starshinesMonet

This is one of the saddest, most beautiful, honest versions of The Little Mermaid I have ever seen. A childhood favourite, it left a very strong impression on me from the very first moment. An impression the grew with me, instead of fading away. I have always found it interesting how true to life the story is in relation to how relationships might actually work in real life. Stories and fairy tales from this age have this habit of teaching us that 'one day our prince/princess will come and we will live happily ever after" - in this story, however, this is not what happens,but instead we are given a dose of another possible outcome. One of heartbreak and loss. And while I do believe is it an exaggerated over reaction, I always found it comforting to know at least one person was telling me a story with a real basis to it and not just some idealistic future where I work for nothing and receive everything for being good. Another thing I loved about this anime was the music. It is very moving and fits very nicely. Also, the sound quality was good for this era. There was attention paid to background noises this world was made real to me as a result. The art style used was popular at the time it was made, but also unique. The lines were especially clean and I like the rendering of the Sea Witch very much. Overall, this is one of my most favourite anime of all time. While it might not be the most original story, or the greatest in any category, for me it will always be a 10.

wichuraiana

Someone I'd very much like to meet in the nun-run Catholic elementary school I attended put this on a VHS with Disney's The Little Mermaid, and so I first watched the two in a marathon on a day the teacher was out. Being precociously pretentious, I was irritated at how little the Disney version resembled the Andersen fairy tale I loved and slept through it. Then came this anime. I was enthralled. The characters and backgrounds were beautiful in a graceful, idealized way I'd never seen before. The ending, especially, was beautiful in a way I'd never envisioned in all those readings. That school was forcedto close recently and the librarian asked me to take as many things as I could from the library. After wandering around like the oft-mentioned kid in a candy store, I was surprised to find that the VHS I had watched was still in the rack. I figured I had really lucked out and watched it at the first chance I had. Yes, it was indeed childlike innocence that let me be so entranced by this movie when I first saw it. The animation, although better than a lot of others in its time period, is often stiff and flat. The story isn't really as accurate to the story as I had thought, and in fact seems closer to the Disney version - which is pretty strange, considering that this was made first. The dub is pretty awful, especially the performance of the main character, who seems to really enjoy filling mouth flaps with bizarrely pornographic "oh"s. But the art style is still beautiful, and the story is still much more interesting than the Disneyfied version. If you have a little girl around, I'd suggest showing her this old gem instead. I'm sure she'll be entraced.