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sailor moon manga review sailor moon manga reviewRegular Publications:
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"I am love and justice's Sailor-suited pretty soldier Sailor Moon!
In the place of the moon, I will punish you!" -- Sailor Moon
Other than moving almost four times faster than the anime and being many times more violent, the first section of the manga featured the debut of Usagi/Sailor Moon/ Princess Serenity, the Four Guardians, Mamoru/Tuxedo Kamen /Endymion, and the Dark Kingdom. Up to act 5, the story was pretty much the same as episodes 1, 8, 10, 20, and 25. The biggest difference is that the villains were all killed by the senshi. (Mars killed Jadeite, Jupiter killed Nephrite, Venus killed Zoisite, and Moon killed Kunzite.) Surprisingly, Venus was the one who killed Queen Beryl and the final showdown pitted Moon against the shadowy Queen Metalia.
The manga version also goes into more detail when describing the times of the Silver Millennium. According to this version, the four generals were originally Endymion's followers who defected to the Dark Kingdom. During the Moon invasion, Endymion was killed by Beryl, and upon seeing this, Princess Serenity committed suicide. Queen Serenity repelled Beryl's forces and send them to Earth by activating the Silver Crystal but could not completely destroy them because of the shock from Serenity's death. Interestingly, this section of the manga does not explain how the senshi were reborn or why all the buildings on the moon were destroyed, Naoko left this to be explained in the S section...
If the anime gets a 10 then the manga version definitely gets a 15. Not only was the story not dragged out like the anime, it was also more focus on the senshi's life as a senshi and not a student.
"My name is Usagi." -- Chibiusa
"Usagi!? Who are you, and why do you set your hair as I do?" -- Usagi
If any of you thought the anime version of SMR was bad, wait till you read the manga. Even though the story was a compressed version of R, it was still extremely boring. Moon Princess Halation ended every battle, even the final battle against Death Phantom. The only new elements were the appearance of Pluto and Chibiusa, and Chibiusa is still as annoying as she was in the anime version. In fact, this part of the manga is so boring, I do not even want to write a review for it... (Well, I guess coming from me, this says A LOT!!!)
"I totally have no feelings of hopelessness.
This is because every time an
end emerges, it is always followed by hope and rebirth."
-- Sailor Saturn
Being very close to the anime in terms of story, this is possibly one of the best sections of the manga. The usual anime filler of taking pure hearts are not present (the three outer senshi already had the talismans) and the introduction of the new senshi gave this section a feeling of freshness. Unlike the other two, this section does not clearly show the intentions or identities of the villains until near the every end.
This version also explains the outer senshi's past in much greater detail than the anime. According to Naoko, the three outer senshi were posted to guard the rim of the solar system. Queen Serenity specifically ordered the three to never bring their talismans close to each other unless an emergency emerges. During the Dark Kingdom invasion, the three outer senshi saw the destruction of the people of the Silver Millennium and decided to go to the moon to assist in battle. However, upon arriving at the moon, the three talismans activated and summoned Sailor Saturn, the Messiah of Silence whom Queen Serenity indirectly warned the outer senshi about. As the outer senshi quickly leave the moon, Saturn unleashed the power of her Silence Glaive and destroyed everyone and everything on the moon. Later, we also learn that Saturn was the one responsible for the Sailor's reincarnation.
The intentions of the Death Busters were also better explained. Doctor Tomoe Souichi, who was possessed by a Daimon which crossed into our world through his experimental portal, was compelled to create a portal large enough to let Pharaoh 90, the ruler of Dao planet to Earth. To do this, Tomoe needs to find a way to harvest enough energy to open such a large portal.
Conveniently, at this time, his daughter Hotaru suffers a terrible accident and is left with a severely damaged body. Seizing this opportunity, Tomoe "fixed" Hotaru's body by turning her into a cyborg and implanted her with a Daimon persona to absorb energy. When Hotaru finally got hold of Chibiusa's Silver Crystal, her Daimon side broke loose, and Mistress 9 was born. With the power of the Silver Crystal, Mistress 9 opened the portal to Pharaoh 90, who wishes to take Earth as the new home for his people.
