Player Name: Jelle
Age: 27
Contact: queeningsquare
Timezone: GMT+1
Other character currently in game: n/a

Character name: Minako Aino
Age: 16
Canon: Sailor Moon
Canon point: End of the manga
History: Wiki link

Three key adjectives: Driven, playful, two-sided

Influential Events:

"It does feel really good to do this! I guess I won't give up being a soldier of justice after all!"

○ There's no doubt that the most influential event in Minako's life was the awakening of her powers as a sailor soldier. Up until that point, Minako had been a pretty normal girl. Going to middle school, taking shortcuts on the way there every morning to avoid being late, hanging out with friends, playing sports, dreaming of having the perfect first love sort of moment, the whole deal. Sure, Minako may always have been a little more energetic and dramatic than most teenagers, but anyone would have considered her normal at that point. Meeting Artemis (her partner and cat) and having him tell her that she was a sailor soldier was the first thing that shook up anything about that life. It's interesting to see though that despite this big change in her life, Minako seems to stay pretty much the same personality-wise at first. Although her hobbies now include hunting down evildoers en monsters after school, she still does it with the same dramatics (long, rambly speeches and way over the top actions) we saw her display before she knew she was a sailor soldier. It does bring in some gradual changes though, like having less time to hang out with friends and having to develop a sense of responsibility, that end up paying off in the long run with the next events.

"Perhaps I really am awakening."

○ The setup mostly pays off with the next event, which is when Minako recovers her memories of her past life thousands of years ago as a sailor soldier on the moon. Imagine being only barely 14 years old, but suddenly having all these memories of a life as an adult where you were the head guard to the princess of an important kingdom. It's a lot to take in, especially at that age, and we see Minako noticably change because of it. She loses some of her childishness when the weight of her responsibilities gets to her. She's the only one who remembers the past, so she has to find the other sailor soldiers and the princess and protect them. She has to pretend to be the princess herself to trick the enemies into hunting her down rather than the actual princess, Sailor Moon. She has to be ready to lay her life down for her princess, all at age fourteen. It's tough, but Minako does accept it fairly easily, showing her true mature core beneath all the playful dramatics. However, the way she accepts it (she cried, and then says "Everything I thought I was before my awakening wasn't really me. It was just a guise until this moment arrived.") shows that she may be taking her responsibility a little too seriously..

"You guys understand, right? We must avoid repeating the mistakes of the past. This time we must seal that thing away, for all eternity, once and for all."

○ .. which leads into the next event of her meeting the other sailor soldiers. When we see Minako at this moment, she almost seems like a different person than before. She's much calmer and quiet, acting almost a little like an elegant role model to the others. We see that Minako has completed devoted herself to her duty, to the point of practically shedding everything she was in order to be someone more appropriate to fill her role. She's practically left "Minako Aino", as in her human self, behind to be "Sailor Venus."

"Sacrificing our pens is the same as sacrificing our lives. And I am prepared to do that."

○ This gradually changes over time, but I'd like to highlight one of the moments that probably prompted Minako to rethink that decision about herself - the moment during the first arc of the manga where Minako and the other three sailor soldiers decide to sacrifice their own lives in order to be able to save their princess. During this moment itself Minako is still very much the serious leader. She's the one who takes the lead and suggests they do it in the first place, and she doesn't seem to hesitate in the decision even for a moment, still willing to sacrifice everything for their mission. But what Minako learns through this moment - because all of them do sacrifice themselves, but are revived later on - is that she's not alone in her mission. That heavy sense of duty and responsibility she felt the moment she regained her memories isn't just hers alone. She shares it with all these girls, and she doesn't have to bear it all by herself. I think this, combined with the love the other girls (and especially Usagi) give her, is what makes Minako end up not completely throwing away the part of herself that's just a normal girl, the part we see at the start of the series. That is how we end up as Minako as she is for the rest of the series: not totally a normal fun-loving girl, but also not totally a cold pragmatic soldier. She opens up again, displaying a lot of her usual dramatics and energy during her daily life (in the end even moreso than the other sailor soldier girls, really), but is then capable of getting harder and more down-to-business whenever it's required.

"I don't think it's just a coincidence that we keep thinking about people who aren't here! Because of course, you guys can't depend on your leader!"

○ There's one main part of Minako that hasn't really been discussed in these parts, so I'd like to highlight that with another event from quite a bit later into the series, during the fourth arc. Underneath Minako's energetic-girl-and-pragmatic-soldier duality is yet another layer, and although she does show her two sides to anyone without bothering to hide either of them, the extra layer is the part she does desperately try to hide. That extra layer is her insecurity. It's on display multiple times during the series, but nowhere does it hit as hard as it does during the dream arc. When the other sailor soldiers have already managed to power up and gain a new sailor soldier form, Minako is the only one who hasn't - and even worse than that, at one point she can't even transform anymore at all. She inwardly starts doubting herself both as a sailor soldier and as their leader, feeling worthless and unsuited for the role. Minako doesn't voice any of those concerns out loud though, instead just seeming needlessly temperamental to the other girls out of nowhere. It gets to a point where she's so desperately trying to prove herself (moreso to herself than anyone else, mind you) that she runs straight into an enemy's trap in order to confront said enemy, even though she's unable to transform or fight at that point. Her recklessness almost ends up getting her killed, but Artemis shows up in time in order to help her out and make her realise once more that sometimes being unable to do something doesn't mean that Minako isn't strong enough - sometimes it just means she needs help, or someone by her side. It's that realisation that makes her able to attain her new upgraded sailor soldier form as well. However, it has to be said that this development is not as much of an open and shut case as her finding her balance between her regular self and soldier self is. Minako still has a lot of trouble with sharing her insecurities (when one of her fellow sailor soldiers brings up worries of maybe dying in an upcoming battle in a later arc, Minako tries to talk around it by bringing up all the fun stuff they can do after the battle rather than focusing the worry and insecurity head-on), but she has at least made a first step towards getting better at sharing them through this event. Even though she's still coping by overcompensating with dramatics to pretend she's fine most of the time.


Link to Samples: Link to Sample 1; Link to Sample 2; (and a bonus test drive sample.)

Chosen path: Dancer
5 Abilities: Four path actions: Acrobatics, allure, master of faces, shocking grasp. One canon ability: Her canon magical weapon, which is a crescent moon shaped compact mirror. She throws it like a boomerang as an attack, so it's kind of similar in use to throwing knives and fits within the dancer archetype that way. Canonically the mirror inside the compact is also able to show the true form of things in its reflection (for example, Minako saw herself as Sailor V in it, monsters disguised as humans showed up as monsters, etc.) but I understand if that's too powerful and has to be left out of it, just let me know!
Why this path?: Minako is the kind of person who loves performing and dreams of being an idol. Of course that immediately made me think of either a bard or a dancer fitting her very well. The reason I went with dancer over bard is that tends to sometimes fall into more of a supportive role by boosting or healing teammates, while a dancer is much more independent and proactive. That suits Minako to a T, since she has worked by herself as Sailor V before joining the team, acting like a kind of typical phantom thief or vigilante type. I think dancer is the ideal path that combines both Minako's more charming and playful nature with her capability of being more ruthless when she has to be.