List of appearances of the Moon in fiction

The Moon has been a source of wonder and imagination for people for thousands of years. In stories, paintings, music, and plays, the Moon often appears as a symbol of mystery, romance, or change. Many writers and artists have used the Moon to create magical scenes or to help tell their stories.

Because the Moon is easy to see in the night sky, it has become a popular subject in books, movies, and art. Some stories show the Moon as a place where adventures happen, while others use it to add a dreamy or magical feeling to the scene. Whether it is a quiet night under the full Moon or a journey to live on its surface, the Moon continues to capture our imagination.

This list includes many different kinds of stories and artworks where the Moon plays an important role. From ancient myths to modern science fiction, the Moon remains a powerful symbol that inspires creativity and wonder.

Before the telescope was invented (–1608)

The Moon has been in stories and art for a very long time. In the 2nd century AD, the writer Lucian wrote about trips to the Moon in his books Icaromenippus and True History. One of the earliest stories about traveling to the Moon is in the Italian poem Orlando Furioso from 1516 by Ludovico Ariosto. In this story, a knight named Astolfo flies to the Moon to find lost items, including a hero’s lost sense.

An old Japanese folktale called The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter tells of a beautiful girl who grew up on Earth but was from the Moon. She dazzled many princes and the emperor before returning home to the Moon. This tale is one of the first to imagine the Moon as a place people could visit. Another fun story, The Buried Moon, is a fairy tale where the Moon walks on Earth, gets stuck in mud, and is saved by humans and a wise woman.

From the first telescope to Apollo 11 (1608–1969)

The invention of the telescope made people think the Moon might be a place to explore. Many old stories and poems imagined adventures there.

Stories included tales like Pan Twardowski, a magician who lived on the Moon after escaping the Devil. There were poems such as The Complaint, and the Consolation; or, Night Thoughts by Edward Young, and nursery rhymes like "The Man in the Moon". In The Galoshes of Fortune by Hans Christian Andersen, a man wears magic shoes that take him to the Moon. Other stories showed travel to the Moon using steam-powered ships or rockets, like in The Princess of the Moon: A Confederate Fairy Story by Cora Semmes Ives and The Marvellous and Incredible Adventures of Charles Thunderbolt, in the Moon by Charles Rumball.

In science fiction, many early stories imagined the first trips to the Moon. Johannes Kepler’s The Dream (Somnium) described a journey to the Moon. Francis Godwin’s The Man in the Moone told of a Spaniard flying to the Moon with geese. Jules Verne’s From the Earth to the Moon and Around the Moon described a projectile launched from Florida landing in the Pacific Ocean. H. G. Wells’ The First Men in the Moon featured a journey to a Moon with strange creatures.

Films such as Le Voyage dans la Lune (1902) by Georges Méliès showed early trips to the Moon. Later, 2001: A Space Odyssey included scenes at a lunar base. Television shows like Men into Space explored ideas of building Moon bases. Comics such as Tintin’s Destination Moon and Explorers on the Moon showed the first explorers reaching the Moon.

After Apollo 11 (1969–)

Fantasy

Literature

• In the first book of the Captain Underpants series by Dav Pilkey (1997), a villain named Dr. Diaper tried to blow up the Moon using a crystal powered by the Laser-Matic 2000, a plan to destroy every major city on Earth.
• Rabbit and the Moon (1998) by Douglas Wood, how Rabbit reached the Moon.
• The Boy Who Climbed Into the Moon (2010) by David Almond, about a boy who climbs a ladder to the Moon and goes inside.

Theater

• The End of the Moon by Laurie Anderson is a 90-minute monologue created as part of Anderson's two years as NASA artist-in-residence. It premiered in a two-week run at the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Harvey Theater in March 2005.
• Far Side of the Moon by Robert Lepage, a theatre creator/performer from Québec.
• The Addams Family (musical) with lyrics by Andrew Lippa, includes the character of Fester, who is in love with the moon as revealed by a truth serum in the song “Full Disclosure.” He later plays a song to the moon on his ukulele while dancing with her (The Moon) in the song “The Moon and Me.”

