Left to Right: Pegasus Zack, Cygnus Jake, Andromeda Max, Phoenix Quinn and Draco Clint.
Long before DiC Entertainment tried to bring the hit anime Saint Seiya to an English-speaking audience with their much-maligned dub, Renaissance Atlantic made their own attempt in 1993 with Guardians of the Cosmos. This attempt, much like their ill-fated adaptation of Sailor Moon, was an original animated series that took the characters and concepts of Saint Seiya, but took a drastic turn with them compared to the source material.A pilot episode, titled "Genesis", was created by Fred Wolf Films (then famous for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), and follows five martial artists (Zack, Clint, Jake, Max, and Quinn) as they complete their training and meet their Mysterious Benefactor: a woman named Nova, who is really the goddess Athena. She tasks them with protecting both herself and the planet Earth from her brother Apollo, who seeks to wipe out humanity for their environmental destruction, and has twelve powerful golden warriors to get the job done. To fight back against these warriors, Nova/Athena has supplied powerful armors of her own to the five.
The pilot was never picked up for a series, and remained unknown to the world at large until December 2022, when YouTuber Raven "Ray Mona" Simone stumbled upon it while searching for the pilot to StarStorm (another attempt by Renaissance Atlantic to adapt Saint Seiya, this time in live action). She included the opening titles at the end of part one
of her The Secret Stories of Saint Seiya documentary, before showcasing it in part two, which also covers her search to learn more about Guardians of the Cosmos itself.
Ray would also upload the pilot separately, and it can be seen here.
Guardians of the Cosmos contains examples of:
- 20 Minutes into the Future: No timeframe is explicitly given in the pilot, but it mostly resembles the present day, except Flying Cars and hoverbikes are present, and the city has some futuristic-looking buildings in its skyline. The heroes are also seen wearing futuristic jumpsuits as casual attire.
- Adaptation Name Change: Seiya is renamed Zack, Shiryu becomes Clint, Hyoga becomes Jake, Shun becomes Max, and Ikki becomes Quinn. Additionally, Saori is renamed Nova, and Aldebaran becomes Ram. Shun's Nebula Chain technique is also renamed to "Chain of Andromeda".
- Adaptation Species Change: The human Pope Ares is replaced with the Greek god Apollo. Despite appearing human, the gold warriors are also implicitly non-human; Apollo notes how he "won't send humans" before sending Ram, and Ram adresses the five as humans, despite looking human himself.
- Adaptational Backstory Change: Quinn's training is shown to have happened in a normal city, as opposed to the hellish Death Queen Island in the original.
- Adaptational Heroism:
- Quinn's unnamed master is considerably nicer to his pupil than the brutal and sociopathic Guilty in Saint Seiya.
- Quinn (the Americanized Phoenix Ikki) is already part of the Five-Man Band. In the anime, Ikki is the Starter Villain after the "Galaxian Wars" arc, and officially joins Athena's/Saori's cause when he pulls a Big Damn Heroes moment.
- Adaptational Location Change:
- Saint Seiya took place in Tokyo in the modern-day (or rather, the 1980s); the unnamed city in Guardians of the Cosmos, meanwhile, is noticeably more futuristic.
- Instead of a mountain range in Greece, the pilot's version of Sanctuary is located on Mount Olympus, though it remains a central fortress protected by numerous smaller structures as the Twelve Temples were.
- Adaptational Superpower Change: While most of the characters' abilities remained mostly intact, Quinn appears to lack the Phoenix Phantom Fist, instead using his fire powers more frequently. Zack also appears to have some telekinetic abilities when fighting the biker gang, though it could also be an unusual way of animating his usual Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs.
- Adaptational Ugliness:
- While Andromeda Shun was androgynous in appearance, his counterpart Max is more visibly masculine.
- Apollo looks more demonic than his original counterpart Pope Ares, who merely wore a purple mask rather than having a non-human face.
- Adaptational Villainy: Ram, the equivalent character of Taurus Aldebaran (who is one of the nicest Gold Saints in the original manga and anime), is turned into a generic brute here. This also applies to the Gold Saints in general, who are now servants of the villainous Apollo instead of noble (if initially deceived) warriors of Athena.
- Adaptational Wimp: The Gold Saints in Saint Seiya were leagues above the Bronze Saints, and Aldebaran was more than a match for them even when they all attacked him at once. By contrast, Ram goes down fairly quickly once the five work together and armor up, though he initially defeats them easily when they're unarmored and more disorganized.
- Adapted Out: Mitsumasa Kido, the other five Bronze Saints, and the Silver Saints (save Marin) all lack counterparts in the pilot, with the former's status as the one behind the Bronze Saints' training given to Nova instead.
- All Bikers are Hells Angels: A gang of bikers are sent by Apollo to follow the five heroes. They end up picking a fight with them, and are soundly defeated by them.
