Sailor Cosmos.rant

The following two youtube videos sparked this article.
Sailor Cosmos
Sailor Cosmos – Hello

Many people think that the pink, winged, and caped silhouette that appeared in the Sailor Moon anime episode 200 (summary, anime) is Sailor Cosmos. Well, I’ll say it right now: she’s not. The reason people believe that is because

1) In the manga, Chibichibi transforms into Sailor Cosmos, who appears winged^[1] (Vol 18, Act 51 // Vol 12, Act 59) right after transformation, then caped^[2] (sans the wings) and holding a staff (Vol 18, Act 52 // Vol 12, Act 60), and finally winged^[3] again (sans the cape) and still holding the staff a few pages later. She has Usagi’s signature double odangos (both in a heart shape) on her head.

2) In the anime, Chibichibi tranforms into a grown up silhouette with wings, a cape, and Usagi’s signature double odangos on her head.

Just a tiny thing to point out: Sailor Cosmos has never been drawn in the manga with both cape and wings attached. The silhouette in anime, however, has both, and doesn’t hold a staff. (Nonetheless, this point is so petty that I will not use this to defend my case. This tiny detail should only be used in desperation, and I’m not in it.)

An important thing to note is:

The anime and manga differ drastically regarding the last story arc “Sailor Stars” as they were produced simultaneously^[4]. Toei Animations decided to rewrite the plot by themselves and it turned out horrible. Read my entry on how Toei screwed up. (Read my other rant on those evil dubs).

With that out of the way, let me start off by saying:

Sailor Cosmos does not appear and does not exist in the anime.

Repeat after me. “Sailor Cosmos does not appear and does not exist in the anime.”

In both the manga and anime, Chibichibi has two forms, the child form (Chibichibi) and the grown up form (Sailor Cosmos and the silhouette). Note the use of the word “form”. In both mediums, Chibichibi is merely a form, an appearance if you will, and the actual person/entity does not truly exist as the child. Chibichibi does not grow into anything/anyone. Neither Sailor Cosmos nor the silhouette is her “future self”.

In the manga, Chibichibi is (“IS”, not “was”, not “will be”) Sailor Cosmos (the actual person) and has NO relation whatsoever to Galaxia. Sailor Cosmos is from a distance future in which there is a huge battle against Chaos. She escaped the battle and went back to the 20th century (Usagi’s present era) and took the form of Chibichibi to guide Sailor Moon in completely destroying Chaos now so that Chaos wouldn’t exist anymore to destroy the future (Sailor Cosmos’s time). Sailor Cosmos is the ultimate form of Sailor Moon^[5][6]. (Which is to say Chibichibi and Usagi are the same person in different time dimensions). Takeuchi Naoko clearly expressed that she wished Sailor Cosmos was in the anime^[7].

However, Sailor Moon did not follow Sailor Cosmos’s instructions to completely eradicate Chaos (that would mean destroying the Galaxy Cauldron which is where star seeds are reborn). She sacrificed herself instead. Sailor Cosmos then realised that what she did in her past (Sailor Moon’s present) was the correct thing to do. She then went back to her own time to face her battle.

In the anime, Chibichibi is Galaxia’s star seed (the actual entity) which has taken on a humanoid form. It is also called the Light of Hope (kibou no hikari). A long time ago, Galaxia defeated and sealed Chaos in her body but Chaos started taking over her. As a last act of free will, she released her pure star seed to prevent it from corruption and sent it to Earth. It took the form of Chibichibi and its mission was to find and aid the potential person (Usagi) who could destroy Chaos. Galaxia’s star seed apparently has shape shifting abilities. It transforms into a Sword of Sealing for Usagi to defeat Galaxia/Chaos with. Thus, Chibichibi actually has 3 forms in the anime. (4 forms if you count the butterfly that it turns into.)

In the manga, the grown up form (Sailor Cosmos) is essential as Sailor Cosmos is the actual person; Chibichibi’s form is a disguise.

In the anime, the grown up form (the silhouette) is unnecessary as Chibichibi is merely a star seed in a humanoid form. It’s kind of pointless for a star seed to have two humanoid forms, don’t you think, but Toei Animations wanted to retain the original (manga) idea that Chibichibi has a grown up form, thus the animators created the silhouette. Since in the manga, Chibichibi’s grown up form is as Sailor Cosmos, instead of designing a totally new grown up character image they just reused Sailor Cosmos’s silhouette. The silhouette may resemble her, but they are not the same.

This is confusing to novice fans (not to mention insulting to veteran fans) because, by implying that the silhouette in the anime is Sailor Cosmos, it may lead novice fans into thinking that Sailor Cosmos is Galaxia’s star seed, which is just plain ridiculous, because Sailor Moon eventually becomes Sailor Cosmos (in the manga).