Welcome to the wonderful world of the Little Mermaid, the one that adheres to the original story and is kind of one big bummer. Then again it is a Japanese anime, they do not coddle their children the way we do, which is a bit harsh, but hey, at least they know not everything turns out okay in the end. The animation is not the best, they were not as proficient back then as they are these days so you will see the same character drawn again and again running in an endless loop as the ship begins to sink. They also do not mind showing boobs like we do here in the prude states of America so no seashell bras here. We also get a cat that is evil and apparently there is no real reasoning behind this...
The story, little Marina lives under the sea and is buddies with a dolphin. She comes across a sunken ship and this sparks her interest in going to the surface world. Fritz helps her by blackmailing a whale to get Marina past security as Marina is too young to go to the surface, unlike her sisters. Fritz's decision will doom Marina! In the sunken ship there is a statue of a prince and when she goes to the surface she witnesses his ship going down. She saves him and before he awakens on the beach, she leaves and another girl watches over him. Marina wishes to have legs and go to the prince and the sea witch helps her after fully outlining the drawbacks. She gets legs, loses her voice and unfortunately, she has found the only man in the world that prefers black haired girls to blonds. A cat tries to kill them and sea foam...
Marina is way too young to fall so in love so quickly, someone probably should have told her there are plenty of fish in the sea. I mean, she falls in love with a dork who plays the flute. The cat is just evil, not sure what its motivations are, even looked it up and it is just an evil cat. Fritz the dolphin is kind of annoying, not sure how he did not wind up in the Disney version, I am guessing Flounder edged him out for the role!
So, this one was not bad, but I think they should have done a bit better in areas. I mean, if the parents of the prince could understand the cat, then why couldn't the prince understand Fritz who could have told them that Marina is the one who saved him? Why could the cat speak at all? I thought maybe it was the sea witch, but apparently the sea witch was not evil and they were not the same (yes, I did read all this as the cat had a Wiki!) Still, it is kind of cool to see a more accurate depiction to the story...if only Marina were green...
The story, little Marina lives under the sea and is buddies with a dolphin. She comes across a sunken ship and this sparks her interest in going to the surface world. Fritz helps her by blackmailing a whale to get Marina past security as Marina is too young to go to the surface, unlike her sisters. Fritz's decision will doom Marina! In the sunken ship there is a statue of a prince and when she goes to the surface she witnesses his ship going down. She saves him and before he awakens on the beach, she leaves and another girl watches over him. Marina wishes to have legs and go to the prince and the sea witch helps her after fully outlining the drawbacks. She gets legs, loses her voice and unfortunately, she has found the only man in the world that prefers black haired girls to blonds. A cat tries to kill them and sea foam...
Marina is way too young to fall so in love so quickly, someone probably should have told her there are plenty of fish in the sea. I mean, she falls in love with a dork who plays the flute. The cat is just evil, not sure what its motivations are, even looked it up and it is just an evil cat. Fritz the dolphin is kind of annoying, not sure how he did not wind up in the Disney version, I am guessing Flounder edged him out for the role!
So, this one was not bad, but I think they should have done a bit better in areas. I mean, if the parents of the prince could understand the cat, then why couldn't the prince understand Fritz who could have told them that Marina is the one who saved him? Why could the cat speak at all? I thought maybe it was the sea witch, but apparently the sea witch was not evil and they were not the same (yes, I did read all this as the cat had a Wiki!) Still, it is kind of cool to see a more accurate depiction to the story...if only Marina were green...