Sailor Moon Volume Five is a manga with story and art by Naoko Takeuchi. Kodansha Comics has the North American distribution rights for the manga, and their English adaptation of this volume was released in 2012. Sailor Moon is rated “T” for teens age 13 and up.
Volume Five primarily takes place in the 30th century. There’s a lot of action in this volume, as Sailor Moon and the other Sailor Scouts have to take on Black Moon. The reader also finds out what happened to Chibi-usa after the cliffhanger ending in Volume Four, and there are several surprising revelations made as the story progresses in this volume. During the climax, at least one character has to wrestle with making a major decision, and to deal with its consequences. I’m sorry to be so vague here, but if I go into any real detail, I would be inadvertently providing spoilers.
While I still think this particular storyline is a little on the strange side, Takeuchi was able to progress the story in a logical way from what had already been established for it in previous volumes of Sailor Moon. I also appreciated how many more “action” panels were included, because it helped to make this volume of the series a quicker read in comparison to the previous four. I will say that this particular storyline does resolve in this volume, and that Takeuchi resolved it in a way a reader would expect if they’ve read the previous volumes of the Sailor Moon manga series.
When Sailor Moon Volume Five was first released, I was hearing about printing issues with some copies; the scans I saw showed entire pages printed so poorly they were essentially illegible. I am happy to say that the copy I received of Sailor Moon Volume Five had only two or three pages where a word or two were a little harder to read, and that the overall book was readable without much of an issue.
For Sailor Moon fans and anyone who has read the previous volumes in this series, Volume Five should prove a satisfactory read. However, be sure to examine your copy closely (if possible) to make sure you don't have one of the copies with the major printing issues.
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