‘Guardians of the Cosmos’ the lost pilot of the American remake of ‘Knights of the Zodiac’

Shortly after the preview of the live action of ‘Los Caballeros del Zodiaco’, the unexpected discovery of the animated pilot of “Guardians of the Cosmos”, the American version of “Saint Seiya”.’. During the 1990s, Toei Animation, a Japanese company, was looking for new ways to introduce its popular intellectual properties to the US market, and one of its most iconic series, “Saint Seiya: Knights of the Zodiac”, became way in the West … in a very different way thanks to ‘Guardians of the Cosmos’.

The youtuber Ray Mona, known for investigating and discovering forgotten audiovisual materials, presented the second part of his documentary, “The Secret Stories of Saint Seiya”, in which he immerses himself in the search for the lost pilot of the American live-action “Sailor Moon”. But her investigation of him took an unexpected turn when he discovered something far more valuable: an animated pilot for a American adaptation of ‘Saint Seiya’, called ‘Guardians of the Cosmos’.

To give some context, it was pretty rare to see anime on American television in the 90s. Thus, licensing companies chose to create fully Americanized versions of the original series, ‘Guardians of the Cosmos’ was one of those cases.

The 1993 pilot was produced by Renaissance Atlantic Entertainment, which also worked on canceled projects like ‘Saban Moon’ and StarStorm, and was best known for its work on ‘Power Rangers’. The animation was done by Fred Wolf Films, the company responsible for the Americanized version of ‘The Ninja Turtles’ (1987) and ‘The New Adventures of Speed ​​​​Racer’ (1993).

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The story of ‘Guardians of the Cosmos’

This version of Saint Seiya had a completely new storyline and redesigned characters, in an effort to appeal to American audiences. However, it was never televised, and the pilot was archived in the United States Library of Congress for years, its synopsis of which is as follows:

“The heroes of mystical martial arts must fight against the forces of evil… In the first episode titled ‘Genesis’, the Guardians meet their mysterious benefactress Nova, who has paid for their special training. Nova, a beautiful woman, says she needs the Guardians to protect herself and the Earth. She explains that she is actually Athena of Mount Olympus, and her brother Apollo plans to use 12 Golden Warriors to destroy the world, as he is disgusted with what mankind has done to the Earth.”

Watch the ‘Guardian of the Cosmos’ pilot here

The same official synopsis continues: “Athena warns the Guardians that they will only be successful if they work together. But Apollo has followed the Guardians into Nova/Athena’s lair, without them realizing it. A single golden warrior kidnaps Athena to bring her back . Mount Olympus. The Knights pursue him and rescue Athena. Apollo swears vengeance.”

The discovery of ray mona caused quite a stir among ‘Saint Seiya’ fans, who had been looking forward to the original version of the anime in America for years. While “Guardians of the Cosmos” went nowhere, the existence of this animated pilot gives us an insight into the different strategies Japanese companies have tried in their quest to reach Western audiences.

The discovery of the animated pilot of “Guardians of the Cosmos” was an exciting discovery for fans of “Saint Seiya” and further proof of the efforts made by Japanese companies to reach the American market in the 1990s.