I think they're both great, but the original covers have a lot more soul to them, so to speak. They're almost all full pictures rather than a solo illustration of the character. Both covers are good but they give off different vibes; I think the first covers give off more of a "Sailor Moon" vibe to me.

The new covers feel a lot more modern, though. I personally prefer the older covers just because they're a lot more eye catching. They feel more crowded but in a good way.

Though I do like they way the new covers are one cover per senshi, effectively giving every character equal cover space c:

ChibiBoi wrote:

A lot of times Japanese mana will have that paper cover but when released in North America, they will get rid of the sleeves.

Most European releases (excluding french ones for some reasons) also got rid of the sleeve.

this discussion is featured on tumblr: http://thegalaxycauldronforums.tumblr.com/post/34837178826/x-which-version-of-the-manga-covers

While I like the character the old covers have, I appreciate and prefer the newer style and uniformity of the new.

I love both of them, but sometimes I get the feeling I'm the only person who loves the new art, haha.

We should all just remember that everything was drawn by our Naoko! ;D

Cosmos! You're alive!

I love the new art too, I guess one reason for the love of the old art is that you always want what you can't have and we don't appreciate the new art as much because it's so easily accessible?

I prefer the older ones, but I do appreciate the new ones. They're just a little too clean for my taste. I like the 3rd rerelease covers, they're clean but more reminiscent of pre-digital Naoko. I love the watercolor, airbrush, messy (but yet so precise) colouring, and the beautiful waves in their hair. The new art lacks it. I wouldn't say she went downhill. It's just different these days. Computerization changed everything. I loved that she would find bits of Japanese paper for backgrounds, and airbrush doilies for backgrounds.. (or glue beads onto pictures like my signature!) but when you do things on the computer, that stuff is lost. It's possible to reproduce that effect, but you lose the inspiration because you don't really think of getting your hands dirty and gluing stuff anymore.. so it fades from your mind completely.

I'm gunna revive this thread cause we now need to add in the new new manga covers of the "Perfect Edition"!! I'm grabbing these photos off of cdjapan's website, but if anyone has better quality images please post them!

Vol. 1


Vol. 2


Vol. 3


Vol. 4


Vol. 5


Vol. 6


Does anyone know how many volumes this edition is going to run btw??

i really like the new covers cause they're bright and pretty. (cause honestly, i love bright and pretty things) xD but there's that problem with the first manga cover cause i don't like how sailor moon is not in her eternal fuku while the rest of the senshi have them in the other covers :/ maybe that's how iconic the first fuku was or who know what reason the publishers had. plus the new covers are sorta generic now, it wasn't something i was expecting when i saw the mangas at barnes and noble. but there's something about the older artwork that i like. i really love the use of colour and textures. in the artwork books you can definitely take a closer look at how her use of colour and textures blooms throughout the entire run of the manga, and how she uses different types of mediums to create the artwork for the manga. it's just simply beautiful to look at and admire. i'm really divided in the middle... but then i'm leaning for the older covers since they're so beautiful to look at.

What about the new new covers? I'm really liking them a lot. They feel like a mix of her old and new style.

the last two released covers are unngggg.

Small Lady wrote:

What about the new new covers?  I'm really liking them a lot. They feel like a mix of her old and new style.

the last two released covers are unngggg.

i have really loved seeing the new new covers pop up on various sites, they remind me of artbook images and are so elegant. Not to dis the other manga covers at all because they are good too, but these new ones are just lovely.

I really loved the old ones and when I was reading up on the series again I was tempted to buy the old ones just because the covers were so pretty! I like the new ones because I love seeing each Sailor Scout have their own book cover. But if I had to pick I would vote for the old ones.

I think all three versions of the covers are special on their own way.

