Hans Christian Anderson's The Little Mermaid - Reviews

While this anime is a precious part of my childhood (in fact it was one of the first anime I ever saw at age 4) rewatching it so many years later has given me a very different perspective of the classic story. As an adult I notice one particular theme that is constantly repeated throughout the tale: Bad decision-making. "The Little Mermaid" is a tragic tale of bad decisions where we watch Marina, the pretty youngest daughter of the sea king, make one poor decision after another while her peers and elders either assist in or reward her unwise behavior. Unsurprisingly enough, her foolish actions escalate until her life becomes a complete disaster.

In beginning Marina makes the bad decision to sneak out of her home in the middle of the night to swim up to the ocean's surface, a place her father has forbidden her to go. We can surely understand her feelings, what teenager likes being told she can't do the things her elder siblings can do because she's "not old enough"? Her young companion Fritz makes the bad decision to blackmail his uncle into helping them sneak out and the uncle makes the bad decision of agreeing to it. After reaching the surface Marina becomes infatuated with a prince she sees on a ship and rescues him when it sinks in a storm. (The ship's captain apparently made the unfortunate decision to not keep an eye out for bad weather so he could get his ship and his royal passenger safely back to the shore) Marina takes the unconscious prince to a beach where a dark-haired young princess and her companions find him and take him away. Marina returns home we hope to receive a well-deserved punishment that will encourage her to make smarter choices in the future. Instead, the cycle of bad decision-making continues. Her grandmother makes the preposterous suggestion to REWARD Marina's wrongdoing by letting her celebrate her "coming of age" early, thereby declaring her a legal adult... AND HER FATHER AGREES.

To reiterate: A fifteen year-old sneaks out of her home in the middle of the night and her father and grandmother decide she's ready to become an adult.

The Sea King's appallingly terrible decision to listen to his old mother might be easier to understand had Marina been his first child instead of his last, but considering he's managed to raise five other daughters to adulthood this bizarre error in judgement comes off as completely nonsensical. The fish of the sea remark on how wise Marina's grandmother is and how she truly knows what's best for her granddaughter.

Um... no. No, she doesn't.

Nobody seems to know what's right for this young girl and the incompetence of those around her are allowing Marina's adolescent emotions to slowly lead her to her doom. Having shown that she isn't yet ready to behave responsibly, the decision to heap MORE responsibility and unearned privilege on Marina's teenage shoulders is one of the most preposterous and destructive parenting choices I've ever seen. So how does "adult" Marina handle her newfound privilege? By immediately going to ANOTHER dangerous place she knows she's not supposed to be and nearly getting herself killed in the process. Overwhelmed by the intense passion that only an adolescent can feel, Marina decides that she has to be with the prince she rescued and bargains with the Sea Witch to make her a human being. Making her worst decision yet, the mermaid trades her voice and swims to the shore with a vial of magic potion that will change her tail into a pair of legs, abandoning her friends and family in hopes of making her romantic dream come true.

For the next month Marina's life on land is everything she could have wished for. She is found and sheltered by her beloved prince and although she can't speak the two young people enjoy each other's company. Things go downhill soon after when the prince's parents begin pressuring him to submit to the marriage they have arranged for him. (It never occurred to Marina that the object of her affection might already be promised to another, nor did she stop to think of the possibility that human customs regarding marriage might be different from her own) The prince is defiant at first but finally agrees when he learns the princess he is to marry is the same one who found him washed up on shore the day of the shipwreck, who he mistakenly believes saved him from drowning. Marina is heartbroken and her dolphin friend Fritz is equally distressed upon learning the news, for the Sea Witch warned them that if the man Marina loved married another she would die the following morning. Marina's sisters desperately go to the Sea Witch and sell her their hair in exchange for a way to save their youngest sister. They bring a knife for Marina to kill the prince, claiming his blood will make her a mermaid again, but mercifully Marina's bad decisions have finally come to an end. She chooses death over murder, coming too late to maturity as she finally realizes she must return to the sea where she belongs.

This depressing story is all the sadder knowing that the young princess's tragic fate could easily have been avoided had the adults in her life done their jobs properly and protected her from the youthful impulses that she was not yet old enough to control. As a result, each terrible decision made led to another until there was no turning back. It's easy to try and lay all the blame on the Sea Witch, but the truth is she was a neutral party. She performed a service requested of her for a price and had no interest in whether or not Marina succeeded or failed in her endeavor afterwards. The people who loved Marina the most are the ones who truly let her down. What makes this old 70's anime especially worth watching is the classic lesson at the end of the tale that more modern versions of "The Little Mermaid" gloss over or leave out entirely: The fact that bad decisions often come at a heavy- and sometimes deadly- price.

Warning this may contain spoilers-

Who doesn't like a traditional fairy tale, well this movie is based on the well known story of the little mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen and yeah it may not be like the Disney version so many people have grown to love there were some good aspects of it.

STORY

Yeah the basic story is just like the original, our female mermaid falls in love with the prince of the story and she has to sacrifice something so she can be with him. I thought it was quite well paced overall but did get a bit slow in the middle which would of put some people off, and it didn't help that the characters weren't outstanding. There was also limited character development but that was slightly expected of a short movie such as this.

ANIMATION

First things first is that this is an old anime movie and as people expect this style of art is a bit outdated but it was still to quite a high quality, of course there were things that were off because it wasn't the type of art style I was used to but it was good. I want to say that you shouldn't get put off by the art style and don't give up on it because of that. I found it quite unique and sweet when you are watching it late in the evening.

