Review: Codename: Sailor V

Codename: Sailor V

Created by Naoko Takeuchi

Published by Kodansha Comics

Plot Summary:

Minako Aino is a lazy but passionate teenage Japanese girl. One day, she meets a talking white cat with a crescent on his head named Artemis. The cat gives her a magical compact mirror and pen and tells her she’s Sailor V, the beautiful champion of justice who must fight against the evil Dark Agency.

Story:

If you’re wondering why I'm giving you the plot summary for Sailor Moon, that’s because this was the original Sailor Moon story. Thanks to the popularity of the book in its initial release, Naoko Takeuchi decided to create Sailor Moon, which took the same premise and added more heroes and plot. However, Sailor V does eventually tie into Sailor Moon, making Sailor Moon its sequel. How does the original stack up?

Well, it’s certainly a fun read. Minako Aino, who later becomes Sailor Venus, is basically a proto-Usagi in both powers and personality. She’s demanding, irresponsible, and easily distracted by the whims of her youth, but at the end of the day she can still kick some ass if messed with. A running theme in the Sailor stories is of the joys of youthful energy. The villains are always trying to absorb the energy of people to take over the world, usually through schemes that appeal to young people. It’s the basic formula for magical girl shows that we all remember seeing in our childhood, but it doesn’t hold up very well today, even in comparison to its successor.

While Sailor Moon helped codify many of the magical girl show clichés in the 90’s, it wasn’t always about episodic monster-of-the-week battles with some moral tacked on. There was an actual plot that kept the story going forward, helped by a growing cast of characters with different personalities. In Sailor V, Minako and Artemis are the only important characters until the end. Minako’s friends are extremely bland, and the villains are one-time gimmicks. There is a Tuxedo Mask-esque character named Phantom Ace with one twist to keep him from being the same character, and he does help to spice up the tired formula of the manga, but he shows up right before the manga’s closing act.

Every chapter for the most part is the same story, but the comedy and light-hearted tone of the manga help make it tolerable. Minako’s use of her magical compact mirror, which lets her transform into basically anyone, leads into some of the most fun moments of the book. Characters from Sailor Moon occasionally make cameos, and by the end, Minako has grown into the character we later see in Sailor Moon.

Art:

The artwork is unashamedly shojo. Every character looks beautiful with few exceptions. Naoko’s penchant for long-legged females is in full effect here. Some characters look like copies of other characters due to recycling of faces and hair styles, but luckily they are minor characters. Most of the fights are won through magic instead of good ol’ fisticuffs, but the various magic attacks that Sailor V uses are fun to look at. Naoko’s artwork is distinctive even among shojo art, and it was distinctive even before Sailor Moon.

Final Thoughts:

Codename: Sailor V is an enjoyable but repetitive magical girl series. Fans of Sailor Moon will definitely want to pick this up due to its historical relevance and to see what Minako was like before she became Sailor Venus. For those who don’t care about Sailor Moon, there’s nothing here that will convince you to pick up the book. It’s essentially a rough draft for the series with a lighter tone and more comedy.

For the longest time, Sailor V was not available in the United States, but it thankfully got a release when Kodansha Comics picked up the license for the Sailor Moon manga. The full series is available in 2 volumes, each over 200 pages long.