Music

• "Moon," a solo track by Jin, featured on BTS's 2020 studio album Map of the Soul: 7. Jin assumes the perspective of the Moon, circling and being perpetually watchful of the Earth, which represents the group's fanbase.

Television

• H₂O: Just Add Water (2006–2010). The Moon influences the life of the mermaids, is able to transform humans into mermaids and vice versa.
  • Two spin-off series; Mako: Island of Secrets (2013–2016) and H₂O: Mermaid Adventures (2015).

Science fiction

Literature

Colonization

Human settlements on the Moon are found in many science fiction novels, short stories and films. Not all have the Moon colony itself as central to the plot.

• The Lathe of Heaven (1971) by Ursula K. Le Guin. In one of the alternate realities in the novel lunar bases are established by 2002.
• The Gods Themselves (1973) by Isaac Asimov. The third section of the novel takes place in a lunar settlement in the early 22nd Century.
• Inherit the Stars (1977) by James P. Hogan is the first book of the Giants series. The Moon turns out to have previously orbited Minerva, a planet that exploded to form the asteroid belt 50,000 years ago.
• Lunar Descent by Allen Steele Set in 2024, the novel describes a base called Descartes Station.
• Ice (2002) by Shane Johnson. A fictional Apollo 19 mission takes a disastrous turn when the Apollo Lunar Module ascent engine fails to fire. The astronauts then set out on their own as far as their new heavy lunar rover will take them.
• People Came From Earth by Stephen Baxter, printed in The Year's Best Science Fiction: Seventeenth Annual Collection.
• The Juniper Tree by John Kessel tells of a free-love matriarchal society on the Moon, printed in The Year's Best Science Fiction: Eighteenth Annual Collection.
• In the novels A Fall of Moondust, Earthlight, Rendezvous with Rama, and 2001: A Space Odyssey, by Arthur C. Clarke, colonies of various sizes and functions exist on the Moon
• The Moonrise and Moonwar books by Ben Bova tell the story of a lunar base built by an American corporation. The books form part of the "Grand Tour" series.
• Moonfall (1998) by Jack McDevitt features a comet heading for a collision with the Moon just as the first base is being opened. ISBN 0-06-105036-9.
• The short story "Byrd Land Six" (2010) by Alastair Reynolds includes a Moon colony centered around mining helium-3.
• In the Hyperion stories by Dan Simmons, the Moon is one of several hundred colonized celestial bodies.
• Life as We Knew It (2006) by Susan Beth Pfeffer, a novel focusing on the effects of an asteroid colliding with the Moon.
• Learning the World by Ken MacLeod, a first contact novel. Humans trace their history from the Moon caves.
• Luna is the capital of the Society and home of its Sovereign in Pierce Brown's Red Rising series of novels: Red Rising (2014), Golden Son (2015) and Morning Star (2016).
• Luna: New Moon (2015) by Ian McDonald, and its 2016 sequel Luna: Wolf Moon, are about several rival families which compete for helium-3 mining operations on the Moon.
• Limit (2013) by Frank Schätzing: a science-fiction thriller concerning the mining of Helium-3 and tourism activities on the Moon.
• Neal Stephenson's Seveneves (2015) opens with an unexplained event shattering the Moon. In the aftermath of the Earth's devastation by the fragments, a handful of survivors settle on the Moon's now-exposed iron core.
• Artemis, a 2017 Andy Weir novel set in a fictional but scientifically plausible lunar city. The city's economy (based on tourism) is described in considerable detail. Major resources include a nuclear power plant, an aluminum smelter and an oxygen production facility.

Film

• Moon Zero Two (1969). Billed as a 'space western', this Hammer Films production followed shortly after 2001: A Space Odyssey. In the year 2021 the Moon is in the process of being colonized, and this new frontier is attracting a diverse group of people.

• Flash Gordon (1980). Emperor Ming the Merciless plans to destroy the Earth by pushing the Moon on a collision course.

• Superman II (1980) Three supervillains from the Phantom Zone kill all the astronauts on a mission on the Moon before heading to Earth.

• Airplane II: The Sequel (1982) A spaceplane is launched on a voyage to a colonized settlement on the Moon, encountering many difficulties on the way.

• Nothing Lasts Forever (1984) A comedy in which the New York Port Authority takes tourists on bus trips to the Moon.

• Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987) Superman and Nuclear Man fight on the Moon, eventually causing a solar eclipse.

• Moontrap (1989). Astronauts find ancient woman and alien robots on the Moon.

• The Dark Side of the Moon (1990). It is revealed that the Bermuda Triangle opens a gateway to Hell when it aligns with another triangular zone on the far side of the Moon, allowing the Devil to haunt and kill the crews of any vessel or spaceship that goes between the two triangles.

• Star Trek: First Contact (1996). By the 24th century there were approximately 50 million people living on the Moon, and on a clear day, at least two cities and man-made Lake Armstrong were visible from Earth

• Starship Troopers (1997). In the 23rd century, the Moon has been colonized with many military bases on it, and has a huge space station orbiting it, from which starships launch on voyages.

• The Fifth Element (1997) the Moon is implied to be colonized as the protagonist receives angry calls from his mother complaining about being left there instead of being brought along to a rigged vacation he won. The ball of fire directed by the "Great Evil" is turned into a second moon that orbits the Earth

• Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999). Dr. Evil attempts to destroy Washington, D.C., with a giant laser from his Moon base, but Austin Powers is able to stop him.

• Nutty Professor II: The Klumps (2000). In a dream, Sherman Klump accidentally blows up the Moon while trying to prevent an asteroid hitting Earth, which it does.

• Titan A.E. (2000). When an evil alien race called the Drej destroys Earth, huge chunks of debris from Earth collide with the Moon and break it in half, destroying it.

• Space Cowboys (2000). An astronaut rides a disused Russian satellite with nuclear missiles to the Moon to prevent it from entering Earth's atmosphere.

• Millennium Actress (2001). A spaceship launches from a base on the Moon on an interstellar voyage.

• Recess: School's Out (2001). A tractor beam is used in a school in an attempt to move the Moon into a different orbit around Earth, which would end summer and cause a new ice age.

• The Adventures of Pluto Nash (2002) is set on an extensively colonized Moon in the 2080s.

• The Time Machine (2002). The Moon is accidentally destroyed by human efforts at colonization in 2037. The film is not specific as to how exactly it occurs, but the use of nuclear weapons for creating caverns is cited as a cause. The destruction causes humanity to divide into Morlocks and Eloi.

• The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005). The Moon is shown being rebuilt by the Magrathian construction crew in orbit around the new Earth Mark II, implying that it was also destroyed when the Vogons destroyed the first Earth.

• WALL-E (2008) One scene seems to reference an abandoned human colonization attempt on the Moon in the early 22nd century; a holographic sign is seen next to the Apollo 11 landing site advertising a proposal for an outlet mall on the Moon.

• Impact (2009) In this TV miniseries, the Moon is hit by a meteor shower, sending it on a collision course with Earth.

• Watchmen (2009) During the title sequence of this alternate history superhero film, Doctor Manhattan is shown assisting the Apollo 11 mission, filming Neil Armstrong as he walks on the Moon.

• Mr. Nobody (2009) In the future depicted by this film, Mars is shown to be colonized and in the extended cut, a TV ad promotes a vacation on the Moon, implying that it has been colonized as well.

• Moon (2009): Film about a solitary lunar employee mining for new energy resources who experiences a personal crisis as the end of his three-year contract nears. It is the feature debut of director Duncan Jones starring Sam Rockwell.

• Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011) The Apollo 11 mission to the Moon in 1969 turned out to be a top secret mission to examine the remains of an ancient Transformer Spacecraft containing deceased alien robots.

• Apollo 18 (2011) follows a fictional top-secret Apollo 18 mission and its discovery on the Moon.

• Iron Sky (2012) Nazis attack the Earth from a base on the dark side of the Moon while a coalition, led by president Sarah Palin attempts to defeat them.

• Men in Black 3 (2012) opens with the alien antagonist escaping from LunarMax, a maximum security prison on the Moon.

• Oblivion (2013) An alien race destroys the Moon, causing massive earthquakes and tsunamis that cause great damage to the Earth.