SOUND

Sound, yeah well this is were I felt a bit let down. I watched this in the english dub and it wasn't the best. I found the main girls voice quite annoying and that dolphin, urgh...honestly this was what let it down to me. The song at the end was quite sweet but the english voice acting was just, weird.

CHARACTERS

Now onto the characters, they weren't bad...our main girl Marina was just like so many 15 year olds are, intriguied to find out more but something about her just felt weird and it wasn't just the fact that her voice annoyed me slightly. Her dolphin friend really annoyed me, he just seems really useless and kind of pointless in the story, in the end he didn't play too much of a part in the actual story which kind of annoyed me. The prince was just an airhead, like seriously his thought process was just so limited. I liked the villian though, thought she was quite cool XD

But that ends another review, and I must admit I enjoyed writing this one xx

-AngelBeatsYui-

Ps-This is for the Daily Anime Marathon Club in March 2016

While I have no dought that you've seen Disney's The Little Mermaid you may have not heard of the origional tale. Well this Movie is certenly a good place to hear the origional tale. In case your wondering no I will not be comparing this to the Disney vershion because comparing anything to Disney is just unfair. So lets dive into this.

The story

The Story follows the origional tale by Hans Christian Anderson. Since that was a short story they have to do a lot to pat it out to featcher length. Its actualy very strange that they decided to make it a full movie when it would have been so easy to make it a short ova. However the anime knows how to keep the audiances attention and even when it pulls the breaks on the story sumething enjoyable always happens such as charecter development or a suuden action scene.

The animation

Toni animation has always been good at making the most of reused animation and here is no different while the animation is nothing great the art style  and the background are bautiful. As for the charecter desighns well that depends on wich charecters. The merpeople and fish look great but the humans (with the exeption of Marina when she becomes a human) all look genaric.

The sound

There is realy not much to say about the sound. It mainly goes for a slow orcistra tune. If you like that you will enjoy the score here and if not you defenitly won't take anything from it.

The characters

Marina is easily the best charecter in the movie. She goes from a nieve young girl to a much wiser person who makes the ultimate sacrifiese in the end. Fjord, the prince on the other hand has little personality and comes of as a jerk in the end. Fritz the doulphen is a good comic releaf charecter who entertains the audience without feeling out of place.

Overall

I Certenly enjoyed it so feel free to check it out. It,s certenly not a masterpiece but worth watching none the less.

Dang! This one takes me back. This may have been one of the first animes I watched I I can still highly recommend it. You all know the story but be warned this is not the Disney or any of the more modern versions. There are no real villains in this film.

This one stays true to Hans Christian Andersons story which means it's a bit of a sad, tragic though very meaningful ending. Still brings a few tears to this day.

The animation and visiuals are dated and the music too but thats to be expected it is however a very solid story and worth watching.

While most people are very familiar with the Disney version of The Little Mermaid - which was and still is a great movie in its own right - most people are probably not familiar with this short film by Toei back in 1975. The 69-minute film is very faithful to the original story by Hans Christian Anderson; a tragic tale of forbidden love and bad decision making.

One thing I like about the movie is that it starts and finishes with live-action shots of Copenhagen, the home town of Anderson. The narrator gives a basic explanation to set up the movie, and after a scene of the ocean with the movie's title card displayed, it immediately goes into the anime portion of the film. The ending of the movie shows a live-action shot of The Little Mermaid statue in Copenhagen with a closing statement by the narrator.

The story is about a young mermaid princess named Marina who falls in love with a hansome prince that she rescues from a sunken ship during a storm. Marina desires to be with the young prince so she make a deal with the devil in which she can turn human and venture onto the surface world in exchange for her voice, and eventually her life. While the story is mainly portrayed as a tragic romance, the underlying lesson here is that the decisions you make can have dire consequences. Marina seems too naive and curious for her own good, and throughout the tale constantly makes one bad decision after another. These decisions eventually become her undoing, and sealed her tragic fate.

For a movie that was produced in 1975, the animation actually aged very well. The backgounds and overall art style is very good, and the animation is very fluid. The character designs vary depending on who you're looking at. The merpeople and aquatic animals looked solid, but the human characters looked pretty generic, and the cat Jemmy was pretty awful.

Marina's song at the midway point of the film was very beautiful. But other than that there isn't really anything remarkable or spectacular about the sound. The dub voices was pretty decent, nothing really spectacular.

The characters are the obvious strength of the film. Despite her flaws and general naivity, Marina is a very likable character. Her dolphin companion Fritz is very brave and loyal, and the perfect sidekick to Marina. The developement of both Marina and Fritz was well done. Marina went from a naive, curious, love-stuck teen to a more mature, responsible adult who realized the consequences of her decisions and actions, which was in full display at the end when she chose to sacrifice her own life for the happiness of her beloved. Fritz was solid as comedy relief, but even he developed some maturity, and the final scene when he kept calling out Marina's name was very heart-breaking. The human characters - and most specifically the prince - were pretty generic. Jemmy was a decent villian, but most of the time was pretty annoying to watch.

Overall this was a nice movie to watch. I watched it for the Anime Bingo Challenge and was glad that I was able to dig up this hidden gem. Thankfully Discotek licensed the movie for distribution so it is availble for purchase if you're lucky enough to find a copy. While not a masterpiece, it's still a faithful portrayal of the original story.