The mermaids themselves keep talking about being or looking sexy. Her love interest is constantly making remarks and giving hints. There are countless sexual allusions and so many panels where for whatever ridiculous reason Lucia's clothes come undone and she's naked in front of a crowd. It's not unusual that they are made to look more mature, I also never thought that Sailor Moon looked like fourteen, but it's the treatment of it here that I find rather appalling. Magical girls are typically very young - Lucia is only thirteen years old but looks a good deal older physically.
WATCH MERMAID MELODY PICHI PICHI PITCH PURE ENGLISH SUB SERIES
One of my biggest issue with this series is the stark over-sexualisation. Characters are conveniently always at the right place and time. This isn't even what I would call insta love, there is zero build-up in any of the romances or friendships, everything just happens. It was hard to feel anything for this story that was just moving around at a crazy speed resulting in undying emotions that I fail to grasp. The scenes jump around like crazy which makes every single interaction and reaction of the characters wholly unbelievable. It takes as little as 15 pages for the story to cover the prequel, the basic premise, the introduction of the main characters, the meeting of the love interest, their first argument and events just trip over each other left and right. The problem lies within the execution and that already starts off with absolutely horrible pacing. None of this is new, and none of this is in and of itself bad. But fear not, the young man has plenty of secrets of his own, the villains are actually sympathetic and love and friendship save the day. To stay true to the magical girl pattern: Lucia falls crazy in love with the first guy she sees and must keep her true identity a secret. These action sequences, if they can be called such, consist of a page or two where the mermaids say a cheesy line about love conquers all and we're to assume their magical singing has saved the day. Their ultra-evil plan is silly at best and easily thwarted: the mermaids win by singing songs. Villains pop turn up in every other chapter, one more ridiculous than the other. Even when they are underwater, they seem to spend more time in human form than their true mermaid one. Other mermaids pop up one by one to join the ranks and they're all spending a jolly good time as humans. It is beyond me why she lives in Japan in human disguise, attends school and runs a bathing house. We start off with Lucia, naturally, she is the pink mermaid. Their kingdoms are being attacked and they have to band together to eventually defeat whoever is causing all the havoc. Mermaid Melody helps itself to everything known in the magical genre and somehow manages to amplify everything in the worst way possible.Īs a premise, we have mermaids that can quite conveniently take on the shape of humans. Between the classics and the new, there seems to be this niche of series that didn't manage to add anything new and thus didn't age well. But there are nonetheless many great series out there that own this genre classics such as Sailor Moon and more recent ones that give it a bit of a modern spin like Puella Magi Madoka Magica. Magical girl series are a little unrealistic and formulaic by nature - one needs to let go of some disbelief. But before I get into details, I have to ask: who on earth thought Wet and Wonderful is a good marketing slogan for this?
While I have not seen the anime, I can well imagine that it has smoothed out some of the bigger issues I have with this series and it's certainly not the premise that is bad. That being said, I'd like to stress that this is strictly referring to the manga rather than its anime adaptation. Mermaid Melody is probably one of the more internationally successful magical girl manga series out there and I apologise to all its fans: I think it's a dreadful manga. Review for complete series Mermaid Melody is probably one of the more internationally successful magical girl manga series out there and I apologise to all its fans: I think it's a dreadful manga.
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