I've finally gone and read the first chapter of the Sailor Moon Manga, so I can now properly compare it to both of it's relatively direct adaptions, the Pilot episodes of the 90s Anime and Crystal.
There are differences still even between the Manga and Crystal, and every one of them makes the Manga the better of those two in execution of what it's going for, but the nature of their mediums makes Anime always more enjoyable for me personally then reading a Manga, I need acting and motion to fully immerse myself.
I have repeatedly expressed the opinion that any criticism of an adaptation that only someone familiar with said source material would notice or care about should not be treated as an actual criticism of the adaptation as a stand alone work of art. Out of context some stuff in this post could seem like I'm violating that principle of mine, so I want to make my intent clear.
This post is not arguing that the Pilot of the 90s Anime is bad, it did what it needed to do, I like the 90s Anime, especially the first season, and specifically the work of both the writer and director of this episode. This is only about why it's the weakest version of this specific 20 minute story. In particular with Clearandsweet in mind, as they alone of all 90s Anime fanatics has specifically said the Manga is not "well written" but the 90s Anime is. Others like Vrai and Zeria at least seem to understand that their preferences for the 90s Anime are in concept rather then execution.
And it's only in comparing individual episodes that it's even remotely possible to get away with arguing the 90s Anime is "better written". You'd have to be delusional to not see how the overarching plotlines are so much more fundamentally broken in the 90s Anime. I may or may not do equivalents of this for future episodes, I haven't made up my mind on that.
I like Clearandsweet, their Madoka break down was awesome and I've already recommended it on this blog. But their statements about Sailor Moon Crystal and The Manga do bug me. They're in truth upset about that version not living up to their personal rules for this genre. Sherlock Holmes doesn't always follow the rules of the Genre he started either, that's part of being the origin of it.
I'm still not gonna cover everything, some of what I will cover are ultimately nitpicks, but compared to differences I don't even know how to describe they feel quite worth noting.
The only difference between The Manga and Crystal that is really relevant to the first episode is Crystal having less of the first person narration, Crystal kept it only when having no other way to tell us a character's name. In fact this is the only area in which the 90s Anime kind of has Manga material that Crystal doesn't, since it's opening monologue from Usagi prior to the story actually starting is pretty much all taken from the Manga's narration, but front loaded in that version. Defending first person narration is something I want to do more of on this blog in the future, but for our purpose here it's only in dramatized mediums it's ever considered controversial, it's much more the standard operating procedure in Comics.
When it comes to comparing specifically these first episodes I've only ever seen one argument for the 90s Anime being better, and that's Vrai's post made after the first episode of Crystal debuted. That post was mostly them pre-emptively dismissing the value of a "more like the Manga" adaption and the Senshi/Shittenou shipping which we suspected in advance was coming. They had only one actual argument for the 90s Anime's pilot being better then Crystal's pilot.
In both The Manga and Crystal Usagi first meets Luna by seemingly accidentally stepping on her while running late to school and then stopping to apologize and make sure she's okay. In the 90s Anime she sees some kids being mean to Luna and then chases them off. To Vrai this moment is what "showed us that Usagi will be a hero" as if without that she won't be one.
Wanting to see Usagi scare off some bullies (especially if it's before she gets her powers) is very much a value instilled in Western Nerds by American Superhero Comics and their prominent adaptations. From Captian America's "I don't like bullies, where ever they're from" to the 2019 Shazam movie, to Clark coming back to that diner at the end of Superman II which my parents told me got the biggest applause of anything in that movie in the theaters in 1980.
The Magical Girl superhero is supposed to be built on very different foundations however. Instead of the focus being on answering violence with violence, it's on a young girl's empathy for another living creature, stopping to care for it even though she's already running late. In the 90s Anime doing what she did here only slowed her down further because of her Airheadedness which the 90s Anime will develop a pattern of exaggerating. It's not a bad thing that Usagi stops kids form bullying a Cat, but it's thematically not useful to establishing her character and if anything is a distraction from what should matter here.
