She is awakened as a Sailor Guardian by the white cat Artemis when she is thirteen years old and instructed that she has a duty to become the beautiful warrior, Sailor V. Artemis explains that Venus and Earth are "twin planets" of about the same size and weight, that Venus is her "mother star," and that she must protect Earth from its enemies.

She first dons her red hair bow during the first chapter of the story, on the recommendation of a handsome villain character that she defeats, and is almost never seen without it again.

Minako is supernaturally strong, being able to wield a heavy sword with just one hand, and jumping from the ground to the top of a building in the ‘90s anime.

One day Sailor V was the first to enter an abandoned warehouse but she was caught in an explosion after a criminal threw a grenade and assumed to be dead, Minako survives but she was injured she saw Alan and Katarina together and realizes that they had become a couple.

[12] In the anime, having lived in England for some time,[3] she is fluent in the language (in one episode it is shown her skills are more refined than Ami Mizuno's), and Usagi begs Minako to teach her.

[15] Despite her declared expertise, Minako herself has little personal experience in relationships (aside from a brief and ill-fated love in the Sailor V manga),[5] but is enthusiastic about romantic opportunities — even to the point of two-timing a pair of the series' villains.

[18] In the manga, by contrast, Minako suspects Yaten of being an enemy; while confronting the Starlights, she and Rei reaffirm that they do not need men because they have dedicated their lives to their duty of protecting Usagi.

[19] While Minako dreams of being an idol in the manga and anime adaptations,[14] the live-action series Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon depicts her as a famous singer whose fanbase includes Usagi Tsukino in particular as an enormous fan.

Christmas Girl, Love Versus Dream, Happily, Secret!, Orange Heart, White Rendezvous, and Make Up!

[21] In the live-action series, Minako secretly leads a double life as idol and heroine—famous as a singer, and equally well-known as Sailor V. She remains entirely separate from the other girls, but is aware of each of their civilian identities.

She is frustrated by their lack of focus and distances herself both for that reason and because, as revealed later, she has a terminal illness and does not want them to become close to her and then be saddened by her probable death.

[25] Although they often disagree and compete, they develop great respect for each other, to the point where Minako sometimes lets her guard down, and eventually confides to Rei about both her illness and what she feels is her destiny as a Sailor Soldier.

She is shown leaving for the hospital, and later that day, Artemis arrives at Rei's temple to tell the girls that Minako has died.

[33] As a character with different incarnations, special powers, transformations, and a long lifetime virtually spanned between the Silver Millennium era and the 30th century, Minako gains multiple aspects and aliases as the series progresses.

In the manga, live-action series, and Sailor Moon Crystal, she wears an item called the Wink Chain around her waist, which she sometimes uses as a weapon.

She bears the crescent moon symbol on her forehead in place of a tiara (just as she did when she was Sailor V) and wears a crown with a fake Silver Crystal on it.

[42] As she grows stronger, Sailor Venus gains additional powers, and at key points her uniform changes to reflect this.

The first takes place in Act 43 of the manga when she obtains the Venus Crystal and her outfit becomes similar to that of Super Sailor Moon.

As Princess Venus, she dwelt in Magellan Castle and wore a yellow gown—she appears in this form in the original manga, as well as in supplementary art.

Minako is portrayed to have borderline superpower abilities in civilian form, such as jumping to the room of Usagi's house from ground level in a single jump[56] and outrunning a car after having her Pure Heart Crystal extracted from her body (something that had previously instantly knocked out the other Sailor Guardians and would later kill Neptune and Uranus).

[74] This remains her main attack for the rest of the second story arc, all of the third, and much of the fourth, and the chain itself is used in several variations, with the links taking on different shapes.

[77] Also in the live-action series, once Minako discovers her true potential as a Guardian, she uses the attack Rolling Heart Vibration, a heart-shaped beam of rainbow energy, but only uses it once.

It was colored mostly in dark blue, with orange used only for the chest ribbon (which was not bow-shaped), and included a crescent moon motif, prominent armor, and white- and red stripes.

[78] The kanji in Minako's name translate as "love" (愛, ai), "field" or "civilian" (野, no), "beauty" (美, mi), "what" or "how" (奈, na), and "child" (子, ko).

This pun with the name being based on the aspect of the planet, in this case Venus being the goddess of love in Roman Mythology, runs across all the Sailor Soldiers.

As Minako was "transplanted" from her previous series,[38] unlike the other Soldiers, her family name does not begin with the same kanji as her planet, which would have been "gold" (金, kin).

In the original Japanese version of the Sailor Moon anime series, Minako is voiced by Rika Fukami, with Nanae Sumitomo as a stand-in for portions of episode 163 of SuperS.

[82] A Sailor Moon fan, Leigh read the female roles in California and was selected for Minako during her wedding in her homeland Texas.

[83] In the stage musicals, Minako has been played by twenty one actresses: Nana Suzuki, Sakae Yamashita (Yume Senshi - Ai - Eien Ni soundtrack only and is not considered the 2nd actress to play her but the 2nd person to be cast since she was never in the musical performing as her), Chizuru Soya, Kanatsu Nakaya, Akiko Miyazawa, Miyu Otani, Nao Inada, Yuki Nakamura, Ayumi Murata, Mizuki Watanabe, Momoko Shibuya, half-American idol Erica, Shiori Sakata.,[84] Rimo Hasegawa, Hina Higuchi, Kana Nakada, Mayu Tamura, Sena, Yu Nakanishi, Saya Goto, Teresa Ikeda and Sakura Kawasaki.

In 1992, readers ranked Venus as the second most popular character, Minako being tenth and Sailor V being ninth, out of thirty-eight choices.