• Stranded (2013) Astronauts working at a lunar mining base are harassed by an aggressive alien life form.

• Independence Day: Resurgence (2016) A defense base is on the Moon.

• Beyond Skyline (2017) The film ends with an alien spaceship battle next to the Moon.

• Alita: Battle Angel (2019) The protagonist has a flashback that reminds her that she once fought in a battle on the lunar surface.

• Ad Astra (2019) In this film, the Moon has various bases and colonies for tourism, with countries competing to gain more lunar territory for their mining companies and pirates attacking those who cross the satellite's "no man's land". The protagonist is appalled by humanity making life on the Moon similar to Earth's.

• Moonfall (2022) In this film, the Moon is discovered to be an "interstellar ark" from a previous human civilization which helps to seed life on Earth.

Television

• Moonbase 3 (1973). A British science fiction television show about a lunar base; aired six episodes.
• Two Gerry Anderson's series featured moonbases:
  • UFO (1970). The SHADO Moonbase is used as the launch site for SHADO Interceptors sent to destroy invading alien spaceships. Also seen are a Dalotek Corporation outpost and a Sovatek Corporation base.
  • Space: 1999 (ITC Entertainment, 1975–1977). Featured Moonbase Alpha on a Moon that had been blasted out of its orbit by a nuclear explosion at phenomenal velocity. The opening episode indicates that the base coordinated nuclear waste disposal, spaceflight operations and training, and subsequent episodes suggest mining, surface surveys and exploration, indicating a versatile base for multiple use, overseen by an international organization on Earth, the International Lunar Finance Commission, a division of the World Space Commission.
• Star Cops (1987). The titular police force has its base of operations on the Moon.
• "Masks", a 1994 Star Trek: The Next Generation episode in which the relationship between Masaka and Korgano is described as similar to the relationship between the Sun and the Moon.
• Colonization of the Moon is mentioned several times in the Star Trek franchise.
  • Star Trek: Enterprise. The Moon has already been colonized in this series.
  • The Next Generation. The character Beverly Crusher was born in Copernicus City on the surface of the Moon.
  • Deep Space Nine mentions settlements on the Moon called Tycho City, New Berlin, and Lunaport. It is also revealed that Earth's Moon is referred to by its Latin name, Luna, probably to distinguish it from the thousands of moons throughout the universe. It is also revealed that living on the Moon is seen by many humans as something of a novelty, as Jake Sisko uses the slang term "Lunar schooner" somewhat affectionately when he meets a girl from there.
• Three Moons Over Milford (2006) was a short-lived ABC Family science fiction drama television series in which a giant asteroid collides with the Moon, fracturing it into three large pieces (hence the “three moons” of the series’ title). The pieces are now in a doomsday spiral that will, in just a few years, send them crashing to Earth and obliterating all life on the planet. Knowing that they are doomed soon to die, people cast aside all social, cultural, and moral conventions and begin to live their lives to the fullest, totally without inhibitions, in what little time they have left.
• The Umbrella Academy (2019). One of the main characters, Luther, has been sent to the Moon on a mission assigned by his adoptive father. After returning to Earth four years later due to his father's death, Luther discovers that the mission was just an excuse to be exiled. The Moon is also involved in the apocalypse that Number Five is trying to prevent.
• For All Mankind (2019) depicts an alternate history in which the Soviet Union lands a human on the Moon before the United States and the Space Race doesn't end. The US and USSR respectively build Jamestown Base and Zvezda Base near Shackleton Crater.
• The Silent Sea (2021) depicts an abandoned research station, built in attempt to find water on the Moon.
• Moonhaven (2022) is a terraformed colony of the same name, built to solve Earth's problems.

Comics

• In the DC Universe, the Moon is the location of the Justice League Watchtower until its destruction by Superboy-Prime. It is also a former home of Eclipso.
• In Judge Dredd the Moon is the site of a small colony named Luna City One.

