‡ The Mystery of Sailor Cosmos ‡

Thought you had it all figured out, didn't you? Betcha didn't know there was all kinds of controversy floating around this single character, right? Well, truth is neither did I until I ran into some of the chics at sailormoon.org (which is now shut down.) I mean, it just seemed blatantly obvious that Cosmos just HAD to be Usagi/Sailor Moon. But you know, these girls put up such a good argument against it that for just a moment I thought it might actually be possible that Cosmos was someone else. (and just so you'll know, I'm talking about MANGA Cosmos, not the anime, so please don't write to me telling me chibi-chibi was Galaxia's starseed becuse the manga doesn't work that way. Thanks.) I still think that Cosmos is Usagi, but at least now I can explain WHY I think so. Mind you, Naoko Takeuchi has NEVER announced the true identity of Cosmos, (maybe because she thinks the answer should be obvious to anyone who READS it) so everything I write below is only my personal theory. If you ever stumble across any site claiming to know for a fact the true identity of Cosmos then they're probably full of crap and you shouldn't even bother reading it. So here we go.......

Here are some of the issues that cause so many people to think that Cosmos isn't Usagi. I'm going to break these theories down and discuss them as thoroughly as I can and give reasons based on the manga to support my belief that Cosmos is simply an evolved version of Usagi.

‡ In all the manga episodes where Sailor Moon goes to the future to save Crystal Tokyo, it is said that two of the same person cannot exist in the same place and time, or they will die. And since Chibi-Chibi is really Cosmos, that means that Cosmos cannot be Usagi or else she/they would have died.

**If you read it correctly, Sailor Moon went to the future at least twice and didn't die either time, and she even met Neo-Queen Serenity face to face and she still didn't die. As a matter of fact, as Sailor Moon was leaving to go back to her own time, the Queen says, "Someday, we'll run into each other. The future. Someday, we can meet. Farewell." I doubt that Ms. Takeuchi would have written that if she didn't intend for them to meet in the future, and she surely didn't intend for them to die, either.

‡ It wouldn't be fair to Chibi-Usa/ Queen Serenity couldn't transform anymore after the birth of Chibi-Usa/ Chibi-Usa inherited the title of Sailor Moon after her birth/ yada yada.

**Ummm, yeah, whatever. Basically, the people who use these theories are saying that Chibi-Usa was meant to inherit the maboroshi no ginzuishou (the silver crystal) and that Ms Takeuchi would somehow be "cheating" chibi-usa out of her birthright. (THIS SECTION HAS BEEN EDITED 2-18-04) I just had a lengthy e-mail exchange with Ian Andreas Miller over this, because I had my own theories about it. Basically my theory was I believed that POSSIBLY Usagi was simply a "host" to the Silver Crystal and possessed another one, the Cosmos Crystal. You can read more about it here. I just didn't believe that Usagi's crystal would simply be GIVEN to Chibi Usa at birth, it doesn't make sense. After all, there are no other examples of anyone's sailor crystal being passed on to another person. Take Queen Serenity and Princess Serenity as an example. Are we to assume that since Queen Serenity still possessed the Crystal after Princess Serenity's birth that she was cheating her daughter out of her birthright? Or that Princess Serenity did not HAVE a crystal? After much to-do about it, and alot of help from MR. Miller, I've come to the conclusion that Usagi's Crystal must have simply TRANSFORMED into a different version of the same crystal, just as it had on at least 1 other occasion in the Manga. (Her crystal, the mystical Silver Crystal, became the Silver moon Crystal.) So, for all of those that are so concerned about chibi Usa's "birthright," if the above is true, then chibi Usa's birthright would remain intact, and Usagi would simply evolve into another form of herself.

‡ Sailor Cosmos might be a reincarnation of Usagi, but she is not directly Usagi.

