This review is mostly for myself and specifically a friend of mine. Not that this review is objective or anything I just wanted a more serious and strict analysis of the show. Cuz it is kind of a meme and inside joke that i like this series but i rewatched it recently to actually check if i really liked it or rather if its really unironically good. Also this review is purely on season 1 at the time of writing i havent rewatched season two. Also spoilers ig. tldr yeah its pretty decent despite its flaws. I feel like its storytelling and themes are actually executed well in a lot of places. Although the format shows its age and the fights are anything but varried or well thought out something that i really value in shows. My full thoughts on the series will be represented mostly through character summaries as this show really focuses on its characters and the relations they have with others. I mean it is a romance story first and foremost. Lucia Nanami 220http://2.wikia.nocookie.net/cb20120927150224/mermaidmelody/images/thumb/b/b9/HappyLucia.jpg/300pxHappyLucia.jpg Not the best person to be center stage. Lets get the good parts out of the way i really enjoy her struggle of who does Kaito really love her as a person or her as a Mermaid. Her 2 forms are a great dynamic the human form being a self concious airhead and her mermaid form being extremely confident and genuine however literally a threat to her life as in if her identity is revealed she dies and turns into bubbles. For a love plot its a really engaging situation building tension through its potential consequences and especially initially puts Lucia in a really tight situation since Kaito is head over heels in love with the Mermaid form while remaining pretty... i guess vague is the best word to describe it to her human form. Teasing her doing confusingly direct things that first kiss scene was a genuine shock tbh and even in his inner dialouge never understanding what Lucia is really up to. The way this relationship develops and how it interacts with another common theme ones duty will be detailed better in other character summaries as admitidly... this is where the positives end ... Lucia is rather annoying as a character. From the main trio shes easily the least engaging mostly cuz of her stupidity her obsession with Kaito and rather melodramatic reactions to things. I mean i guess its endearing to some people sometimes its funny sometimes not for the right reasons either but a protagonist of a show should be carrying a little more than she does. The genuinely good parts of her come much later or they are snuffed out by repetition or dead air of the dreaded fiLlEr EpIsOdEs. Slice of life fans rejoice as you get to see little to no character progression for most of the series... ehh ill comment a little closer to this once i cover the minor villains. Kaito Domoto 220https://images6.fanpop.com/image/photos/41300000/Kaitokaitodomoto41333819390479.jpg Kaito is honestly the more interesting part of the main relationship. To counter Lucia lets get the bad parts of him out of the way first. His deus ex machina powers is overused and really uninteresting. It picks up once the main villain becomes more center stage but even then id say Kaito is the least interesting part of that. Kaito as a plot mechanic is pretty dumb just cuz magical girl animes HAVE to have a powerful boyfriend character ig. Kaito as a character is a different story. While his love for Mermaid Lucia is pretty shallow it luckily shys away from it as he slowly and noticibly starts to develop feelings for Human Lucia. For the first half of the story he puts up a rather repeling front to everyone. Being the toocoolfoschoolsurferbrooo and the chill chick magnet. But within his little performances glimpses are shown of his inner dialouge which shows a lot more thinking and caring side of him. He wonders whats up with Lucia he starts thinking if shes the Mermaid from his childhood and when his guard is down he lashes out or does something shockingly weird like i said first kiss scene is wack. And the best part is his facade and defensive attitude falls apart in the second part of the story where more and more he gets blushy and emberresed with regards to Lucia. Now when hes dealing with more difficult stuff like the truth about his parents he has to rely on Lucia for support which points to her it makes this relationship feel genuinely sweet. All climaxing in the final arc where he ultimately chooses Human Lucia over Mermaid Lucia. If only he knew huh? Hanon and Rina 220https://animesher.com/orig/1/141/1419/14190/animesher.comrinatoinprincipessesireneamicizia1419050.jpg Imma try speedrunning these Hanon slightly less dumb than Lucia and feels like a good BFF character. Her relationship is exteremly flat but thankfully and appropriately she has to accept that it doesnt work and makes it a bittersweet conclusion for this arc. In conclusion fuck season 2 they ruined it by having Tarou be randomly into her again despite the final arc. Rina awesome character. Refreshingly without a love interest except that one weird episode where shes into Kaito. Her story revolves around regret for leaving a friend behind and shows a serious side to the show. In conclusion fuck season 2 i might remember it wrong but i think they ruined her with her random new love interest. Hippo 220https://64.media.tumblr.com/a33e6e8b9edfcdc6ebe62efca1f91d19/tumblrpctf92412k1xqknodo4250.png Hippo strangely