On a confession at SilverMoon424's tumblr's ask, i told her that i hate how the anime made Usagi into a crybaby ALL THE TIME and those fights with Rei are completely unnecessary. I mean, look at the manga, how much she grew up and how much the whole dynamics between them all are different (specially between Mamoru and her) . She slept at his home several times and Toei THOUGHT that the story was for kids!

Usagi is way more independent on the manga than in the anime, she realizes how much she needs to be stronger because everything depends on her and even if casually she would cry or feel the weight on her shoulders, she would get up by herself. The "fights" with Rei, at the beginning were funny but after a while, it was boring...

Your thoughts on this matter, I'd love to know!

I agree, I didn't like how she was a cry baby pretty much all the way up till Stars. They also messed up the relationships between the senshi. Usagi had a deeper connection with Minako, then she had with Rei. The romance was pretty much cut out almost completely, which I never understood. They edited the crap out of Mamoru until he wasn't anything like his original self in the manga.

Pretty much, an anime will never follow the original manga 100%, because some of the content might not be deemed appropriate for younger audiences. There was a question of Japanese culture being the reason why Mamoru was cold and more detached to Usagi.

I watched the anime first and I just started reading the manga and I am so surprised at how different the dynamic between everyone is, especially between Usagi and Mamoru in the manga vs. anime. It is such a better relationship in the manga!

I think the anime is great on the light-hearted side and the manga really asks some deep issues on the dark side.

I kind of wished they hadn't made Rei boy-crazy like the others. She is way more interested in boys than she is supposed to be. In the manga, she doesn't even TRUST men. In fact, she never oogles over Tuxedo Mask or goes out on a date or anything. I think thats one of the personality changes I didn't like.

Brit-chan wrote:

I kind of wished they hadn't made Rei boy-crazy like the others. She is way more interested in boys than she is supposed to be. In the manga, she doesn't even TRUST men. In fact, she never oogles over Tuxedo Mask or goes out on a date or anything. I think thats one of the personality changes I didn't like.

^^^ Agreed.

Sailor Venus wrote:

Pretty much, an anime will never follow the original manga 100%, because some of the content might not be deemed appropriate for younger audiences. There was a question of Japanese culture being the reason why Mamoru was cold and more detached to Usagi.

I'm not sure if that's necessarily the case. I think alterations had more to do with a different target audience than making things suitable for children. I believe Takeuchi even mentions that they made the anime so it would appeal to more people while the manga was primarily aimed at young girls. While I agree wholeheartedly that the alterations to Rei's character were misguided, my guess is that they wanted her to be more "accessible" to the target audience which would comprise both younger girls and some men (I would argue the degree of fan service indicates that the producers wanted to the series to appeal to males; that, and the anime producers were primarily males as well). So Rei's character becomes immature and prone to hysterics so as to be a comic foil to Usagi when plot progression slows down.

I'd say a lot of it has to do with the aforementioned male direction of the anime along with the usage of filler to cover time while the manga progressed. Had the Sailor Moon manga been created well in advance of the anime, there might have been a more concise direction for the story and characters. A series like Death Note, in which the manga finished prior to the production of the anime, was relatively faithful to the source material, omitting only bits and pieces not so much for the sake of content control but instead due to time constraints. The difference is that Death Note's target audience remained the same across the board. For Sailor Moon, however, there appears to be a divergent sense of direction between the anime and manga.

Brit-chan wrote:

I kind of wished they hadn't made Rei boy-crazy like the others. She is way more interested in boys than she is supposed to be. In the manga, she doesn't even TRUST men. In fact, she never oogles over Tuxedo Mask or goes out on a date or anything. I think thats one of the personality changes I didn't like.

Exactly. I feel stupid by saying it, but i don't like anime!Rei because her manga self is way more amazing than the anime; she's more sensitive, centered and powerful and she is aware of it all. It's the same with each one of them and if I hadn't read the manga, I wouldn't have gotten the message that Naoko was trying to spread. By the anime, we know that they are normal girls who happen to be soldiers and they have a past with it, but at some point, it's all about boys and that their goal in their lives is just it, while in the manga it's different.

Thereisnospoon303 wrote:

Sailor Venus wrote:

Pretty much, an anime will never follow the original manga 100%, because some of the content might not be deemed appropriate for younger audiences. There was a question of Japanese culture being the reason why Mamoru was cold and more detached to Usagi.

I'm not sure if that's necessarily the case. I think alterations had more to do with a different target audience than making things suitable for children. I believe Takeuchi even mentions that they made the anime so it would appeal to more people while the manga was primarily aimed at young girls. While I agree wholeheartedly that the alterations to Rei's character were misguided, my guess is that they wanted her to be more "accessible" to the target audience which would comprise both younger girls and some men (I would argue the degree of fan service indicates that the producers wanted to the series to appeal to males; that, and the anime producers were primarily males as well). So Rei's character becomes immature and prone to hysterics so as to be a comic foil to Usagi when plot progression slows down.

I'd say a lot of it has to do with the aforementioned male direction of the anime along with the usage of filler to cover time while the manga progressed. Had the Sailor Moon manga been created well in advance of the anime, there might have been a more concise direction for the story and characters. A series like Death Note, in which the manga finished prior to the production of the anime, was relatively faithful to the source material, omitting only bits and pieces not so much for the sake of content control but instead due to time constraints. The difference is that Death Note's target audience remained the same across the board. For Sailor Moon, however, there appears to be a divergent sense of direction between the anime and manga.

