Minako Aino (愛野 美奈子, Aino Minako) is the civilian identity of Sailor V (セーラーV, Sērā V and the present-day incarnation of Sailor Venus (セーラーヴィーナス, Sērā Vīnasu) in the 90s anime.
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What is Sailor Venus's civilian identity in the 90s anime?
What is the age progression of Minako Aino throughout the Sailor Moon series?
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What are the other names used for Sailor Venus in the series?
Etymology[]
Her family name begins with the character meaning "love" (愛, ai), which still indirectly represents the planet of Venus, as Venus is the goddess of love in Roman mythology.
Her first name, Minako (美奈子), contains the kanji for "beautiful" (美, mi) and "child" (子, ko), along with 奈 (na), a phonetic character.
Minako's full name means "Beautiful Child of Love" in Japanese.
Due to being the first created, Minako is the only Solar System Sailor Guardian whose surname does not begin with the Japanese kanji directly denoting her celestial body, Venus. Her surname is a pun on a phrase meaning "of love," making her name sound like "Venus of Love". Minako is the fifth Sailor Guardian to join the team in the Sailor Moon Manga; creating an additional pun for Sailor V: V is the Roman numeral for 5.
Appearance[]
Civilian[]
Minako is a cute and bubbly 14-year-old girl. She has long blonde hair and blue eyes. She wears a big red bow in her hair, and prefers to wear her hair down. Her Shiba Koen Junior High School uniform includes a white blouse with sailor neckerchief, a red scarf, blue skirt, white socks, and black Mary Jane shoes.
In Sailor Stars, she wears the same school uniform as Usagi, Ami, and Makoto since all four of them attend the same high school.
Sailor V[]
Sailor V is the first Sailor Guardian form Minako uses. Sailor V is a decoy Sailor Guardian form used by Minako to fool the Dark Kingdom into thinking that she is the Princess; she joins the Sailor Senshi with this transformation presumably being her primary form before she joins forces with the rest of the Inner Sailor Senshi.
Sailor V's uniform is different from the other Sailor Guardian’s uniform. In place of a tiara, she wears a red mask, but unlike her manga counterpart, there is no crescent moon on her forehead. Instead of a leotard, she wears a sleeveless midriff shirt with red accents on the sides that sometimes reveal her stomach. She wears a white choker with a crescent moon, her collar is navy blue with two red stripes. Her shoulder pads are white, armor-like, shoulder guards, her bow is red while the center of her front bow is orange, and her gloves are like Sailor Venus's: white with orange elbow fittings. Her skirt is blue with a red border, her back bow is blue, her shoes are blue with ankle straps, and her red ribbon from her civilian form is carried over into her Sailor Guardian form.
Sailor Venus[]
Sailor Venus is the first true Sailor guardian form that Minako is able to transform into (as Sailor V is a decoy Sailor Guardian). Minako can transform into Sailor Venus in the first, R, S, and the first half of the SuperS season in the anime.
Sailor Venus' sailor uniform consists of a white, chest-armored leotard, a dark orange sailor collar with three white stripes, a dark orange choker, a dark orange skirt with a white puffy belt sat above it, and a light blue bow at the chest and a light yellow bow at the back. She wears a pair of dark orange high heels white gloves with three dark orange arm fittings at the ends that reach just below her elbows, and a dark orange circular gem at the center of her chest bow. Her leotard has three white shoulder pads. A golden tiara with a light orange, oval-shaped gem is located on her forehead, and she wears orange stud earrings.
Super Sailor Venus[]
As Super Sailor Venus, she wears an upgraded version of the Sailor Venus sailor uniform. The only things that change are the length of her back bow, a yellow heart on her front bow, the sailor collar now features one white stripe, the shoulder pads last pad is more wing-like and translucent, and her choker has a yellow star attached to it.
Personality[]
Minako's personality is childlike and silly most of the time. She can be serious at times and is the most dedicated to her mission of all the Sailor Guardians. Minako acts as the Sailor Guardian's second-in-command frequently takes responsibility for the team and takes charge of situations where they have to stay together as a group; this is most evident in season one, where she insists they persevere after the other Sailor Guardians had died. When Usagi wants to surrender the Silver Crystal to save her, Minako screams she would never forgive Usagi if she did that. She is much more athletic than the other Sailor Guardians, showing proficiency in physical activities such as volleyball. She also has sharper reflexes and is more attuned to dangerous situations than the other Inner Guardians. This can be attributed to her extra crime-fighting experience in her days as Sailor V.
She is also skilled at speaking English thanks to her time abroad in London; this is best demonstrated in episode 108, in which she is able to converse with relative fluency in English at the party. She also sometimes uses brief bits of English in her speech. Despite that, she is also infamous for using mixed up proverbs and frequently mixes up common expressions or sayings. Minako also occasionally demonstrates a more wistful and mature element of her personality that is somewhat associated with the sad memories and moments of her life, such as her relationship to Katarina and Alan. These moments speak to Minako's willingness to let go and move on from heartache and other sad moments, and the fact that she rarely, if ever, appears to hold a grudge.
Minako is caring towards others yet, like Usagi, can be clumsy at times. For example, when the other Sailor Guardians get sick in Sailor Moon R, she tries to take care of them but ends up making a mess. Similar to Usagi, she is an academic underachiever, and would refer to Usagi at times as her "make-up tests partner." Minako shares a lot of traits with Usagi as well, such as both running late to school or slacking off; however, Minako appears to do this more out of trying to multitask many things at once rather than pure laziness like Usagi; this can be seen on some occasions, such as when she only risked being late to school in order to help Mie, a little girl who was being bullied, and ensure she got to school safely herself.
