Sailor Venus
Minako Aino, better known as Sailor Venus, is a fictional character in the Sailor Moon and Codename: Sailor V manga series written by Naoko Takeuchi. Minako is her sailor form's alternative human identity as part of the Sailor Guardians, female supernatural fighters who protect the Solar System from evil.
Minako is the fourth Sailor Guardian to be discovered by Usagi Tsukino, although she was the first Sailor Guardian to awaken her powers, even before Usagi did. She possesses powers associated with love and beauty, light, and golden material metal. In the manga and anime series, she dreams of becoming a famous idol, but in the live-action series, her character is already a well-known celebrity.
Minako is introduced as the titular main protagonist of Naoko Takeuchi's much-shorter manga series Codename: Sailor V, the predecessor to Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon. In it, she goes by the pseudonym Sailor V, short for "Venus", and is given a personal backstory. The plot lines of Sailor V are generally compatible with the latter series, but are usually considered separate. Later, she co-stars with Rei Hino in a special short story titled Rei and Minako's Girls School Battle.
Profile
Manga and anime
Minako is first introduced in the Codename: Sailor V manga, of which she is the lead character. She is awakened as a Sailor Guardian by the white cat Artemis when she is thirteen years old and instructed that she has a duty to become the beautiful warrior, Sailor V. Artemis explains that Venus and Earth are "twin planets" of about the same size and weight, that Venus is her "mother star," and that she must protect Earth from its enemies. He shows her Magellan Castle orbiting around Venus and says that it is hers, although the existence of these castles is not revealed to the other Sailor Guardians until late in the Sailor Moon series. Artemis later reveals that Minako is an avatar of the goddess, Venus. She first dons her red hair bow during the first chapter of the story, on the recommendation of a handsome villain character that she defeats, and is almost never seen without it again.Though Sailor Moon technically leads the team during the various incarnations of the franchise, she is actually not the team leader of Sailor Guardians; instead, that honor goes to Sailor Venus. Minako is depicted as athletic, friendly, romantic, resilient, and intelligent. She is also seen as graceful, clever, and refined at times. Minako is supernaturally strong, being able to wield a heavy sword with just one hand, and jumping from the ground to the top of a building in the ‘90s anime. Minako is as strong as Makoto, possibly even more than her, and like Sailor Mars, Minako also has large experience in hand-to-hand combat as she took on members of the “Dark Agency” in her own series Codename: Sailor V. When Codename: Sailor V was enough of a hit to earn its own anime adaptation, Takeuchi was asked to expand the concept to include more girls, and when she did, she placed Usagi Tsukino as the protagonist, with Minako as a part of the team.
Image:MinakoManga.jpg|left|180px|thumbnail|Minako as depicted in manga, drawn by Naoko Takeuchi
In the anime only, Minako spends some of her time as Sailor V in London, where she meets a young Interpol officer named Katarina who taught her English and acts as a big sister, and a young man called Alan, with whom she falls in love. One day Sailor V was the first to enter an abandoned warehouse but she was caught in an explosion after a criminal threw a grenade and assumed to be dead, Minako survives but she was injured she saw Alan and Katarina together and realizes that they had become a couple. She moves back to Japan shortly thereafter. She is also widely traveled in the manga, having visited Greece and China.
As a result of her past battles, when Minako meets the other Sailor Guardians she has a relatively serious personality and is very focused on their mission as a Sailor Guardian. In the manga, she even tells them she is the princess they have been searching for, although in fact she is merely serving as a decoy to protect the real princess, Usagi. Throughout the first story arc she has by far the strongest memories of their past life during the time of Silver Millennium.
Artemis lives in Minako's home and is one of her closest friends. Minako lives with both her parents, although references to her family life are few in the Sailor Moon series. Her family, like Usagi's, is based on Takeuchi's own family. For the first several story arcs, Minako attends a different junior high school from the others in Shiba Kōen. When the characters enter high school, she joins Usagi, Ami, and Makoto at Azabu-Jūban. One of her greatest talent is volleyball, as shown from the beginning of the first Sailor V chapter and throughout the rest of the series — she even considers quitting the Sailor Guardians to become a professional, and in high school joins the Volleyball club. Her favorite class is Physical Education, while in the manga her least favorites are mathematics and the English language. In the anime, having lived in England for some time, she is fluent in the language, and Usagi begs Minako to teach her.
