Why did Nephrite's Black Crystal react so strongly to Naru when she didn't have the Silver Crystal inside her? The anime seemed to hint a lot at first that Naru possessed some incredible energy, like all the glowing red stuff around her when the Black Crystal and then there was that enormous amount of energy Nephrite stole from her. The anime seemed to eventually fall on that it was Naru's love for Nephrite or something and just forgot about it after his death but that seems like a cop out answer to me and it always seemed like they were planning something bigger for Naru and they just dropped it out of the blue. I remember the first time I saw Sailor Moon I thought maybe they would reveal Naru was gong to be a Sailor Soldier or something major like that. Did Toei have a more prominent role for Naru planned and why didn't they explore more about what caused her to have so much energy inside her? And what caused the Black Crystal to react to her? I feel like they had a really missed opportunity here for a really interesting storyline that frankly would have been a lot more interesting than the whole Rainbow Crystal mini-arc.

I'm pretty sure they said outright that it was reacting to Naru's love for Masato Sanjouin, following Nephrite's arc. Queen Beryl actually altered the powers of the Black Crystal to react to Rainbow Crystals instead which is why it seemed to change abilities. But I need to confirm this. Can anyone confirm?

I figured it was just the power of her love for him. A big theme of the show is how amazing a girl in love can be after all.

Miki wrote:

Queen Beryl actually altered the powers of the Black Crystal to react to Rainbow Crystals instead which is why it seemed to change abilities. But I need to confirm this. Can anyone confirm?

Yeah, she did. (I checked again to be extra sure)