(Manga Mondays #3) Codename Sailor V Volume 2 by Naoko Takeuchi

Release date: (I think this is called the deluxe edition) November 15, 2011 (2004 in Japan)
Publisher: Kodansha Comics
Type: Manga (in most cases these are read from right-to-left)
Age Group: 13+
Pages: 287 (259 pages not counting the title pages, etc)
Source for Synopsis: goodreads
Challenge: (personal) 2012 Reading Challenge, The 50 Book Pledge, 2012 TBR Pile Reading Challenge

Like Sailor Moon, Minako Aino is a normal 13-year-old schoolgirl until a fateful day when a white cat introduces himself to her and tells her she has the power to transform into the hero, Sailor V. Using a magic pen to transform, Sailor V fights the evil agents of the Dark Agency as she strives to protect the earth.

Some Quotes

Some quotes that I found interesting are (not all because then this would be too long):

“To suddenly start seeing Sailor V’s face in the faces of passing strangers is a symptom of a bad disease!” -Page 24

“But… my mouth gets so lonely…” -Page 20

She means the fact that she has to avoid chocolate for a while.

One person who doesn’t care in the least about Valentine’s Day in an effort to shape up. -Page 27

“And if that doesn’t work, we could try frying him or boiling him for dinner” -Page 135

Oh Mina, you’re so cruel, joking around like that, lol.

Sailor V: “I had a plan to marry and retire in my second house!”
Artemis: “When did that plan ever have a chance?”
Sailor V: “And you ruined it! You’ll find I rate my grudge at 30 million koku!”
“V-chan’s sword will make you pay!” -Page 144

I wonder when and where she got the sword from.
Also, why did she just call herself V-chan?

Minako: “Could he be Minako’s very first love…?”
Artemis: “Your 2981st love.” -Page 196

Wow, she’s so fickle, she fell in love with so many guys. There’s no way someone could fall in love with so many boys, I’m pretty sure Naoko Takeuchi just put that in there as a joke, like many mangas do.

“Why don’t you go out and find your 2982nd first love?” -Page 212

Oops, I got a little carried away, I was trying to choose only 5.

Review

This is the second and last book in the Codename Sailor V series, in total there are 2, and I think in the japanese one there are 3.

Sex: No
Gore: No
Magic: Yes (Mina transforming is magical, so I count it as magic even though there are no people casting spells in there)
Romance: (I’ve decided not to rate the romance anymore, I’m pretty sure it’s self explanatory, so I’ll just say yes or no, yes, some, for this) Mina has more than one crush in here, but it’s like those teenage crushes, where you think you’re in love with one guy, but then you end up falling in love with another).

Action: 4 stars, can’t decide (there is fighting, in Sailor Moon they mostly use their powers -at least in the anime, I’m not sure about the manga- and in here she mostly uses martial arts like: kicking and punching)
Pacing: 4 stars
Plot: 4 stars
Drawings/Art: 5 stars

As you know, I’m a huge fan of shonen anime and manga and I don’t read many shojo mangas because there is mostly romance and not much fighting in those. But this one is special, because even though it’s not exactly Sailor Moon, it’s from the same creator and it has some of the same characters in it. I’m pretty sure that most of you know that Sailor Moon is one of the shows I watched when I was a little kid. It feels kind of nostalgic. Sailor Moon, Hamtaro, Digimon, Pokemon (I don’t like Pokemon anymore), and Beyblade (which is weird because I hated watching boy shows when I was little, although now I love watching those because of all the fighting). I knew about this manga before they planned on translating this series in english, I heard of this series a few yeas ago, so I searched for it, but I could only find the japanese version and when I read what the series is about, I learned that they never published it in english, I wonder what made them decide to do this, because they published this seven years after the original japanese versions. To be honest, I never read the Sailor Moon mangas, I only watched the anime, because at that time, I hated reading and didn’t even know about mangas, but when I first started reading mangas, which was about four years ago, they were no longer selling Sailor Moon mangas in stores, good thing too, because now I get the newer versions, yay!

Sorry about going a little off topic, I’m just excited because now I can start reading the Sailor Moon mangas.

Warning, Spoilers

Volume 1 has chapters 9-16 in it.
In the first chapter of this volume, it’s Valentine’s Day and since in Japan girls give chocolate to boys they love, Mina doesn’t have a boyfriend and then starts overreacting about being lonely because she doesn’t have a boyfriend. Yeah right, she’s not that lonely. Mina and many other girls see that there is a new kind of chocolate being sold and they want to try it and they all love it so much, it’s called Rainbow Chocolate because of the seven different tastes. Pretty soon Mina realizes that she’s gained 4 kilograms since eating all those chocolates, so now she’s focusing on losing weight, instead of finding a boyfriend.

I won’t say what happened in the last few pages, because that would be spoiling too much.

In chapter 10, a new major character is introduced, his name is Ace Saijyo a.k.a. Phantom Ace, actually, he appeared at the end of the last chapter, but wasn’t introduced until this chapter, and yes, Mina does fall in love with him too, he kind of reminds me of a younger version of Tuxedo Mask. This chapter is basically about phantom Ace becoming more popular than Sailor V and Sailor V going down because she’s been slacking off on her duties for a while, that her big super fan the police inspector general kept wondering what Sailor V is up to and why she hasn’t shown up in a long time. At the end of the chapter two people plus the enemy finds out Mina’s secret identity of being Sailor V, although she doesn’t know that they know yet, except the one about the enemy, although she killed her soon after.

In chapters 11-13, these are the pet chapters, the enemies that show up in these three chapters are not a part of the Dark Agency, they’re different. I’m sure you can guess from the titles kind of what they are. (Of course more happens in this chapter, but I won’t tell you, because that’ll spoil too much, plus this review is getting long and no one wants to read a really long review).

In chapter 15 and 16, Mina starts having visions about her past life and she awakens to Sailor venus (but I wonder why she was the only one who had the disguise form and the others didn’t, plus I liked her Sailor V clothes better). She matures in these chapters and is the first out of the five to remember her past life and that there is an important person she needs to protect (I’m pretty sure you all know who that is). I felt kind of sad that Mina and Ace never got to become boyfriend and girlfriend, oh well.

Those are some of the major incidents of this volume, of course more happened, but I don’t want to bore you with all of the details.

As I mentioned before, I love the art of this series, it’s so beautiful, especially the way she draws the girls, it’s so unique (that’s one of the reasons why I love Sailor Moon and any series related to it).

Usagi is shown once or twice in this volume (I can’t remember exactly), either walking past Mina or in the same place as her, but they don’t interact yet, and Ami is shown saying goodbye to her mom when Mina is at the airport.

I’ve been thinking this for a while. Sailor Moon and Sailor V are kind of like the female versions of superman: they all wear similar colour clothes as a disguise, they all have a secret life as a super hero, etc.

Too bad that a lot of the characters in this manga aren’t shown in Sailor Moon, unless they’re in the manga but not the anime. I’ll find out soon.

Codename Sailor V would have been great as an anime, a really short one, but still good.

Overall, I love this manga, this volume is better than the first one. It’s one of my favourites, but not most favourite. I recommend this series to Sailor Moon fans and magical girls fans in general.

Here’s a link to my Volume 1 review if you want to see it Codename Sailor V Volume 1 Book Review

If you want to read more reviews about this book, go to Goodreads and read the reviews in the comment section or go to other websites.

I rated this book: 4 stars.

If you read this book, then tell me what you thought about it and or the series. Tell me in the comments section.

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