the star of the secondary characters. While initially primarilly used for comic relief he later gets a really sweet side story with one of the minor villains Yuri. His character focuses on one of the shows major elements which is duty. For example Lucia has to come to terms that she is a Princess and that her love for Kaito is taboo and irresponsible especially since their kingdoms are kinda you know FUCKED OVER BY THE VILLAINS. Hippos gimick is that hes her strict reality check but his hippocracies usually drain the seriousness out of it. Kinda of a disadvantage if your whole character is a joke. BUT THEN HE BE LIKE LEMME HIT YOU WITH SOME FEELS Once his human form is revealed and the side story with Yuri begins he ends up being torn up by it all. Hes basically in the same situation as Lucia except his is probably even more taboo since hes trying to hook up with the literal enemy. And while Lucia being Lucia encourages him to chase his heart to back up his theme of duty with a heavy heart he has to reject Yuri even tho Yuri doesnt buy it at all and equaly mature accepts it as well. Again sucker for bittersweet love stories. Also his powers and role as a guardian feels a lot more engaging than Kaitos asspull powers. Mostly cuz Hippos powers are explained a lot earlier but i digress. The Dark Lovers 220http://images4.fanpop.com/image/photos/23600000/DarkLoversmermaidmelody23609153476352.png The Tom from Tom and Jerry of anime. As everything is love themed they themselves are purely motivated to please their Master/Crush Gaito. They are sometimes very genuine about it as they sacrifice their power to him at the end turning them into stupid little animals for it. They arent very competent at it tho. In fact they arent very competent in general. As villains they dont really bring any tension with them. 90 of the time their plans are absolutely stupid and they get beaten the same way every single time. Its mindless and really stings when thats mostly what the show is about for like half the time. Its actually why later when they become actual inside jokes and are taken less seriously is when they actually become more interesting. Their constant failours them being concious of it and the sliceoflife struggles with it is actually endearing. Theyre so poor and hopeless you wanna root for them just cuz like I said its kinda like seeing Tom fail to get that damn mouse all the time. For them individually Izuru is easily the worst of them. Shes boring flat and has nothing going for her. Eriru is the butt of most jokes. Shes annoyingly stupid but actually starts being endearing when they stop being taken seriously. Yuri is great her getting fed up by Gaitos abuse and lashing out at humans just to vent is a great lead into her side story with Hippo. She easily the most emotionally engaging out of the 4. Maria is great as shes is most often an actual competent threat to the girls. Shame about DeusExKaito as hes mostly her foil. Also side note shes also ironically the most competent with Gaito as well based on the sexualtension in every scene theyre together in. Sadly again we also know she has no chance in that either but Ill get to Sara later : Black Beauty Sisters 220https://i.pin.com/550x/98/bc/8c/98bc8c027228576b9a5cc0a97b814002.jpg What? Tense Fights? In my Mermaid Melody? yeah when these guys first hit the scene shit got real. The mermaid basically had 0 real challange so far they won 99 of their fights with ease. I guess this is a good time as any to bring up the fighting system of this anime. I mean... the songs are neat? if youre into that kind of music. But yeah the elephant in the room is starting to sweat all the fights are recycled footage and a unique song or an evolution in songs is more rare than it should be. Which is a shame cuz it can be interesting on like a really shallow level. The Black Beauty Sisters genuinely present a threat and introduce hints to something more engaging with the battle system by introducing songs of their own and actually WINNING sometimes. This sadly gets exteremely degraded once the filler sets in and their encounters start feeling like any other. However the times when they feel genuinely badass vastly outnumber the dark lovers and their plans contain like at least 60 iq points sometimes The best part about them is their independancy. Unlike the dark lovers theyre loyal to Gaito mostly out of trust in his abilities. They arent in love with him in any way they seem to be more... into each other for most of the time. So once Gaito starts falling appart cuz of Sara they up and leave him basically saying Fuck this we can do way better than him. Their betrayal is a good end to their arc and brings a coolish battle to boot. Gaito 220https://i.pin.com/originals/47/b0/7c/47b07c897e5b6b9532d5f80cdccf6809.jpg Pretty cool when onscreen. He takes a while to get going having only small bits of foreshadowing to snack on in the meanwhile. When he delivers tho hes actually quite interesting. Again with everything love themed his motives revolve around the woman he loves which who can blame him after him imma go into why shes the best character At the end of the day he doesnt feel toooo evil. His hatred of mermaids is justified as it was more his ancestors and his race that bound him to the lonely life he lived. He doesnt even instigate the plot himself hes freed by Sara and follows her wishes to destroy humanity. His true goals lie in getting rid of his lonelyness