- Anti-Villain: Apollo wants to exterminate the human race and start over, but only because of the damage they inflict upon planet Earth.
- Arbitrary Skepticism: After Nova reveals the truth about herself and their task to the heroes, they all dismiss it as a joke. This, despite their training giving them incredible skills and even outright superpowers.
- Came from the Sky: When Ram is dispatched to Earth, he arrives in the form of a gold meteor that falls to the ground.
- Canon Foreigner:
- While an Apollo was introduced in the Non-Serial Movie Legend of the Crimson Youth (albeit under the name Abel), the Apollo of Guardians of the Cosmos is largely an original character taking the place of Pope Ares as the Big Bad.
- Jake's nameless master is mostly hidden under a parka, but what little is visible resembles neither Aquarius Camus, nor the Crystal Saint (Hyoga's anime-original master).
- Color-Coded Characters: Even more than the original series. Each of the five heroes is associated with a colour:
- Zack (Pegasus): red energy and red jumpsuit.
- Clint (Draco): green energy and green jumpsuit.
- Jake (Cygnus): white energy and gray and white jumpsuit.
- Max (Andromeda): pink energy and pink jumpsuit.
- Quinn (Phoenix): blue energy and dark blue jumpsuit.
- Comic-Book Movies Don't Use Codenames: Nowhere in the pilot are the warriors referred to as Bronze Saints (or even Bronze Knights), and they aren't referred to by their constellations as in Saint Seiya (although they still remain in their designs and techniques, such as Clint's association with dragons and Zack's Pegasus Meteor Punch).
- Composite Character: Nova takes up Mitsumasa Kido's status as the one who arranged for the five heroes to be trained.
- Compressed Adaptation: Regardless of the Americanized changes, the pilot does retain some plot beats of the original manga/anime:
- In the original, Seiya spends the whole of the first episode training with Marin and preparing to fly back to Japan. In the pilot, Zack trains with his master in one scene, and in the next is ready to leave Greece.
- In the original, Seiya meets with Saori in the second episode, and even questions the purpose of her televised tournament, during which the remaining protagonists are introduced one by one. The pilot eschews the whole of the Galaxian Wars arc, and already gathers the heroes.
- Following the Galaxian Wars arc, the next arc is the Silver Saints arc (its second arc), where the main heroes vow to protect Athena against the Sanctuary. In the pilot, Nova's butler already reveals she is Athena, doing away with the Silver Saints.
- After the Silver Saints arc, the series moves on to the Sanctuary/Twelve Houses arc (its third arc), where the main antagonists are the Gold Saints. However, the pilot introduces its main antagonists: Apollo (which is basically Pope Ares in all but name) and his twelve golden knights.
- Cool Gate: Nova's skyscraper has a hidden room containing a portal to Mount Olympus, which the Guardians use to travel there after Nova's abduction.
- Crimefighting with Cash: Implied. Clint's master and Max comment that their common benefactor, Nova, paid all their training expenses, and gave them flying tickets. Also, when the five heroes meet Nova's butler, he is standing in front of a building, and ushers them in, the quintet admiring the luxurious hall. Later, they take the elevator to Nova's penthouse.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: In their first fight with Ram, the Guardians are on the receiving end of one as he effortlessly manhandles them and No-Sells Jake and Quinn's techniques. Once the Guardians unite and attain their armor during the rematch on Mount Olympus, however, they easily inflict one of these back on Ram.
- Damsel in Distress: Nova is captured by Apollo's warriors midway through, and the heroes venture to Mount Olympus to rescue her.
- Deadpan Snarker: Clint and Quinn seem to be the most snarky of the bunch, since they mock Nova/Athena's (attempted) explanation of their mission.
- Decomposite Character: The briefly-seen Libra and Aquarius warriors appear to be wholly unrelated to Clint and Jake's masters. Likewise, the Gemini warrior appears to be a separate character from Apollo, unlike in Saint Seiya where he and the Pope were one and the same.
- Dressing as the Enemy: Zack rescues Nova by wearing Ram's armor and tricking Apollo into thinking he'd defeated the heroes. He even does a perfect impression of Ram's voice!
- Eiffel Tower Effect: In the very first minutes of the pilot, an establishing shot shows the Great Wall of China, then pans to a training montage of Clint and his master. This serves to locate the heroes' place of training (in Clint's case, China).
- Evil Sounds Deep: Both Apollo and especially Ram have very deep voices, with the latter having Jim Cummings using his Robotnik voice.
- Foreign Remake: Guardians of the Cosmos is essentially Saint Seiya as an American Saturday-Morning Cartoon.
- An Ice Person: Jake retains Hyoga's signature Diamond Dust technique, with which he can freeze an entity in solid ice.
