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. 

In Another World With My Smartphone (Part 1)

 One of the few Isekai ("different world")  manga I've read. 

Touya Mochizuki finds himself talking with God. Apparently he wasn't supposed to die, so in order to make amends God gives him a chance to go to another world. Touya asks if he can take his smartphone with him and God says yes, and that he'll also have magical powers in this world as well. Excited to start his new life, he hitches a ride with a clothes merchant (who wants his clothes and pays top dollar for the fine pieces) and makes his way to the nearest city. He runs into twin girls who help him find the Adventurer's Guild so he can make some money and stay at the inn. The girls help and they split bounties. Touya finds that not only is his smartphone super helpful, but he has the ability to use all magics in this world. Being a helpful person he makes many friends especially among the nobles which helps him move up in society to where he eventually gets his own kingdom. But not all is as easy as it seems. Crystalline beasts are awakening and nothing, not magic or brute force, seems to be able to stop them. 

The plot of the crystalline creatures and Ende (who I think is a bad guy, though we don't know yet) has a lot going for it. The fact that the Hanging Gardens of Babylon is going to help defeat them is pretty awesome, though I personally could do without the mechtechs--but that's just me. I think it has a lot of promise. 

Touya, though, is a MarySue or Gary-Stu if you like, which would normally make me grade it a bit harder, but I still gave it a 4 Star because as the story goes on he finds challenges that are really difficult to overcome. I do think there are still problems with Touya as a character besides his Gary-Stu-ness--which I guess they give a bit of an explanation for but that isn't until later in the series. He doesn't really change throughout the course of the 12 volumes that are out at present. He's completely awesome (Gary-Stu) and girls flock to him (it is a harem after all) but he doesn't change. There are no faults to over come so there is nothing too change. 

I could also do without the perv-y moments that are sprinkled throughout the series. Because Touya is the only boy who isn't a dad or king of a country, all the perv-y people are robot girls or their female creator who's gross. I end up skimming or skipping through parts whenever they are around. Ugh. It' gets tiresome. 

But over all the characters are fun and the plot is creative. I even find that I enjoyed the "building a kingdom" part of the story where much of it was just trying to straighten things out. It's well illustrated and has a good story. We just need to have the main character not be so powerful at the beginning (give him some training sores) and less "panty shots" or plain sex talk. 

The series isn't complete yet, so when another huge bunch comes out, my hubby will probably have me check it out.