OP Sequence:

OP: 「Romantic summer」 by SUN & LUNAR
Watch the OP! Mirror 1, Mirror 2

Summary:

One summer in the town of Setouchi, Michishio Nagasumi finds himself drowning in the ocean and gets saved by a mermaid. After he blacks out, he wakes up again back on the beach with his father standing over him. They return to his grandmother’s home, where Nagasumi tells his family about what happened. His grandmother reveals that there are indeed mermaid legends for this area, and if those legends are true, then they’re in for something big. It is at this moment that a girl suddenly shows up and introduces herself as Seto San. To everyone’s surprise, she asks to be the bride of Nagasumi because she wants him to take responsibility for what happened today. Nagasumi’s parents quickly assume the worst, but their yelling at their son is soon interrupted by the arrival of three yakuza who want to take them to San’s parents. These men push Nagasumi and his parents into the ocean, and when Nagasumi regains consciousness, he finds himself in an underwater yakuza home. The sight of a scary man standing over him causes Nagasumi to close his eyes again, so the yakuza boss tells his underling Masa to give Nagasumi CPR. Having now lost his first kiss to a man, Nagasumi quickly wakes back up.

The yakuza boss then introduces himself as San’s father, Seto Gouzaburou. He personally wants to kill them for having found about their mermaid identities, but San objects. It is San’s mother Ren who came up with the idea for San to marry Nagasumi because there wouldn’t be any problems if they all became relatives. Despite the pressure from his parents, Nagasumi still hesitates, and this gets San’s father mad enough to charge at him. Attempting to run away, Nagasumi gets chased by the entire group of yakuza and even a shark before San saves him and brings up back up to land. It is there that Nagasumi asks San why she saved him, and she explains that she couldn’t abandon someone in trouble. Still, because her actions caused him trouble anyway, she thinks that it’s okay for him to run away by himself. Before Nagasumi can do anything though, San’s father shows up along with all his underlings. Instead of running away, Nagasumi decides to ask San’s father to let him marry her. Her father still violently objects, but in the end, San becomes Nagasumi’s bride.

ED Sequence:

ED: 「明日への光」 (Ashita e no Hikari) by樋井明日香 (Hinoi Asuka)
Watch the ED! Mirror 1, Mirror 2
The opening song starts off slow and quickly picks up. It’s not a bad song and the opening animation is pretty colorful, but I prefer the slower ending song. The ending animation is just a zoom out of one shot though.

Well, this was a lot crazier than I thought it’d be, even though the story stayed pretty close to the manga. Of course, that makes perfect sense now that I think about it because the director is Kishi Seiji, who also directed Magikano. This has a very noticeable style of humor and use of backgrounds and animation that’s very similar to Magikano. In fact, Seto also has several of the same voice actresses as Magikano, including Haruko Momoi and Nogawa Sakura. Actually, Momoi Haruko voicing San still sounds weird to me. I think I’m too used to her singing instead of her voice acting, though after watching the episode a second time, it didn’t seem so strange.
Overall, there was some good production quality and plenty of humor (Masa-san is great). As for whether or not I’ll continue watching/blogging this show, it all depends on Lucky Star next week. If that turns out to be pretty good, then I probably won’t pick this up, but if it isn’t, then I’ll reconsider.

26 Comments

  1. It’s definitely got that Magikano feel to it–Happy Lesson also came to mind watching it, with the male lead in mortal peril 99% of the time. I really liked the first episode though, it sticks to the manga pretty well for the most part, the animation quality’s not bad, and the SD parts were well done. I always associate Halko with Komugi-chan and wasn’t sure she’d be a good fit for San’s voice, but I was pleasantly surprised by her performance so far. I’m hoping the pan over the static shot in the ED is just a placeholder and they’ll do more with the animation in the ED later, but I guess we’ll see.

    When a season like this starts, it really makes me thank God/Buddha/Haruhi/whoever I’m an anime fan 🙂

    suguru
  2. I really enjoyed both the opening and the ending. The animations fit well and both of them (sort of) go well with the series itself. I’ve been having trouble enjoying series that Seiji Kishi directs, but I’m still giving this one a shot nonetheless.

    Likkun
  3. How did Jabber Jaws end up there!? (aka shark-head)

    So basically they took Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pich and turned it upside down? I wanna see more…

    Oh and the Yakuza boss (aka Seto San’s dad) kinda reminds me of an evil version of Shin/Eustoma (aka the King of the Gods’ realm from Shuffle!; come to think of it, if Seto San had red hair and pointed ears, she could almost pass for Sia)

    Sailor Enlil
  4. The first few minutes seemed very lame. His father totally turned me off. But once we got underwater, I found it really crazy-funny. Miyake Kenta (Orlando in Pumpkin Scissors) was pure gold as the mermaid’s father, especially with the extreeeeme animation. I enjoyed it more than Hayate, personally.

  5. I think I agree with Hashihime. This is more hilarious and has better production values over Hayate. If Lucky Star is a SD version of Hidamari Sketch for this season, it would be a tough call for Omni to decide. LOL

    thepotatohead
  6. The phrase of “瀬戸の花嫁 (Seto No Hanayome)” holds nostalgia for a lot of Japanese.
    Because it is a name of the song that became popular very much in 1972.
    The following content is recorded in lyrics of the song.
    It is scenery where Seto Inland Sea is beautiful.
    It is love to father, mother, and the younger brother of the woman who will marry in the future.
    Some Japanese will enjoy the song and the unbridgeable gulf of the story.

    katuragi

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