The 90´s version is special to me. I remember when I saw the vol.4 for the first time in a magazine, 17 years ago. I thought "Oooh! So pretty! So colorful! I want!" But my wish came true only 12 years ago, when I bought my very first SM manga. It´s the vol.12 and I still have it~ Since it´s the original tankoubon, I couldn´t understand a thing until I learned to read a bit of Japanese XD But I was happy anyway.

Then, 8 years ago, I found the 2004 version of vol.2 (Ami) in my city´s book fair! I was so happy. Months later, I decided to buy all the editions in Japanese. After all, I could read way better. I´m still missing 7 and 8, though... I never get a opportunity to buy these! Anyway, I always liked these covers, specially for the Eternal Senshi.

I plan to buy the perfect edition too. The covers are really wonderful, the characters have a mature touch. But I got no money now... 

Btw, my country is publishing the series since May. We´re going to vol.6 with Chibiusa.

This is making me appreciate my old copies more, and now I'm bummed that they are all bent and falling apart so badly.  



I adore the old cover art. Although some of the colors didn't seem like they were meant to be used together, I still prefer that over the simple new art of the reprint that hardly catches my attention. I definitely like the perfect edition art better than the reprint, although Uranus and Neptune's faces just look a bit off to me.

I wish my mom hadn't thrown out the first generation edition of the manga. Especially since a lot of it is actually translated better than the Kodansha version (with the exception of the senshi's names, etc.).

I'm a bit of a outsider here, but I personally think the new editions look awful. Most of them are good, but just look at Neptune's face. You can really tell that Takeuchi hasn't gotten much practice lately. It makes me curious as to how much they edited her art for the second edition.

That being said, I personally own 1 and 5 of the new editions myself. Despite my gripping, I do hope they come to the States and other countries. The quality is fantastic and the color pages are really cool.

Sailor CJ wrote:

I wish my mom hadn't thrown out the first generation edition of the manga.

Aaah! That´s cruel...

Anyways, I think it´s possible that Viz will bring the perfect edition. It might take some time, though.

Sailor Nike wrote:

Sailor CJ wrote:

I wish my mom hadn't thrown out the first generation edition of the manga.

Aaah! That´s cruel...

Anyways, I think it´s possible that Viz will bring the perfect edition. It might take some time, though.

Yeah, it still kills me to this day. She was a religious fanatic (no offense to religion there, I'm an uber Catholic) and threw out all of my manga because they were "Satanic" and were "written from right to left," despite, ya know, the Bible itself being originally written in that format. She's crazy and barely a part of my life anymore. But yeah, it especially bothers me considering how expensive they are these days. I want them back so badly.

I don't like the new covers at all. I find them ugly. XD

*pets Yami* I prefer the 3rd generation covers. 

Like others have said I think they capture the beauty of each senshi and are truly gorgeous. I really hope they make plans to translate them because I would love to own them. If not I wouldn't mind having the Japanese versions.

I very much hands down love the original ones vs the new ones, I was pretty upset they did eternal forms for the sailors for everyone except the first volume also, to me that didn't make sense cause the senshi never went into eternal form until StarS to have them on the second volume cover. Not gonna lie I was pretty irate about the new covers when they released them (haven't actually bough one either oTL) The old one tells you a little more about what's going on in that particular volume.

Someone also mentioned them being generic and I agree they're simple and not eye-catching like the older ones are, I mean look at that gorgeous art!

Course I've accepted the new ones and appreciate them re releasing it to start the spark of Sailor Moon once again <3

As a collection, I like the new version the best. While I love the character Sailor Moon, I like the entire group of Sailor Senshi and the new one makes me feel like they are all important characters.

Sailor Comet wrote:

I very much hands down love the original ones vs the new ones, I was pretty upset they did eternal forms for the sailors for everyone except the first volume also, to me that didn't make sense cause the senshi never went into eternal form until StarS to have them on the second volume cover. Not gonna lie I was pretty irate about the new covers when they released them (haven't actually bough one either oTL) The old one tells you a little more about what's going on in that particular volume.

