My Bride Is a Mermaid: Season One, Part One |  | Director: John Burgmeier
Actors: Todd Haberkorn, Juli Erickson, Christopher R. Sabat
Studio: Funimation Prod
Category: DVD
List Price: $49.98
Buy New: $27.99
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Rating:  4 reviews
Sales Rank: 4,064
Format: NTSC, Color, Subtitled, Full Screen
Languages: English (Subtitled), English (Original Language), Japanese (Original Language)
Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Region: 1
Discs: 2
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Running Time: 300 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: 704400099700
UPC: 704400099700
EAN: 0704400099700
ASIN: B003H6KRMK
Release Date: July 20, 2010
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Studio: Funimation Prod Inc Release Date: 07/20/2010 Run time: 300 minutes
Amazon.com
Based on the manga by Tahiko Kimura, the broadcast series My Bride Is a Mermaid (2007) combines a "magical girl" heroine, the madcap energy of a harem comedy, physical transformations borrowed from Ranma 1/2, and assorted visual styles in an over-the-top farce. Just before he starts high school, Nagasumi Michishio visits his grandmother, who lives by the Seto Sea. When he gets a cramp and nearly drowns, he's rescued by mermaid Sun Seto. Mermaid Law dictates that if a human sees a mermaid in her true form, he must marry her--or she's put to death. And Sun isn't just any mermaid: her father's an undersea yakuza capo who commands a cadre of enforcers who are part human, part sea creature. Nagasumi agrees to marry Sun and takes her to Saitama, where he lives with his obnoxious parents. Unfortunately, hiding in Sun's backpack is Maki the Conch, whose pose as a kawaii doll conceals a murderous assassin. Nagasumi learns that if Sun's legs get wet, they turn into her finned tail until they're dry, which would reveal her secret identity to the other students. Further complications arise when pop star Lunar, a mermaid from a rival yakuza faction, starts pursuing Nagasumi. My Bride Is a Mermaid would be more fun if it were a little less complicated and a lot less hysterical: everything is pitched at such a manic pace, the audience never gets a chance to breathe. And after Maki throws her third screaming fit trying to kill Nagasumi, the routine begins to wear a little thin and conch chowder sounds more and more appealing. (Rated TV-MA, suitable for ages 14 and older: cartoon violence, profanity, nudity, risqué humor, alcohol use) --Charles Solomon (1. The Yakuza Wife, 2. The Lord of the Ring, 3. The Island Closest to Heaven, 4. It's Tough Being a Man, 5. School in the Crosshairs, 6. Faible Femmes, 7. V (The Visitors), 8. The Duel, 9. The Running Man, 10. Pumping Iron, 11. Armageddon, 12. A Slave of Love, 13. Love Story)
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| Customer Reviews:
 My Bride Is a....WHAT?! August 7, 2010
Tsukune96 (Seattle, WA)
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
Ah young love, or in this case marriage. This series is good if your in the mood for a cute and enjoyable series. I would say it's one of those series that pretty much contains NO fan service, so if your looking for that it's not here. The plot takes Mermaid's stereotypicalness away, the Seto family is a brutal mob. In general this is a very light-hearted series about love, family, and comedy. In conclusion I think highly of this series, it's funny and cute...what's not to like?
Finally Its coming Out!!!!!!!!!!! April 21, 2010
J. Hylton (Bassett VA USA)
7 out of 29 found this review helpful
Genres: action, comedy, romance, slice of life, supernatural
Themes: harem, mermaid, yakuza
A young boy gets saved from drowning by a mermaid but, according to mermaid law, if a human sees a mermaid's true form, both have to be killed. The only solution to the problem is for him to marry her.
A young boy gets saved from drowning by a mermaid but, according to mermaid law, if a human sees a mermaid's true form, either the human must be killed or the mermaid must be killed. The only solution to the problem is for him to marry her.
 Being married to the mob might not be all it's cracked up to be, but it should crack you up June 27, 2010
R. Thompson
14 out of 17 found this review helpful
It's easy to dismiss My Bride Is a Mermaid as just another dull harem series based off the cover. Ordinary guys have been surrounded by beautiful women in anime since Ah My Goddess proved the formula could work, and it was about time a mermaid was added to the mix. Fortunately for those who might be a bit burnt off the classic formula, there's more than meets the eye to My Bride Is a Mermaid.
It's summer, and Nagasumi Michishio couldn't be more thrilled to spend it at the beach, where he could go swimming and maybe even meet a girl or two while he's at it. Unfortunately for him, the first girl he comes across sees him at his worst- when he's about to drown- and even worse: she's not even human! His savior, Sun Seto is a mermaid and not just any mermaid: she's the heiress to a clan of mermaid yakuza. By mermaid law, Sun should be killed for revealing her true identity to a human, so her mobster family decides to kill Nagasumi and his family instead and make it so that this little blip never happened. The only way to save his life is by marrying Sun, and while he accepts at once, before long, he finds out that spending the rest of his life with a mermaid- one who also happens to be a yakuza princess with a VERY overprotective father and some odd childhood friends- might be more trouble than it's worth...
Like the title suggests, My Bride Is a Mermaid is a romantic comedy, with a very heavy emphasis on the "comedy" part. Most of the humor here is very in your face, so if you like your comedies on the subtler side, you might want to skip this. It also takes a few episodes to get going (about 4) before it hits its stride. It's incredibly funny, though, and manages to stay fresh up until the very end, partially thanks to the cast of wacky characters. There are a number of running gags that might make you groan after awhile (Nagasumi's first kiss, for one), but the rest of the show's hilarious enough that you can forgive it for milking a few jokes a bit too much. There are a fair number of references to other anime series added in to spice the show up as well, so if situational comedy's not your thing, you might just bust a gut laughing at the allusions to Dragonball Z or Fist of the North Star.
