Aino Minako moonlighted as Tokyo's protector Sailor V for quite a while before joining the Sailor Senshi (In the anime she spent time in London prior to joining the group). Her Sailor V costume looked pretty much like her school uniform, only with a mask. Less is known about her career as Sailor V, as at one time she had her memory of that time erased. Sailor V manga was a precursor to both the Sailor Moon series and manga, but both ran side by side for a while. in Japan, which has not yet been officially translated into English (Fansubs only on this one, to the best of my knowledge). It never ceases to amaze me how a 13-year old girl could defend the world's largest city. The only senshi to be given her henshin stick by Artemis, Sailor Venus was the last of the inner senshi to join up with the group.

Minako is the Leader of the senshi, second only to the Moon Princess. She is arguably the most beautiful of the senshi, possibly since her 'element' is love. Minako, however, has less American following than one would imagine, since she was almost completely removed from the American DiC version, and her character wasn't really developed in the time that she had onscreen. She, though not quite so bad as Usagi, also has her own "dumb blonde" moments (often reffered to as a "potted plant" by many of the fans), mainly having trouble keeping quotations correct. Minako is a sociable and friendly girl who seemingly ALWAYS has that red bow in her hair. She wears that bow from the Sailor V manga when a boy who she had a crush on, told her that she would look good with a red bow in her hair. In the end it turned out that he told that to all the girls, but she decided to keep the bow anyway.