Princess Mermaid

by Junko Mizuno

First there was Cinderalla...then there was Hansel and Gretel...now, the third and final piece in Junko Mizuno's full-color fractured "fairy tales" series, Princess Mermaid! In this dark-hued ocean fable, three beautiful and seductive mermaid sisters, Tara, Julie, and Ai, lure unsuspecting sailors into their underwater pleasure palace only to...eat them!?! Crazed with vengeance for human atrocities against their mother, these mermaid sisters have sworn to kill...but things take a twist when Julie falls for the all-to-human Suekichi, and the two lovers find themselves in the middle of an inter-special feud. Will Julie find true love? Or will the double-dealings of the lusty Dragon of the deep take things in a whole other direction?

Genres: Manga, Graphic Novels, Comics, Fantasy, Horror, Fiction, Mermaids

144 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Junko Mizuno (水野純子 Mizuno Junko) is a Japanese manga artist.

Mizuno's drawing style, which mixes childish sweetness and cuteness with terror and erotica, has often been termed a Gothic kawaii or kawaii noir style. However, Mizuno has stated that she does not feel comfortable about those terms, as she doesn't want to label her work with words because it keeps changing and is influenced by many different genres.

Mizuno has stated that her work is influenced by shōjo manga works; this influence is exhibited through her use of bright colorization and the large eyes she provides for her characters. Her art has a decidedly pop-art and psychedelic flair, and a sizable proportion of her published work is colored, rather than the black and white format typical of most Japanese comics.

A part of Mizuno's oeuvre revolves around fairy tales, showing titles such as Cinderalla, Princess Mermaid and Hansel&Gretel. The story behind this is that after the release of Pure Trance, Mizuno was approached by a publisher who was interested in working with her because of her unique style. However, this publisher did not like the story of Pure Trance as it differed a lot from mainstream comics at the time. Because of this, he suggested she'd make comics about fairy tales, which were commercially more viable. Mizuno has stated that as she was just starting out her career as a professional artist, she decided to take the opportunity, and that while in hindsight she was not very comfortable with the situation, it was a good experience for her.

Mizuno has participated in the Angoulême International Comics Festival and the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. In 2007 Mizuno's work was on display at the Merry Karnowsky Gallery in Los Angeles, in an exhibit titled Heart Throb and at Gallery Nucleus in Alhambra, California in an exhibit titled Tender Succubus. In 2014, Mizuno held an exhibition of her work titled Belle: the Art of Junko Mizuno at the Atomica Gallery in London.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Stay Fetters · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Im going to kill them all. That’s my mission in life."

The story was awful and hard to follow. I felt as if I kept missing something as I was reading, so I had to go back to reread parts. The art was stunning as always but it didn’t help the story any.

[Åsa Palmborg · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book. I had looked forward to reading Junko Mizuno for such a long time. But I was severely disappointed.

The first thing that struck me was how ugly the book was. The font is totally out of place and the overall design seems lazy and sloppy. Also the paper is of very poor quality which makes the colors dull.

The second think is the story. It is very flimsy and a lot of the things that happen or are said feels out of place and unecessary. I don't know if the translation is bad or something. But my biggest issue with this book is how it deals with the issue of rape. I understand that it is supposed to be a gory book, but I feel that is not reason enough to deal solightly with such a serious and sensitive topic.
SPOILER I GUESS
Especially when it comes to the relationship between the main character Julie and her love interest Suekichi. The first thing he does when they meet is to try and rape her. In the next scene they are lovers and she wants to marry him. That is just too far a stretch.

But I did love the art, it is gorgeous. And the color schemes are beautiful even though I feel that they would look nicer if they had used better paper.

[jobelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

sooo romantic/this literally happened to me…

[Jennifer · Rating 1 out of 5]

Mizuno's cutesy style and morbid storytelling did not work in this one. Roughly based on The Little Mermaid this comic follows the fate of three mermaid sisters who lure men with sexual advances just to eat them. They want revenge on humans because of the Utsumi family who collected rare sea creatures and killed their family. One of the mermaids falls in love with an Utsumi who only moments earlier attempted to rape her. No thanks. On top of that the writing was bad and none of the drawings were memorable. Except for maybe a full page of a My Little Pony looking sea serpent. Not good.

[Niki · Rating 1 out of 5]

Beautiful art, terrible story.

[Fae · Rating 1 out of 5]

I love Junko Mizuno's art. This story, however, was terribly incoherent.

