Meryl is a character from Astro Boy (1963) and is a major character in The Knights of the Multiverse, introduced in Season 1. She's a Droid that was created by one Dr. Kirika with a special built-in nitrogen coolant tank that allows her to generate ice/freezing blasts. However, she ran away when she found out she was to be destroyed because of how dangerous her power was, until after a chance run-in with her old friend Nyoka led to her finding a new home among the Crystal Knights, where she aids them in their battle against the forces of evil.
Personality[]
Meryl is a very kind Droid, although a bit naive and shy. She's quite friendly & supportive towards those around her, and she doesn't much care for fighting, best seen by how she didn't want to fight the Knights when they first encountered her and only fought back to try and stop them from attacking her. However, reflecting the role she was meant to take of a sort-of superpowered "fire fighter", she has a strong sense of justice and desire to help those in need. She also quickly became apparent of the dangers that villains like the Renegades present, making her a little more lenient and willing to fight to protect herself and her friends. In addition, she is a grateful person as she repays the Knights' kindness to her by both helping around their ship and helping them in their battles.
She's also a Droid who values both her individuality and capacity to feel emotions very much. It's for this reason that she's very fearful of being destroyed, a fear which often causes her to make rash decisions to protect herself, sometimes even causing her to unintentionally let her powers run wild. She also often feels sorry for other robots - both Droid and Mecha - that can't think and feel for themselves, only able to follow their master's commands and nothing more, but she will still take them down if she needs to. This mindset also leads her to strongly disagree with prejudice of any kind, whether it be against other Droids or people who aren't of the social norm.
History[]
Pre-Series[]
A few months before the events of the main series, Meryl was created by Dr. Kirika to act as something of a prototype robot, using a special coolant tank built into her main body & systems in order to help put out fires. She was even given a fire-retardant suit & helmet to make her look like some type of new mascot, though even then her artificial skin was already strong enough to handle the temperatures and pressures of fiery environments. Although she greatly exceeded the P/S Labs' expectations on several levels, many more staff members feared the danger her powers presented - least of all if she should fall into the wrong hands - and called for her to be dismantled immediately. However, head of the lab Sayaka Yumi vehemently fought against this, knowing that the young Droid had a right to live regardless how powerful she was. Unfortunately, Meryl caught one of these discussions one evening and, understandably fearing for her life, fled the Lab to protect herself. From there, she would move from city to city, hiding in any dark alley or abandoned building she could find. When she started to get low on energy though, she forced herself to resort to breaking into robot factories and stealing energy supplies to keep herself online, but she'd always make sure it was when all the workers - human and robot - had vacated the premises. At the same time though, she would help the cities she passed through from time-to-time, helping to put out fires and taking out the odd crook. This time spent alone also allowed her to gain a little bit of a better handle of the powers her coolant gave her, though she did still have the occasional freak-out. She would continue this process for several months.
Season 1[]
Season 3[]
Powers & Equipment[]
- Enhanced Strength & Agility
Like most Droids, Meryl has very impressive strength and is agile enough to leap great distances.
- Freezing Coolant
Meryl has a small but powerful nitrogen tank housed in her body that allows her to dispense a freezing coolant blast from virtually any part of her body that can reach -100 degrees. As she's mastered her powers, she's able to manipulate her freezing blasts in many ways.
- Ice Blasts
- Meryl is able to release blasts of cold air from her hands, either in the form of small bursts to disorient enemies or long streaks. Sometimes the blast is even strong enough to completely freeze another Droid's body.
- Ice Needle
- For a more precise attack, Meryl fires a series of icicles forged from super-cooled plasma from her hands that is capable of tearing through even the toughest of metals.
- Ice Breath
- Meryl is able to literally blow a freezing blast from her mouth, a move she usually uses in last-ditch efforts to get assailants out of her face.
- Coolant Cloud
- Meryl releases enough coolant to create a thick fog to act as a smokescreen to cover her and her compatriots' escape.
