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Lost Live-Action American Saint Seiya Pilot Episode Found

Last year, lost media documentary YouTuber Ray Mona shared the full pilot episode for an American animated adaptation of the Saint Seiya manga and anime. This year, she uncovered the lost pilot episode from StarStorm, a proposed live-action adaptation of Saint Seiya. (This pilot was made three decades before last year's Knights of the Zodiac film starring Mackenyu.)

Mona has since uploaded the pilot to her YouTube channel, separate from her new documentary:

Mona shared the full pilot episode for an American animated Saint Seiya adaptation in April 2023. The proposed cartoon, titled Guardians of the Cosmos, was conceived and scrapped during the 1990s. The documentary maker obtained the footage from the Library of Congress. She had received permission from former Bandai America president Frank Ward to retrieve all documents related to the American live-action Sailor Moon TV show (known colloquially online as Saban Moon after Power Rangers producer Haim Saban). The Guardians of the Cosmos footage was bundled with the Sailor Moon documents.

The original two-part documentary initially concerned Ray Mona's search for the entire pilot of StarStorm. Only 20 seconds of footage from the pilot was ever made public until August. Like Saban Moon, the pilot was created by Power Rangers producers Renaissance Atlantic.

After uncovering the Guardians of the Cosmos footage, the documentary maker shifted her focus to contextualizing that pilot episode. She speculated that StarStorm may have incorporated elements from Guardians of the Cosmos for a potential hybrid live-action/animated show like Saban Moon.

Mona's discoveries have been amazing for the anime fandom. Not only do they show a piece of lost media, but it also expands our understanding of the medium as a whole.

Sources: Ray Mona's X/Twitter account (link 2) and YouTube channel (link 2)