To my understanding, Princess Serenity and Usagi while quintessentially the same, are different in many areas at least specifically in the anime.
In the anime we constantly hear about how "graceful, elegant, kind, etc." she was. We actually have villains in the first season look at Usagi and go "well, she can't be the princess because LOOK AT HER! Look at the differences!" So I think, this is where it's more or less a reincarnation. Same soul, same core values but different personalities because, let's be perfectly honest, Usagi was raised by different people in a completely different era.
So in that sense, both manga and anime Usagi ARE different from Princess Serenity. And yes, she IS princess Serenity but it's a past life sort of deal. She knows who she was before being reborn/reincarnated but she's still different. If nothing else, a major difference is being human vs. lunarian. So on that level, she sort of HAS to be a different person because the main issue was "Humans and Lunarians cannot intermingle." (Of course, this gets thrown out the flipping window when in the manga in the first season when Luna goes "Alright Usagi, you've rebuilt the moon kingdom, you need to come back as it's ruler now.")
So I think you kind of have to look at is as "They're the same yet different" (which I know isn't helpful, sorry ^^; ). Because even though they're the same where it counts, they ARE different people in the sense of Usagi being reborn/reincarnated, having a different personality, different desires, and just a different upbringing.
The same can be said for all the senshi because (whether anime or manga) they had their lives in the past of the Silver Millennium, they have new lives in the modern age. Although we get a hint that the Outer Senshi are more or less the same from their past lives selves, they still aren't the same people. They all get a chance to live together and be happy together, something that they couldn't do in their past lives.
It's again, unfortunately, the "same yet different."
DA
In the anime we constantly hear about how "graceful, elegant, kind, etc." she was. We actually have villains in the first season look at Usagi and go "well, she can't be the princess because LOOK AT HER! Look at the differences!" So I think, this is where it's more or less a reincarnation. Same soul, same core values but different personalities because, let's be perfectly honest, Usagi was raised by different people in a completely different era.
So in that sense, both manga and anime Usagi ARE different from Princess Serenity. And yes, she IS princess Serenity but it's a past life sort of deal. She knows who she was before being reborn/reincarnated but she's still different. If nothing else, a major difference is being human vs. lunarian. So on that level, she sort of HAS to be a different person because the main issue was "Humans and Lunarians cannot intermingle." (Of course, this gets thrown out the flipping window when in the manga in the first season when Luna goes "Alright Usagi, you've rebuilt the moon kingdom, you need to come back as it's ruler now.")
So I think you kind of have to look at is as "They're the same yet different" (which I know isn't helpful, sorry ^^; ). Because even though they're the same where it counts, they ARE different people in the sense of Usagi being reborn/reincarnated, having a different personality, different desires, and just a different upbringing.
The same can be said for all the senshi because (whether anime or manga) they had their lives in the past of the Silver Millennium, they have new lives in the modern age. Although we get a hint that the Outer Senshi are more or less the same from their past lives selves, they still aren't the same people. They all get a chance to live together and be happy together, something that they couldn't do in their past lives.
It's again, unfortunately, the "same yet different."