How could you rewrite the Sailor Moon manga to make it suitable for adult audience?

[CharonSnowstorm]

I'm gonna be the boring person at parties here and say a version of sailor moon 'for adults' simply would be a realistic following of the characters' lives as normal humans who are friends and who are young adults and don't have superpowers, similar to anime like Nana. No hyper-violence or blood-lusty villains with gallons of blood and limbs lost every episode for it to be "mature", I'd love simply an alternate universe where all the sailor moon cast and the villains are just normal people living their lives.

Usagi and Mamoru's relationship will be a lot less idealized, and their doubts would gain more spotlight, and perhaps Mamoru won't be relegated to an underdeveloped background character. The inners and outers issues with their career paths will be further explored, and they'll probably have boyfriends/girlfriends and other schoolmates and family members who will gain more spotlight. Haruka and Michiru's relationship maybe will be more explicit (I don't mean sexually, I mean maybe they'd be shown kissing), maybe Rei and Minako would have Jadeite and Kunzite as boyfriends but would find themselves bicurious for each other. The villains from dark kingdom, black moon clan et cetera would be co-workers, college mates, bosses, and/or people they generally dislike or that cause them conflicts.

Haruka and Michiru just kissing is the bare minimum I would think of any decent work that shows their relationship. We put kisses like that in the most basic of our children´s fables like Snow White and the Seven Dwarves that the only limitation on age suitability at that point is whether you are literate. It helps to have lots of "talent" of course if you are Mako, but just the lips is a step up in so much media. It´s only explicit in the sense of being gay, which often, and unfairly, gets seen as more adult than it would be if it was between a boy and girl. It would be nice though to have a little elaboration about those two in their college years perhaps when Michiru would be more gentle when they´re alone, and other instances like documenting how Mamoru asked Usagi to marry her, 50 times, the night before, at the end of the manga, to the lack of objection by approximately 90% of SM fans.

 

[Tsundereshipper]

Haruka and Usagi full-on kiss in the manga, I don’t know why Ikuhara didn’t put in a HaruMichi kiss in the 90’s anime to compensate.

 

[CharonSnowstorm]

Adding moral ambiguity is typically a good way to make it more mature. Maybe in the Black Moon Clan the Senshi capture one of them, KOing them into unconsciousness before restraining them, but they find themselves in a situation where the BMC is trying to rescue their own, and the Senshi have the choice between executing their prisoner and escaping with only a limited amount of something like escape pods or time to run through a corridor or trying to make a stand where they are and in all likelihood be defeated there. They argue with each other, King Endymion says something like she will not be prosecuted but it is her right to decide as their queen, before Usagi reluctantly agrees to order it be done and afterwards believes that she was guilty of homicide and begins to have trouble relating to others like her parents and brother, Naru and Umino, Motoki, and others, and struggles to maintain her love for Mamoru and her comradery with the other senshi, given that, you know, the very real feeling of being guilty of murder is a very rare thing in Japan, about 25 murders happen each year in a country of 125 million.

 

[kasumigenx]

Haruka and Usagi full-on kiss in the manga, I don’t know why Ikuhara didn’t put in a HaruMichi kiss in the 90’s anime to compensate.

He might have had if his super s movie materialized.

 

[CodenameSailorV]

honestly, after the original anime, i was surprised at how adult-oriented the manga and crystal both felt. I guess I would maybe hold back less on the gore-y parts? if you can even really call them that in this series, lol.

 

[CharonSnowstorm]

honestly, after the original anime, i was surprised at how adult-oriented the manga and crystal both felt. I guess I would maybe hold back less on the gore-y parts? if you can even really call them that in this series, lol.

Not too adult, but Hotaru and Chibiusa showed up with pistols in the live action fight vs Galaxia.

 

[CharonSnowstorm]

I would make Galaxia to be a far more dangerous tyrant. Something that is chilling. Maybe she says she pledges to enslave 1%, and the 4% who rat put the others amd serve Galaxia get to have another 5% enslaved for their own purposes. She randomly chooses those who are killed and those who are enslaved. She demands a tithe of a tenth for herself, the rest they can keep as their own riches. She brushes off criticism, saying that no planet has ever been bereft of Quislings, every king has a vizier willing to stab them in the back. And her own slaves never unite to take her down, nobody ever could agree on what happens next. And she says that it is merely natural selection that the strong rule and the weak suffer what they must and die.

Basically, take a chunk from everything evil we associate with empire building and totalitarianism that is all too familiar with us now.