Warning: This post is spoiler-heavy for those who have never seen the 90s show or read the manga.
Today I'll be discussing Ami Mizuno, as well as the traditional mythology of the planet Mercury.
Quickly, we'll talk about something REALLY basic. So, as you probably know, Sailor Mercury uses the power of water when she fights.
Well, for those who don't speak Japanese, here's a basic lesson - see her last name, Mizuno? The kanji for mizu (水) stands for water! So, there's that. Basic lesson.
Now, onto the fun part. Roman mythology.
So far, our characters have been the same genders as our mythological gods, right? But now we're drifting from that a bit. While Ami/Sailor Mercury is a woman, Mercury in Roman mythology is portrayed by a man. (We'll discuss it in a future article, but there's a lot of gender fluidity within the original Sailor Moon manga, so we can't really be surprised by this.)
One interesting thing is that in traditional tales, Mercury is often seen as the son of Jupiter (watch out there with that boy-chasing attitude, Matoko).
Mercury was also known by multiple, similar names! It varied from Mercury to Mercurius (which is probably what really lead to the word mercurial) to Merqurius to Mirqurios to Mircurios.
One fact that I did find interesting (and actually kind of links Mercury to Ami/Sailor Mercury a little bit) is that there was a festival to celebrate Mercury called the Mercuralia. It took place on May 15th and involved sprinkling water over the heads of merchants and their merchandise/transportation. The water was taken from a well located at the Porta Capena, a gate in Rome.
I'm kind of going backwards with this article, but now let's discuss Hermes, the Greek counterpart to Mercury (and the god that came first, actually).
I'll talk about it more in a second, but really Ami doesn't relate much to the god counterparts. However, she at least shares one common trait with Hermes - she's smart. Hermes may not have held the same type of intelligence that Ami has shown to us, but they're both smart in their own ways. But that's pretty much the only common element between the two characters.
While reading the Wikipedia entry for Hermes, I did find something interesting. Psychiatrist Carl Jung had once discussed the psychology behind Hermes; Hermes was seen as a guide to the underworld, and Jung interpreted this as a way of guiding information between the conscious and the subconscious. So perhaps Ami does this too, in a way? She brings information that would seem obvious to attention in order to constantly save the entire party. I highly doubt this was the author's original intent, but it's an idea to chew.
To be honest, I feel like Ami is the character that can least relate to her god counterpart(s). Usagi and Luna remind me of theirs, but when I was researching Mercury and Hermes, I just didn't get the same feel. Which is good! It's nice that Naoko Takeuchi wasn't afraid to carve her own path with these characters and not stick entirely to mythology.
If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions, please leave a comment below or email me! Next week we'll have another episode. Thank goodness. I can't handle the wait in between new episodes, ugh.
xo, Kate
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