My Little Corner: Soldier of Ice and Water…

The second Sailor Soldier/Senshi to be revealed is Sailor Mercury—Ami Mizuno.

I feel the need to preface this with the statement that Sailor Mercury is my favorite Sailor Scout, so bias is expected.

APPEARANCE

Anime: Ami has short dark blue hair and big blue eyes. As she attends the same school as Serena, she often wears the same uniform. It is what she is most often seen in. When she is seen in regular clothes, her tastes remain modest. Her mode of transformation is a pen given to her—a blue stick with the Mercury symbol on top. This symbol will spiral out of the pen and start the transformation sequence. Her Sailor Mercury outfit is similar to Sailor Moon’s, except she has a lighter blue skirt and sky blue bow. Her boots are also blue and a blue jewel rests in the tiara she wears. If needed, her earring can activate a visor for Mercury to use to figure out battle tactics.

Live action: In civilian form, Ami has long black hair that she usually pins back in some way. She also wears glasses, but an early episode shows that she actually doesn’t need to wear them. She implies that she wears them more as a safety blanket than to project an image of being smart. When she isn’t wearing her school uniform (similar to the anime’s), she is often seen wearing dresses or skirts. She also tends to favor sweaters. She generally wears pastel colors, favoring either blue or pink. Her mode of transformation is a bracelet with a blue stone in the center. When she transforms, her hair turns into the blue bob from the anime. Her uniform is the same from the show, though she does have a blue belt in the live action version.

POWERS

Anime: In the first season of Sailor Moon, Sailor Mercury’s powers were more defensive than offensive. Her main help in battle was analyzing the monster and coming up with strategies. When she did use her powers, it was “Mercury Bubbles Blast!” And all that does is…create smog. Which is good in distracting the monster or concealing the Scouts, but little else. She eventually gains more powers, but not until later seasons.

Live action: In the series, Sailor Mercury is more powerful than her animated counterpart. They use one of the anime’s later powers, Shine Aqua Illusion, as Mercury’s primary power. This is manifested as a jet of water. That’s honestly how most of her powers are usually manifested. When she is full awakened as a Soldier, she gains some new powers but none that stick around on a regular basis. She also gains a “weapon.” I loathe to call it that because it’s a tambourine. She shakes it and a blue light appears…At least it’s better than smog.

PERSONALITY

Anime: Ami is a shy bookworm who is established as a genius. In her first episode, she is attending special computer classes. After she becomes a Sailor Scout, she comes out of her shell a bit more but is still shy. And god help you if you attack either someone she cares about or the helpless, because she will kick your ass. As Sailor Mercury, she usually hangs back in order to analyze the situation. But when she is needed, she is right there in the middle of the battle.

Live action: Ami is a shy bookworm who is established as a genius. In her first episode, she attends a special “cram school” where she excels at math. This is later emphasized in a contest where she solves a math problem in her head, even astonishing the host. She does have a love for Minako, which saves her from a youma. She also likes to knit, but her cooking skills are less than desirable. As Sailor Mercury, she takes less of an analyzing role and more of a fighting role. For the first part of the series, she focuses on finding the Princess as her task. But like her anime counterpart, if you hurt any of her friends—she will kick your ass.

RELATIONSHIPS

Anime: Ami is an only child being raised by her mother, a successful doctor. It is said in an episode that her father went off somewhere to be a painter, leaving Ami with her mother. They correspond and we see that Ami does have artistic tendencies. But she wants to be a doctor like her mother and seems to be close with her. At school, her intelligence and bookworm nature tends to alienate the other students. Serena is one of the first to befriend her and we do not see Ami have any friends outside the Sailor Scouts. Within the group, she is clearly the voice of reason.

As for her love life, she only has one romantic possibility. During the Queen Beryl arc, she befriends another genius named Greg, who has premonitions. These are caused by the piece of the Silver Crystal he has in his body and that Zoicite wants. This also allows Greg to know that Ami is Sailor Mercury. Once the crystal is out, Greg moves away but thanks Amy. Later, it’s the image of Greg that leads Ami to her doom. After that, no other possible love interest emerges.

Live action: Ami is an only child being raised by her mother, a successful doctor. Her father is never mentioned and it can be assumed that Ami has no relationship with him. Her mother is often working long hours, but leaves messages on the board in their kitchen. Ami responds in kind. In an episode, Ami and Rei are caught out late at night after fighting a youma. Since they can’t tell the cop the truth, they lie that they were working on a school project and lost track of time. The cop escorts them home and calls their parents. Ami’s mother calls her to the hospital and decides to transfer Ami to the Special School for Ridiculously Smart Children. But Ami doesn’t want to leave her friends! But she doesn’t want to be disobedient! In the end, she decides to be honest with her mother, who just wants what’s best for her daughter.

Usagi is Ami’s first real friend and Ami isn’t entirely sure how friendship works. When Usagi makes a comment about Ami constantly referring to her in a formal manner, Ami goes into panic mode and decides to be a better friend by following a book. That goes horribly and Ami learns that to be a real friend, all she needs to do is be herself and honest. After that, Ami is a constant support to her friends, even when they all end up growing apart. She believes they will come together again and they do. While Usagi and Ami remain close, Ami has her moments with the others as well. She and Rei have a sleepover in their secret hiding spot while escaping their parents after the cop incident and Makoto takes care of a sick Ami. She even takes her to an amusement park for some fun.

Ami also slowly becomes friends with Naru, as the two are thrown together by hanging out with Usagi. By the last episode, it seems the two are genuinely friends.

As for romantic interests, not much happening on that front. There seems to be something with Nephrite toward the end, but this is never fully addressed and quickly dropped.

PLOT CHANGES

The live-action series ignores a large arc from the anime. In the anime, it is said that Queen Serenity split the Silver Imperial Crystal into the seven rainbow crystals. She sealed Queen Beryl’s shadow warriors inside the crystals and sent them to Earth with her last ounce of strength. These crystals were buried inside several different people, which caused the shadow monsters to be unleashed. After healing the person, it was often a fight over who got the rainbow crystal—one step closer to forming the crystal.

While it doesn’t have this plot, the live-action gives Sailor Mercury/Ami her own special plot. At a point where everyone is busy with their individual plots, Ami is often left alone. During this, Kunzite kidnaps her and brainwashes her to become Sailor Dark Mercury. It adds a new dimension to the fighting as they now are forced to fight a friend. Ami, in her dark form, is particularly scary. She uses her dark magic to make everyone be her friend and has no problem trying to kill her friends. However, some instances of her humanity still emerge: she fixes Nephrite’s cape.

Ami is healed by the Mystic Silver Crystal, when Mamoru is hit protecting Usagi. This reveals that Usagi is the Moon Princess and starts Ami’s healing process. When Sailor Dark Mercury has one last battle against Sailor Moon, she shatters Sailor Moon’s scepter and knocks Usagi unconscious. Ami takes Usagi into some part of the Negaverse and they try to get out. But Ami feels she should remain to be punished, that she can’t go back after what she did. Usagi convinces her otherwise and Ami is happy to be back.

While the rainbow crystal arc was a nail-biting one, I quite liked Ami’s brief walk on the evil side. It added a new dimension to her character that the anime never had.