Volumes: 4/4 (Complete) (Digital-only)
Shoujo/Yaoi (reads like)
Genre: Gender-Bender, Romance
Summary: Manato feels like a loser, he’s 30, single, and still only has a part time job washing dishes at a local restaurant. One day he sees a beautiful mermaid underwater at the park. He comes back at night to see if she's really real and the mermaid, Coral, tells him about how she’s here because her wish is to become a human and fall in love. She’s looking for coins to make a wish at the local shrine.
He comes back over a week later, wondering if she’s still there, and she is. He ends up ranting to her about how no one will hire him, and she decides to give him all the coins she’s collected and tells him he should make a wish. Then she dissolves into sea foam and disappears. The local shrine deity appears before him and offers to bring her back to life in exchange for one year of his life, and he accepts. The goddess then brings her back to life… as a man! Can Coral fulfill her wish of falling in love? And what about Manato?
Review: This is Yuana Kazumi’s most recent manga in English, and her art style has changed a lot from the other 3 works she has published in English. Personally I have mixed feelings about it. On one hand, her artwork is much more polished, consistent and has more detailed backgrounds, but she also lost that fantasy dream-like floating quality her artwork had before, which was really unique.
The story has a bad beginning after the initial first chapter. It’s so bad that the story basically soft restarts at volume 2, chapter 7, as the mangaka gave up trying to make it into a romance comedy and decided to go for a romance drama instead, which thankfully works way better. It’s to the point where I would recommend reading chapter 1, then skipping to chapter 7 and read the rest from there. It’s a way better story. Chapters 2-6 is a poor attempt at comedy, and has poor Manato babysitting an irresponsible Coral, and it doesn’t work.
All in all, it’s a decent sweet romance story between Manato and Coral, complete with love triangles and a couple dramatic twists. One element I did find very interesting is how this story is a sequel of sorts to the Little Mermaid, and by that I mean the fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen. It's always interesting to see other people's interpretation of fairy tales and this was an interesting take on it.
But I really didn’t see any reason for the gender bender element of first making her turn into a man, and then after that she can still turn back into a woman mermaid by drinking beer? It didn’t add anything to the story and I wished they had left it all out, unless they wanted to make Manato realize his bisexuality or something. But he’s 100% straight. I also felt like the chemistry between Manato and Coral was kind of hit or miss. They have some good scenes together, especially towards the end, but there were times you wonder what they like about each other.
Recommended: TLDR; If you want to read a gender-bender romance that’s kind of an odd sequel to the story of the Little Mermaid, then this isn’t bad. But it could have been better too. Read Chapter 1 and then skip to Volume 2, Chapter 7 for the best story.
Age Rating: PG13: a lot of implied nudity but not explicit and some kissing.
LGBT Friendly: 4/10 the series has stuff that’s both in favor and against gay relationships. But above all this really reads more or less like a straight romance anyway.
Other works from this Mangaka in English (from Most to Least popular): Haru Hana, Million Tears, Flower of a Deep Sleep
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