Computer and video games

• Battlezone – Set during the 1960s with an alternative history plot, in which the space race is used to cover up the military deployment of US and USSR into space, the Moon is set a stage as the first mission in the NSDF Campaign.
• Boktai – Both the protagonist and his twin brother are half descendants of an ancient civilization that used to inhabit the Moon, the Lunar Children. Their mother and aunt belonged to those people and were the last survivors. In the third game, Django travels to the Moon to reach Mahoroba, the Lunar Children's abandoned capital, where an ancient evil was sealed and the last boss battle takes place.
• Call of Duty Black Ops – The Moon is one of the maps available through the Rezurection map pack.
• Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare – The Terminal map remake takes place on the Moon.
• Command & Conquer: Yuri's Revenge – In one of Soviet Campaign missions, the general was assigned to establish his base there in order to destroy Yuri's Lunar Command Center to prevent the Earth from falling under his psychic mind control.
• Darius II – The Moon is inhabited by enemy forces and underground bases players must confront on the fourth level.
• Dead Moon – Aliens crash land on the Moon and use it as their headquarters for invading Earth.
• Descent – the main character (the Material Defender) has to clean the Solar System of infected PTMC mines, starting from the Moon. Consequently, the first three levels of the game take place in an outpost, a sci-lab, and a military base on the Moon.
• Destiny – The Moon had previously been inhabited during humanity's "Golden Age", long before the events of the game. The majority of the gameplay on the surface is centered around Oceanus Procellarum (known by its English translation, "Ocean of Storms"), with a pair of maps in the Crucible (PvP) set in nearby Mare Cognitum.
• Destroy All Humans! 2 – The final area of the game takes place on a Russian moonbase called "Solaris".
• Donkey Kong Country Returns – After the final boss, Donkey Kong is blasted into space; as he falls, he punches the Moon, causing to fall on a volcano.
• Duke Nukem 3D – The second episode of the game, Lunar Apocalypse, takes place on a series of space stations that lead to the Moon's surface.
• Einhänder – The protagonist, a spacecraft fighter from Moon colony Selene. is sent to the Earth during the events of the Second Moon War.
• Final Fantasy IV/II (U.S SNES version) – Both the protagonist, Cecil, and his older brother and enemy until a certain point, Golbez/Theodore, are the sons of a human women and a Lunarian, the people living on the Moon. In the last part of the game the main characters travel to the Moon to confront the final boss.
• Infinite Undiscovery – The main antagonist has enchained the Moon in order to gain its power.
• The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask – Link, the protagonist, must prevent the Moon from crashing to Earth within three days. The Moon carries a face that dreads its inevitable destruction.
• Mass Effect – One of the sidemissions is set on the Moon.
• Metal Black (video game) – After a massive alien invasion on Earth, the Moon is overtaken by the aliens so as to involve it in their plot and its darkside sets the scene for the second level boss fight.
• Military Madness – Moon colonization wars exist between the Union and Xenon.
• Moonbase – add-on for SimCity Classic to build a lunar colony rather than an earthbound city.
• Moonbase Commander
• Moon Patrol (Irem)
• Moon Tycoon – A colony building game, claims to be the first 3-D Sim game.
• Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door – Mario must journey to the Moon to recover the last Crystal Star. It's also where Princess Peach was held hostage by the X-Nauts before being taken to the Palace of Shadow.
• Persona 3 – The phases of the moon are prominently featured as a sign of progression. The final boss uses the moon to attempt to bring about the "Fall", the death of all life on Earth.
• Portal 2 – Chell, having learned that Moon rocks are very good portal conductors, fires a portal at the Moon to save herself from death.
• Rebel Moon Rising, a PC game by Fenris Wolf and GT Interactive.
• Spelunky 2 – Ana travels to the moon to look for her missing parents. The interior of the moon contains Earth-like environments, like jungles and oceans.
• Star Control 2 – features a now uninhabited moonbase.
• Star Ocean: Till the End of Time – features a moonbase.
• Sonic Adventure 2 – Doctor Eggman destroyed half the Moon with the ARK's Eclipse Cannon.
• Strikers 1945" – In the original Japanese release of the game, players are rocketed towards the enemy's real headquarters situated on the Moon's surface for the last two levels.
• Super Mario Odyssey – A family of wedding planner rabbits from the Moon's far side try to obstruct Mario as he rescues Peach from Bowser's attempt to forcibly marry her in a wedding hall which exists on the near side. The game contains many references to the Moon and has three playable areas which take place on the Moon—the Moon Kingdom, Dark Side, and Darker Side.
• Terra Diver – In the future, the Moon is one of many points of galactic resources utilised by companies on Earth and hosts a company owned outpost stationed on a nearby asteroid where the fourth boss awaits.
• Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward – The ending of the game reveals that the events actually take place on the Moon in the year 2074 in a Moon base.
• Wolfenstein: The New Order – The game takes place on a secret Nazi moonbase near the end of the game.
• DuckTales – The fifth and final level takes place on the Moon.

