keyofnik: Phraseless attacks, you guys. Battles in Sailor Moon, for me, exist in this sort of pocket where we’re only really seeing highlights. Just snippets of what’s really going on, only the few confrontations that are necessary. There’s a whole world of fighting happening just outside of the borders of the show in my mind, where all the Senshi are, without question, epically badass, taking down monsters both with and without Sailor Moon, sometimes getting hurt, sometimes winning flawlessly, but always always fighting. That’s part of why I enjoy the movies, because they’re like these little peeks into the stuff happening between and around those episodes where, for assorted reasons, we tend to get mired in the ease of formula. But it’s one thing to have it happen in my head, and another to SEE it. Moments like these, where the girls don’t have to say an attack phrase and run standard stock footage. Where they aren’t just teenage girls with an attack or two, they are warrior goddesses of their elements. Where they simply reach for what is theirs, for what is THEM, and unleash their fury. Ami’s attacks in this vein are especially fantastic to see, because she’s so rarely on the offensive. Ami is a defensive player, for the most part, yet here we see that she has the versatility to step outside of that, and to do it so gracefully. Serenely, almost. She looks so calm as she reaches up and then pulls her hands inward. The only visible evidence of anything at all is a a few blue sparkles. Then everything about Ami changes. She turns to her attacker, becomes pure intensity, and then unleashes with a torrent of ice water from FUCKING NOWHERE. I love that. I love that the entire attack is like a surprise, kind of like Ami herself. This is especially great when you compare it to Ami just a few minutes earlier, before she’d transformed. She doesn’t fight at all, because she’s outmatched. Ami doesn’t posses the skills necessary to fight on that field. But this isn’t just Ami Mizuno anymore, this is SAILOR MERCURY, and you underestimate her to your peril.