Minako is also shown to have a somewhat wild and carefree side, occasionally showing very little foresight for her actions or their repercussions; this can be seen on numerous occasions, such as attempting to date Tiger's Eye and Hawk's Eye without each finding about the other, and intentionally getting her own Pure Heart Crystal targeted by the Death Busters, simply out of annoyance she wasn't targeted. Minako can also be overdramatic, such as intentionally lying to Chibiusa about how frightening a dental appointment can be and sometimes annoying the other Sailor Senshi with her antics, such as attempting to take care of them while they were sick. However, she does acknowledge when she is in the wrong and expresses remorse when the consequences of her actions sink in.
Information[]
Background[]
Before she moves to Japan and fights with the Sailor Guardians as Sailor Venus, Minako originally lived in London, England to fight the Dark Kingdom as Sailor V. There, she fell in love with a man named Alan. On one of her missions, she met a woman named Katarina, who is an Interpol police officer. The two spend time together, Katarina taught her English, and Minako regards her as a big sister. During a mission, she (as Sailor V) is caught in an explosion, and Katarina believes that she died. Minako escapes, but saw Alan and Katarina together, seeing that the two love each other. Minako decides to let the two believe that she is dead, and moves to Japan soon after.
Sailor Moon[]
Minako (in her civilian form) finally appears in episode 33. There, she meets up with the other Sailor Guardians and saves them from one of Kunzite's traps. Here, Minako is shown to be completely devoted to her mission of fighting the Dark Kingdom and finding the Moon Princess, as she has the strongest memories of her past life as a Sailor Guardian. From then on, she officially joins the Sailor Guardians. Later on in episode 42, Katarina returns and is being used by Kunzite as a yoma to get to Sailor V, considering he believes Sailor V knows who the Sailor Guardians are. After she is restored by Sailor Moon and Sailor Venus, Katarina and Minako reunite and become friends again.
Sailor Moon R[]
After the first season concludes, Minako's character and personality become more goofy, excitable, and overdramatic, as well as a bit ditzy. She is known to misquote proverbs regularly. During this season, Minako is shown to greatly care for others. She looks over a class of kindergarten kids. She also tries to take care of the other Sailor Guardians when they are all sick, though to no success.
Sailor Moon S[]
In Sailor Moon S, Minako is the last one of the Inner Guardians to have her Pure Heart Crystal extracted. Even though she says it does not bother her, it annoys her greatly. She begins to donate tons of blood and give away the plush toys she won at the arcade to prove she has a good heart, and her Pure Heart is eventually removed by Eudial. But unlike the other victims, Minako retains her consciousness and runs off with her Pure Heart, and she eventually collapsed. After she regained consciousness, she transforms into Sailor Venus (much to the surprise of Eudial), and breaks Eudial's fire buster with her Venus Love-Me Chain attack.
Sailor Moon SuperS[]
She is the first victim to escape the imprisonment of her dream mirror which Tiger's Eye and Hawk's Eye were fighting over after she manages to deceive them both during their two-timing date. Minako transforms into Sailor Venus and furiously scolds both Tiger's Eye and Hawk's Eye for looking in her dreams (After both look in her Dream Mirror to see if Pegasus is in it) and angrily hits them with Crescent Beam Barrage to chase them away, allowing Super Sailor Chibi Moon to summon Pegasus with Twinkle Yell as well as allowing Super Sailor Moon to destroy the Lemures with Moon Gorgeous Meditation. She along with the other Guardians are upgraded to their Super forms by Pegasus. She almost breaks her friendship off with Makoto due to their crush on Mr. Honjo until they are attacked by the Lemure sent by CereCere. By the time everyone is ensnared by the Lemure, CereCere is confronted by JunJun, VesVes, and PallaPalla who were deceived by her deceptions which allows Artemis to inform both Minako and Makoto to channel their energy with their Crystal Change Rods to transform into their Super Guardian forms. Super Sailor Venus demonstrates her Venus Love and Beauty Shock to disperse the Lemure while Super Sailor Jupiter demonstrates her Jupiter Oak Evolution to disperse most of the leaves to rescue the kids including their friends making both reconcile their friendship. After the Lemure is defeated by Super Sailor Moon, both Makoto and Minako reconcile their friendship and discover that Mr. Honjo is Kotaro's father, much to their disappointment realizing he is married.
Sailor Moon Sailor Stars[]
Sailor Senshi Info[]
Phrases[]
Attacks[]
- Sailor V Kick
- Crescent Beam
- Crescent Beam Shower
- Crescent Beam Barrage
- Venus Love Me Chain
- Moony Moony Love-Me Moon Chain
- Venus Love and Beauty Shock
- Sailor Planet Attack
- Sailor Planet Power
- Sailor Special Garlic Attack
Items[]
Gallery[]
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Trivia[]
- In the anime, Minako has four character songs: "Route Venus", "Needless", "I Saw Your Dream", and "The Goddess of Love's 'How to Love'".
- She's the second character in the anime to dress up and impersonate Sailor Moon, the first being Zoisite. She is also the only good character to impersonate another character.
- In episode 36, she tells the Sailor Guardians: "We must not allow the tragedies of the past to be repeated." This phrasing is often said by Minako's live-action series counterpart.
- Minako is the only one of the Inner Guardians in all versions of the series who is not awakened by Luna.
- The DiC dub of the episode Artemis's Adventure: The Monster Animal Kingdom contains the only instance when Minako misquotes a saying in the DiC dub, every other instance when Minako misquotes a saying in the Viz dub and Japanese version were omitted most of the time or she says the saying correctly in the DiC dub.
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Official Sailor Moon website; Sailor Venus's Profile
- ↑ I Want to Quit Being a Sailor Guardian: Minako’s Dilemma & The Shocking Moment: Everyone’s Identities Revealed - Minako plays volleyball in these episodes and her past with the sport is shown.