**Now we're getting somewhere. This point is a little bit harder to argue, but only because Ms. Takeuchi has never stated or given a clue to Cosmos' true identity. The only thing I can really think of is that when Sailor Moon and the other senshi realized that they had been reincarnated from the moon kingdom, they almost always refered to it as their "past lives" and it was a very clear fact that this was a seperate lifetime. However, Cosmos refers to Usagi as the "me of here" suggesting that Usagi was not a past life, but just her past self. Oh, but some people don't believe that when Cosmos said that, she was refering to Usagi. to go over this, we need to read the entire part..."The me of here, too, was all alone. Always suffering. So I was always by her side, to support her. I was going to make her choose the right path this time.... But I knew. The chosen path was not a mistake. Nobody can destroy the place where stars are born. Because of this place, we can continue living. Time and time again, we can start over. I won't run away anymore. I'll go ahead to the future. Because I was blessed with great power by Eternal Sailor Moon. All the courage and strength to stand alone, the courage and strength to accept everything! I had forgotten it. The matchless strength!" We know that Cosmos was Chibi-Chibi, and that she was always with Usagi.(that takes care of the "so I was always by her side" line). When they go to Zero Star of Sagittarius to finish the fight with galaxia/Chaos, Chibi-Chibi tries to talk ESM into destroying the cauldron instead of going into it. Cosmos entire reason for coming back to the past was to correct her "mistake" in allowing Chaos to survive in the cauldron, because in the future (cosmos' time) Cosmos had lost the war to Chaos.....obviously it was so bad that she thought that destroying the cauldron was the only choice. Another quote: "From an overwhelming future, where I lost the war to Sailor Chaos, I gave up everything and ran away. Repeated massacres, a long, painful war... The enemy that appeared, the strong, enormous Sailor Chaos... With the way of fighting we had used, we didn't stand a chance. Even if we defeated it, even if we returned the peace of before, the damage taken, the price we paid, would be too much. Too far-reaching. We couldn't do it. I don't know anymore, why there are wars. What is right. What should I do? When I'm lost, when I'm hurt, I remember. The war here. Back then at the Cauldron. If I had eliminated it, would the pain, would the war have ended? After regretting it so many times, I came here. To make it right this time." Think about it.....the ONLY one who was there, the only one who was powerful enough to destroy the cauldron was Eternal Sailor Moon. There is no one else left alive to do it, except Sailor Moon. But instead she chose to NOT do it, which was the decision Cosmos was regreting. Now tell me, if Cosmos is/was not Usagi, who else could she possibly be?

(ADDED 2-18-04) It has been pointed out to me that on the page where Cosmos refers to someone as the "me of here," the ONLY characters in the flashback were Usagi and Chibi Chibi. So, Either Chibi Chibi was "I" who was comforting the "me of here,'-Usagi- OR Chibi Chibi was the "me of here," and USAGI was the "I" who was doing the comforting. Either way, Cosmos is STILL refering to BOTH of them as herself in one form or another, so you can believe that Cosmos is either DIRECTLY refering to Usagi as "I", or refering to her as a past self, the "me of here". Take your pick!

‡ Cosmos has a different mark on her head than usagi/ her Odango are shaped differently.

**One of the most retarded reasons I've ever heard. Think now, before Sailor Moon found out she was the moon princess, there was no cresent moon mark on her forehead. Did that mean she WASN'T the moon princess? Certainly not. I think that possibly the marks represent their powers, and since Sailor Moon wasn't yet aware of her past life or her true powers it had not been activated yet. So, in the same scenario, Usagi's Cosmos mark would not appear until after she realized her Cosmos Power.

‡ When the Sailor Quartetto ask Cosmos if she is the Future sailor moon's ultimate form, she says that she is only a coward and is no match for the final courage and strength of Sailor Moon...therefore, she must NOT be Sailor Moon.

**We know at this point that Cosmos is ashamed and not very happy with herself for running away from her war with Chaos, and for trying to talk ESM into destroying the cauldron. When the Sailor Quartetto exclaim this, she didn't feel she was worthy of such a title. She wasn't DENYING who she was, she was saying she wasn't worthy of being compared to ESM. As for the "final courage and strength" remark, you gotta think.....she's saying she's a coward for running away from her problem and ESM had the courage to go and deal with it. That no matter what the future might hold, ESM was willing to face it as long as she had her loved ones, whereas Cosmos thought she would rather lose her loved ones than face the destruction to come. Imagine meeting your favorite sports star/musician/actor and exclaiming "oh my God, I absolutely LUV your work!!! WOW, blah blah blah, blah blah"......and lets say your fave actor/musician/sportsstar had just had some terrible thing happen to them and he/she is feeling pretty bad about it. It's likely that they're not going to feel worthy of such praise and respond with something like "no, I'm just a worthless piece of sh*t." That's basically what Cosmos was saying/feeling, except she was a little more graceful about it. You have to remember, Naoko Takeuchi often writes metaphorically in Bishoujo Senshi Sailormoon.....if we were to take ALL that she had written literally then would be a very different story. (like when Michiru tells everyone that Haruka is both male and female, Naoko has already stated that Haruka IS female, and that the remark was meant to explain Haruka's personality, not her gender.)

‡ Sailor Cosmos is a title, given to the most powerful senshi in the universe / given to the one who protects the universe.

**Now, this is an argument that i just don't quite understand. Maybe I just haven't heard anyone of any real intelligence explain it yet, I don't know. I mean, as far as I see it, that arguement can be used to describe ANY of the senshi...like Sailor Mars is the title given to the senshi that protects Mars, and so on. As far as that sort of thing goes, ALL senshi who have real names would also have a title, and that title would describe their duty. I fail to see what this has to do with whether or not Usagi is Cosmos. I don't see how it's relevant, and unless someone out there can explain WHY it is, I'm not even gonna consider it as a REAL issue on this subject.