Here, Venus is being her ditzy self and being boy crazy. Mars reaction is priceless. But just wait for what comes next…

I like the anime,  they did do some things better than the manga (as mentioned earlier, the sucide squicked me out, so I’m glad that was kept out, for example) and it’s what I watched first. But it feels uncomfortable when you compare the two and it seems that a lot of the changes are informed by sexism. ALL of the Senshi are distinctly more boy crazy. Rei is boy crazy (though she never seems to seriously want to commit or focus on it) when in the manga she Does Not Like Men, Jupiter mentions guys looking like her ex maybe two times in the manga, but in the anime it’s a running gag. While in the manga, the Motoki thing is mutual, in the anime, she throws herself at him and other boys to the point it’s unhealthy at times. Usagi is more boy crazy, while in the manga she settles down with TM really quickly and never gives others a second thought. Even Ami had a relationship in the show she didn’t have in the manga.Even Venus, who as you can see here is pretty damn boy crazy, got an upgrade. There’s lots of other elements like TM rescuing Moon a lot more than he does in manga (though he still remains ineffectual and she has to constantly save him from being kidnapped) that let you know that yes, the animation team is male while manga creator is female.

Naoko Takeuchi the creator actually did say as much- which is impressive. In one of the asides of the manga, she answers the question “what is different in the anime from the manga”  by basically saying “The animation team was male, so they have some male sensibility in there. But the manga is made by a girl for girls.” When I read that is when I officially liked her, because it showed she was really perceptive to the changes there. Naoki Takeuchi is pretty awesome. (and I’ll look for the scan of that to show you sometime)