Shine Aqua Illusion

Shine Aqua Illusion is a water technique that follows Sailor Mercury across nearly every version of the franchise, turning up in print, the original anime, Crystal, the live-action adaptation, the stage musicals, and a range of video games. The move channels loose water into a directed stream or wave that engulfs an enemy. The word illusion here likely nods to an old sense of the term, meaning a sheer veil-like cloth, a fitting image for the thin curtain of water the attack produces rather than any trick of the eye.

In the anime the sequence opens with a single drop striking a surface and rippling outward, after which beads of water encircle Mercury as she turns several times. Those droplets merge into one flowing stream that she casts at her target, wrapping the victim in a rising tower of liquid; on occasion the water hardens into ice, blending properties with the related Shine Snow Illusion. The Crystal staging is broader, with a towering wave twisting around her body and steered by her motion before she aims it. The manga keeps things simple, a stream of water that shreds an obstacle, while game versions such as Another Story render it as a large wave that hits one foe per turn at a cost of four energy points.

Sailor Mercury is the technique's only wielder, though its targets and outcomes shift by continuity. In the manga she uses it just once, in Act 15, cutting down some of Koan's Droids yet failing to pierce the fiery barrier shielding Sailor Mars, a limitation echoed in Crystal before she later turns it on Prince Demande and on Death Phantom fused with Nemesis. The anime leans on it far more, debuting against Nipas and reappearing across the R and SuperS films and specials. The live-action Mercury first casts it at Nephrite and later at Metalia Endymion, and even employs it to douse a fire. English dubs relabeled it repeatedly, from Mercury Ice Storm Blast to Mercury Gas to Super Aqua Illusion.