Water water everywhere, and it’s Mercury’s turn to confront evil.
What They Say:
“Act.16 ABDUCTION – SAILOR MERCURY -”
When Rei is abducted, Usagi begins to doubt the identity of Chibi-Usa. Meanwhile, Ami is challenged by a mysterious woman at the World Chess Conference.
The Review
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Rei is in the hands of the enemy, and Usagi is trying not to let the loss of one guardian unnerve her. I’m shocked she hasn’t broken emotionally at this event. She has a little girl who obviously knows more than she’s letting on making herself a nuisance, friends who haven’t exactly proven themselves in this fight, and no hints on how to take down the enemy who seems to brush off their attacks. She’s not in a good place right now.
There are actually two Usagi moments I really liked in this episode, and one is right after Mamoru returns to her house. Usagi stands outside at a complete loss just staring him down for a few moments. Later on Mamoru goes to hug her and she some what brushes him off. There’s no petulant whining and no jealousy here, just believable stress and distance.
Then Berthier shows up, the next sister to step forward and claim a target. She sets her sights on Ami. It’s worth pointing out that the enemy seems to know an awful lot about the guardians, and at no point do the guardians question why that might be. Berthier waltzes in, gets on TV, and publicly challenges Ami by name to a chess match. No one questions her credentials or her questionable attire, and Ami accepts the challenge.
It’s a chess match for the ages as Ami takes on Berthier. If Ami wins Berthier will give her back Mars. If Berthier wins she wants Chibi-usa. Why walk into such an obvious trap? Was there a plan made before the match begins on how to handle this obvious enemy? If there was we don’t see it. Despite the foolhardy approach the actual head games Berthier uses in the match are cutting. Ami is able to overcome them, and even win, but the bad guys don’t play by the rules. Why would Ami expect them to?
Ami is supposed to be the smart one, but she doesn’t wait for back up and runs off after the escaping enemy on her own. She falls into the same sort of trap Mars did and is spirited away to be interrogated in the same fashion as Mars. Rei is still a prisoner, kept alive as a bargaining piece presumably.
Let’s talk about the silly. Why does Mamoru have a puppet of himself as Tuxedo Mask? No, seriously, it isn’t treated as a sight gag so that just raises weird questions. Also, why are Mamoru and Luna so trusting of Chibi-usa at this point. Is it instinct? There are issues of storytelling I want to address but I’ll withhold those until the end of the arc because of the spoilers that would dredge up.
In Summary:
Another one bites the dust. Mercury gets mere moments to shine and reflect before becoming the second guardian to fall into the clutches of the Dark Moon. The rest of the guardians are no closer to discovering who their enemies are or what they want, beyond the obviousness of the Silver Crystal. They aren’t any closer to discovering who Chibi-usa is either. Every moment of hesitation is another warrior lost, and playing defense is a loosing game. Most of the problems present are the source materials fault, and the anime isn’t doing anything to address those. Faithful to a fault.
Episode Grade: B –
Streamed by: Crunchyroll, Hulu, etc.
Review Equipment: 27” iMac running OS 10.10.1, via Safari 8.0.2, FIOS 15/5 Mbps connection. Your milage may vary.