Astute readers will note three things almost immediately about this review. 1) No, this isn't the Disney version. That hardly falls in the scope of an anime site, right? 2) These screenshots suck. My bad. The only way I could get my hands on this movie was to swindle a VHS tape from eBay, and I don't have the capabilities to screengrab from tapes. Usually in times like this there are a plethora of fansites out there to come to the rescue, but The Little Mermaid is such an obscure phenominon that all I could find were a couple of sites with some tiny pitiful screenshots. But, I'll take what I can get. 3) This movie is really, really old. I mean, like, 1979 old. That puts The Little Mermaid as a contender for AA's oldest reviewed anime... probably second only to Lupin the 3rd. Except Lupin is still in reruns and was very recently redubbed, so it only kind of half-counts.
But ah, I'm also quite familiar with Hans Christian Andersen's original tale. I'm a big fan of those old gruesome fairy tales, and Andersen's are about as gory and violent as they get. Disney went through and mopped up the ending and surgically removed the religious undertones, so the original is a much different flavor. Even if it had never been animated Andersen's story would be one of my all-time favorites. So, it comes as no surprise that I've known of the existence of an anime version for quite some time. It wasn't until I started AA, however, that I thought of acquiring it... and it wasn't until recently that I actually did. Thus the question is twofold: how does The Little Mermaid stack up to Andersen's original short story? And how does it measure alongside the gorgeous and nostalgia-heavy story of Ariel?
Characters:
And that's the problem here. Our heroine is Marina, the youngest of a whole gaggle of mermaid princesses who act exactly like every other fairy tale princess in the history of fairy tales. And we have the prince, who is charming and daring and blemishless. And we have Marina's father, the doting old king... and her grandmother the wise old crone... and the sea-witch, a villainous evil wicked magic-using devil... and so on and so forth until all the personality traits have been doled out and the word "cliche" doesn't cut it. The Little Mermaid makes very little effort to add any depth to any of these characters. Marina is lovesick and beautiful... and that's about it. This is fine for a storybook but it doesn't exactly make for an interesting lead role
Even so, this isn't as enormous a problem as the low score would indicate. Having a cast of cookie-cutter characters to dance along your cookie-cutter plot is usually fine when you're retelling a story that's over a hundred years old as this one is. But The Little Mermaid doesn't stop there... no, it goes so far as to go ahead and add in several new and unnecessary characters to make the story more "cartoonish". In any other cartoon they'd be right at home, but in this solemn and archaic tale they stick out like a bleeding stubbed toe. The biggest offenders are Marina's talking dolphin sidekick Fritz and the diabolical cat (who I'm assuming is an alter-ego of the sea-witch, although this is never specified) Jemmy. While the rest of the cast is slowly poking along in their pre-fit roles, Fritz and Jemmy are scampering about cracking jokes, hissing, making faces... and generally doing the things you'd expect animal sidekicks to do. It's obvious the guys behind The Little Mermaid had it in them to flesh out these characters, but why not go that extra step and make the main cast more interesting too? Fritz and Jemmy make the shortcomings of the main character stand out all the more, so I bumped the score down to three. Then, because Fritz and Jemmy themselves are obnoxious wastes of space I went ahead and chopped it down to two. It would have gone all the way down to one, but one of Marina's sisters has a green afro and that made me giggle.
