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Western Mermaid
Maidens of the sea vary and flourish in cultures all over the world, from the selkie or seal maiden of the Irish to the sirens of
the Greeks. The Western mermaid is usually pictured as a maiden with long hair with the upper body of a woman and the lower
body of a fish. They might be seen on the shore or rocks combing their hair or gazing at their reflection. They may foretell storms or
disasters, or the be their appearance may mean luck. Usually the modern image of the mermaid comes from the tale by Hans
Christian Anderson, The Little Mermaid. The mermaid heroine is childlike, innocent, and gentle. She loves a human prince and
sacrifices her home in the sea to live on land and be with him.
Anderson's tale is said to be the story of the mermaid Seila in Reiko Shimizu's Moon Child (Tsuki no Ko),
and the race of mermaids and mermen are at the center of this manga. Too, the qualities of the heroine Benjamin reflect
those of Anderson's mermaid heroine, devotion to her human love and an innocent quality. In the Sailor Moon manga
Sailor Mermaid was taken over by Sailor Aluminum Seiren. The former was the original senshi, and the good form before Seiren.
But as Seiren she worked under Galaxia and helped in the destruction of other worlds. Sirens in Greek lore brought misfortune
and their songs lured sailors to their deaths. But Sailor Mermaid works as another image of the good sea maiden, while as Seiren
she reflects the dangerous creature found out at sea.
Sylphy is the mermaid Dryden is with when he first appears in the Escaflowne series. Marina is the mermaid in Akazukin Chacha.
From ep. 10 of Seraphim Call. Kurumi is a young mangaka writing a tale of a mermaid and human called Real Blue. A boy moves into her building and over time her feelings become reflected in the story she writes and her manga
reflects her perception or what she wishes were. She and the boy part, whatever could be only in her imagination. At the end she throws a bottle with a note into the ocean. In her manga, her
character does the same. Perhaps the note she threw was actually the last panel of her manga. The story she writes ends with the mermaid and fellow kissing and he throws a bottle into the ocean . The last shot
is the mermaid swimming to the bottle and her reflection as she swims towards it. Western tales of mermaids are often fanciful, and sometimes romantic. For Kurumi perhaps her insistence to end her story as she does
and not only write it but throw the bottle herself into the ocean is her own declaration of staying true to herself and affirming that which is her dream and helping it find a place in her reality.
Note on the fake mermaid from The Ash Princess (Takahashi's Mermaid Saga). This is actually based on the fakes passed around by showmen from the 16-19th centuries.
They were commonly made from the head and shoulders of a shaved monkey attached to the tail of a fish. Barnum dubbed his the Fejee Mermaid.
From Nonny: In KO Century Beast, or Century Beast as I've seen it called elsewhere,
one of the main character is a mermaid named Meima (sp?) she is one of
four beasts who are trying to find Gaia to save the world. She and the
others look human most of the time but different emotions trigger their
animal forms. In Meima's case she is a mermaid but when she is in her
human form if she is made to cry she will revert back to her mermaid
form. She also cries pearls. Meima comes from an entire underwater city of
mermaid folk and she and her mother wield the Punishing Fan of Doom
whenever someone transgresses, or just for kicks. Basically they wack the
heck out of the poor victim with a huge metal fan while laughing
maniacally. Meima has a crush on her fellow beast who is a boy-cat with a
tiger-like animal form. He mostly finds her irritating and occasionally
tasty looking, since his major weakness is food, like her's is treasure,
and she's part fish. It's a wacky series, but there is at least one
whole episode that takes place mostly in the underwater city. The ending
has Meima and the boy, Wan, being married in the happy ending. It's only
five episodes long but quite an amusing tale.
Japanese Mermaid
The ningyo. Like the Western mermaid, she was pictured as a long haired maiden with the lower body of a fish.
In Japanese folklore she protected against misfortune on sea and land. Her tears are thought to be pearls. There is also
an old legend that says if one eats the ningyo's flesh, that person will gain long life and beauty.
In anime and manga, the Japanese mermaid takes on a very dualistic nature. While Western depictions
like those given above usually portray either the negative or positive side of the mermaid, the Japanese influenced maiden
of the sea may be both a beautiful maid and a lethal monster. Takahashi's Mermaid series deal with Japanese legends of the
mermaid and explore the popular folklore. In her tales it is true the mermaid's flesh grants immortality but only for a rare few.
Most individuals instead find the flesh a deadly poison and painful poison or else are changed to a monster, a lost soul.
Depictions of the mermaids themselves come in the various stories collected in Mermaid Forest. While humans hunt and kill
mermaids for the greed of immortal life, mermaids do the same to nourish an unborn child they carry, or to nourish a human girl in
order to kill her and renew their youth with her flesh. There is also a distinction made between mermaids who live on land and those
only of the sea, the former resembling the beautiful maiden, and the latter usually with a grotesque face, though there are exceptions
to this rule. A second illustration comes in the mermaid of ep 15 of the Miyu TV series. She dreams of her home in the sea, and her
face is of a gentle girl. She lures men to their death with her dream, thinking it is freedom and loneliness conjuring it. Yet, her
face becomes that of the monster and she devours them, and one cannot know how much the dream is her own and how much it is
a trap meant to seduce. And like Takahashi's mermaids, this one is both beautiful and beastly, and represents both the human dream of
feminine beauty in the sea and the dangers that come with not understanding or respecting the real nature of it.
The following on the mermaid in the Vampire Princess Miyu manga is from Joanna:
The mermaid story is about a shinma who has two daughters, one with
two legs and one with a fish's tail. The mermaid can not leave the
tank in the aquarium they live in but she can see the oustide world
through her sister's eyes. The sister with the human appearance falls
in love with a classmate, unfortunately, he is possessed by the thought
of the sea jewel, her sister.
The ningyo in the Karura Mau OVA are very fish-goblin-like in appearance, and fierce. As in Japanese legend, eating their flesh can extend one's life. It's possible that Mihuyu used the ningyo to
lengthen her own life.
Yaobikuni
The story of Yaobikuni from ep. 16 of Blue Seed is based off the folktale of Happyaku Bikuni. A young girl ate the flesh of a ningyo and went on to live for 800 years without aging. She loved, had children, but
ultimately, growing tired of life, spent the remainder of it as a Buddhist priestess. In the end, she went into a cave to die and outside it grew a
camellia tree, her favorite flower.** More commonly she is called a nun. In ep. 15 of Miyu, Yaobikuni is 700 years old, but will live
another hundred before dying. She kept the mermaid because she was afraid of her time when it would come and wanted to use
eat the flesh.
**http://www.wakasa-web.com/hibagon/jhs/about_area/area_folktales.htm