Codename Sailor V (Volume 2) by Naoko Takeuchi

Type: Manga
287 pages
English version published in the U.S.A by Kodansha Comics (2011)

Sailor V’s encounters with agents and minions from the Dark Agency continued in this second and final volume of Codename Sailor V. This time she battled out with agents deVleene and Founde, both of whom manipulated women’s insecurities regarding their physical appearance to extract energy from them. She also faced the final agent from the Dark Agency, Lin-Lin.

At the same time, a new popular idol known as Phantom Ace made his debut on television shows. Minako, who likes idols and handsome guys, also made up a part of Phantom Ace’s fan base. However, he was a very mysterious figure who apparently had some ethereal powers. He had helped Sailor V in three occassions: once to neutralize the damage done by deVleene, which Sailor V was unable to reverse, and the other two times he himself killed Founde and Lin-Lin, respectively, when they almost endangered Sailor V’s life. That has made Minako fell madly in love with Phantom Ace.

Meanwhile, in this book, Sailor V also faced off with minor enemies in side stories such as the “Pet Chapters” and “The Young Man Who Bet On A Headband Stone”. In the former, Sailor V encountered the evil siblings Nyan Nyan (cat demon), Wan Wan (dog demon) and Chuu Chuu (mosquito demon). While the other story featured Sailor V battling out the demon Mike Makii in a karaoke lounge. 

In the final two chapters of this book, focus is given on Phantom Ace and the unveiling of his character. It turns out that the Dark Agency has rebranded their company as Ace-Vex Trax. And Phantom Ace was their most successful idol so far, claiming a fan base from outside of Japan too. Thus Sailor V was tasked by Boss to get close to Phantom Ace in order to extract more info on him and the Dark Agency.

Sailor V got to know Phantom Ace in person while in her normal human form Minako, and she got so swayed by his charm and romantic attitude that she almost believed that she was destined to fall in love with him. Until he began to talk about things that he should not have known, such as Minako being born on Venus.

When confronted, it was revealed that Phantom Ace was the Dark Agency’s Danburite, and the reason he helped out Sailor V when she was threatened by deVleene and Lin-Lin was because he wanted to finish off Sailor V by himself.

He was born as Adonis and he also originated from Venus. He fell in love with Sailor V in his previous life, but then she went to the Moon and became a guardian for the Moon Kingdom. And that left Adonis feeling hurt because he was only able to watch her from afar. Now in a new life, Adonis was reborn and he joined the Dark Kingdom as Danburite, and is now face to face with Sailor V again, but as enemies. The Dark Kingdom was the Moon Kingdom’s enemy, and now it had made a re-appearance by controlling the Dark Agency as one of its schemes.

Eventually Sailor V killed Danburite (quite easily), but not before he read out her love destiny. He said Sailor V will never find true love for all eternity, as her destiny was to fight on with her duty as a guardian.

With that, Sailor V regained the hurtful memories from her past life and is now fully awakened. She now remembered the Moon Kingdom and how it was devastated in a celestial war. She also remembered the Moon Princess which she was supposed to guard together with her other comrades, which she vowed to search for soon.

The stories in Codename Sailor V preceded what happens in the manga Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, which took place about a year later when Minako and the others are all 14 years old. Codename Sailor V is a sort of prequel which also explained why Sailor V had already regained her memory when she met the other Sailor Guardians (and while the others were still grappling with their real identities). Oh, and one more note: Ami Mizuno and Makoto Kino made their cameo appearances in the epilogue of Codename Sailor V!

Meanwhile, more on the Dark Kingdom will be revealed in Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon!