Sailor Moon Crystal Act 2, Ami – Sailor Mercury, premiered July 19th in Japan and worldwide. It’s available to view on Crunchyroll, Hulu and Niconico. This episode marked the introduction of Ami Mizuno who we soon discover is actually Sailor Mercury. As with the first episode, this story follows the manga very closely. The episode where Sailor Mercury appeared in the original Sailor Moon anime was also fairly faithful to the manga, so fans of the old show may see some similarities there.
It would be easier to list the differences to the manga than the similarities. The main ones that come to mind are Ami seeing an image of Silver Millennium when she touches Usagi and Sailor Moon attempting to reuse her Supersonic Waves attack. Once again we see that this adaptation follows the newer version of the Sailor Moon Manga as the Crystal Disk is actually a CD Rom and not a 3.5″ floppy disk as it had been in the original publication of the manga and 1992 Sailor Moon anime. We can conclude by this that the series does not take place in the early 90s, but either some time later or in the present time.
The episode starts out with our introduction to the genius girl Ami, who’s scoring perfect in her tests, getting the best grades in her class. Her genius is in part attributed to the Crystal Seminar, a new cram school she and other students are attending. Luna is looking into Ami which leads her to have suspicions about the Crystal Seminar, which is actually a plot by the enemy to brainwash smart students into helping them find the Silver Crystal. Usagi befriends Ami who turns out to be a whiz at video games. Once her true identity as Sailor Mercury is revealed their new friendship moves to a whole new level.
This episode also includes the introduction of the Disguise Pen which Usagi gets by tilting the Sailor V arcade game. She uses it to transform into a doctor in order to sneak into the Crystal Seminar. In one scene where Luna is investigating Ami with her computer we can see that she’s also looking into Tuxedo Mask. There’s also a silhouette of Rei with little info about her but her name is visible in the reflection of the screen seen in Luna’s eyes.
The final scene shows us our first look at the Hikawa Shrine and Rei Hino, who will soon become Sailor Mars. The Niconico feed gives us a next episode preview for Act. 3, Rei – Sailor Mars which will be playing in two weeks, on August 2nd at 7pm JST, 6am EST and 3am PST. Once again we are following the manga with a story of the cursed 6 o’clock bus which introduces us to Sailor Mars. The preview shows us our first look at Zoisite who didn’t show up until much later in the original Sailor Moon anime. Will Sailor Mars kill Jadeite in the next episode like she does in the manga?
Keep reading for more screen caps of the episode and next episode preview.
