~ Sailor Moon Crystal ~ Fanart (Redraw)

Sailor Moon Arc Timelines

I thought I’d make a timeline post for all of the arcs (based on the manga), since it is very confusing! 

Arcs 1 and 2: Dark Kingdom and Black Moon

The Dark Kingdom and Black Moon arcs comprise manga vol. 1–5/anime seasons 1 and 2 and begins with our five main girls in 2nd year of middle school (8th grade US). Usagi establishes at the very beginning of the manga that she is 14 years old. Since Japanese students typically begin 2nd year middle school at 14 and turn 15 during the school year, we can assume this is the beginning of the school year. Mamoru is in his 2nd year of high school (11th grade US). We know that Japanese students typically graduate at 19, and since his birthday is in August, we can establish that at the beginning of arc 1 he is 17. This is supported by Luna speculating that his age is either 17 or 18, not yet knowing his birthday (see vol 1 pg 124). In the last act of arc 1/first act of arc 2, Ikuko says, “I guess you’re almost a 3rd-year student, huh, Usagi?” so we know that it is still winter of their 2nd year of middle school; arc 2 continues through the rest of this school year.

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I was asked why Rei is younger than everyone else. Essentially, it comes down to where everyone’s birthdays fall, and the start of the Japanese school year (April): 

Rei’s birthday is at the VERY beginning of the school year. She’s like that one kid whose birthday was later than everyone else’s. (Think 17-year-old college freshman.) So, while Usagi, Ami, Minako, and Makoto all start off their 2nd year of middle school at 14 and turn 15 through the year, Rei is 13 and turns 14 right away in the same month school starts. (Kinda funny to realize that Usagi is the oldest, isn’t it??)

The second year of middle school in Japan is 13-14 though, not 14-15.

Not sure what to tell you, aside from to take it up with Naoko. All I did was take what was in the manga and lay it out, and everything matched up this way.

Oh completely agreed. This is the timeline as presented in the manga. Just wanted to note, for those thinking this is how Japanese school years work, that this is not how Japanese school years work, and basically the girl’s ages are all a giant continuity error. (Aside from Rei’s, which is fine, though if you were ever to fix the continuity of the series by putting all the girls in a grade that aligned with their age, and keeping them all in the same grade, Rei would become the oldest instead of the youngest, as the cut off date for school is April 1.)

Essentially there’s a grade/age continuity error that has plagued the series since its inception, and your timeline is 100% correct to how it is presented in the manga, but if you ever wanted to make a timeline that corrected the continuity error you’d have to fudge something to make it contradict canon. 

So, your timeline is wonderful and thank you so much for putting it together. 

Yeah it wouldn’t surprise me at all if Naoko was just straight-up didn’t account for birthdays because SHE DIDN’T HAVE TIME. Like, “OK, 2nd year middle school, everyone’s 14!” Then having Usagi introduce herself as being 14, not accounting for the fact that her birthday is in June, which would mean she’d turn 15 partway through the arc. Ditto for literally every other character; she just gave them the oldest age for every school year starting from the beginning of the year, which doesn’t work out so well when you try to map it out and try to account for birthdays. T_T 

I’d have to agree with @timemachineyeah that Rei is probably the oldest out of the Inners plus Usagi. The oldest student in a cohort would have been born on 2 April, while the youngest would have been born on 1 April the following year. Since we know that the girls are in the same grade, this would make Rei, who was born on 17 April, the oldest, and Makoto, born on 5 December, the youngest.

I wonder if people in Japan might say “I’m 14” when they’re still 13 and actually mean “I’m 14 (this year).” If so, perhaps that might explain away the contradiction where Usagi says she’s 14 at the beginning of the manga.

But when I was looking up the Japanese school system, I also realised something very interesting: Haruka and Michiru are actually born in the same calendar year as Usagi and the Inners. Both of them are born in the months before 1 April: Haruka on 27 January, Michiru on 6 March. Because everyone is 15 on their 1st day of high school, this means that Michiru has just turned 15 a month before she starts high school, and that she is actually only about a month older than Rei!

