I think the manga starts off really goofy and then gets more serious when it finds its feet. She becomes lots more serious after merging with the Puppet Master, which isn’t so significant in other adaptions, since she’s so serious before as well.

The 1995 anime reorders the plot of the manga a little so that it’s one big story, which to me is an improvement over the “disconnected vignette” style of the original. I wouldn’t want an adaption of that…