The harem parts of My Bride Is a Mermaid are never put in the forefront. A number of Nagasumi's classmates have feelings for him, but the show never dwells on that fact for too long. Comedy is the name of the game with this show, and its other parts aren't able to bring it down.
As far as the animation goes, it's pretty standard for a comedy series. This show shares a director with Magikano, so if you're familiar with that, expect the same amount of odd facial expressions to be played for laughs.
For some reason, the composers of this series decided to go all out with the score, and it shows. The music is generally very fitting, and it's not recycled ad nauseum like in a number of other anime series.
For those wondering, this DVD contains the first half of the series (about 13 episodes). It features both an English dub and a subtitled Japanese language track. The English cast is pretty standard for the most part with generally good voice actors, but Todd Haberkorn really plays Nagasumi well. The Japanese track is just as good, with Haruko Momoi's standout performance as Sun, so it's really just a matter of preference. Funimation made some changes to the script, as per the norm, so expect Sun's family to have a country accent and for several lines to be changed for them to make more sense in English.
Overall, while My Bride Is a Mermaid might not be for everyone (comedies rarely are), it's worth a try for someone looking for a light, funny series to check out. The name and premise might be slight turnoffs, but it will most likely have you laughing out loud before it's over.
The Bride of Seto July 15, 2010
Zack Davisson (Seattle, WA, USA)
5 out of 7 found this review helpful
If Jr. High School student Nagasumi Michishio watched as much anime as I do, it should have come as no surprise to him that a seemingly harmless family vacation to the Seto Inland Sea would result in an engagement to a beautiful, sweet girl whose family is made up of the local yakuza clan all of which who happen to be merfolk. I mean, this kind of stuff happens all the time, right?
So yeah, "My Bride is a Mermaid" (Japanese title "Seto no Hanayome" or "The Bride of Seto") is one of those kinds of anime. But that doesn't mean it isn't good. When working in an established genre, it is really a question of how good they do the genre, and this series does a great job.
The Magical Girl/Harem combo can be done for romance (Ah! My Goddess or an overdose of fan service (Eiken) or for straight-out comedy which is what "My Bride is a Mermaid" goes for. Based on the manga of the same name by Tahiko Kimura., this series is almost a parody of the genre and delivers some good laughs with the many bizarre situations Nagasumi finds himself in. The undersea humor reminded me a lot of One Piece more than anything else, with the romantic element thrown in. "My Bride is a Mermaid" is pretty much a fan service -free anime, with maybe just the slightest hint of it here or there if you squint your eyes, but that is about it.
The story is basic: Nagasumi and his family go for vacation to the Seto Inland Sea, where Nagasumi almost drowns and finds himself rescued by a beautiful mermaid. No one believes his story until that same mermaid, named Seto and with legs this time, shows up at his doorstep and begs for Nagasumi to accept her as his fiancé. The merfolk have a code, it seems, of killing any human that sees them in their nautical form, and the only way around it is for Nagasumi to take Seto as his bride. Marry the beautiful girl or be killed. Of course, to complicate matters Seto's family is also the local yakuza clan, and Seto's father would much rather see Nagasumi dead than give away his precious daughter.
Nagasumi and Seto are only engaged, not married, so they spend time going on dates and Seto eventually returns with Nagasumi to his hometown of Saitama to attend school with him and get to know him in preparation for their future. Seto's family isn't going to let her go off alone, however, and they soon show up to wreck havoc on Nagasumi's school life. Of course, there are some human girls back at school that fancy Nagasumi as well, and a rival mermaid shows up to give Seto a battle for Nagasumi, who she wants to take as her manservant. Hijinks ensue.
There is all sorts of good comedy packed into this series. Seto has legs only so long as her feet don't get wet, which means that water is flying everywhere during the series. Seto's bodyguard Maki is a tiny little elf-girl that lives in a spiral shell but comes out sword a swinging every time she thinks Nagasumi is over-stepping his bounds. The series relies a lot on running gags and playing around with the genre tropes, such as Nagasumi getting his "first kiss" stolen by male yakuza member Masa so Nagasumi is rendered as a "bishonen" -type whenever Masa shows up. When Seto gets serious, she is suddenly shrouded in darkness and accompanied by falling cherry blossoms, which leads the other characters to wonder where all the blossoms are coming from. There are two transformed-animal yakuza members, Shark Fujishiro and Octopus Nakajima who are exactly what their names sound like.
The only complaint I have with "My Bride is a Mermaid" is with the subtitles. Japanese is a language with many regional dialects, and too often translators feel compelled to use various English accents or way of speaking to capture this. It doesn't work. Even though Sun and her family speak perfectly polite Japanese using the dialect local to Seto, the subtitles have them speaking like a bunch of hillbillies saying things like "yer gonna get it" or other ridiculous phrases. When Sun says "Watashi was Nagasumi no tsuma ni naru" the subtitles says "I'm yer future wife" which is not at all correct. She doesn't speak like an uneducated country bumbkin. I don't mind it if this kind of translations is used when done for effect, like when the tiny Maki talks in her "yakuza voice" when trying to be intimidating but then switches back to normal Japanese, but putting those words in Sun's mouth all the time just doesn't work.
This release by Funimation has the first 13 episodes of the 26-episode series originally released in 2007. The series is continued in My Bride Is a Mermaid: Season One, Part Two. Although the boxsets say "Season One," there actually is no "Season Two" following up this anime There were two OVA releases in 2008 and 2009, although I don't know if there are plans to release these as well, but it is possible they would be released as a limited "Season Two," but they would be very short and non-continuous.
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