Since the mid-1990s, Chibi Chibi Tsukino has puzzled Sailor Moon fans the world over. Those who never got to see Sailor Moon Sailor StarS, Sailor Moon Cosmos or the Sailor Moon manga are often confused just on her appearance alone.

Her costume is similar to Sailor Moon’s costume, only lighter in color. Blue skirt and collar? Check. Deep magenta-to-red bows? Check. Heart brooch? Check. Odango covers that match the shape of the odango? Check and check. The bands on her gloves share the same colors as Eternal Sailor Moon and she has Eternal sleeves, but in either white or white-pink.

If we really want to go deep on this, she even has boots that mimic an early pair Usagi had when she was first Sailor Moon.

In the 90’s anime, she appeared with bright red hair, while in Sailor Moon Cosmos and in the manga, her hair is a deep magenta pink. Her powers appear sporadically (if at all) and like Chibiusa, she has invited herself into Usagi’s home and brainwashed her family into thinking she has always been there, only this time, while Chibiusa posed as Usagi’s fake cousin, (which was automatically sus seeing as how Usagi has no aunts or uncles) Chibi Chibi poses as Usagi and Shingo’s fake baby sister, when she appears to be two-years-old and Ikuko hasn’t been pregnant since she gave birth to Shingo, and neither she nor Kenji fostered or adopted anyone beyond agreeing to take in Chibiusa for a spell.

In the 90s anime, she mostly just repeats her name over and over again (Chibi Chibi!!) but in the manga and in Cosmos, she has a few more phrases. Her vocabulary seems to sporadically increase when there’s something she really needs to get across, but until late in her story, her vocabulary is limited to mimicry. Aside from protecting Princess Kakyuu’s incense burner, her otherworldly powers don’t show up in full until nearly the end, but she can transform into Sailor Chibi Chibi Moon (in early prints of the manga, she was just Sailor Chibi Chibi and Usagi guessed at the “Moon” part) and while never seen in the 90s anime, Cosmos and the manga gave Chibi Chibi her own staff with it’s own powers.

So who is she? And why does she have similar hair to Usagi?

Well if you didn’t read my page on Sailor Cosmos yet, Chibi Chibi Tsukino is...

USAGI FROM AN ALTERNATE FUTURE

Okay, let me explain.

In the manga and in Sailor Moon Cosmos Part 2, it’s revealed that there is an alternate future universe where Sailor Chaos has wreaked havoc on Earth and destroyed everything.

Now the manga is a little vague on exactly when this happens. The Tokyopop version of the final StarS Arc manga uses he/him pronouns on Chaos and muddies if this takes place right when Usagi goes to The Cauldron or if this tales place after Crystal Tokyo is built. Kodansha’s many manga reprints use she/her pronouns for Chaos, clean up the picture so you can see she is now an evil Sailor Guardian, and make it seem as though this is vaguely after the rise of Crystal Tokyo.

Sailor Moon Cosmos Part 2 clearly illustrates that this takes place at a point in the future where Crystal Tokyo is definitely here, Usagi is Neo Queen Serenity, but King Endymion is still very, VERY young, still has his “Tuxedo Mask” hair, and judging by the rest of the visuals, this is a timeline where Wiseman hasn’t yet become a problem.

In Cosmos, Sailor Chaos wipes out everything before Usagi has a chance to really do anything of value, and Usagi blames herself for what went wrong. But in the manga, Usagi ran away from the final fight, and that’s why everything went to Hell in a hand-basket and everyone died except for her and Chaos.

Either which way, Usagi loses the power of being both Sailor Moon and Neo Queen Serenity and she becomes Sailor Cosmos.

After wandering the universe for an undisclosed amount of time, she finds a new power that lets her disguise herself as a toddler. This, she becomes Chibi Chibi. Because that totally sounded smart and not at all batshit insane.

She uses that and a newfound power to time travel without Sailor Pluto’s time keys to go back in time. In doing so, she winds up in an alternate timeline where “our” Usagi (the one you’ve been watching since episode one) is already going to make the right choices, not run away from Chaos, not destroy The Cauldron (Chibi Chibi actually thought destroying this thing was a “good” idea, not realizing this would have killed the last chance for anyone she lost to be resurrected or reincarnated) and just pretty much not fuck it all up.

Chibi Chibi had gone back in time hoping to be the one to educate “our” timeline’s Usagi, but it was the other way around. Still, as Sailor Cosmos, she was able to give “our” Usagi an emotional boost (after kissing her without consent, WTF???) and get Sailors Juno, Vesta, Pallas and Ceres back to their correct point in time while everyone was being resurrected.

So the whole time we’re seeing this little pink-haired toddler run around a playground, ride on the swings and gorge herself on snacks, we are actually looking at a very tiny grieving mother who just lost everything.

Yes. Let’s rewind. The manga and Sailor Moon Crystal S2 both made it clear that Crystal Tokyo went up around Usagi’s 22^nd birthday, while she was in labor with Chibiusa.

That means when Sailor Chaos attacked Crystal Tokyo, Chibiusa had already been born.

Chibi Chibi is Usagi, Sailor Cosmos, Neo Queen Serenity and Sailor Moon.

Chibi Chibi has already given birth to Chibiusa, and in her timeline, has now outlived her.

Suddenly, this story got very, very dark and twisted, right??

