My Bride is a Mermaid

 

 My Bride is a Mermaid is a manga by Tahiko Kimura. 

"A young boy gets saved from drowning by a mermaid but according to mermaid law, if a human sees a mermaid's true form, both are to executed. The only solution to the problem is for him to marry her and become part of the mermaid family."

General Thoughts: I enjoyed this as an anime. It was pretty good. I think the anime got better as it went on and the conclusion was engaging and thrilling. The manga... I didn't finish because there were so many cliches and it wasn't going anywhere. Once I got into the "I'm forced to work in a Maid Cafe" and it went on for an entire volume, I just put it down. 

<< Spoilers Beyond This Point>>

Plot: I think it has a promising storyline. Sun has to go live Nagasumi and be his bride and not get found out that she's a mermaid. Things get worse for Nagasumi when all of her yakuza family starts teaching at their school. What get could more entertaining than that? It had so much promise, but then got to the point where the writer probably didn't know what else to do and it floundered hard. I read on for a while after I wanted to quit, but it just kept going in this maid cafe and just wasn't funny anymore. The humor got lost and I just needed to stop. 

Setting: The setting wasn't a really important part of the story so it wasn't given much development. The  under-the-sea moments and development could have worked really well, but they let it slide. The other parts on land were a typical Shoujo or Shonen in Japan, sometimes visiting Tokyo or Kyoto, but nothing spectacular. 

Characters: I like the fact that Nagasumi tries hard not to be a perverted teenage boy, but I can understand why he fails at times. Sun is alright and I like the rivalry between her and Lunar. (The music in the anime is really good.) Chimp is obnoxious and Lunar is kind of annoying. Neither of them have super redeeming qualities in my opinion. The Seto Gang is kind of funny, but they lost a lot of their humor as the story went on. 

Spice: 3/5 Spicy Chilis. I'm putting this one here because panty shots, boob grabs, and "oh no I fell on you in an awkward position" happens often enough to be annoying. There are also moments that are rather inappropriate where he has to help the girls clean off their fins, but it looks like he's touching their butts or touching them inappropriately. The Fan Service is annoying. 

Writing/Illustration Style:  The illustrations weren't particularly amazing. It's an older style of illustration and it didn't particularly age well. And the narration was bland. 

Overall: If I felt inclined to have this story again, I'd go for the anime and leave the manga by the wayside. I didn't get far enough (though quite a few volumes in) for it to get good in the manga. The anime had a better overarching theme of "what would I really do for her?" whereas the manga lacked and floundered. It drowned with no mermaid to actually save it. 

Siren's Lament: Season 1

Siren's Lament is a web comic I was introduced to by my best fwiend (yes, that was intentional) and it's artwork is BEAUTIFUL!! The second I opened it up on my phone I was take aback by the beautiful artwork (and cute chibis) that make of Siren's Lament by instantmiso.

This story is about sirens and the curse that it is to be one. Sirens seek out brokenhearted people, kiss then, then trade places with the human becoming human again while the person becomes a siren with no memories of their previous life. Lyra watches the boy that she's liked for years be with the most beautiful girl whoever mo-ped-ed into the city. Not wanting to change the friendship that they do have, she says nothing. One night, after a "not-date" is canceled with Shon (the boy) she goes to the ocean crying. Hearing a strange song she falls into the ocean and is saved by a siren's kiss. However, something goes wrong and they both end up on land with legs, except for when they are submerged in water when they gain fins. Neither Ian nor Lyra wants to be a siren so they must find a way to break the curse before time runs out and she loses everything.

This was a sweet story even though it has a nasty love triangle. Normally I don't like them, I blame a specific vampire novel for that. So if I know that the main point of the story is a LT I tend to skip it. However, if it isn't the main focus or if both guys are awesome I can over look it. LT's often have too much unneeded YA drama. This, because the characters are older, out of high school, most of the flaring drama recedes. Yay for this story!

