I Want to Quit Being a Sailor Guardian: Minako's Dilemma

Trudging home from school, Minako grows weary of the way her duties as a guardian crowd out any chance at an ordinary life, and she envies every couple she passes. A stray volleyball breaks her mood and reunites her with Asai, a former teammate who wonders why she abandoned the sport after returning from England. She deflects with vague talk of other obligations. Over the following days Asai grows friendlier, admitting he once had a crush on her, while Minako keeps insisting she is simply too busy to play again.

Her low spirits spill into a study session at the shrine, where she pushes Sailor V drinks on everyone and mutters that she might give up being a guardian altogether before laughing it off. A walk with Haruka pushes the question further. Minako asks whether Haruka ever longs for the life of an ordinary girl, and Haruka answers that she has never seen herself as ordinary, that she embraces both her passion for racing and the responsibilities that come with who she is, leaving Minako to puzzle over what those hidden duties might be.

Meanwhile Professor Tomoe, pressuring Kaolinite to stop failing, decides to hunt athletes, and Kaolinite plants a daimon egg inside one of the gym's volleyballs. When Asai handles the ball alone after practice, the egg activates. Minako, arriving just as another girl claims Asai as her boyfriend, alerts the others and becomes Sailor Venus. The daimon Haikyun snares her in a net and rips out Asai's pure heart, which Kaolinite confirms is no talisman before fleeing.

The monster serves the stolen heart like a volleyball, and the Inner Guardians rally to bat it safely between them until Haikyun's telekinesis wrenches it back. Drawing on her old volleyball skill, Sailor Venus passes the heart cleanly to Sailor Mars, a technique the injured Asai recognizes as Minako's own. Sailor Moon then banishes the creature with Moon Spiral Heart Attack. Afterward Asai asks Minako to thank Sailor Venus for saving him, and she feigns ignorance, while Artemis later greets her at home with flowers and a joking invitation to be his date.

The story marks the first appearance of Asai and doubles as the hundredth episode of the anime. It leans heavily on Minako's crisis of confidence about balancing guardianship with a normal teenage life, a theme set against Haruka's settled certainty about her own road.