[Nicolas Lontel · Rating 4 out of 5]

J'ai adoré Cinderalla de Junko Mizuno, je suis toutefois un peu moins enthousiaste par cette réécriture de la petite ondine de Hans Christian Andersen.

Le style visuel est évidemment magnifique, coloré et sombre, affirmé (beaucoup de nudité non sexualisée) et trash comme d'habitude; l'appareil métatextuel de la BD mentionne que Junko a elle-même tenu à inverser les cases (sens de lecture inversé au Japon ;) , mais à en redessiner et recolorier plusieurs. Cette histoire sous la mer rend définitivement honneur à son coloriage et complimente définitivement son style très agréablement.

Pour ce qui est de la réactualisation du mythe, on nage (ha! ha!) toujours avec grand soin dans une réécriture quasi-totale, mais dont certains éléments clef (amour d'un protagoniste mâle humain par exemple) dirige l'histoire. Dans ce récit, trois sirènes, dont la mère a été tuée par des humains, se nourrissent de marins (une interpellation au véritable mythe des sirènes). Une d'entre-elle rencontre un humain dont elle se prend de grande affection malgré ses sœurs qui désirent l'en empêcher (surtout une) ainsi que la famille de l'humain qui exploite et asservit le futur amant de la sirène (clin d’œil probable au mythe d'Andersen qui mettait des obstacles au prince pour se marier malgré son désir pour la sirène).
Sans gâcher trop l'intrigue, sa sœur qui désire à tout prix se venger des humains fini par se faire capturer et enfermer ce qui donne lieu à d'intéressante allusion visuelle (dont les chaînes qui serre le cou de la sirène) et les monologues intérieures de celle-ci qui fait doublement écho au sacrifice de la voix du conte d'Andersen. La fin est définitivement très très prenante, je ne m'y attendais pas du tout, mais je comprends parfaitement le choix de Mizuno à cet égard (en regard du mythe d'Andersen, mais aussi par rapport à la cohérence interne du récit)

L'intrigue paraît toutefois un peu décousu, trop rapide, trop lente, au niveau textuel; j'aurais aussi de très mauvais commentaires à faire sur le français utilisé dans la traduction qui est très très pauvre (après, c'est peut-être dans l'original, mais c'est vraiment très mauvais ici). Je crois que la lecture du manga est définitivement plus intéressante si on a lu le conte de la petite sirène (je ne crois pas que le film informe tant la lecture) et qu'on apprécie, à la base, le style unique de Mizuno.
De mon côté, j'ai définitivement justement apprécier ces référents qui ajoutent à l'interprétation plutôt que la guide ou détourne de l'intrigue.

[Freddie🏳️‍⚧️🐀 · Rating 3 out of 5]

After reading Cinderalla I wanted to read more of the author’s work. So I started with this one and yeah… not as good. I think the author was trying to tell a more detailed story rather than a comedic fairy tale like Cinderalla. But it wasn’t executed well.
Kinda incoherent hard to follow, everything’s too fast.
Also really dark geez. There’s a lot more sexual content in this as well. Though I like that this is much different from Cinderalla but again not executed well. The writing is pretty bad. The romance also had a very problematic start that’s never really addressed. Idk why they put that scene in there in the first place it really wasn’t needed. Ignoring that the romance is alright. There’s too much going on I think but not enough time to develop them into a believable couple so the story has to tell you they love each other. I mean the scene were they confessing their wish to be together is good, there should have been more stuff like that.
I feel the character arcs were kinda crammed in for the whole cast. Not to enough time to really flesh anyone out except Tura. Though I did like the characters enough but there could have been more. I think the bad writing is the culprit here.
Still I enjoyed the atmosphere and the art of course. The mermaid world is well illustrated and quite unique (I mean mermaid brothels that eat their clients I don’t think I’ve seen that before.
I enjoyed it but I could defiantly see the flaws, especially the ending. Eh? That’s it?
But it was really fucking weird so there’s that. Good job yipeee

[Leila Anani · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was unfamiliar with Junko Mizuno's work before this and having seen Princess Mermaid in my local comic shop, dismissed it initially as children's fluff. Boy was I mistaken - the adage 'never judge a book by its cover' certainly holds true here.

