During my childhood in the early/mid 1980s, I saw a Japanese version of The Little Mermaid, my first exposure to the story. It broke my heart and I cherished that feeling.
Years later, when the Disney version first came to theaters, I was surprised they’d chosen a story with an unhappy ending, then felt horribly betrayed when I saw the ending they gave it. They changed the ending?!? How could they?!?
Ah, youth and inexperience.
(I came to love the Disney version too, eventually.)
The anime version was released on U.S. DVD in 2015; I watched it about two years ago and again shortly before writing this post.
The animation is of course very dated; it’s several steps above Japanese TV shows of its day but not those of today, and it’s bound to suffer by comparison to recent work. I’m accustomed enough to old anime this doesn’t bother me in the slightest, but it would be a shock to anyone who hasn’t seen anything older than, say, Inu Yasha.
A few interesting points:
• If not for a few long shots of a faceless crowd, you’d think there were no mermen at all in the sea kingdom except Marina’s father. (Palace duties are carried out by fish, crabs, jellyfish, and other sea creatures.)
• Marina (the little mermaid) and her sisters don’t wear any kind of clothing, but their grandmother is almost completely covered. You see her face and hands and the end of her tail, but that’s it. Maybe clothes get in the way of swimming and Grandmother doesn’t swim much?
• The Sea Witch creates the storm that wrecks the prince’s ship . . . because she wants to feast on human blood.
• When Marina breaks the rules and runs off at night, making everyone worry and search for her, she is rewarded with an early coming-of-age party and a pendant that supposedly marks her maturity.
• The story takes the time to make sure Marina knows, and we know, that she’s forever giving up her family and her friends and that this is a real loss. Loving the prince doesn’t shield her from feeling this pain.
• In a story where I immediately accept that a mermaid can have conversations with a dolphin, it is still startling to watch a cat speaking back and forth with a human king and queen.
• It’s unbearable to know you will die in the morning and there’s no way to change that; it’s also unbearable to be speaking to your best friend knowing she will die in the morning and being equally powerless to change it.
• We don’t know precisely what voiceless Marina is thinking near the end, but her actions could express either a sense of betrayal at not being chosen (with its complex of anger, humiliation, shame, and the desire to strike back) or a horrible doubt, the fear that the one she risked everything for wasn’t worthy of her love.
The film that was among my earliest introductions to tragic stories can still make my eyes water.