Time Travel is always a tricky thing to write about, and even franchises that had Time Travel as a fundamental part of what it is from the start can still through added sequels become convoluted messes. None the less there is some great Time Travel based fiction out there, like Steins;Gate.
However in my opinion adding a time travel story-line to something that was not initially about that at all is almost never worth it.
This is by no means a consistently inherent deal breaker. The more episodic something is, the more it can be fine if the time travel stories are kept away from the main overarching story-line and lore. Even more so if consistent continuity was never a top concern. This is why Star Trek and Pokemon can get away with doing occasional time travel plots, or at least Star Trek used to be able to.
But in Western Superhero Comics, the existence of Time Travel as a potential regular thing in those universes continues to cause more problems then it solves. Fans accept it, but there is a reason it hasn't been a thing in any highly regarded Superhero movie, yet.
And then there is Sailor Moon, I love Sailor Moon but I just can't endorse the Black Moon Saga, even in the Manga/Crystal version which makes more sense then the 90s Anime. Are we supposed to believe the timeline was saved from being changed at the end? Then how-come Neo-Queen Serenity and King Endymion do not seem to remember everything Usagi and Mamoru experienced? But if it is changed even slightly then why is everyone so certain Chibi-Usa will still exist? Even if it's still a given that Mamoru and Usagi will get together there is no guarantee the child they have will be the same child, in fact the odds of it still being the exact same Sperm fertilizing the exact same Egg are almost impossible. People don't think about this because the show is about Magick not Science, which is exactly why I would have never added a Time Travel story to it. I almost want to cite this as the ultimate example of what not to do when adding Time Travel to an ongoing story. And the only value I see in the Black Moon lore as it's own story is how it unintentionally makes me think of Revelation 20.
I don't have the beef with Chibi-Usa as a character that many Sailor Moon fans have, she is exactly what I'd expect of Usagi's daughter and I mostly enjoy their antics. My problem is how much her presence in future story-lines makes them dependent on the fact that this convoluted Time Travel story happened. It's lessened by the fact that it's mostly just an excuse for our main couple to have a Daughteru when they haven't actually gotten married yet, but it's still there.
Fortunately two out of the three movies are stories you could write her out of pretty easily.
She plays an important role in the Infinity Arc, but fortunately the Time Travel is of little effect there. In SuperS and Stars that is not so much the case anymore, and that's part of why the Infinity Arc is pretty much the end of what I care about.
But let's leave the Sailor Moon subject.
So if I've convinced you to agree that it's never worth it to throw Time Travel into something that wasn't about that from the start. The next question is, how soon is the start?
Let's say you have a 12 episode Anime that reveals we'd been in a Time Loop all along more then half way through? Well that's a situation where it depends on the execution.
Puella Magi Madoka Magica and Shoujo Kageki Reveu Starlight are two stories for which that is the case. What's fascinating is how Reveu Starlight makes this reveal sooner, yet it's the one that feels like an @##pull. The reason is on that show it becomes just a sub-plot, the person experiencing the loop is not part of the main couple. Because Madoka Magica is almost just as much about Homura as it is Madoka it was very easy to make the Loop feel like it was always what the show was about.
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