Mikane and the Sea Woman (Manga Review)

Mikane, a boy on the cusp of manhood, returns to the small-town island community where he was born to live with his father. Walking along the beach, he finds a beautiful woman who has cut her foot. In a fit of charity and hormones, he takes her home and tries to treat her…only to find that she has already healed. But now she’s starting to look strangely dry…

Spoilers for the first seven chapters of Mikane and the Sea Woman!

I’ll admit, Mikane and the Sea Woman got me good. But man, if this series didn’t take me hook, line, and sinker.

The first six chapters set up the story as a pretty classic coming of age love story with fantasy overtones. There’s a standard love triangle: Mikane, who’s crushing hard on the mermaid; the mermaid, who seems to enjoy spending time with Mikane but keeps telling him she’ll have to return to the sea, where he can’t follow; and Yuko, a girl in Mikane’s class who’s crushing hard on him.

When Mikane realizes that the woman he brought home needs water—lots of water—to survive, he sticks her in his tub. Yuko comes over and finds them in the bathroom together, and leaps to the obvious and trite misunderstanding. But later on, she finds that Mikane is sad that the woman had to leave, and she decides to be selfless and make her beloved happy, and heads off to find the woman. When she finds her (again on the beach), the woman declares she’s not going to see Mikane again, but Yuko presses her to acknowledge the boy’s feelings and not to cut things off. Then she messages Mikane, who comes running.

Meanwhile, Mikane (fully aware that the woman is a mermaid by now) has been trying to work through his new feelings, and comes running at Yuko’s summons. He meets the woman again, and again she says goodbye and that he won’t see her again. When he asks why, she says, “It’s because you know nothing. When it comes to the sea and mermaids, you’re totally clueless.” Then she heads off into the water. Mikane tries to follow her and makes one last appeal for her to not break off their nascent friendship.

And that’s where the series took hard, surprising turn. It lured me in like a siren.

I rarely get chills reading manga. I got chills.

Suddenly the woman grabs Mikane’s arm. “You really are a foolish child,” she declares. “I warned you… I pushed you away… I even held myself back…” She sprouts fangs. Friggin’ fangs! “Time to feast!” And she drags him beneath the waves.

Review: This is one story that has grabbed me in a way few have lately. Part of it is the way it set up and delivered the twist at the end of chapter seven. I really, really hope they don’t pull a bait-and-switch: I want this to be a legitimate danger that Mikane finds himself in, and that he learns a darn good lesson from this.

Because (and this is the other reason the story grabs me) he needs to realize that despite his insistence “I’m not a kid!”, he has no clue about the dangers of the adult world. He still (thinks he) lives in a world where pure feelings and goodwill, good intentions, and all the claptrap of shonen values can win out over every obstacle, that every villain is simply misunderstood or a good person at heart.

Yuko also needs to learn a thing or two. She’s still living in Shojo Land, where “I want my beloved to be happier than me” is a good thing, and no alarm bells go off despite the very unusual circumstances surrounding her crush’s crush.

And these naive views have consequences. In his goodwill, Mikane welcomes into his home a literal child predator. He refuses to set health boundaries for himself (e.g. Don’t invite strangers into your home, kids) and stomps over the mermaid’s when she tries to draw some lines for him to not cross. Yuko isn’t much better, ignoring the mermaid’s boundaries and her own feelings. Ironically, the safest thing Yuko could have done was to be “selfish” and just seduce Mikane into forgetting all about the sea woman.

Instead, Mikane finds himself on the predator’s home turf, at her mercy. And she, very predator-like, starts victim blaming him. Essentially, she says, “It’s your fault I’m about to do this horrible thing to you.”

And that, as much as the fangs and sudden twist, is chilling.

Really can’t wait to see where this series takes us next!