- Husky Russkie: Before Jake leaves his traning place on a snowmobile, he appears to be talking with a certain accent, and uses the Russian phrase 'до свидания', meaning 'goodbye'.
- Instant Armor: It wouldn't be Saint Seiya without it! Although the armors initially vanish when the heroes look for them before going to Mount Olympus, they appear out of nowhere to aid them during their rematch with Ram.
- Literally Shattered Lives: The Guardians defeat the water hydra by having Jake freeze it solid with his Diamond Dust, before Zack shatters it apart.
- Lighter and Softer: All the violence, gore, and tragic plot elements from the original Saint Seiya are completely absent here.
- Making a Splash: On Mount Olympus, the Guardians are attacked by a hydra made entirely of water, which later shapeshifts into a giant water humanoid.
- Monumental Damage: The pilot opens with the Great Wall of China spontaneously crumbling from an earthquake, prompting Clint to protect his master from falling debris.
- No Name Given: The five heroes' masters are unnamed, though Zack, Clint, and Quinn's all resemble their counterparts in the original series (Eagle Marin, Libra Dohko, and Guilty, respectively). Likewise, Nova's butler goes nameless, though he shares similar traits to Tatsumi. And aside from Ram, none of the other briefly-seen Golden Warriors are named.
- No-Sell: Ram not only easily breaks free of Jake's Diamond Dust, but when Quinn uses his Fist of Fire on him, he swallows the flames before spitting them back at Quinn.
- Oh, My Gods!: As the heroes gain the upper hand against Ram on Mount Olympus, Apollo exclaims, "Oh, for the love of Zeus!"
- Origins Episode: The pilot sets up what would have been the status quo of the series, with the heroes becoming Nova's guardians, obtaining their magical armor, and fighting Apollo's golden warriors for the first time.
- Playing with Fire: Quinn, as the pilot's version of Phoenix Ikki, has the ability to create fire. In the climax, he even sends out a blast of fire shaped like a phoenix.
- Psychic Link: After Ram, Apollo's minion, takes Nova with him, Nova sends a psychic message that only Zack can hear. When they cross the magic portal in Nova's penthouse to Mount Olympus and reach Apollo's lair, Zack mentions he "senses [Nova's] lifeforce".
- Real Men Wear Pink: Max's energy takes on a pink colour, and he wears the pink armour representing the Andromeda constellation.
- Samus Is a Girl: After the five heroes complete their respective trainings, they are told that one "Nova" paid for it. They later fly to Nova's home city and see that Nova is a woman. The five actually look surprised when they learn of their benefactor's true identity.
- Series Continuity Error:
- At the airport scene, Max complains about Zack and Quinn taking his luggage, then, off-screen, Clint throws the Chain of Andromeda to grab the bag. Earlier in the pilot, it was established that Max is the one that uses the chain as his signature weapon.
- When Zack is impersonating Ram to release Nova from her shackles, the scene shows a brown-skinned hand breaking her chains. This is in discrepancy with the previous scene, since Zack is only wearing his armor (and presumably modulating his voice), not Ram's skin colour.
- Sinister Surveillance: Throughout the pilot, Apollo watches the heroes from his fortress on Mount Olympus using a large crystal. It briefly cuts out as they lay the smackdown on Ram towards the pilot's climax.
- The Smurfette Principle: Of the heroes' masters, three are recognizable counterparts to their original versions: Clint's is a reskinned Libra Dohko (in senior mode), Quinn's is Guilty's (masked and all) and Zack's is the pilot's version of Aquila Marin, making her the only girl of the group, while Jake's master is an unnamed moustached guy. Considering that each hero says their goodbyes to their respective masters before returning to civilization, and the scene is paralleled five times, the implication is that the dark-skinned woman in Max's scene is his master.
- Spared by the Adaptation: Although Sagittarius Aiolos was a Posthumous Character in the source material, an unnamed Sagittarius warrior is seen among the twelve gold warriors.
- Teleportation: After Zack rescues Nova, both and the remaining four guardians simply teleport out of Apollo's lair and materialize on the other side of Nova's magical fireplace entry.
- Theme Music Power-Up: An instrumental of the show's theme song plays as the five don their armors for the first time, complete with Transformation Sequence.
- Title Drop: Zack gives one to Nova towards the end of the pilot:Zack: And I think I speak for all of us when I say that we would be honored, Nova, to be your guardians of the cosmos.
- Training Dummy: In the introductory scenes, Max is training inside a Southeast Asian-like temple, and uses his triangle-pointed chain to break a training dummy in half.
- Unrelated in the Adaptation: None of the five heroes know each other until they all go to meet Nova, as opposed to growing up as orphans together (and, in the manga, being half-brothers). Max and Quinn also aren't brothers, unlike their original counterparts Shun and Ikki.
- Walking Shirtless Scene: This is justified: in the first scenes, the quintet are introduced in their Training Montage.
