I have to say, I've really enjoyed the Sailor V manga. It's such a great look into the thought processes of Takeuchi. In the first volume she played around with character designs that would later appear in Sailor Moon. In this volume we can see where she had fun fleshing out the world from the first Sailor Moon arc. (This series ended about the same time as the Sailor Moon manga did, so all of this was drawn way after the Dark Kingdom arc ended.) 
 It's really neat to see manga like this, where you not only get to see the creator play around with character designs but to also develop their art and storytelling styles as well. It's a pretty fun experience, to be honest. (And of course the artwork is spectacular.) 
 As far as storyline goes, I found that volume 2 had a tighter plot. You can tell that Takeuchi had a better idea of how the story was going to end, so as a result the characters were better defined and the stories were faster paced. I was a bit sorry to see it end, but it wouldn't have fared well if there were more volumes to the series. 
 This is an absolute must have for all Sailor Moon and shoujo fans.