Before there was Sailor Moon, there was Sailor V. In 1991, mangaka Naoko Takeuchi, at the time popular for her figure-skating manga The Cherry Project, was offered the chance to do a one-shot story about anything she wanted. Being a fan of both magical girl and tokusatsu shows, she created Codename: Sailor V, intended to be a humorous one-off in which a girl has powers due to her connection to Venus, both the planet and the goddess, and fights a bunch of bad guys. Toei took notice of it and contacted Takeuchi in hopes of expanding it into an anime, though one with more characters and in the style of a Super Sentai show. Eventually that series became Sailor Moon. Codename: Sailor V is basically proto-Sailor Moon, only focusing on one girl, Minako Aino, and is a more comedic villain-of-the-week style story. Honestly, I don't see much point in explaining the plot, as it's literally what I just described. Minako has a problem, Artemis gets mad at her for her antics, a villain of the week appears causing trouble, Minako turns into Sailor V and saves the day, rinse and repeat.

It's easy to see the character tropes, designs, and plots that would get reused for Sailor Moon later on. Yes, by designs, I mean character designs. Hikaru is just Naru if she had Ami's hairstyle, Amano is literally just Umino but rich, and Phantom Ace is ground zero for Tuxedo Mask. Though why does that police chief lady who looks like Rei have the exact same name as Usagi's teacher? Minako herself is literally just Usagi but more athletic, which is funny because people think Minako a rip-off of Usagi when it's actually the other way around. Granted, that becomes muddied by the fact that the final two chapters tie more into Sailor Moon and inform Minako's backstory before she joins the other Sailor Guardians in the series proper. Not that Minako's backstory does much to make her a more rounded character because Codename: Sailor V isn't interested in deep characterization, or exploring any other characters for that matter. Yeah, I'm just gonna rip this band-aid off, none of the characters here are particularly interesting or memorable. They're just a bunch of one-note archetypes, especially the villains, who are just there to be one-off villains of the week and that's it. Many of them are just templates that Takeuchi would use for characters in Sailor Moon, and because of this, they don't change or develop at all, resulting in them all being as bland as white rice. Oh, and some of the villains are VERY unflattering racial stereotypes. Need I say more?

This could also be the result of Codename: Sailor V's overall format. Originally intended as a one-shot, it got expanded into three volumes...and I think it probably should have either stayed a one-shot, or cut down on chapters, because a lot of them are just reusing the same formula I mentioned above. The narrative just consists of Minako getting into episodic fights with the villain of the week and solving a problem with the power of Deus Ex Machinas she pulls out of her ass and that's it. Other than the last two chapters, every single chapter follows this exact plot. There isn't much of an overarching story, and what little story it has is woefully predictable, even by the standards of the nineties, so as a result, the manga drags on for longer than is necessary. Even the plot progression can come off as super clunky at some points, often with very little in the way of transition, making it seem like two things happen back to back with no proper lead-up to them. You could skip a bunch of chapters and lose absolutely nothing in the process. Granted, Takeuchi learned from this and made Sailor Moon's story much more substantial and engaging, though whether she succeeded is a point of debate to this day.

As for the artwork, it's...okay. Takeuchi makes no secret of the fact that she loves her long-legged women, though there's a significant amount of anatomical issues. Minako is said to be 13, but when she's in Sailor V form, she's often drawn in a way that makes her look much older than her stated age. Overusage of screentones makes it hard to actually see what's happening at various points, and the paneling and backgrounds can get very cluttered most of the time. Furthermore, all its attempts at humor range from falling flat on their face to relying on outdated jokes that would absolutely not fly today, one of which the English translation smartly got rid of. You know the one. That said, while I admittedly didn't enjoy Codename: Sailor V, it can't be denied that its existence paved the way for Sailor Moon, so fans of the series owe Sailor V that much. It's not the best story in the world, but we wouldn't have Sailor Moon if Codename: Sailor V didn't set down the pavement for it. I still wouldn't recommend reading it though, especially if you want a more serious story and don't want to deal with unfunny episodic villain-of-the-week plots.