Story:
Suddenly they spot a human ship nearby. Aboard is a young prince who Marina is instantly infatuated with. Suddenly a storm swoops in and demolishes the prince's ship, so Marina dives down and rescues him from drowning. She carts him to a nearby beach where he is discovered by a flock of nuns. The prince is not even aware Marina has rescued him. Time passes and Marina decides the best course of action is to visit the evil sea-witch and acquire human legs with which to court her prince. The sea-witch agrees to do this, under the condition that Marina must marry him or die. The morning after the prince weds another, her heart will break and she'll be transformed into sea foam. In addition, she has to surrender her lovely singing voice to the witch. (And if you think that's harsh, keep in mind that in Andersen's original story the witch just grabs a knife and hacks the princess' tongue right out of her head. Oh, and also, every step she takes causes her feet to split open and bleed. Marina actually gets off light.) Against all odds Marina goes alone into a world she knows nothing about and without the one tool that would have helped her the most. Marina and the prince grow closer to each other until the day the prince's parents insist he marries. He is reluctant to do so until *he discovers his betrothed is the nun who first found him washed up on shore*. Thus the wedding goes on, and Marina is out of luck. *In a last-ditch effort to save her, Marina's sisters sell their hair to the sea-witch for a magic knife. They tell Marina that if she stabs the prince and lets his blood touch her feet, she'll be able to avoid death and come home. Marina finds herself unable to do this, though, and dies a miserable death.* It's a beautiful story all around, *if a little sad*. You get a lot of little things here you don't get with Disney's version, so if you're familiar with Andersen's like I am you'll be delighted to see the majority of the plot in tact.
Animation:
When it comes right down to it, the artwork in The Little Mermaid just isn't attractive. I guess it has a sort of endearing oldschool charm, but in my opinion that's a school so old as to be delapidated. What's worse, my sample is on VHS and so I get all the grainy fun that comes along with an obsolete medium. One oddity I noted while watching is that while the framerate is already low (this is common in anime) there are times when the action will just seem to stop for no reason. Sometimes there is so little movement that the characters' mouths don't even move when they speak. This is particularly comical late in the movie when Marina is mute and just thinking to herself. "Gee," you think, "I know she's just thinking here but it looks just the same as when she was talking five scenes ago." Another tidbit is the almost absurd number of close-ups... the "camera" swings so close to Marina's face at times you'll wonder if you're about to get sucked up her nose. I guess anything to keep those animation costs down, after all.
Culture Shock:
I'm going to just be bluntly honest here... Disney's ruined it for you. No matter how open-minded you try to be watching The Little Mermaid you'll just keep being overwhelmed by memories of Disney's superior take on the story. Even a passing familiarity with Ariel and her cronies will make Marina pale in comparison. Not only that, but The Little Mermaid is wholly unlike any other kind of animated movie. I mean, when it sticks to Andersen's story it sticks like glue. It's a very somber story told at a very deliberate pace... a stark
This is not necessarily a bad thing, mind. "Different" doesn't mean "worse", not in the least. The movie I found myself comparing The Little Mermaid to the most, strangely, wasn't Disney's version at all: it was the animated movie The Hobbit. A dry, humorless tale where the plot was the forefront and the actions were subtle. The Hobbit is a movie which, while definately in good taste to show your children, isn't likely to be one which will hold their interest... and neither is The Little Mermaid. However, as long as you know what you're in for the experience can actually be quite enjoyable. Putting this movie into your VCR isn't like hopping into a Carribean party... it's more like curling up in a dim quiet room with a good book.
So minus the Bible-thumping and soul-searching, how does The Little Mermaid stand up with Andersen's short story? Since it's almost a perfect retelling, I'd say quite well. The differences are few and far between and even the omissions aren't all that noticable. Since, statistically, you aren't likely to have ever read the original story anyway, you literally won't know what you're missing. Also, go read the original story. I'll include a link for you. I promise.
All in all, I found myself enjoying the movie even for all its shortcomings. The biggest shortcoming, in my opinion, is the fact that no DVD is available... but I can't blame the movie for that. The Little Mermaid is a story that I feel can be told many different ways and be solidly entertaining each and every time... even if it's anime.
Overall Rating:
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"That witch neglected to tell me her potion would leave me with a hangover..."
It's kind of like an antique blow-up-doll.
Apparently she torments mermaids whenever there aren't any Battletoads around.
"It's not that... it's just... I was expecting you to look more like the statue. You know?"
Unfortunately, the scene where Fritz gets caught in a tuna net and eaten by pirates was cut out of the movie.