This one's pretty dark - so we have 3 mermaid sister prostitutes: Tura (the eldest, angry, violent, full of angst) Ai, the youngest (voluptuous, sexy, likes nothing better than to breed) and our heroine Julie (the most level headed of the three) - Our sirens seduce men and then eat them - revenge for their mother having been killed and her eyeballs sold by an evil clan of humans. Julie gets captured but falls in love with Suekichi who, while part of the clan that killed her parents is bullied by the rest of his family and a general dogs body. they elope and Julie tries to become human but fails, She then gets conned by a lusty sea dragon who promises to turn her human in exchange for sex. He however tricks her and turns her into a dragon. Tura ends up enslaved to a human and dies. One of Ai's babies gets murdered about the only one who ends up happy is Julie although she is still a dragon.

I love the artwork on this -It's beautiful and the cute style is a wonderful contrast to the dark story.

For those who like mermaid horror or mer stories with bite definitely check this out.

[StrictlySequential · Rating 3 out of 5]

Second Printing = October 2004
4 postcards: Hans&Gret, Cinderella and 2 PMerms

It seems like it's just kinda thrown together storywise... but the art is very fun- but not when it's humans who are drawn in that seeming laziness. It's crazy altogether with bizarre twists but it was worth my time at least...

Then there's a six page backup story called "Mina" that's a wordless laugh.

I just love the way she draws women okay?

[Anne Sofie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Love the art but the story was disjointed and kinda hard to follow.

[tomasawyer · Rating 2 out of 5]

De la guimauve pastel trempée dans un bain de sang. C'est mignon et glauque mais c'est surtout du grand n'importe quoi délirant.

[Andromeda M31 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Junko Mizuno's Princess Mermaid, the last in her series of fairy tales adaptations, is my favorite (although looking through other reviews on Goodreads, clearly your mileage may vary).

Julie, our little mermaid, operates as a cannibalistic siren along with her two sisters, luring human sailors to the undersea Dragon Palace with their beauty, having sex with them, and then poisoning and eating them. Ai, the youngest sister is more than happy to eat men and have babies. Tura is on a revenge quest for the three sisters parents, murdered by humans of the fisherman Utsumi clan. At the opening, Julie is wondering where her life is going and refuses to eat human meat.

What strikes me about this adaptation is how very sad it is. Suekichi, Julie's prince, is the abused younger son of the Utsumi clan, who leads a miserable life sifting through fish entrails. The first time the two meet, Suekichi tries to rape to Julie, who falls in love with him later any way. Tura mourns the sisters' brutally murdered parents, keeping their bones in a bubble. Ai loses one of her many daughters to the Utsumi Clan.

In one harrowing scene, in order to escape her miserable life under the sea, Julie offers to undergo an operation by Suekichi's robot nurse to transform her into a human. However, Suekichi's abusive brother stumbles upon the procedure, and Seukichi must toss Julie back into the sea with her tail split in half, her blood tracing red webs in the water. The Sea Witch in this story is a gigantic dragon drug dealer, with a legion of naked drug addicted women chained to his body. This male dragon offers to transform Julie into a human if she has sex with him, and he takes his payment 'in advance' and through a series surreal frames rapes Julie while her blood turns the entire ocean red. He breaks his promise, and instead of a beautiful pair of long legs Julie is morphed into an enormous sea dragon.

Although Julie gets her own happy ending now being powerful enough to protect her little sister and her once lover, Tura is consumed by hatred and sells her soul and body for vengeance, and dies alone in a king's pleasure dungeon.

The line work in Princess Mermaid is much more delicate than in previous fairy tale adaptations by Mizuno, and the coloring more solid. I love the detailed hair of the three sisters, and their ruffly and flowing tails. Although the mermaid sisters are rendered beautifully, the human are angular and simplistic. This is a more surreal work.

It's hard to say why I like this the most out of series, considering how brutal it is. But I always found Hans Christian Andersen's original version to also be terribly bleak. In a way I find this adaption, with it's prostitution and blood soaked seas to be closest to the source material, and I suppose that's way I give it 5 stars.

[#ReadAllTheBooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the final book in Mizuno's fairy tale series and is the darkest of the three. It's somewhat surprising to see the story here, as the other two were so unabashedly positive and upbeat as a whole. This one? It's pretty dark overall and has an ending that is upbeat for some characters and bleak for others. That's a slight spoiler, but I won't elaborate on what happens to whom.

The artwork here is nicely done, but it's slightly more sedate than Cinderella or Hansel and Gretel. I believe this was done on purpose, as the overall story here (vengeance and hatred) is taken more seriously here than in the other two books. Mizuno had a point that she wanted to have come across in this book and more than likely wanted her artwork to mirror this. Of course it's still gorgeous, so fans won't mind a very slight change.