Yeah, I'm not sure how difficult this could have been, but it would have been nice to see each of the scouts in whatever uniform they had on during that particular volume. For example, Mercury could be in her normal fuku, with Saturn later on being in Eternal. It would have made the first volume make way more sense.

Regarding the perfect edition, I would have to say I love the new covers a lot, but they lack the energy of the old covers (I'm referring to the covers with each girl in their eternal form). The new ones are beautiful, mysterious, and captivating, and I would definitely read them if I saw them on display. But my personal choice would be to read the old ones, because they have brighter colors, happier-looking people, etc. But I do enjoy looking at both versions

I sort of like all the covers equally? Plus, each edition shows the dramatic changes in Naoko's art style and improvement over the years. For the 3rd editions, I love the cover of book 10, the whole group of them. Also chibiusa with the first wand her mother ever hand was a fantastic sentimental touch. Also the cover with princess serenity and Endymion was gorgeous, though I forget which cover of the 3rd edition this is.

I like both.

Both the second and third generation ones. The second generation ones are very lush and I like the colors in them a lot. The third generation ones seem more mature and the paint being used a bit more thinly on them gives each Senshi's cover a delicate and dreamlike feel, like they are a beautiful mirage and could be gone any second, ephemeral. I'm not much fond of the original covers, I adore the pictures on them, I just don't think they look good as covers rather than as artwork in the pages, though they still have the beauty of being the original ones, I guess.

I definitely like the new covers better. Collectively, I just find them more visually appealing.

I like all of the covers, though the first edition covers hold more sentimental value to me because those were the first manga books I owned (in fact, vol 15 of Sailor Moon was my first legit copy of any manga). I like the second edition because the art style is cute and is quite different from the art I grew up seeing from Naoko Takeuchi, but it was also nice to see her go back to coloring with traditional media (I'm almost 100% certain she colored the second editions artwork digitally) for the third edition.

I recently acquired two volumes of the older manga in English, and I have to say, I do prefer the newer covers. The flow is really nice and I like the design on the backs.

The old manga covers always felt more special and unique to me, but they also kind of lack a certain connective quality to them, if that makes sense xD Like, with the old mangas, the styles range so differently from one another, and you never quite know what you're going to get. If I didn't know Sailor Moon, and were to look at a group of them, I'm not sure I would quickly grasp the fact that they are all for the same series.

The new covers are more simplistic, maybe even a little generic, but they are all connected by that same kind of style, if you get what I mean by that xD So personally, whilst I think the old ones are far more interesting to look at, I think the new ones are much better as covers for a multi-book series!

I like all three editions’ covers for different reasons, so my preference changes depending on what qualities we're comparing. xD

Like many have mentioned here, the first covers highlight Naoko’s traditional art wonderfully, and each cover has some kind of connection to the chapters the volume holds. I think they’re the best covers if you want already hooked fans to get excited for the continuation of the story in that volume, but they do lack consistency when compared to each other. So to new fans, it might be confusing if you saw a group of various volumes at the same time.

The second edition covers have uniformity, but while the style has grown on me a lot, I prefer Naoko’s traditional art style. Regardless, these covers are beautiful and I think this style fits the younger characters (Chibiusa and Chibichibi) very well. I agree with others about the other senshi’s Eternal forms feeling a bit out of place after the first volume and I wish we could have seen everybody’s original fuku’s in this style. One of my favorite things about these volumes is that they highlight the senshi’s iconic poses / powers / talismans and tell quite a lot about their personalities.

Then there is the Kanzenban edition. What I love about these covers is that they have a consistent theme and the senshi in their first fuku’s. I feel Naoko’s style in these covers is closer to what it was in the original covers, but with an updated, more elegant look. To me, the biggest minus is that somehow some of these covers seem to lack energy that was present in both previous editions. (Probably because of the more mature look combined with the characters’ poses.) However, I really like the backgrounds of these volumes and how they create an atmosphere that’s fitting for the characters and their powers.