Mokuyobi Post - Mermaid Forest

Mermaid Forest (人魚の森) is a super natural thriller by Rumiko Takihashi.  This OAV is part of her darker one shot titles and were branded as Rumik World in the United States.  It was originally released in Japan in 1991 and is based on part of the Mermaid Saga manga.

    Legend has it that if you eat the flesh of a mermaid you will become immortal.  Twin sisters Sawa and Towa live in a remote estate during the Showa era.  Towa is sick and near death her sister gives her mermaids blood in a bid to heal her illness but it doesn't go as planned.  Yuta, who at this point has been alive for 500 years after eating mermaid flesh, ends up at the sisters estate in modern times.  Yuta has been searching for another mermaid in a bid to undo the curse of immortality.  He discovers the families long and dark secret.

    In the 90's for those of us who were initially exposed to the humorously perverted comedies that Takahashi is legendary for the darker Rumik World titles were a bit sobering.  The story is dark and sinister.  I never actually got any more into the Mermaid Saga story beyond this initial OAV and going back to it now and doing a bit more research I think I should actually get into it more.  Hell, until researching for this post I never knew it was also spun off into a 13 episode TV series.  I think it's time to either pick up the manga and/or watch the TV series and finally get around to watching Mermaid Scar.  I'm a fan of Takahashi's.  Maison Ikkoku and Ranma 1/2 hold special places in my early fandom, but honestly I think her titles that were wrapped into the Rumik World series are the best.  While her romantic/action comedies tend to drag on it seems her shorter works were able to focus on quality story telling and interesting plot lines.

    The OAV was released pretty early in North America by Viz, but appears to have never gotten beyond the VHS copy...not sure why it appears to have never been released on DVD...

Side Note: I re-watched parts of this recently to brush up on it and noticed that Viz mistranslated the newspaper in the very beginning.  They have it marked down as PM Okuda dying, but when i did some research and looked at the kanji it was really supposed to be PM Okada who was supposedly murdered by rebel soldiers in a failed coup, only to be found alive a few weeks later.