Keeping up the manga posts I read the Sailor Moon manga for the first time, it's great that they are finally widely available in English. I thought by now I would have outgrown it having fallen in love with it eight years ago but nope, turns out I love it more than ever. The manga is a hundred times better than the anime (granted I've only seen the highly edited dubbed version) and has more depth that I was expecting. Given how quickly the plot proceeds it's amazing how much character development is in there. I'm only onto the second volume and already the four Shitennou are dead, Mamoru is possessed, and all the Senshi have united and discovered their identities. I can't wait to see what the next two volumes have in store, I can only imagine how they will stretch out the ending of the series to fill two volumes.
Personally I loved all the original designs but I can see how it was easier and simpler to have them in plainer uniforms and also it made sense to have them co-ordinate, still it was nice that initially even in the official manga Sailor Moon did start out with a mask and Sailor Venus kept her Sailor V pen to transform.
It's a pity the Shitennou did not get much development, they really were in and out of it, especially since they were brainswashed the whole time and you only really got a glimmer of Kunzite's true personality. It was nice to see the personalities of the Senshi coming out even though they were all introduced so quickly and one after the other you still get a real feel for their unique traits and you do see an equal amount of them.
The romance between Usagi and Mamoru is a lot more believable and less annoying than the anime made it out to be. Sailor Moon is a stronger heroine in the manga, not needing to be rescued quite as much, and overall the manga series is darker and more adult than I was expecting.
The story of the Moon Kingdom, the forbidden romance and the horrific, fatal ending of it, is truly tragic. You really do feel for Princess Serenity and Prince Endymion as their Romeo and Juliet styled romance plays out and ends in murder and suicide, leading to end of the Moon Kingdom forever.
The artwork is simply beautiful and it's great to see the addition of never before seen artwork at the end, it's interesting to see how much Sailor Moon's costume design developed, and it's also good to see explanations for certain translations.
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