Welcome to today’s Summer Comics Binge of the “Sailor Moon” manga, concluding our look at the prequel “Codename: Sailor V.” Do Minako Aino and Artemis’s goofy adventures get more serious as they approach the timeframe of their operatic sister series? Yes, but only slightly: the second half introduces a Tuxedo Mask-esque love interest for Mina herself, named Phantom Ace, but largely sidelines him until the final two-part chapter.
Created by Naoko TakeuchiArt by Naoko Takeuchi
Translated by Alethea Nibley & Athena Nibley
Lettered by Lys BlakesleeBefore Sailor Moon, there was Sailor V! Minako Aino is 13 years old when she meets a talking white cat named Artemis, who tells her something unbelievable: With a magic pen, she has the power to transform into the elegant, masked hero Sailor V. Experience Minako’s adventures, before she became Sailor Venus, featuring a new, glittering cover, a fresh translation, and remastered interior art!
For the most part, it’s business as usual, with Minako getting involved in outlandish, satirical stories involving (in order) magic chocolates and dieting, brainwashing cosmetics, idol contests, cats and dogs, becoming a manga assistant, blood donations and mosquitoes, karaoke and running marathons, and getting cast in a Phantom Ace movie filmed in China. As Mina and Artemis’s introductions at the start of each chapter make clear, this wasn’t a monthly comic, but an irregular series of specials, so I’m not surprised it doesn’t slow down and become as heavily serialized as a “Sailor Moon” arc, but it can be a little exhausting to read in a collected format as a result (especially with how manic it is.)
Unsurprisingly, given how hard it can be for an action comedy series to keep the laughs coming, the jokes and situations start to feel more dated (and not in a charming way like the video game chapter last time): chapter #9 involves a Dark Agency member selling magic chocolates that causes all the kids to rapidly gain weight, setting them up for a weight loss scam, and I can feel myself physically cringing remembering each character’s unthinkingly sizeist attitudes in the story. Sure, it was the ’90s, but that was also the decade “not that there’s anything wrong with that” became a thing, and Mina could’ve pointed it out now and again (which would’ve been a good running gag in itself too.)
Similarly, the trip to China is full of references to Chinese cuisine (both – patronizingly – positive and negative), which becomes grating incredibly quickly (to wit, imagine being a Ukrainian person who hears a Russian make a lighthearted comment about their food); also the way Mina wins her role in the movie via a beauty contest made me grimace, given she is 13 years old. With all that said, the humor is more hit than miss: there’s a hilariously brutal reminder early on that Mina killed her first crush when he turned out to be a demon, and one installment cleverly misspells her dialogue to convey her lack of brains trying to impress a boy. The chapter where Mina becomes a manga creator’s assistant is all sorts of fun, because Takeuchi is clearly telling her target audience this job is not all fun and games, and that she’s looking forward to retiring and settling down.
We see Mina slowly grow into the leader of the Inner Guardians, but only just, since the comedy is based around her being the world’s most immature superhero, with her often only stumbling onto the Dark Agency’s latest dastardly scheme because she was trying to enrich herself some way. (You have to love Mina calling herself a “penniless schoolgirl” when she lives in a detached house in the middle of Tokyo.) Still, it is nice how she learns from her encounter with the cat-themed villain Nyan-Nyan (“nyan” means “meow” by the way) to not take Artemis for granted, or to see her take the place of a boy with a heart condition in a school run, after she encouraged him to participate in the first place: sure, she’s doing it because she likes him, but she’s still making a great effort to fix her mistake.
Continued belowMina’s main concern is finding her first love, a funny turn of phrase since (as Artemis sarcastically keeps pointing out) she’s had quite a few: what she really means is her first boyfriend. It’s a good question: if she’s Venus, the Guardian of Love, then why is she so unlucky gaining a guy? In the finale, Mina begins experiencing visions of her past life, and how, as a Sailor Guardian, she chose her duty to protect Princess Serenity over love. Phantom Ace reveals himself to be Danburite, the leader of the Dark Agency, who was once a lowly soldier who had feelings for her, but she was too far above his station to notice (it’s also hinted at she was romantically involved with his general, Kunzite, who appears in silhouette.) As Mina defeats him, she’s also left to wistfully wonder how life might’ve turned out if she had been with the first boy who loved her.
Things end on an upbeat note, with Mina returning to Tokyo, and deciding to join the police to find the other Sailor Guardians. (Amusingly, Makoto/Jupiter cameos in the final pages, wondering how Mina got a cat aboard the train: if only they could’ve interacted before “Sailor Moon,” especially as it would’ve been funny if someone pointed out the resemblance between Ami/Mercury and Mina’s best friend Hikaru.) It would’ve been fun to see Sailor V work together with Superintendent Sakurada and her long-suffering lieutenant, Toshio Wakagi, since they never appeared in “Sailor Moon,” but alas, this was it for the series. One more prequel note before we go: the “Boss” Mina and Artemis always communicate with over radio is never confirmed to be Luna, although she is mentioned when Artemis falls for a similarly named dog; I suppose Takeuchi trusted her readers enough to put two and two together.
We’ll return next week with the start of our look at the “Sailor Moon” short stories, namely the ‘Chibiusa’s Picture Diary’ series.
