A Man’s Past Life as a Mermaid Princess Haunts Him
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Warning:
This review will contain spoilers for the manga and anime series Voices in the Sea Foam. While the manga may vary slightly from all other forms of media, it may have similar story elements and could be considered spoilers.
Content Warning: There may be references to violence, bullying, sexism, blood, gore, drugging, animal abuse, PTSD, curses, religious rituals (exorcism), chronic pain, self-deprecation, drowning, and ghosts, as they appear in the manga.
Synopsis:
Aito has known since he was a child that he was cursed. One day in elementary school, he met a new student, and in that moment, a rush of memories from his past life came back to him. Aito was once a mermaid princess who fell in love with a prince. In order to be with the prince, the mermaid made a deal with a witch that set a curse upon the mermaid. In exchange for legs and a human soul, every step the mermaid took felt like walking on swords, and the mermaid was unable to speak. Ultimately, although the mermaid gained the prince’s love and affection, he chose to marry someone else. In despair, the mermaid dissolved into sea foam.
Horrified by this revelation and hurt from the curse that has lingered into his new life, Aito decides he will never fall in love.
As long as he doesn’t fall in love, it’s like the curse isn’t a thing. He can walk and talk just fine. And once he decides never to pursue love, he has no problem living his life all the way up into college. That is, until he runs into sound engineering student Toru. Instantly, Aito feels a connection, and just as instantly, the curse falls upon him. Toru wants Aito to record a song for a film project he is working on, but Aito can’t use his voice around Toru. Toru is unperturbed, determined to get Aito on the project, but Aito isn’t so sure they can work through the curse.
Can love overcome this curse? More importantly, can Aito overcome his fears and learn to love?
Review:
The art in this is pretty, don’t get me wrong, but I am a very picky person when it comes to the art in a series. So, while it is admittedly pretty, the characters do give off frog vibes on occasion. There are times when the characters face forward, and their eyes are much farther apart than I think they should be. With mermaids, ghost ships, and talking turtles, thematically, the frog eyes might work, but generally, it isn’t my favorite thing. However, I have to say that I love Aito’s overall design. He gives me Chiaki (Punks Triangle) or Kanae (Pink Heart Jam) vibes with his chill attitude and punky style. It isn’t perfect, but the art is perfectly serviceable.
If you read the synopsis, it goes without saying that this is a semi-retelling of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid. I say semi because the main story isn’t really a retelling, but the life Aito has reincarnated from certainly is. I don’t hate retellings of old stories, but the way this one was done was pretty weak. The main story is set in the modern day and has little to no fantastical elements, so when it is paired with this much more fantastical story of a mermaid princess, there is a weird dissonance that leaves the two feeling oddly separate from one another. I truly felt like, until the end, that it would be revealed that Aito was just dealing with mental illness or anxiety and using this story of a mermaid as an excuse for those feelings.
The only thing connecting Aito to his past life is this curse, which his friend constantly calls into question, making it seem fake. But out of nowhere, in the very last chapter, there is a ghost ship that appears. Mind you, there have been no other fantasy or supernatural elements beyond Aito’s questionable curse by this point. The ghost ship appears, chaos ensues, and then we suddenly have a talking turtle who mentions dragon palaces and such. It is such a sudden switch in tone, and it even feels like a switch in genre. Sure, we see the mermaid, and there is the weird curse affecting Aito, but all of that felt like a bait-and-switch or a trick of some kind up until this point. None of it felt like it fit, and using ghost ships and talking animals certainly didn’t remedy that. If anything, it just highlighted how they didn’t mesh together.
There is also the halfhearted reveal of a semi-fated mates narrative. The little boy who reignited Aito’s curse? That was young Toru. It reminded me a bit of those narratives where the person has forgotten someone they met a long time ago, and I’m not a big fan of those story elements, this one included. Everything is just so loosely tethered together and doesn’t feel like a cohesive story, which is unfortunate because I think there are some strong elements here. If the mermaid princess and Aito were more closely tied together, I think it would’ve been infinitely better, but here we are.
One final note, for my degenerates out there, there is no sex in this one, so keep that in mind.
Results:
This was pretty disappointing. This felt like it was meant to be more mermaid-focused than it actually was, and even the parts that were mermaid-focused felt like they were a separate story altogether. I love Aito as a character, and there are aspects of this story that I think really could’ve made for a fun BL, but none of those good elements are tied together to make a cohesive story. If you are looking for a fantasy mermaid BL, you are going to be disappointed. If you are looking for a modern college student romance with fantastical elements, this might not be too bad. For me, though, this wasn’t it.
Have you read Voices in the Sea Foam? If so, what do you think? Do you agree with my assessment? Do you not? Let me know, and comment below!
