You’ll Be Given Love: Chibi Usa in Sailor Moon

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I never dreamed she would grace me with her presence. The all-powerful goddess who secluded herself in the invincible palace, and never set foot outside its walls. Neo Queen Serenity. What a beautiful monarch.

The queen of the Silver Millennium. And now, she is also the queen of Crystal Tokyo. Neo Queen Serenity is your future self, Sailor Moon.

Usagi starts Sailor Moon as a klutzy, crybaby middle schooler who through the trials she faces and her belief in herself ends the series as a selfless and emotionally mature young woman. A young woman who – if she continues working hard—will one day be Neo Queen Serenity, a gorgeous, immortal, miracle-performing space queen. Supported by her friends and loving husband, Usagi’s future is a guaranteed fairytale.

In contrast, Chibi Usa is a little girl who wants that fairytale so bad. A 900-year-old who doesn’t age, Chibi Usa wants to grow up. She wants to be beautiful. She covets Usagi’s looks and her power. Chibi-Usa thinks:

The truth is I wish I could be like Usagi. She has such long, thin perfect legs. Those soft breasts, and that long silky hair. I’m so jealous. I wanna grow up quickly so I can be like that, too.

Chibi Usa wants to be a woman. She believes it’s the only way for her to be loved. For her to be wanted. Chibi Usa is a princess, but her parents are cold, and she is teased by the kids her age and has no friends. Yet even though Chibi Usa isn’t beautiful, she is still loved and valued.

Chibi Usa does grow up. At the end of the Black Moon arc, the villain Wiseman taps into her secret desires and allows Chibi Usa--often called Small Lady--to become Black Lady, a tall, glamorous woman. As Black Lady, Chibi Usa doesn’t care that her planet is going to be destroyed, that everyone is going to die. All she cares about is using her newfound power to get the love she craves. For her, this means brainwashing Mamoru so she can be with him. She even kisses him. Yes, she kisses the guy who is going to grow up to be her dad. And, yes, it is some serious soap opera bullshit. But, gross problematics aside, her moments as Black Lady are narratively important not only for illustrating Chibi Usa’s desire for love but how her idea of validating love is that of romantic love with a man, even if he is her father.

Yet, in the end, Chibi Usa is saved by love, a different kind of love than the hollow one she has created with Mamoru.

Hugs and kisses aren’t the only ways to show love, Small Lady. Some people show love by watching over you and caring about you from afar.

Sailor Pluto is the hero of the Black Moon arc. She breaks the third taboo by using her Garnet Rod to stop time, saving the planet but sacrificing her life in the process. It is her love that also saves Chibi Usa. As Pluto dies, Chibi Usa as Black Lady remembers their friendship. How Pluto cared for her. How Pluto was her only friend. The above quote is something Pluto said to Chibi Usa, and it’s true. Sailor Pluto could never fight alongside the other Senshi, but she cared about them, just like she cared for Chibi Usa. And when Chibi Usa remembers, Black Moon’s spell is shattered; she is Small Lady again. It’s a beautiful moment brought down only by the fact that Sailor Pluto—the only dark-skinned character in the series—died to provide this character development.

But her friendship with Pluto is only one of the important relationships Chibi Usa has with other girls and women in the series. Chibi Usa ends up being well-liked by the Sailor Senshi and even Usagi. Despite Usagi’s initial jealousy and suspicion, the two of them end up becoming good friends. When Chibi Usa must leave, each one cries about how much they will miss the other. They fight together, even doing a combined attack. Chibi Usa and Usagi really do end up caring about each other. And Chibi Usa also had another important, influential relationship: her friendship with Hotaru in which Chibi Usa shows more sensitivity and growth than she has ever shown before.

Chibi Usa is brave (possibly a little reckless) and earnest—Pluto praises her sincerity—but she is not a particularly sensitive person. Even Usagi says:

I mean, yeah, you’re always running off and doing your own thing. You never once considered how it would make me feel!

As a kid, Chibi Usa doesn’t always stop to consider other people’s feelings, but through her friendship with Hotaru she starts to. From the moment Chibi Usa meets Hotaru, she is enamored of the older girl and with her begins to learn a little about friendship and considering others’ feelings. One example is when Chibi Usa catches sight of Hotaru’s scarred, cyborg body and runs away, only to stop herself and consider Hotaru’s feelings. Chibi Usa knows Hotaru didn’t want to be seen like that and wonders if she hurt Hotaru’s feelings by running away. And at the end of the Infinity Arc, Hotaru—like Pluto before her—gives her life to save Chibi Usa and everyone else, keeping her vow to protect Chibi Usa’s pure, beautiful soul. Her sacrifice motivates Chibi Usa to fight on.

But despite the friends Chibi Usa makes, she never loses her dream of becoming a beautiful princess and finding a prince of her own. And in the fittingly titled Dream Arc, Chibi Usa gets a prince of her own, a unicorn boy named Helios. Helios is imprisoned and needs to be rescued. Chibi Usa wants to be the one to rescue him—to be needed by somebody---even asking him:

Do you think that someday people will need me, too? Will I ever grow up and be a real Guardian? And a beautiful Lady? Do you think that one day, someday, my dream could actually come true?

Helios responds:

Don’t cry, Little Maiden. It is your aid that enables Super Sailor Moon to fight with all her strength. Your friends are worried—they are looking for you. You are needed. You are always dearly needed. You are surrounded by boundless love.

Helios is right. Chibi Usa isn’t beautiful, but she’s still loved and valued by her friends. It’s a shame Chibi Usa never seems to realize it for herself. Only a kiss from Helios gives her hope that one day she will be a beautiful lady and have a prince of her very own. It’s a perfect ending for the atmospheric fairytale that is the Dream Arc, but as Chibi Usa doesn’t get to do much in the series’ final arc, this storyline serves as the final statement on her character. And that’s disappointing. Having Chibi Usa get over her continued and weird crush on Mamoru would've been great. Having Chibi Usa’s ultimate dream go beyond wanting to grow up and be beautiful would’ve been important to have in a series like Sailor Moon. It would've served as a counterpoint to Usagi and her arc--an arc with the traditional endpoint of being a married mother (while still being an eternally beautiful goddess)--and as an important message to have in a series like Sailor Moon, a series whose aesthetics are based on presenting a certain type of adult glamor for its young readers and whose storylines place a lot of importance on being supermodel beautiful. And it would’ve been a more fitting end for Chibi Usa’s character. Chibi Usa may be a princess without a prince, but she still has so many meaningful relationships; she is still surrounded by love.