Ironically as time goes on the 90s Anime will overall resemble post Sailor Moon Magical Girl shows more then the Manga does, largely since the Anime is more what inspired future creators. But in these opening chapters where this newborn Genre is taking it's baby steps, it was the Manga that was stepping in the right direction.
The next worth commenting on is the conversation at the bench between the School scenes and Naru's family's jewelry store. In the Manga and Crystal a total of 5 people are involved in this conversation, but in the 90s Anime it's just Usagi and Naru, yet it tries to say all the same things anyway making the conversation seem much more random.
Next to talk about is the Meet Cute between Usagi and Mamoru. I'm glad I double checked everything before writing this, because what Mamoru actually says isn't really any different, he comments on her hairstyle and the test score, but doesn't actually call her stupid yet. My memory of Darrien in this episode was definitely filtered through what he will become by the end of the Jadite arc. Still in the 90s Anime version his tone is harsher, even when performed by the same Actor in the Viz Dubs.
The 90s Anime completely skipped the introduction of Motoki and the Game Center Crown. This is perhaps the most forgivable among the differences I'm actually mentioning, they knew they had way more episodes to work with so why not save time in episode 1 and introduce Motoki in episode 2 which for the most part wasn't based on Manga material at all?
The actual battle with the Youma of the Week at the end has a lot of small differences I'm not gonna comment on, what matters is the timing of Tuxedo Mask's contribution. In the Manga he says "crying won't solve all your problems Sailor Moon" after her sonic crying attack does it's damage, meaning it's clearly meant to serve as advice to not be dependent on that in the future, thus setting up in Act 2 where the same attack isn't effective.
In the 90s Anime she doesn't use that ablity again in the following episode, or the episode based on Act 2, or at all till Dentist of Horrors during SuperS where it was as effective as it was the first time. But more importantly for comparing the episodes at hand, Tuxedo Mask saying this is moved up to before the Sonic attack happens, thus making him look simply wrong. This sets the tone for the 90s Anime's tendency to make Tuxedo Mask less then useless.
Those are the differences that are truly relevant to how they are written on paper. But similar to one of the things I said about The Snyder Cut, even with what's on paper the same everything has more Gravitas in Crystal. I have a lot of Nostalgia for the aesthetics of the 90s Anime, I'll never hate it, but the only thing I still prefer about it visually is how Kazuko Tadano draws Legs (she should team up with Naoko Yamada someday).
There was a time when I was with the people complaining about how Season 1 of Crystal looked, but I was an idiot blinded by Nostalgia in ways I usually try not to be. Now that I've seen every episode more then once I can no longer relate to those complaints. Crystal looks great, those of us with attachments to the older Anime simply needed to get used to it.
And the Music Even more so, leaving OPs and Insert songs aside the 90s Anime had passable but bland elevator Music for it's actual score. Crystal sharing the Composer of Suite Pretty Cure has a phenomenal Score that can compete with John Williams and Danny Elfman. Meanwhile Moon Pride has become equally as Iconic as Moonlight Densetsu.
Clearandsweet's panel on Sailor Moon is called "Grace v. Glamour", the irony of them being such a Crystal/Manga hater is that The Manga and Crystal are specifically better at what that very thesis is focusing on. The 90s Anime loves to constantly undercut it's Feminine Grace and Glamour for a cheap laugh. The Manga and Crystal also have humor but they are far less prone to becoming outright self parody, and I enjoy content that is Self Parody yet still Sincere, especially from Anime, so I do enjoy nearly all of the 90s Anime's sense of humor. But I also greatly appreciate finally having an Anime that takes it's Grace and Glamour far more seriously.
And same with the thesis about the "conflict between them" (honestly it's a difficult for me to follow since as a Christian I'm conditioned to define Grace very differently, but that definition is also relevant to the Genre). The 90s Anime is much less like the Manga and more like other Magical Girl shows precisely in how it's less willing to dwell on how Usagi is inevitably going to lose her normal life.
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