As much as I love the manga, I vote no. I felt that by making each episode of Crystal a direct copy of a chapter from the manga, it really highlighted some of its flaws (the girls not having much attention or development for instance). While the manga being fast paced worked in its favor most of the time, in my opinion, I think it hindered Crystal overall which is why I'm hoping that season 3 of Crystal is fully dedicated to the Infinity arc. I hope they can find a balance between adapting the manga but also giving the audience breathing room between the major plot episodes.

I voted no as well, though it's more because I was never really impressed by the manga and I never felt like there was any real direction. There are a lot of scenes however that I loved and that I would like Crystal to take into account.

But really, introducing character development instead of following the manga so closely would be really great, even more so since they're introducing new sets of characters. With how picky people have become on characters and the likes, new fans who don't know things about Sailor Moon wouldn't be able to fully enjoy the Outers. Few people nowadays like blank slate (though I enjoyed Crystal, but there was a real lack of personalities).

But I liked the show despite not liking the manga, so maybe it won't make a difference for me whether they keep following it or not.

For me, I'd prefer they follow the plot and characterization of the manga closely, but leave breathing room to flesh out the characters a little bit more without devoting whole episodes to filler. One of the things that irked me about the 90's anime was how standoffish and separate the Outer Senshi were from the rest of the girls, when in the manga, you get a sense that their destinies have changed and they're now part of the group after the Infinity arc.

mangaka-chan wrote:

For me, I'd prefer they follow the plot and characterization of the manga closely, but leave breathing room to flesh out the characters a little bit more without devoting whole episodes to filler. One of the things that irked me about the 90's anime was how standoffish and separate the Outer Senshi were from the rest of the girls, when in the manga, you get a sense that their destinies have changed and they're now part of the group after the Infinity arc.

 I agree.  I hope they do 1 or 2 episodes per chapter.  I already have a taste of what loads of fillers does to a series.  Yes, there was character development, but the writers are supposed to be able to do that within the time allotted.

I voted for yes because the last time Crystal tried to deviate from the manga with the Shittenou and Soldier romance sub plot, they did a rather poor job of executing it.  The Black Moon arc stayed much more faithful to the manga and I feel like it was a much better adaptation for doing so.

I want it to follow a bit because I really like what they did in the manga but at the same time I also want them to expand on the manga and improve it.

I feel like, despite not watching all of the first two 'seasons' of Crystal yet, following the manga exactly would be bad for the show. Why copy something else, when there is always room for improvement? They should be trying to improve the manga - not by doing something completely different, but by paying attention to the flaws pointed out by dedicated fans and critics and making improvements based on those. While it may be cool to see a manga brought to the screen page-by-page, what's the point in watching it when you already know what is going to happen (in the case of those who have read the manga already)?

I would say they should stick to the main critical plot points of the manga but it doesn't directly translate to "one episode per act." It's either they lengthen each episodes if they want to stick to the "one episode per episode" formula (a 24 minute episode standard is not enough fully cover such lengthy acts) or they add more episodes to spread out the story properly. I don't even consider Crystal as being so close to the manga. They made enough alterations and emittions for it to be different from source material. One thing I don't want Crystal to do is to add fillers. I don't care if the lazy excuse is to "give more personality to each characters." That's called lazy storytelling. A great writer can easily utilize character development without halting the main plot.

21minute wrote:

I would say they should stick to the main critical plot points of the manga but it doesn't directly translate to "one episode per act." It's either they lengthen each episodes if they want to stick to the "one episode per episode" formula (a 24 minute episode standard is not enough fully cover such lengthy acts) or they add more episodes to spread out the story properly. I don't even consider Crystal as being so close to the manga. They made enough alterations and emittions for it to be different from source material. One thing I don't want Crystal to do is to add fillers. I don't care if the lazy excuse is to "give more personality to each characters." That's called lazy storytelling. A great writer can easily utilize character development without halting the main plot.

 I definitely agree with the fillers being used as a way to "develop" characters personality is lazy storytelling.  The main plot should already be doing that.

I'm confused. If you want them to have longer episodes or have more episodes so it's not a direct copy of the manga, wouldn't those additions technically count as filler?

I don't agree that fillers are lazy storytelling. In fact, copying the manga directly, dialogue by dialogue and act by act IS lazy storytelling because they literally can't be bothered to add or change anything new. The manga has such a bare bones plot and there is zero character development for the senshi that aren't Moon and Chibi Moon. I would actually like to see the other characters fleshed out. I think fillers have a negative connotation when it shouldn't be. It makes people think of no plot when in reality it could just be something that expands what the original manga plot already has and make it much better.

On that note, how do you decide when something is filler and isn't unless they directly follow the manga chapter by chapter and dialogue by dialogue as they mostly do now? Wouldn't the whole senshi/shitennou stuff that they added count as filler already, especially given how poorly it was executed?

I agree with Mercury. Fillers aren't bad things. They can be used to expand upon a character. Lazy story writing by definition is someone who copies someone else's writing because they can't come up with or be bothered to come up with their own stuff. 

While following the Manga closely in terms of overarching plot is a good idea, I wish they would have a little more substance. Even in the Manga, while most of the character development goes towards Usagi and Chibiusa, I would argue that they are both still very flat characters and in the 90s anime, were much more fleshed out. 

I do disagree with fillers for filler sake though. I think that if fillers are going to be used, they need to have a purpose.