4:18 PM - ANIME SUGGESTION: Rumiko Takahashi's 'Mermaid Forest'
I watched the whole entire thing in just two days and it turns out... THAT I LOVED IT! WTF, right?! HAHA! Anyways, just a recap of the story. This guy named Yuta who has been alive for over 500 years because he gained immortality from eating mermaid flesh, rescues a human girl named Mana from a village composed of mermaids that had been raising her in order to eat her and regain their youth. In order for the whole 'youth revival' thing to work, they had to kill one of their own and feed some of her flesh to Mana, thus making her immortal (to be eaten, mind you). I won't say anymore because you HAVE TO WATCH IT! Go to: http://www.animeratio.com/anime/mermaid-forest/episode-1.php
Its only thirteen episodes long, but I must warn that its for a more mature audience, since there's some scenes that are bloody, rather disturbing and there's even some near rape scenes tossed in there. The thirdteenth episode was said to be so strong that it couldn't be aired on Japanese television (I watched it and it was indeed very graphic and bloody), so it was sold only on video. At least ALL of the episodes are on animeratio so people won't have to go site hopping in order to watch the whole series, including the infamous 'bloody episode 13'.
I expected it to be full of sappyness, but I was thrilled to see that it wasn't a 'regular mermaid story'. The socalled beautiful mermaids were actually quite ugly with deformed fishlike faces that had mouths full of huge teeth (they like biting a lot too).
There was also some tragedy behind the consumption of the immortalizing 'mermaid flesh'; it could either on very rare occasions grant immortality (until said person's head gets chopped off); a painful death; or make them into a 'lost soul' or 'deformed one'; an ugly humanoid fishlike monster that kills and eats everything they can get their claws on.
To tell the truth, everytime a mermaid showed up in the anime, I got freaked out because I knew it couldn't be good. This anime made me SCARED of them. I will never see 'The Little Mermaid' the same way again! LOL
Rumiko Takahashi did a banged up job of making the cutesy mermaid myth into a horror story. I mean I've heard that legend before. Shit in fact, where I come from there's some legends as well...
The eating of mermaid flesh grants immortality; mermaids lure men into the ocean to drown and eat them; mermaids mascerade as mortal women in order to be impregnated by human men; mermaids aren't as beautiful as in fairytales (according to ancient 'encounters' of fishermen facing them, these 'creatures' were often described as being more like a humanoid fish, with really deformed features and jagged teeth and talons); seeing a mermaid signals bad weather like sea storms and hurricanes; mermaids are usually wary of people but do become violent if they need to.
This anime, I think, really followed all of the un-fairytalelike aspects of the mermaid myth. It really went into the negative side, making mermaids seem more like deceptive heartless animals that were not only victimizers, but on many occasions victims themselves (for the whole 'immortal mermaid flesh' thing).
Why the freak was I so scared of watching this anime?! I feel so stupid now. Every time someone told me to watch it, I was like: A mermaid story? Fuck no! I don't want to see something as dorky as that. But I enjoyed it. It's a damned shame there isn't more... *sniffle* I thought the only scary mermaid stories I've seen was that cheap Sci-Fi movie 'She-Creature' (did I even get the title right?) and that one episode of Pet Shop of Horrors called 'Delicious'. I think Speed-grapher had an episode with a mermaid as well. She killed people by luring them into the water with her I think. She was a hired assasin of some sort.
Anywho! What will I watch next, I wonder! (probably will give Higurashi: When They Cry another shot, ne?)