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?)