Title: School Mermaid

Author & Artist: Yoshitom Akihito

Chapters: 1-3 (Complete)

Summary

Yoshiko and Haruko are in love (not with each other). When one is in love, they must confess to the person of interest to see if they feel the same… right? Not in this case. Both girls decide to take a more subtle approach. When cleaning one of the floors of the school, the girls find an old book that relates to a concurring rumor. Late at night, mermaids appear in the school and if you eat their flesh your love will come true. Will the girls kill for love?

The Good

Setting:

It’s rare to complement a manga or a comic for the use of setting. Setting is usually the last thing people think about when reading a comic, but here it works. Being somewhere familiar (like a school), but in a different setting (at night) can be quite nerve racking.

The Mermaids

I am vaguely familiar with the Japanese myth around mermaids, though the story serves its own mythology. Without giving too much away, the mermaids were the main highlight of the story. Not only that, but the process of how they came to be is (to a point) horrifying.

Short Read

It’s short (like this sentence). However…

The Bad

Character

There is a point in the story where I found the character to be very unbelievable. Even in the beginning, I couldn’t believe the whole notion that girls would kill something for “love”. I want to say this may be a “cultural thing,” but I doubt that completely. This could also go under my hatred of the manga female archetype, but I would be wasting my time.

Not Really Horror

There isn’t really anything horror about the manga. Yes, there is an exploration of empathy and the loss of humanity, but other than that nothing.

Ending

I did not like the ending, but that is because of a “cultural thing” with me. I am used to the “happy ending” treatment and I am not afraid to admit that. I have seen movies and read stories that didn’t have a “happy ending,” and in the long run I did not like the majority of them. Here, however, I’m torn. I know I don’t like the ending, but I’m trying to see the meaning of it. It feels like a message hiding in the story rather than just a short tale. Even so, I still can’t see pass the badness.

Overall

It’s hard for me to recommend this manga to beginners mainly because of the ending. The ending may actually discourage beginners from reading any more manga, or I’m just thinking too much into it. My dislikes outweigh the likes, yet I think there is more to this story than what my current thoughts give it. This will be all on the reader to decide and debate. I give it a 3 out of 5.

Rating:

Note: The story is very short so spoilers were out of the question. Sorry I couldn’t go into detail any further.