- Ice "Sliding"
- Meryl is able to generate a stretching pillar of ice beneath her feet that allows her to reach great distances at great speeds.
- Frost Explosion
- Meryl releases a huge burst of coolant from her body that's comparable to a small blizzard that covers a large area in freezing cold ice.
Combo Attacks[]
- Cosmic Moon Crash
Group combination attack: When facing an enemy that's too strong, Meryl and her friends will combine their powers into a ball of pure, combined energy, with Meryl supplying a flurry of her cooling blast. It can be formed with only four others, but for the truly powerful foes, all of them will partake in creating the ball, making it even bigger than it usually is.
Relationships[]
Dr. Kirika[]
Like a good number of the Droids created at the New P/S Labs, Meryl views Dr. Kirika as her mother rather than just her creator, and she loves her dearly. She does feel quite guilty for abandoning her, and one of her objectives in joining the Knights is finally reuniting with her; though whether she would stay with her new friends afterward or go with her mother to live a peaceful life would be something she had to process.
Nyoka[]
Nyoka was the only person Meryl could call a friend during her time at the Labs, the two being very close. After she and the Knights found her, the two Droids rekindled their old friendship and have once again become close good friends, with Nyoka often being the one that often comes to her side whenever she has one of her panic attacks.
Emily[]
Though she never met Emily (due to her not coming to the Labs as often as Nyoka did), Meryl has obviously heard a good deal about her, mainly from Nyoka and is very impressed by her strength and powers. After she joined the team, while she's not as close to her as she is Nyoka, the two consider each other good friends.
Usagi Tsukino[]
Mohm[]
Agnes[]
Meryl found a good friend in the oldest of the Ryuzaki sisters as Agnes became a sort of conciliate about how she felt about her powers and helped teach her how to get better control of them using the lessons she learned from her adoptive father.
Roscarl[]
Lorelai Heinrich[]
Ayako[]
Drum[]
Meryl took a shining to Drum thanks to their water-related powers.
Magneto[]
During the Knights' battles against the Renegades, Akabon became quite adament in helping Magneto realize that she could use her destructive powers for good, much like her own Photon Bombs.
L.O.S.R.[]
Axis Zeon[]
Gallery[]
Notes[]
In her original episode, Meryl actually had a younger brother robot named Kuri (or Cooley as translated into english), and their original story revolved around the two running away from a space station and heading for the Earth. The two were equipped with heat resistant devices that enabled them to work near the sun, but when their bodies touched, the surrounding temperature would rapidly drop. If they came to Earth, everything would freeze in a giant frost explosion... Thankfully though, this didn't happen, and the two were able to lead peaceful lives on Earth afterwards. For Meryl's depiction in KotM, many of these elements have been changed. Along with the obvious exemption of Cooley , like many other Droids in this series, her use of her internal coolant has been stretched into general ice powers. Her story also takes inspiration from other "prototype" robots/characters that feared for their lives like Kagero from Brave Police J-Decker and Ryo Asuka/X1 Mask from Hikari Sentai Maskman in how they once doubted their abilites or place in the world but regains her self-confidence when she meets the main cast, and even other characters with similar circumstances like Permafrost from Static Shock and "survival instincts" like Arsenal in Young Justice (though she obviously doesn't act as dark as he did).
As the 1963 Astro Boy anime wasn't animated in color, Meryl was given a completely original color palette for her appearance here, which was based off of other ice users like Sapphire from Steven Universe and fellow ice-powered robot Ice Man from Mega Man. Her hair was given a maroon-like color to offset the blue in the rest of her character design.
- Her helmet was also given a visor in this version so as to hide her identity from the characters in her debut episode, similarly to Mega Man's Proto Man or Japanese anime & live-action heroes from the 50's and 60's (though this is only meant to last for said episode, as she drops her suit entirely in all subsequent appearances).
Meryl's name in the original series (at least, by the spoken dialogue) was made out as "Meriru". And since that name doesn't seem to have a direct translation and is only made out as "Meryl", this series chose to give her the more relatively American sounding name.