One minor discrepancy with your timeline for the Sailor Stars arc: the manga shows that Usagi’s still in 1st grade of high school. When the Three Lights first transfer over and join Usagi’s class, there’s a frame showing her class sign, which says “1-1.” To be honest I think that it would have made so much more sense if, like you say in your timeline, Usagi and the Inners enter their 2nd year of high school in this arc, but for some reason Naoko decided not to age them up!

Moon Stick

Download here This version is from the new anime, for the old version go here

“We’ll punish you!”

“We’ll punish you!” (Season 3)

IF Sailor Cosmos is Usagi, she CAN’T be from the future we know

So there’s this persistent myth that I often see floating around the Sailor Moon fandom. The idea that Sailor Cosmos is Usagi’s ultimate form after she rules over Crystal Tokyo for a while.

Let’s break down what this would look like, if it were so.

Now, let’s look at each of those points more closely.

THE EVENTS OF STARS OCCUR

And everybody dies.

But everbody comes ba– no. Not in Sailor Cosmos’ timeline. That is not possible.

Everybody dies in Stars. The senshi die. The cats die. Mamoru dies, and Chibi Usa fades from existence.

Then Usagi goes to the Galaxy Cauldron, the birthplace of all star seeds, and finds their star seeds have already been merged with the Cauldron, along with Chaos itself. 

So let’s be clear, here: the star seeds are gone. There is no known way to bring any of them back to life. And even if she does retrieve them from the Galaxy Cauldron, they are already tainted by Chaos.

Here Usagi is given a choice. Destroy the Cauldron, and end Chaos for good, while stopping all life in the galaxy from ever being born again. Or allow the Cauldron to remain as it is, corrupted but still alive, and hope to defeat Chaos in the inevitable war. Neither choice would allow her to save the people she lost.

Future-Cosmos-Usagi chose the second option. She chose to let the Cauldron exist, and therefore to fight an endless war forever.

What does the Galaxy Cauldron tainted by Chaos mean? Does it mean all that will ever be born from it are monsters? Does it mean that every new life will now be altered by Chaos, that every baby ever born is now tainted by evil?

Regardless, that is how Cosmos’ existence begins. With the death of everyone she knows and the galaxy pretty much screwed as of the year 1998.

USAGI BECOMES NEO QUEEN SERENITY

DOES SHE? Let’s go back to point one.

Theoretically, Usagi could return to Earth, live peacefully for two years, save the world from catastrophe again, and rise to power, alone, as Neo Queen Serenity. 

She could. But would she? Usagi’s dream is to be together with everybody she loves. Would she choose to build a world with herself as the solitary ruler, knowing she will live 1000 years without her friends, without Mamoru, without Chibi Usa?

And then there is the fact that Neo Queen Serenity loses the ability to fight. She specifically says that by becoming queen, she gave up being a sailor soldier. Now, aside from the fact that it makes it improbable that she would later completely break that rule and become Cosmos anyway, it also seems unlikely that she would make this choice knowing that another war is coming. 

Crystal Tokyo symbolizes peace and an end to war, and Neo Queen Serenity laying down her arms is a reflection of that. If there is no peace, not even hope of peace, then there should not be a Neo Queen Serenity at all. Sailor Moon continues fighting as Sailor Moon before her eventual rise as Cosmos.

NEMESIS ATTACKS

So in the unlikely event that Usagi still goes ahead and founds Crystal Tokyo and makes herself queen, here is another problem. If Neo Queen Serenity had the ability all along to become Sailor Cosmos, or a sailor soldier by any name, then why did she not do it when Wiseman nearly destroyed Earth?

And if she doesn’t have that ability, as canon says, then she’s screwed here. She can’t fight herself. There is no Chibi Usa to steal the ginzuishou and make her vulnerable, but there is also no Chibi Usa to go back in time and get help. 

