just about every magical girl anime ever released, this question actually
has a number of different answers depending on the situation:
1. What viewers see while watching
Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon is essentially eye candy
that's been put in for the sole purpose of keeping them entertained rather
than an accurate real-time representation of what's really going on.
Just like the time dilation and still scene rotating camera effects in The
Matrix or how particularily nasty blows landed on adversaries in cheesy
martial arts flicks are shown from no less than three different angles in
short succession, the duration of transformations and magical attacks are
sometimes stretched out or subjected to some other kind of other visual enhancement
in order to enhance their inherant coolness factor. For example, the stripped-down
version of Sailor Mercury's "Shine Aqua Illusion" seen in the Pretty Soldier
Sailor Moon Super S Movie lasts around 2 seconds from start to finish,
but the one appearing in most episodes where it's used - the director's cut
version, if you will 
- lasts four times that long: about 8 seconds. That's a tremendous
difference, and the former is probably closer to what happens in the reality of the show than
the latter version is, thus leaving an adversary less time to dodge it. The
same also applies to transformations, as is seen in Episode 34, where Usagi's
transformation is short enough in duration to give her time to escape the
fireball Zoisite sent down the elevator shaft after Mamoru as Sailor Moon.
On the other hand, it still apparently lasts long enough for his seeing her
naked intermittently to be a genuine source of concern for her. 
This is not to say, however, that
all of the Sailor Soldiers' magical attacks can be performed at the drop
of a hat. Tuxedo Mask had to keep Kaolinite distracted for quite a while
while the Inner Soldiers charged up their "Sailor Planet Attack" in Episode
102 and Eudial not only had enough time to go and retrieve her Fire Buster
from her car but also to use it to counter the "Moon Spiral Heart Attack"
that was headed her way in Episode 109. In both of these instances, some
kind of compensation for the delay or lag time between the initiation and
the completion of the magical attack quite literally spelled the difference
between success (in the former case) and failure (in the latter case). Just
goes to show that this whole matter isn't quite so cliché after all.
2. On a related note and in a much more general sense,
what we see happening onscreen whenever the Sailor Soldiers
use their magical attacks may not be a completely accurate representation
of what's actually happening by any stretch of the imagination. The most
infamous example would be in Episode 148, where Super Sailor Chibi Moon summoned
Pegasus with her "Twinkle Yell" so that Super Sailor Moon could destroy the
Lemures Tobihaneru-kun with her "Moon Gorgeous Meditation" while the two
of them were bouncing up and down on the monster's trampoline. Now, even though the stock footage
used in this instance was exactly the same one featured in just about every
episode, it's obvious that there's no possible way that either one of those
techniques could have been performed in the exact same manner as they usually
were because they were clearly moving at the time while the inserted clip
would have us believe that they were standing still at the time. Theoretically, it might have been
possible for them to have dismounted before taking action, but not only are
they not seen doing that, they're seen sitting dazed and disoriented in some nearby bushes
a short time later, having obviously unceremoniously landed on their pleated
skirt butts after being catapulted into the nearby shrubbery by one of their
final bounces on the trampoline before it vanished after the creature it
belonged to was destroyed.
3. It's been clearly established on a couple of occasions
that the Sailor Soldiers apparently don't need to be standing still while
performing their magical attacks. During the fight between the Inner
Soldiers and the flower monster Glycenia in the Pretty Soldier Sailor
Moon R Movie, for example, Sailor Jupiter was seen both harnessing the
lightning for her "Sparkling Wide Pressure" and throwing it while running,
suggesting that she and the others probably have a lot more mobility when
fighting their adversaries and aren't just sitting ducks.
Together, those three excuses...uh...explanations probably cover all the
situations encountered in the series.
Bush Moneymaker and the
Demon Naughtious discuss magical attack timing :)
1.06. How do the Sailor Soldiers and Tuxedo Mask transform back?
Based on the only two normal reverse transformation sequences
we've ever seen - Tuxedo Mask's in Episode 26 and Sailor Uranus' in Episode 115 -
the trigger seems to be a conscious act of will. Neither one used
the accessory (a special rose in the former case and a transformation pen
in the latter) they employed during the original transformation in order
to change themselves back.
It's worth mentioning that the only way to force the Sailor Soldiers
and Tuxedo Mask to change back into their civilian alter egos against their
will would be to damage or destroy their magical transformation items if what happened
to Sailor Moon in Episodes 51, 90, 200 and the Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon
R Movie are any indication. Rendering them unconscious or even
killing them won't do the trick, as they've all suffered through one or the
other several times during the series' long run and stubbornly remained in
custume all the while. 
This page first appeared on: April 18, 2003
This page was last modified on: April 18, 2003
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)
would have to be Episode 17, where she whips out her brooch and transforms
into Sailor Moon while wearing nothing but a bathing suit
and sandals. She stuck her communicator down her front, but that...?