by surrounding himself with his minions Sara and later his longlost brother Kaito wouldnt that make Gaito 13 years old as well when the series starts?? ig a thing to consider for his sad backstory. When he promptly gets abbandoned and left alone by littelarly all of those he rightfully snaps and decides to adopt Saras bitterness and wants to go along with the whole destruction thing. And the bittersweet ending probably clear what i think of it. Sara 220https://i.pin.com/originals/a9/0d/e1/a90de1d1a78f2a35421d15e035114f7d.png You thought Gaito was the main villain? Sara serves as kind of like the true mastermind to the entire story. She was just another mermaid princess before and much like Lucia she falls in love with a human. That human happens to be extremely mid and ups and leaves her so he doesnt get into her way that being in the way of her duty as a mermaid princess. I assume cuz of the risk of her dying if someone finds out? That whole bubble turning thing gets neglected a lot... She isnt aware of this however and assumes he just left her cuz he doesnt love her anymore. This abandonment and the duty that stoping her from pursuiting her heart makes her snap turning her hair black and making her super strong she took on 6 other princesses on her own unscratched like jesus. She even says in one of her flashbacks like To hell with being a princess. This makes her super bitter at everything especially humans and.... ok i know i said shes the best but imma say that her motivations kinda feel out of her leauge. Like I get being bitter at Tarou but all of humanity? Guess its her way of venting... Anyways to pursuit her revenge she frees Gaito from his prison and acts as his emotional support. Basically putting her trust in Gaito to fulfill her wishes and not to leave her like Tarou did. Her mind still wonders towars Tarou she starts seeking answers to why he left her almost drowns him once along the way but ultimately settles with keeping him a pianoplaying slave at the castle. What i find fascinating about Sara is how the themes of duty and taboo love affects her in the exact opposite way it does someone like Lucia. Sara probably wasnt supported as well as Lucia was which lead to her singlehandedly? destroying her own kingdom probably killing a bunch too. Which for an anime for little girls is pretty dark or its just my wishfull thinking idk. And to bare all of her sins atone for her regrets and to repsect her role as Gaitos only remaining guiding light she chooses to die with him at the end. Absolutely perfect ending for a character. Spitfire Round Good: i couldnt cover it all but theres a lot of sweet moments throught the show. The way it tells its story is it dripfeeds dropplets of story over a long time which for its own good at least the story ends up being decent. some of the filler is genuinely fine. I wouldnt call it great on average its more bad than good and i think the story would benefit greatly without it but its entertaining at times. special shout out to the Nikora side plot for a show thats pretty obnoxious with how it portrays its romance its reffresing to see this more adult take on it Majority of songs are pretty catchy. Its prolly more a taste thing but Im more a recriational virgin so i happen to like them. Fav is definitely Saras song do i need more proff that shes my favourite character?? One particular filler episode was so bad it was good. I lost my shit laughing so much they liker randomly interupted the story 5 times with a random insert song it was so funny i swear. Bad: Yeah that part about filler being good was just pitty points most is really mediocore. I stuck through it cuz of the dripfeeding of story which i guess counts for something but only really shows its age. Probably a huge turn off for most people shows how much the anime has aged. The production value feels extremely cheap at places. Granted the animation picks up in the second half and gasp even includes new footage for the singing portions :OOOO ... the other 98 of the time it looks nothing special and recycles way too much. Run of the mill magical girl anime in short. For being such an important character Tarou really rubbed me the wrong way. His justification for leaving sara is littelarly kept secret until the final hour and revealed so matter of factly lost most of its impact it couldve carried seeing how it was the whole fuckin reason the story happened in the first place. For the rest of the time hes a clueless dumbass who just allows little girls to flirt with him. In short fuck season 2. I mentioned this earlier but the fights could be a lot more entertaining. They feel almost like a formality to a point just a thing to fill in the 20 minute mark for the episode. Better set ups more stakes and consequeces wouldve probably improved it. And yes i know im asking a magical girl anime to be a battle shounen. Conclusion I think that with better presentation and pacing this show has so much unironically good things in it it could be amazing. Now it only really stands as an awkwardly old feeling little girls anime following a format trying to save every penny as not to starve. Which I guess thats what it was made for at the time. Even still I will rest assured that my love for the show isnt 100 memey and ironic and that it does have genuinely good things in it. Its as good as I remember and one day i gotta check if season 2 is bad as a remember. Ill see if thats worthy of a review or not.