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Finally! An animated show who follows the Sailor Moon manga storyline. Where you can appreciate Mamoru and Usagi evolving relationship instead of an annoying brat's crush for some university student who is full of himself. Where their child's problems and Pluto's character are much more interesting. Where Rei is not an angry little girl anymore. Where you can take an interest in the villains (despite some odd alterations that deserve the whole thing). A show that does not tell you "Read the manga because we won't bother to give you a reason".

Obviously there should be a downside, well there are two: while removing this "roundish" style the first anime had in order to be closer to the manga's drawings, the art suffers from frequent deformed character features (sometimes really ugly *) and hardly reaches Naoko Takeuchi's style, their bodies looking more disproportionate than in the comics. The animation seems odd in some everyday situations while it is fine during most action scenes. Maybe it is because I prefer cellulo to computer... same for the fact I found those CGI stock scenes (used for "suiting up") absolutely hideous, especially the first ones. Besides this "minimalist" technical side, the other issue is the way they underuse the other "pretty warriors": the manga was more about the central couple but the anime goes further and let the others totally on the side.
As a fan of Takeuchi's main piece, I am still looking forward to the next installment but this time I will be prepared for those drawing/animation weaknesses. (no hope about that, seeing how the recent St Seiya ONAs got the same poor treatment)

I also regret the renewal of the cast, particularly the absence of Toru Furuya (as Mamoru).

Score: 5/10
Plaisir: 4/5

*: the animators refined some scenes and have redrawn a lot of pictures for the retail version. I only saw some screenshots comparisons and it made a world of differences in some cases. If there were enough ameliorations, it could score a 6.