When everything seemed hopeless to the senshi, Hotaru's consciousness was finally able to break out of Mistress 9's body (literally break out...) and returned the Silver Crystal to Chibiusa. As Chibimoon rejoins Moon in battle, the Holy Grail mysterious splits into 2 (this is the weakest point in the manga) and Super Sailor Chibimoon emerged. Combining their powers, Moon and Chibimoon destroy Mistress 9 with Rainbow Double Moon Heart Ache. Right at that moment, the Talismans once again mysteriously activate and Saturn was summoned. Like the moon, the destruction of the Earth slowly took place, and Pharaoh 90, along with all humans, were destroyed. Just as the senshi were also about to collapse to Saturn's power, Saturn tells Pluto that the only way to stop the destruction would be to seal her in the Time portal. When Pluto invokes Dark Dome Close, Saturn was sealed in the Time tunnel and dies.
Recalling Saturn's last words (the quotation at the beginning of this section) Moon uses her power and the power of the Holy Grail to revive Saturn as an infant. To the other senshi's surprise, the people and Earth were also restored, and Moon and the others finally discovers that the True Messiah was really Serenity all along.
"My dream is for all of us to live in happiness ... to forever protect this
Earth with you, Mamoru." -- Tsukino Usagi
"My dream is the same as yours, Usako ..." -- Chiba Mamoru
Although this section was not quite as spectacular as S, it was definitely better than the anime. In this section, we finally see Serenity's childhood on the moon and catch a glimpse of the pre-Dark Kingdom period. We also witness the first time in Sailor Moon manga in which a group of villains (the Amazoness Quartet) were actually not killed. Other new sights include the disclosure of the senshi's past as princesses of their own planets, as well as a brief glimpse into the future of Chibiusa as Neo Lady Serenity. The appearance of the Asteroid senshi also gave a possibility for Naoko to pick up the series using Chibimoon as the main character.
Being the only manga section to feature two totally new transformations and attacks for the senshi, this section (which started off slowly and was boring) actually moved at an extremely fast pace once the outer senshi made their reappearance. Beyond volume 14, the plot was so compact that making a point form summary (without losing much of the story) was nearly impossible. This was actually one of the few sections of the manga (along with S and STARS) where skipping 5 or so pages would totally leave the reader confused and lost.
For those of you who fear a manga which focused on Chibiusa, the SuperS Manga was many times better than the anime of SuperS. Although this doesn't say much, the manga version of SS was definitely many, many times better than the manga version of R.
"Really? Can your friends really return to you again?
Can their bodies
really be returned to their previous states? ... Is the future that you know
of really the future?
Will your "future" really become reality?" -- Galaxia
In this final section of the manga, the senshi battle their most dangerous enemies -- other Sailor senshi. Thinking that they and the Asteroid senshi were alone, the senshi finally come to the startling realization that they are not alone and that some of these new senshi are not exactly "friendly." This is also the only section of the manga in which the planet senshi and Mamoru die for an extended period of time. In this series of epic battles, no one was spared. Even Luna, Artemis and Diana suffered the wrath of Galaxia's minions, who were revealed to be traitorous senshi who became Galaxia's slaves. Other than the animamates (the Sailor senshi reanimated by Galaxia), the Sailor Starlights, Princess Kakyu, and the Mysterious Chibichibi / Sailor Chibichibi also make their first appearance in this section.
Other than being more violent than the anime, the manga also featured extra animamate characters such as Sailor Rete, Muemosyne, etc. Unlike the anime, the Starlights died before Kakyu, and the final volume of the manga deals with the battles of Moon, Chibimoon, Chibichibi, Kakyu, and Galaxia, the five most powerful senshi in the galaxy.
This section also ties up some of the loose ends concerning the backgrounds of the Sailor senshi, such as their origin and purpose, etc. As always, the explanation of the main villain / villains is much more clear than the one given in the anime. In one of Galaxia's dream sequences about her past, she was actually talking to the Wiseman about her home world. Being the senshi who represented the entire galaxy, Galaxia was desperately trying to search for her planet, a place to call home. However, during her search, something went terribly wrong...
Overall, this section of the manga gave readers the same page-flipping feelings as the S series without the constant annoyance of Chibiusa (even though she returns to help out in the end). Along with S this was definitely the best section of the manga series.
By Edwin Ng, Cult of Serenity 1997. All rights are reserved. SAILOR MOON(tm) and all other copyrights and names are the registered trademarks of wherever they came from (Toei Douga / Kodansha Ltd. / Takeuchi Naoko).
"That's it! That's your name, Luna! Luna, that's a pretty fancy name. I bet your master is a very sophisticated person."
--Kakaru (the astronomer) to Luna, Sailormoon S The Movie
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