SO HERE’S WHAT HAPPENS

Note that this all of this is the case regardless of whether Sailor Cosmos is Usagi of the future or Usagi’s descendant or some other future sailor senshi. The only explanation that makes sense is if Sailor Cosmos is from an alternate future. And it all goes back to that one choice that Usagi made over the Galaxy Cauldron.

Destroy the Cauldron, or let the Cauldron remain tainted? This is the choice that splinters the future off into two horrific possibilities. A future of war, or no future at all?

Sailor Cosmos went back in time because she thought she made the wrong choice. That an end to birth is better than endless suffering.

Usagi chooses a third option. She chooses to throw herself into the Cauldron instead, uniting the star seeds and purifying it of Chaos.

That is what brings everybody back to life. That unknown third option. That is the future that brings Neo Queen Serenity and Crystal Tokyo. The return of peace, and balance, and life. 

Thus, the only future that we know in Sailor Moon, the only one that can possibly exist with canon as we know it, is the future in which there is no reason for Sailor Cosmos to exist. Chaos was defeated before Crystal Tokyo ever began.

bless u for this

That’s an interesting theory, but I don’t think that’s what happened. Sailor Cosmos returns to that point because she knows that Usagi will sacrifice herself and go into the cauldron, restoring everyone and keeping the cauldron intact. This is the path that Sailor Cosmos took, as well. She knows that path. She knows that she will become NQS, and eventually Sailor Cosmos, at which point she will battle Chaos with such devastating consequences that she feels that to have destroyed Chaos with the cauldron, including the star seeds of her comrades, would have been better than the war she was currently fighting. Sailor Moon debates with Sailor Cosmos, deciding that it’s better to have balance and the potential for new heavenly bodies than to destroy Chaos utterly. Sailor Cosmos decides that Sailor Moon’s decision was correct after all, and decides to return to the future to continue her battle with Chaos. If, as you say, Usagi chose an unknown option, Sailor Cosmos would have an unknown future to return to. But she didn’t. She merely observed Sailor Moon making the same choice once more, only Cosmos no longer questions the decision. She has reaffirmed that she made the correct decision all those millennia ago. 

I can see the argument for parts of this (see my last reblog) but I can’t get past the part where it’s canon that NQS loses the ability to fight. She CAN’T become a sailor senshi again. And I also can’t get past the idea that if Sailor Cosmos comes after NQS, what happens to everyone else? What happens to her DAUGHTER? What is the point of Crystal Tokyo if it’s ultimately destroyed, the people she loves killed all over again, and she has to take up fighting again? And I think it quashes any potential for Chibi Usa to have her own future as a senshi in her own right, if she’s doomed to either continue fighting under her mother’s banner, or die in battle before her mother.

See, in my head, this is where Chibi-Usa’s Pink Moon Crystal comes into play. Usagi/NQS has the Silver Crystal; she uses it first to fight and protect and then to rule and protect. Once it’s Chibi-Usa’s time to ascend to the throne, there’s a situation that has never happened before: an extraneous crystal. I see no reason why NQS can’t evolve to fight once more once her duty to the throne is complete. Chibi-Usa’s crystal is what allows Usagi to leave queenship behind and evolve into her most powerful form ever: Sailor Cosmos. So while Chibi-Usa rules her kingdom, Sailor Cosmos is able to fulfill a greater mission.

That *does* actually fix that particular problem. I’m still not personally in love with the idea of Usagi never getting the peaceful ending that she wants, but it does work!

I’ve been thinking a lot about Sailor Cosmos and who she really is, and seeing this discussion finally got me to finish my headcanon piece. I didn’t want to post the entire text here in the reblog, because the whole thing is 2000 words long!

I’m closer to luna-whiskers’s interpretation of who Cosmos is, but my theory is that Cosmos was reborn in an alternate timeline, right after the battle with Galaxia at the Sagittarius Zero Star. The two major clues I used to formulate my theory are: Chibi Chibi and how Usagi approaches her powers.

I’d appreciate it if you could take a look at my headcanon piece and let me know what you think! Headcanon: Who is Sailor Cosmos?