Minako's other greatest love is pop culture. She desperately wants to be an idol, and so makes a hobby of chasing them and attending auditions in acting, dancing, and singing whenever possible. She takes her role as the "Guardian of Love" literally, and enjoys regaling friends and acquaintances with advice about romance. Despite her declared expertise, Minako herself has little personal experience in relationships, but is enthusiastic about romantic opportunities — even to the point of two-timing a pair of the series' villains. She has a crush on Yaten Kou throughout the Sailor Stars anime storyline, and in one episode, the sinister idea of herself as a cat bathing with Yaten gives her a nosebleed — a common symbol of sexual arousal in anime. In the manga, by contrast, Minako suspects Yaten of being an enemy; while confronting the Starlights, she and Rei reaffirm that they do not need men because they have dedicated their lives to their duty of protecting Usagi.
Live-action series
While Minako dreams of being an idol in the manga and anime adaptations, the live-action series Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon depicts her as a famous singer whose fanbase includes Usagi Tsukino in particular as an enormous fan. Her second album, newly released at the start of the series, is called Venus and her most popular song is C'est La Vie, which is a Japanese pun: in Japanese, the French phrase and the name of her alter-ego, Sailor V, is pronounced almost identically. Her first album, Imitation, was released prior to her meeting Artemis and becoming a Sailor Guardian, but its track listing, shown onscreen, foreshadows later plot developments: Origin of the Legend, Imitation, Don't Lose! Christmas Girl, Love Versus Dream, Happily, Secret!, Orange Heart, White Rendezvous, and Make Up! Power!!.In the live-action series, Minako secretly leads a double life as idol and heroine—famous as a singer, and equally well-known as Sailor V. She remains entirely separate from the other girls, but is aware of each of their civilian identities. As in the other series, she eventually discards the guise of Sailor V in favor of her true form, Sailor Venus; nevertheless, she becomes only slightly involved with the others, and frequently expresses disapproval of their effectiveness as Guardians. She is frustrated by their lack of focus and distances herself both for that reason and because, as revealed later, she has a terminal illness and does not want them to become close to her and then be saddened by her probable death.
When the other Guardians learn that Minako and Sailor V are the same person, they hide it from the irresponsible Usagi for some time. The character Minako is closest to being friends with is Rei Hino, with whom she has a conflicted relationship. Rei is supposed to be the secondary leader, but she is initially both less skilled than Minako and resentful of her advice. Although they often disagree and compete, they develop great respect for each other, to the point where Minako sometimes lets her guard down, and eventually confides to Rei about both her illness and what she feels is her destiny as a Sailor Soldier.
In terms of personality, the live-action Minako is deeply solemn and rarely smiles. Besides the complications from her unnamed illness, her obsession with the collective past life makes her feel detached from the world, thinking of her current life as less important. However, she does seem to genuinely love singing, and shows a small mischievous side, especially in her relationship with Artemis.
As in the manga, she serves as a decoy Moon Princess for part of the series. She seems to be aware of her true position, often endangering herself to protect the real princess, Sailor Moon. In a twist, Usagi serves as a decoy of Minako, chasing away a group of autograph hounds. She does this because she figures Minako needed to be away from the trappings of stardom for a while. Minako is touched by this and cares about Usagi as a friend to the point of trying to protect her from Mio.
Near the end of the series, it is revealed that there is a surgery that might either correct Minako's condition or kill her early. She refuses to undergo the procedure, preferring to last as long as she can without it, but the other girls convince her to take any chance at life she can get. She is shown leaving for the hospital, and later that day, Artemis arrives at Rei's temple to tell the girls that Minako has died. She did, however, leave each of them a note giving her goodbyes. Rei uses Minako's weapon, Venus Dagger, in conjunction with her own Mars Dagger in the final battle. Though Minako dies before the final battle, Usagi's use of the Silver Crystal in the finale gives her a second chance at life. This allows her to take part in the battle in the direct-to-DVD special, in which she uses her own weapon as well as Rei's in combat.