Animation

• Space Brothers is a Japanese anime based on the manga of the same name. Two young brothers see a UFO, inspiring them to become astronauts and go to the Moon. While the younger brother (Hibito) eventually becomes a JAXA astronaut, the older brother (Mutta) loses his motivation and becomes wrapped in mundane life. The story follows each brother as Nanba finds his inspiration, struggles through the JAXA tests and NASA training, while Hibito becomes the first Japanese astronaut to walk on the Moon but afterward wrestles with his unwanted fame and his crippling fears from a close brush with death.
• Sailor Moon. In this Japanese anime and manga series, the Moon was once home to the kingdom known as Silver Millennium, until a conflict between it and the Earth caused the Moon to take its current form. The titular heroine, the reincarnation of the princess of the aforementioned kingdom, is based on aspects of the Greek goddess Selene and Princess Kaguya. Her civilian name, Usagi Tsukino, is a play on words for Moon Rabbit "tsuki no usagi".
• Mr Moon is a 2010 children's TV series in which the main character is anthropomorphism of the Moon exploring the Solar System with his friends.
• In the manga and anime series Naruto, the Moon was created by Hagoromo Otsutsuki to contain the transformed and powerless husk of his mother Kaguya. The dwindling descendants of his brother Hamura safe guarding the Gedo Statue until it was stolen by Madara Uchiha for his Project Tsuki no Me agenda.
• Planetes (2003). A Japanese anime television series set at a time when travel to the Moon has become an everyday occurrence.
• Mobile Suit Gundam. Throughout most of this anime saga, the Moon has been extensively colonised, with underground cities built inside of the larger craters.
• Exosquad. In this American military science fiction series, the Moon is the site of the fiercest battle between Terran and Neosapien forces. The victory achieved by the Terrans on the Moon soon leads to the liberation of Earth.
• A Grand Day Out (1989) the first Wallace and Gromit short film is about the two building a rocket to get to the Moon, which is made of cheese.
• Futurama. By the year 3000, a theme park has been constructed on the Moon inside a giant dome with an artificial atmosphere, and an artificial gravity. First seen in the second episode The Series Has Landed.
• Megas XLR. on one episode the Glorft attempt to convert the Moon into a Missile. Coop also ends up blowing up half the Moon (in the credits, he is seen putting the Moon back together).
• Codename: Kids Next Door. The headquarters of the KND organization is a treehouse built on the Moon.
• Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Among the recurring characters are the Mooninites, which hail from the Moon.
• Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. The Moon is used by the Anti-Spirals as the "Human Extermination System", and is designed to fall on the Earth once a million humans live on the surface. It is later discovered that the Moon is actually one of Lord Genome's battleships.
• Origin: Spirits of the Past. An anime film set in Japan 300 years in the future. An apocalypse was brought about by extensive genetic engineering on trees, conducted at a research facility on the Moon, in order to produce trees capable of growing in harsh, arid conditions. The trees became conscious and spread to Earth in a fiery holocaust, wiping out most of modern civilization and fragmenting the Moon.
• The Tick. Supervillain Chairface Chippendale attempts to create the ultimate act of vandalism by writing his name on the Moon's surface with a powerful laser. He is only able to write "CHA" before being thwarted by the Tick.
• Despicable Me (2010)
• Avatar: The Last Airbender: The Moon is a major part of the lore and spirituality of the Water Tribes. According to legend, the first waterbenders learned how to bend water by watching the Moon's gravity push and pull the water and were eventually able to do so themselves.
• In Space Jam, Mr. Swackhammer, the villain of the film gets sent there at the end of the game by the Monstars.
