THIS BOY CAUGHT A MERMAN (2012 OVA)
(this review was originally posted on tumblr on febuary 12th at 3:13 am, this is a copy-paste of the original review, as my opinion has not changed)
As the first review on this website, I would like to share with you all a one-episode OVA with a unique visual style and a story that, while crunched together in a single 28-minute episode, still manages to be heartwarming and charming in its own special way.
You can watch this OVA here(aniwatch.to) or here(9animetv.to, or other means that might be a bit more legal LOL)
The summary on aniwatch.to goes like this;
"They say look before you leap and make sure you can swim before you go in the deep water, but when a picture of his late grandfather falls into the ocean, Shima jumps in after it without thinking. Nearly drowning as a result, he is instead saved by a very perfect stranger… one whose strangeness extends to only being human from the waist up! For Shima, who’s always felt like a fish out of water himself, it’s more than just a revelation, and the young man and merman quickly begin to bond in ways neither anticipated. And yet, it’s going to be far from easy sailing. After all, Shima and Isaki aren’t just from opposite sides of the tracks, they’re from entirely divergent species, and swimming in separate gene pools may make maintaining a long term relationship a whole different kettle of fish! (Source: Sentai Filmworks)"
This OVA is quite visually interesting, despite its limited animation. It uses a mixture of bright, almost neon colors and unorthodox patterns to add texture to things like hair and environments. It uses these unorthodox visual components to convey certain situations, such as going fully black-and-white for a scene where the main character(Shima) is feeling stressed. The character designs, while the art style itself is a bit strange, are interesting to look at nonetheless, and kept my attention throughout the entire thing. Shima does look quite young in comparison to Isaki, but I suppose you eventually just have to get used to that when it comes to shounen ai and yaoi.
Despite the 28-minute runtime and noticeable sacrifices the producers had to take to fit that, the two main leads manage to have decent enough chemistry. It feels a bit forced, and some emotional scenes between the two seem like they came much too quickly and ended way too smoothly. It’s forgivable, but I believe that it would’ve benefited from a 3 episode OVA instead of a 1 episode OVA, at the very least.
The portrayal of feeling inadequate to one’s parents is handled okay, which is miles more than I expected from it.
Overall, it was an enjoyable watch. I most likely wouldn’t watch it again, but I would recommend it to someone else if they seemed like they’d enjoy it.
The gay rep isn’t super present in this one, the two leads kiss and say that they love each other, but it doesn’t come across as ‘OoOoOOOooOoo gay couple!!!!’ which is OUTSTANDING for 2012. I’d say it’s pretty good, for what it is.
It gets an extra .5 point because it referenced Hans Christian Anderson.