But now their short scenes together in Cosmos Part 2 hit A LOT closer to home. She wants so badly to tell her daughter everything, but she knows she can’t because she’s already altering time an awful lot just by being here, and she’s trying not to make things worse.

All of this also makes the scenes with Ikuko more disturbing.

Think about it. While Crystal/Eternal/Cosmos toned it down quite a bit, Ikuko flat out bullies Usagi. She never bothered to get her help when she was struggling in school, she threw her out of the house, crawls up her ass about everything, in the 90’s anime even got Shingo and Kenji in on the bullying and never once disciplined Chibiusa or Shingo for being mean to Usagi, and only shows motherly affection either when she thinks Usagi might clue her in on her relationship or in Cosmos, just when she thinks Usagi will never come home again.

But here, Chibi Chibi steps in and gets all of that motherly affection from Ikuko her other self has been starved of. Ikuko dotes on her, cuddles her, loves on her, she doesn’t have to be name-called and there’s no unrealistic expectations being dumped onto her. This is the only time she’s been treated as a daughter her entire life, and to get this love from Ikuko, she has to disguise herself as a two-year-old.

AND SHE IS STILL A MOM HERSELF.

AND THIS IS FREAKING NUTS.

The Sailor Moon manga ended slightly after Sailor StarS, and nobody at Toei Animation was patient enough to figure out how to translate any of this to film, so they simply wrote her off as Sailor Galaxia’s Star Seed.

No. For real. I’m not kidding.

Near the end of the anime, it’s revealed that Chibi Chibi is The Light Of Hope and that Sailor Galaxia was once a noble warrior, a far cry from who Galaxia is in the manga and in Cosmos, where she’s just a ruthless and selfish bounty hunter whose powers manifested while she was being assaulted, and the spoiled brat teams up with Chaos just to obliterate all the things.

But anyway, in the 90’s anime, she was a brave warrior, just not a very smart one. Since in her corner of the universe, she was totally alone since Chaos had killed everyone else around her, she battled the shadowy figure to exhaustion, and then not thinking clearly, she absorbed Chaos’s entire body into her own, thinking she could imprison Chaos.

Physics was not Galaxia’s strong point.

Chaos was obviously too big for her, so she expelled her Star Seed and gave it life, hoping this creature would find someone in outer space who could help her.

That Star Seed became Chibi Chibi and Galaxia became Chaos’s new skin.

In the final episode, which I documented here, Chibi Chibi becomes a sword. Usagi becomes Princess Serenity. Usagi is supposed to use the sword against Galaxia, who is now 100% fused with Chaos.

Serenity/Usagi chooses not to because *checks notes* she DOESN’T WANNA?!?!?

HAH???

So the sword gets broken, Chibi Chibi dies, this causes Usagi to just spend the next eleven minutes in her birthday suit (WHY??) and then she just shakes hands with Galaxia and THAT sends away Chaos and brings everyone back from the dead???
WHAT THE FUCK???

Oh well at least we get to see ALMOST Sailor Cosmos but with Sailor Uranus’s fugly boots, so there’s that, right??

It’s excruciating to count how many characters in Sailor Moon got kneecapped in the 90’s by the writing department, so it very much feels like Sailor Moon Cosmos exists as a big old apology letter for those of us who held out for it, and it was appropriate. But of all of them, Chibi Chibi is easily on the Top Ten list of all time screwed-over characters in the 90’s.

Chibi Chibi does have her own powers beyond keeping Kakyuu alive while she healed and giving Eternal Sailor Moon a rare boost. While the promise of her character was cut short in Sailor StarS, we finally have Cosmos to bring to the screen what those of us who loved her in the manga had been waiting to see in full color.

Name: Chibi Chibi Tsukino
Full Name: Usagi Tsukino
Body Age: About 2.
Real Age: As Galaxia’s Star Seed: 17+ as Sailor Cosmos: Over 22.
Birthday: June 30, 1981
Birthstone: Pearl
Western Astrological Sign: Cancer
Astrological Planet: The Moon
Chinese Astrological Sign: Metal Rooster
Chibi Chibi's Height: 26 inches
Sailor Cosmos/Light of Hope Height: 4'11
Favorite Color: Probably still pink or white
Favorite Food: Pudding, Cake and Ice Cream
Least Favorite Food: Carrots
Favorite School Subject: Home Economics
Least Favorite School Subject: Math, English
Hates: Chaos, death
Hobbies: Eating, Sleeping, Saving the Universe, Being really cute!
Talents: Superpowers, cuteness, getting what she wants.
Dream: To help "our" timeline's Usagi make the right choices.
Family (As Sailor Cosmos): Kenji (Father), Ikuko (Mother), Shingo (Younger brother), Queen Serenity (Past-life mother), Usagi (Adopted older sister/other self), Mamoru/King Endymion (Husband), Chibiusa (Daughter), Kousagi (Daughter she hasn’t had in her timeline yet.) Luna (Pet/Guardian).
Family (As Galaxia’s Star Seed): Sailor Galaxia (Host), Usagi (Adopted older sister), Ikuko (Adopted mother), Kenji (Unseen adopted father), Shingo (unseen adopted older brother), Chibiusa (Adopted niece), Mamoru (Adopted older-brother-in-law-to-be).
Blood Type: O