• In Transformers: Armada, The Mini-Con ship Exodus crash-landed on the Moon, scattering its stasis-locked passengers all over Earth. Later, the Decepticons would set up a base inside the derelict ship, from where they would teleport to various locations on Earth to search for the Mini-Cons.
• In official supplemental materials for Neon Genesis Evangelion, the impact that created the Moon – known in-universe as First Impact – is revealed to have been caused by the "Black Moon", an artificial construct carrying the Angel Lilith; as an allusion, Rei Ayanami is frequently depicted in the series and in official artwork with a full moon motif. During Third Impact as depicted in The End of Evangelion, Lilith's blood is shown to splatter onto the Moon from low Earth orbit. In the Rebuild of Evangelion films, the existence of NERV's Tabgha Lunar Base is revealed. Various features depicted on the surface in the first film include a large red stain not unlike the one created by Lilith in The End of Evangelion, a series of coffin-like objects – one of which is revealed to contain Kaworu Nagisa – and a large humanoid entity resembling Lilith's original depiction. In the second film, Gendo Ikari and Kozou Fuyutsuki travel to the base in a large spacecraft but are denied entry; they subsequently observe the giant entity from above, revealing it as the under-construction Evangelion Mark.06.
• In My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, the Moon and the Sun are raised each day and night by two alicorn princesses called Luna and Celestia, respectively. A thousand years prior to the first episode, Luna grew jealous that the ponies living in the world slept during her night, and tried to make the night last forever, taking the name 'Nightmare Moon'. Celestia subsequently banished her to the Moon, and arranged for the show's main characters to assist in redeeming her.
• In Steven Universe, the Moon has an ancient base that belonged to Pink Diamond.
• In the anime series Inazuma Eleven GO, antagonist Bitway Ozrock seals the Moon away to demonstrate his true strength, and uses the effects of its absence on the Earth to coerce the World's joint governments to agree to his demands.
• At the end of the Arthur episode "The Boy Who Cried Comet", Arthur and his friends are shown unmasking themselves, showing them as aliens who live in a city on the far side of the Moon.
• In the Teen Titans Go! episode "Starfire the Terrible", Starfire destroys the moon after becoming a supervillain to provide Robin with an archnemesis.
• SpongeBob SquarePants. In "Sandy's Rocket," SpongeBob and Patrick take Sandy's rocket to what they think is the Moon, but they are still in Bikini Bottom. Trouble endues when they capture all the citizens, thinking they're aliens. In "Mooncation", Sandy goes to the moon for a vacation with SpongeBob.
• Hanazuki: Full of Treasures. In this series, the moonflowers are species that plant Treasure Trees to protect their moons from the Big Bad.
• Mixels. In the episode "Mixel Moon Madness", it is revealed that there are Mixels that live on the Moon. There are Oribitons which are space-themed Mixels and Glowkies which are nocturnal-based creatures.
• Legends of Chima. In the episode "The Hundred Year Moon", it is said that once every hundred years for two nights the Moon makes the Wolf Tribe go to their barbaric side.
• Kido Senkan Nadeshiko. Earth comes under attack from the descendants of exiled Lunar separatists. United Earth is shown to have a base on the Moon.
• Aldnoah.Zero. The Moon was the site of a hypergate built by an ancient civilization that enabled transport between it and Mars. Due to the hypergate going out of control due to fighting on the Moon's surface during the First Earth-Mars War, part of the Moon was destroyed.
• Land of the Lustrous. The Moon people (also called “lunarians”) are a race of humanoid beings who are the villains and capture the gems (lustrous) and use them as jewelry.
• DuckTales (2017). As seen in the Season 1 finale, Huey, Dewey, and Louie's mother, Della Duck, has been stuck on the Moon for a decade after crashing there. She eventually returns to the Earth, but the Moon aliens (who she tried to befriend with) launched the invasion on the Earth because they wanted to have the Earth revolve around the Moon instead of the opposite, but this plan fails.