The Villains: better in the anime then the manga?

[qwerty]

Would any of you here agree with me, that the five villain groups of the series received far better characterization and treatment in the anime than in the manga? This was a major problem I had with the Manga, almost all the villains in it come across as extremely generic "BAW HA HA I AM EVIL" characters with no real personality.
While in the anime, we get to know them and even to understand and sympathize with them a bit.

In the Manga, The Shitennou, Ayakashi Sisters, Witches 5, Amazon Trio and Sailor Animamates are nothing more than glorified monsters of the day compared to their anime counterparts.

Prince Demand is a one-dimensional psycho and would be rapist instead of a noble leader who wanted the best for his people and was corrupted by Wiseman and his obsession for Neo-Queen Serenity.

Wiseman is no longer the scary sadistic intelligent monster of the anime who delights in manipulating and corrupting people but a boring "I want revenge and the Silver Crystal!" villain.

Professor Tomoe is no longer a man who deeply loves his daughter and is possessed by a evil but very funny monster but a run-of-the-mill mad scientist guy.

Queen Nehelenia is a generic evil sorceress lady instead of the creepy and insane but extremely tragic villainess of the anime.

Indeed, the only villains I've thought had better portrayals in the Manga were Queen Metallia, Pharaoh 90, Chaos (Since they played a more active role) and maybe Sailor Galaxia.

[Jami]

Personally I like some of the villains had better personalities in the anime than the manga, but I have to say I like Galaxia's story over all better in the manga than the anime.

So I'm torn which way to vote. Haha.

[serefan]

I do agree Prince Diamond's and the Witches 5's personalities were better in the manga, but the others were just different to an extent they can't really be compared:

In the manga, the Amazon Trio were just created by the Amazon Quartet and acted as their personal servants, while the Quartet are the real stars and brainwashed sailor senshi, not little girls just playing in the circus and causing trouble because they don't want to grow up. Not that their issues with growing up weren't interesting... it's just that I really liked them as sailor senshi.

Neherenia is Chaos' incarnation in that version...it would have been ludicrous for her to have some goodness in her when she was supposed to be dark counterpart of Queen Serenity and the very first incarnation of evil that appeared and *cursed* Princess Serenity when she was a baby... In the manga, Neherenia was the darkness in the moon that Sailor Moon had to beat in order to take her place as Queen of the Moon (even if she wasn't Queen of Earth yet) so it made sense in this version that she would be related to the new moon and all... whereas in the anime, Queen Neherenia was the queen of a kingdom on an asteroid, and how does that relate her to the moon at all?

The Shittenou were actually given a background in the manga, and as a result Mamoru also had a background in the manga. So did Wiseman with both his past as Death Phantom and being another Chaos incarnation. I do think Wiseman pretty much stayed the same, though, because in the manga he does manipulate Diamond and the others masterfully, hiding from them till the very end that he's actually planet Nemesis itself and wants to destroy earth, not conquer it (besides he DID want the Silver Crystal in the anime as well).

Finally, with Doctor Tomoe being truly evil and having to be killed, it does make more sense that Hotaru goes to live with the other outers. Sailor Moon having to kill the father of one of her senshi did make up for some real adult serious drama that the anime version lacked.

So I agree, though just partly, with that, because if the manga got repetitive with some one-dimensional villains, the anime also did get repetitive with all that redeeming of the bad guys. Besides, the idea of having the villains be truly evil, just for the sake of being evil, was that they were more like true demons, and some of their lackeys humans associating with those demons of their own free will consciously and beyond redemption.

The manga was supposed to be about good and evil truly clashing with one another, the angels (senshi) and demons (enemies) fighting for the fate of earth and then the galaxy... while the anime was about seeing the goodness in everyone. The manga does have a more realistic ending, in my opinion, in the fact that it shows some villains redeeming, like Galaxia and Lethe and Mnemosyne, combined with the honest revelation that evil will always exist, and we can't change that. On the other hand, the result of Sailor Moon not possessing the ability to "heal" them with the Silver Crystal, was that she and the other girls, Chibimoon included, forcefully had to be a lot tougher than in the anime, something I did quite like about the black and white story.

[ladylilith]

Reading both the qwerty and serefan opinions, I am torned out. You both found good reasons to vote yes or no. Uhm... they are very different works.