Minako Aino

Minako Aino is the present-day incarnation of Sailor Venus and the civilian identity of Sailor V. This is the original depiction of the manga character created by Naoko Takeuchi.

Profile
Minako is a friendly and athletic teenage girl who likes playing sports and video games. She also likes idols and dreams to become an idol as well.

Appearance
Minako Aino has blue eyes and blonde hair, preferring to wear her hair down with a simple red bow in it. When she was in junior high, she wore a sailor-style school uniform like the other Senshi did in their civilian forms, but with a few differences. Also, the uniform was the most classic or orthodox among those of the Sailor Team.

Codename: Sailor V
Minako is introduced as lazy and unwilling to study—but also athletic and an avid gamer. One day at her physical education class, she sees a white cat and accidentally lands on it after she fails at doing a mid-air somersault. This, however, does not ruin her good mood, as she plans on giving Higashi, a member of the basketball team, a love letter. She tries to give him her letter but she gets stuck in a crowd of girls who are looking at and petting the white cat that she landed on. We later see her in class eating an early dinner and getting scolded at for both eating and low tests grades once the teacher comes into the class room.

Dark Kingdom Arc
Minako's first appearance in her civilian form when she de-transformed after she saved Sailor Moon from Zoisite.

Black Moon Arc
Minako is the only one of the inner senshi not to be abducted by the Black Moon. Ami, Rei, Makoto, Usagi, Chibiusa, and Mamoru are all taken at one point or another.

Infinty Arc
Minako uses her crescent compact to transform into a male Mugen Gakuen student to see Mimete's concert, but ends up transforming and defeating her.

Dream Arc
Minako receives her super transformation from Artemis after nearly falling off a building.

Stars Arc
Minako and Rei state that they don't date because they have dedicated their lives to their duty of protecting Usagi.

Powers and Abilities
Artemis states that Minako possesses good reflexes while watching her playing games, in the Chapter 2 of Codename: Sailor V, and as story goes, she also excels at martial arts as well. In the final chapter, she is shown to have the ability to sense other Sailor Scouts' presence.

Development
In the transition between the Sailor V and Sailor Moon series, Minako's basic character design did not change. In fact, Naoko Takeuchi had written that the concept of Minako has barely changed at all from the first moment she was created. Run-Run, the magazine that serialized Sailor V, had intended to produce an OVA based on the character, but it went bankrupt, before it could happen, so Minako was relegated to the sidelines as one of Sailor Moon's co-stars, to Takeuchi's regret.

Etymology
Her family name begins with the character meaning "love" (愛), which still indirectly represented the planet of Venus, as Venus was 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.

In the original English dub, Minako's name was romanized as "Mina". Ironically this is a nickname Artemis sometimes calls her in Japanese versions including the Codename Sailor V comic.

Trivia

 * Takeuchi has said that the reason Venus looks so much like Sailor Moon was in fact because it was her duty to take Serenity's place to keep her from danger.
 * Minako is the only Senshi of this Solar System whose civilian family name does not begin with the Japanese kanji character(s) directly denoting the corresponding celestial object.
 * "Minako" can alternatively be read as Venus (Biinasu).
 * Her surname is a pun on a phrase meaning "of love," making her name sound like "Venus of Love".
 * Minako's birthday is October 22nd, which means she is a Libra. Libra's domcile is the planet Venus.
 * The style of her uniform reflects the Japanese militarized schooling system of the past, which could be traced back to the Meiji (明治) Period.
 * However, it actually originated in Europe, where it was also worn by school boys and was not exclusively for girls as in Japan.
 * She is the only character who awakened twice as two different senshi identities: First as Sailor V, then as Sailor Venus.
 * Minako is the fifth sailor senshi. Her civilian identity name, Sailor V, the letter V is the roman numeral for 5.

Gallery
For images of the manga incarnation of Minako Aino, please see Minako Aino/Image Gallery.