Before I start the review, let me ask one simple question: What makes a good story good? For me, it's the way you can relate to the characters. If you have relatable characters, no matter how simple or bad a story might be, it will be good because you care about the characters.
And that's the biggest problem with the Sailor Moon manga, the characters are not relatable. The manga adds so many characters, but has no time to give them any depth. One ludicrous example comes from the Black Moon Arc:
We're at Usagi's house. Suddenly, her mother and Chibi-Usa introduce a new character to the audience, with no single bit of build-up: "Hey Usagi, this is my classmate, Momo-chan!" Then, Chibi-Usa has a panic attack and Momo-chan is swiftly forgotten like she never existed.
You see, the Manga has this tendency to introduce Loads and Loads of Characters, and then do nothing with them. Villains are introduced left and right, only to be killed after one chapter. Sometimes, they're killed mere panels after their introduction.
And the characters that ultimately do stick don't really contribute anything to the plot. It is usually Sailor Moon, the Big Bad of the arc and their dragon who push the plot forward. Everyone else is like... why do they even exist? Chances are, every other character will be sidelined until the very end or brutally killed for shock value anyway.
As for Sailor Moon herself, I've got to say... her manga incarnation is cringe-worthy. Every single arc, something like this happens: Someone important to Sailor Moon dies -> She starts getting depressed about it and stays in a catatonic state for several acts -> Other characters start dying to save her depressed butt from getting killed, only leading to her getting even more depressed -> Once everybody is finally dead and the world is on the brink of extinction, she decides to whip out her Deus ex Machina powers and resurrect everybody. Rinse and repeat.
The absolute lowest point of Usagi has to be during the Black Moon Arc. To summarize, every single arc, she gets jealous of Chibi-Usa and accuses her of trying to steal her man away from her. Then she goes back to her room crying about how awful she is for getting jealous of a child. But then, she forgets about this the next act and everything happens all over again. Learning that Chibi-Usa is her future daughter doesn't stop her from acting this way. And the less said about "Black Lady" confirming her fears about this whole situation the better.
The story is not really good. The characters have the charisma of a cardboard cutout, the acts usually dump a lot of info at you and do nothing with it, and by the time we reach the Stars arc, I can really tell that Naoko herself was trying to make her story as bad and confusing as possible in the hopes it would get cancelled.
(Manga) Convoluted, confusing and boring
Before I start the review, let me ask one simple question: What makes a good story good? For me, it's the way you can relate to the characters. If you have relatable characters, no matter how simple or bad a story might be, it will be good because you care about the characters.
And that's the biggest problem with the Sailor Moon manga, the characters are not relatable. The manga adds so many characters, but has no time to give them any depth. One ludicrous example comes from the Black Moon Arc:
We're at Usagi's house. Suddenly, her mother and Chibi-Usa introduce a new character to the audience, with no single bit of build-up: "Hey Usagi, this is my classmate, Momo-chan!" Then, Chibi-Usa has a panic attack and Momo-chan is swiftly forgotten like she never existed.
You see, the Manga has this tendency to introduce Loads and Loads of Characters, and then do nothing with them. Villains are introduced left and right, only to be killed after one chapter. Sometimes, they're killed mere panels after their introduction.
And the characters that ultimately do stick don't really contribute anything to the plot. It is usually Sailor Moon, the Big Bad of the arc and their dragon who push the plot forward. Everyone else is like... why do they even exist? Chances are, every other character will be sidelined until the very end or brutally killed for shock value anyway.
As for Sailor Moon herself, I've got to say... her manga incarnation is cringe-worthy. Every single arc, something like this happens: Someone important to Sailor Moon dies -> She starts getting depressed about it and stays in a catatonic state for several acts -> Other characters start dying to save her depressed butt from getting killed, only leading to her getting even more depressed -> Once everybody is finally dead and the world is on the brink of extinction, she decides to whip out her Deus ex Machina powers and resurrect everybody. Rinse and repeat.
The absolute lowest point of Usagi has to be during the Black Moon Arc. To summarize, every single arc, she gets jealous of Chibi-Usa and accuses her of trying to steal her man away from her. Then she goes back to her room crying about how awful she is for getting jealous of a child. But then, she forgets about this the next act and everything happens all over again. Learning that Chibi-Usa is her future daughter doesn't stop her from acting this way. And the less said about "Black Lady" confirming her fears about this whole situation the better.
The story is not really good. The characters have the charisma of a cardboard cutout, the acts usually dump a lot of info at you and do nothing with it, and by the time we reach the Stars arc, I can really tell that Naoko herself was trying to make her story as bad and confusing as possible in the hopes it would get cancelled.