The story both helps and hurts at times. It's a pretty big departure from the tone of the last two books and while I like it, I didn't care for it as much as I wanted to. I'm glad I purchased it from my local comic book store and I'll definitely re-read it, but I prefer the other two books in the trilogy to this one. Still worth purchasing as a trilogy and it's still something that should be on most bookshelves. I just wouldn't recommend it as a place to start with Mizuno's work, as there's better out there.

[Molly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Revised review: Normally, I would leave the previous review as a contrast, to see what I thought the first time around (in 2008) versus the re-read opinion. But I'm so embarrassed by my dismissive take on it the first time around that I'm just getting rid of it.

First of all, Junko Mizuno's art is really great- creative and beautiful, in a highly stylized, specific manner. The story is a little ridiculous, but that is part of what makes it so great. It's like a stream-of-consciousness exercise, or a dream, that just manages to wrap everything up (albeit in a really weird way) and WORK. Again, in a really weird way. Are all of the females in the story topless, all of the time, like in the other works by Mizuno? Sure are- but at least in this one, they're mermaids, so it's way more justified. :D

[Meg Powers · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's hard to resist a Junko Mizuno interpretation of "The Little Mermaid," which is a pretty disturbing fairy tale on its own, if you're reading the original Hans Christian Anderson version. However, I think my expectations might have been too high.The artwork is beautiful, naturally, and I appreciate the influence of traditional Japanese mermaid folklore-Japanese mermaids are man-eating, as are the cute versions in Mizuno's interpretation-but I guess my gruesome expectations were a bit too high.

Definitely check it out, but if it falls flat for you, don't write Junko Mizuno off-she's a lot more twisted than "Princess Mermaid" would have you believe.

[Mikey The Librarian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bought this on a whim and gotta say if you like mermaids and you like manga this ones pretty good. The story mirrors many mermaid troupes but honestly there are some pretty unique elements to the story. The pacing is pretty good and parts of the story can be a bit corky but this ones not bad. Give it a try you’ll be pleasantly surprised. It’s a mermaid book so expect some nudity.

[Momoberry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite disturbing, definitely not for children ! But I liked it (I think I liked it...) and found this take on The Little Mermaid more original than what Mizuno did with Hansel & Gretel.

[Amy! · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was the WEIRDEST adaptation of the Littler Mermaid I've ever experienced. I'm pretty sure the author wrote it simply as an excuse to draw lots of mermaid boobs. Because they would have a shirt on in one panel and inexplicably not have a shirt on in the next. And the story was barely coherent.

[Nik · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Junko Mizunos' art and her mermaids are gorgeous and I have to admit I am a sucker for flesh eating mermaids.
This is a love vs hunger story that is kinda sweet kinda morbid.
The combo truely works.

[Flick · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been in love with Junko Mizuno's artwork for as long as I can remember and this dark re-telling of "the little mermaid" is spectacular. This is a wonderfully weird story that is definitely not for everyone, especially those expecting all the characters to get a happy ending!

[Rachel Calvert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read if you like...

vengeance
mermaids
sex
sisterhood
moms
colors
violence
dragons
forbidden love


Read if you hate...

men
legs


also will only take like 2 hours to get through. not a children's book there are a lot of bloody massacres and naked canoodling oh la la

[K · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderfully creepy and tragic, with beautiful art. This is an amazing retelling of the story we all know, and it's totally worth a read.

My only complaint is that the binding is awful and fell apart almost immediately, but that doesn't reflect negatively on the story, art, or author at all.

[Calypsa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Le style graphique est remarquable, les couleurs magnifiques. Mon problème est dans l'histoire qui est terriblement dure à suivre vu la manière dont l'art prend le pas sur la cohérence graphique et textuelle. Différencier les différentes sirènes était un immense défi que je n'ai pas su réussir.

[Autumn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lord have mercy, has it really been 20 years since I bought and read this book? Well, I had forgotten all about it, but I sure did love it at the time. *feverishly searches Junko Mizuno to see if she's still working*

[Adri L · Rating 4 out of 5]

Such a fantastic twist on Little Mermaid (;

[Kenna Day · Rating 1 out of 5]

Beautiful and strange art. Poor writing. Oh well.

[龍帝 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent.

[Engel Dreizehn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Still one of the most unique, psychedelic, and messed up retellings of the "Little Mermaid" I have ever seen.

[Ty Keith · Rating 2 out of 5]

The art is drop-dead gorgeous, but the story telling was a bit choppy. I do not know whether that can be attributed to the translation or the reversing of the artwork into an American format.