I do really like the characters here. Both of the guys because they are very different and Ian is hysterical. Lyra is funny too and while Shon isn't as outwardly comical, he definitely has his funny moments. Their chibi's and the way they act around one another is great. It seriously made my day. There is some mild bedroom humor, but nothing overly obnoxious. Pele and Tua are great fun too and I like them both a lot, especially together. Over all, for everyone there were times when I busted up laughing and had my husband look at me strangely. It was great fun.

The basis of the story is compelling and the world that is made around it is an interesting one that I want to dive more into. Trying to get the curse lifted alongside gaining enough courage to say how you feel work well together. It also brings great conflict amongst the characters even as they are growing closer together. The ending of Season 1 was particularly thrilling and I busted chapter after chapter very quickly wanting to know what was going to happen.

It is only available online as a web comic (at webtoons.com) or an ebook. It appears most of Season 2 is published online where you can read it, but because it hasn't been completed as of 9/2018, I'll wait to give my review of Season 2 once it is done. It comes out weekly with new updates, so read the continuing story.

Enjoy.

P.S. Here are some photos of the beautiful artwork that is just amazing.

 

They make me laugh so much! 

Deep Blue

Deep Blue by Jennifer Donnelly was dripping in cheese. I am actually fairly surprised that there isn't a copy in the children's section when the childishness would be appreciated. For a children's book, like sixth grade, no higher than eighth grade, would be okay. They would enjoy it. I did not. I even read another review, hoping that it would get better, but she had the same complaints I did and said it didn't get better.

Donnelly used cliches which weren't actually cliches. Such as: Money = currensea, girlfriend - merlfriend, a family tree = coral tree, and candies are weird things like "cillawondas, bing-bangs, janteeshaptas, and zee-zees." It also has paragraphs like "the others set off and she followed at a little bit of a distance, watching Neela, swim with Ling, and Ava with Becca. ... But as she watched her oldest friend, and her three new ones, swim ahead of her, she felt surer and stronger about facing what was to come." (Two lines of brief dialog followed by a new chapter. I wrote like that when I was in high school--I was alright, but not good enough to get published, at all. I remember having filler words like "at a little bit of distance." Why not say "behind" or even "at a distance"? The book is very wordy and takes a long time to get anywhere. 

It takes a while because most of the book is an info dumb. I get that there needs to be explanations, and exploring this world, which isn't a cliche fantasy world, is important. She needed to set the environment, but I could easily skip paragraphs, almost whole pages, and not be hindered. The world was well thought out, but poorly executed on the page. 

By page 77 I was bored and I only got to 150 before I gave up. The inciting incident finally happened, but not until page 95. 95!! There was too much set up in her perfect palace life with minor dramas between her and a cliched cheerleader like figure. Again I had one in my high school stories. My character Daisy served the same purpose as this one did, filler of possible backstory. But then suddenly everyone in the capital city is dead or being held hostage by the bad guy--somehow that happened. She and her friend run, er swim, but then get captured and talk to the villain of the story. He's charismatic and condescending and threatens to kill everyone if he doesn't get his way (like another one of my characters from high school, they are really good at throwing tantrums). They escape, find the rebels and are suppsoed to save the sea from the bad guy and his evil plan.

The characters didn't develop at all throughout the first half of the book. Neela is SUPER childish at 16 years old and is always gorging herself on candies. All the relationships seem... fake? They are weird. I felt nothing for any of the characters when they died--maybe their are dead, we don't know for sure because nothing was definite about many of the ones who died. I should have felt something, especially if you are going to spend 150 pages of info dumping.

The plot was extremely cliche. You have a strange dream because you're the chosen one. You don't want to marry the guy you re betrothed too--because you're a princess. You are on your own, because what YA novel has your parents as being a big role during your adventure? Because you're the chosen one you must stop the bad guy and releasing doom and destruction on the world. There are magical objects you need to find. Oh and those mythical creatures you thought were mythical, they aren't. Moral you learn is probably friendship, because boys are dumb in this book. P.S. Girls rule and save the seas.

The only thing I think this book had going for it was the mermaid thing, but the cliches killed it for me. There are three or four other books, but I'm not going to be finishing this one let alone the others. Jennifer Donnelly, you disappointed me.