Minako Aino

Minako Aino, also known as Sailor Venus, is one of the main characters from the Sailor Moon anime and manga.

Minako has been active as a Sailor Guardian for quite some time using the alias of "Sailor V". She served as the leader of the inner soldiers during the Silver Millennium and currently continues in that role, second only to Sailor Moon. Her ditziness and wacky antics belie an incredibly strong and capable heartbroken badass.

In the XP4 fics, Minako debuted in the XP4 Heroes of the Multiverse. She is currently travelling with Finn the Human, Patrick Star and Brahma Bullworth.

Appearance
Minako is a cute and bubbly 14-year-old who originally lived in London. She has blonde hair and blue eyes. She wears a big red bow in her hair. 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.

Her most notable casual outfit since both second until the fourth season, she wears a red leather jacket with a light purple shirt and an orange collar, green pleated denim skirt, white socks and sneakers. In one episode, her leather jacket had a minor color change from red to lime green.

In Sailor Stars, she wore the same school uniform as Usagi, Ami, and Makoto since all four of them were attending the same high school. Minako is described to be about 5'2" in height and possibly a bit taller in later seasons.

As Sailor Venus, she wore the standard Senshi fuku. The dominant color of her fuku was orange while the accent colors were yellow and navy blue. Her choker, collar, the center of her front bow, the elbow fittings on her gloves, skirt, shoes, and earrings were orange; the gem on her tiara and her back bow were yellow and her front bow was navy blue. She had one stripe on her collar, and her shoes were orange heels with ankle straps. Also, her red hair bow from her civilian form was also carried over into her Senshi form.

Personality
Minako was a very silly character at times, but she could be more serious; this was especially true in the first season in general, and specifically in episodes 42, 100, and 109 (wherein she worried that she did not have a Pure Heart and tried to prove she was pure hearted in some very bizarre ways). She was also infamous for using mixed up proverbs in the anime, and officially referred to herself as "The Goddess of Love," a title which she used to try to solve others' love woes. Similar to Usagi, she was an academic underachiever, and would refer to Usagi at times as her "make-up tests partner." She was, however, much more athletic than Usagi, especially when it came to volleyball. Minako was shown to be very good in speaking English, since she had lived in London (or at least more so than Rei, Makoto, and Usagi). This was best demonstrated in episode 108, in which she was able to converse with relative fluency in English at the party. Although all students in Japan are required to learn English, it's more likely because of the time she spent as Sailor V in London in the anime. However, she has her thick British accent.

Minako is caring towards others and yet, like Usagi, pretty clumsy at times. For example, when every other Sailor Senshi got sick in Sailor Moon R, she tried to take care of them, but just ended up making a mess. The more she tried to straighten things out, the worse it got.

Abilities
In the manga, she is by far the most experienced Sailor Soldier due to awakening and fighting on her own for a full year before the others. It shows in her battle skills, and she's the guardian whom Usagi aspires to be like.

Minako repeatedly pulls off feats of athleticism and endurance that surpass the limits of human capability (even among the other guardians).

Trivia

 * Minako's name means "Beautiful Child of Love."
 * Minako is the goofiest member of the Sailor Guardians.
 * Minako's membership number in the Three Lights' Fan Club was 278.
 * In the anime, Minako had four character songs: "Route Venus", "I'll Stand Alone", "I Saw Your Dream", and "The Goddess of Love's 'How to Love'".
 * In the anime, Minako was shown to be able to speak English fluently. This was probably due to the fact that she spent her time in London for a while as Sailor V, and her English-speaking ability was shown in Episode 108.
 * Minako often refers to herself as the 'Goddess of Love' both in her civilian and Sailor Venus forms.
 * Minako was the only character to have a nosebleed (a typical anime indication of perverted thoughts) in the anime. She developed one in episode 178, when she thought about Luna being taken care of by Yaten.
 * In the DiC 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.
 * The episode describing Minako's life in England was cut by DiC. As a result, that part of her life is not canon in the original English dub.