Back when SM was released here in Latin America, we had some magazines dedicated to manga/animes and they used to publish interviews with the mangakas and I remember one, years ago that was done with Naoko at SDCC (every year I'd sell organ parts to be there) and she complained about the way that Toei handled the whole transition from the manga to the anime and they were even with problems to license the anime to be aired in some countries (here, for an example, almost 15 years later, we're getting the dvd collection but with the first dub made in 1996, full of wrong translations and things like this because neither Naoko or Toei get on a right deal! ) or even having the manga published (we don't have it here in Latin America, I'm crossing my fingers that they publish it here otherwise i'll have to buy the american version).
Toei is known for doing this to the animes they license - I don't know if anyone here is a Saint Seiya fan, but Toei was a pain in the, ya know, with the adaptation from the manga to the anime/ovas and everything.

I don't know if it's because they want to sell the animes so badly to the Occident and until a few years ago wehad this stupid culture that animes/cartoons were directed to the children/teen audience and that adults didn't really watch them at all that they leave it so "vanilla". I'd rather have had seen Rei being a bamf like in the manga than the "omg! BOYS!11!!" personality they gave her in the anime.

Hehe. Well, I already wrote about my thoughts on the difference between anime!Mamoru and manga!Mamoru in this post. So I won't bother you with a second rantathon on the matter.

But one thing that actually probably irks me the most and that I usually do not talk about is the dramatic change done with Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune. In the manga they at first are adverse to working with the Inner Senshi. I believe this is because they felt the need to protect the Princess and did not want to put her in harm by letting her get involved. They also know that they are stronger than the Inner Senshi when it comes to power. However, when the time comes, they quickly bestow their loyalties to Usagi and agree to work along side her and follow her. They never once act like she is incapable of being their leader -- on the contrary, they love her and have full respect for her. In addition, they hold a great deal of respect towards Mamoru, the Prince, a notion never developed in the anime.

In the anime however, their characters are completely changed. They never believe that Sailor Moon is capable to serve in this battle (which, I blame the writers for because they portray Sailor Moon in the anime as a invalid crybaby unable to handle anything). However, the biggest atrocity in my opinion (and quite frankly just bad writing in general), is at the end of the S season when, even after Sailor Moon has corrected her mistakes and saved the world, along with Hotaru, the Outer Senshi still claim that she is an inept leader.

Now I can understand this scene in some form -- the writers give Sailor Moon a chance to prove herself when she fights against Uranus and Neptune and defeats them. However, the whole "battle" was rather lame, so not very much was proven.What I hate about this is how much it warps the personalities of Uranus and Neptune. In the manga, they are devoted Senshi to their Princess and love and respect her. In the anime, that whole aspect of their characters have been completely removed. I thought it rather unfair to the beautiful characters of Haruka and Michiru in the manga.

I completely agree with Nathy and Sailor Jupiter. I agree with everything here, actually. Their personalities are not the same, heck, the story isn't the same, let's face it. Rei is boy-crazy, Usagi is ALWAYS the entire series this crybaby who won't even fight back, and Minako/Sailor Venus doesn't get her place as real leader of the Inner Senshi (Mars does, which is not the way it is). They wasted too much time making funny and pointless episodes to fill the story line gaps; don't get me wrong, I do love some funny moments in Sailor Moon, and the great friendship the girls have, but at some point, it was pointless.

Something that really got me upset was the fact that the animators recycled so much animation! No new powers for the soldiers, no new transformation sequences, not even for the Outer Senshi's super form, now princesses dresses, no castles, no Sailor Quartet... some of these are part of what made Sailor Moon's manga beautiful.

The anime would've been a BLAST if it would'd followed the manga. Appealing to any group.

jaknel wrote:

I completely agree with Nathy and Sailor Jupiter. I agree with everything here, actually. Their personalities are not the same, heck, the story isn't the same, let's face it. Rei is boy-crazy, Usagi is ALWAYS the entire series this crybaby who won't even fight back, and Minako/Sailor Venus doesn't get her place as real leader of the Inner Senshi (Mars does, which is not the way it is). They wasted too much time making funny and pointless episodes to fill the story line gaps; don't get me wrong, I do love some funny moments in Sailor Moon, and the great friendship the girls have, but at some point, it was pointless.

Something that really got me upset was the fact that the animators recycled so much animation! No new powers for the soldiers, no new transformation sequences, not even for the Outer Senshi's super form, now princesses dresses, no castles, no Sailor Quartet... some of these are part of what made Sailor Moon's manga beautiful.

The anime would've been a BLAST if it would'd followed the manga. Appealing to any group.

Amen to everything you said.
Of course that I don't think that the anime sucks completely, because i laugh a lot with lots of things from there, but I'd like that it was more faithful to the manga in certain aspects - Sailor Venus as a leader, Usagi more stronger, Rei not going gaga over boys ALL THE TIME.... And the whole outter senshi interaction too.

There is one aspect of anime!Rei I like more than manga!Rei. While I could most definitely go without the boy-craziness, I DO like how Rei was much more fiery and affectionate in the anime. I LOVED Rei as a character in the manga, but she just seemed a little.... flat occasionally. She wasn't very interesting unless she was front and center.

Truth is, I like the girls personalities as a group. They were very funny (and actually acted their age), and, as much not accurate as it was, I do have to admit that the boy-craziness of the girls (specially Minko and Rei) made me laugh hard. I even remember when the two of them tied up a reporter (or something) to a chair so they both could do the live broadcast on a softball game in Sailor Stars. Random moments like that one I enjoyed.