A Mermaid Never Smiles[]
| 1 | "A Mermaid Never Smiles (1)" (人魚は笑わない［前編］, Ningyo wa Warawanai Zenpen) | ||||
| On a moonlit night, a young woman named Mana is unable to sleep because of moaning voices she hears in her hut and orders her old caretaker to kill whatever makes those noises, only to be told that it can’t be helped. On a sunny day, a ragged young man named Yuta walking across a public beach asks for directions to Cape Nosuri and learns that it’s surrounded by mountains and there are no roads leading to it. Back at her hut, Mana eats in her bed while her caretaker compliments on how she grew up beautifully, to which Mana angrily shouts that she says the same every day. Later at night still in bed, she recalls being carried outdoors by her caretaker when she was younger and wishes to walk. Meanwhile, the old caretaker and the villagers who are all female convene and a young woman named Ayu said to have lived the longest is chosen to be sacrificed as Mana turned fifteen. In a cave, as Ayu removes her clothes and enters a pool of water, the villagers kill her with spears, then the tail of a mermaid is revealed and they take a chunk of flesh off. The next day, Mana is served the chunk of mermaid flesh. Afterward, the villagers find Yuta and quickly stab him to death with their spears, after asking him if he’s alone. His corpse is tossed into the same cave where Ayu was killed, but later as night falls, he comes back to life and notices the mermaid corpse. As the villagers were about to carry Mana on a palanquin, Yuta bursts into her room with the headless mermaid corpse and demands explanations, but the villagers try to kill him again so he grabs Mana and takes her hostage. Much to his surprise, Mana has her feet bound in wooden shackles so he ties her onto his back and runs. An angered Mana initially strangles Yuta while he’s running, but much to her shock, the villagers don’t hesitate in throwing spears regardless of Mana who gets her cheek sliced. Hiding in the cave, Yuta unbinds Mana’s legs and treats her cheek, and reveals to her that he ate the flesh of a mermaid about 500 years ago. He used to be a fisherman, and when he and two friends of his ate mermaid flesh which was said to bestow eternal youth and longevity, one turned into a monster and the other died spitting blood, but Yuta became immortal. He had a wife who became afraid of him as he remained young while she grew older, and was told that he might regain his mortality by finding a mermaid. As Mana wonders why the villagers threw spears at her despite having treasured her for years, a creature shows up. | |||||
| 2 | "A Mermaid Never Smiles (2)" (人魚は笑わない［後編］, Ningyo wa Warawanai Kōhen) | ||||
| In the cave, Yuta fights the creature with a spear and a scythe, but Mana says only poison can kill it. A woman named Kajika arrives and drives the creature away by stabbing it with a harpoon she tipped with poison although it claws her chest. The creature referred by Kajika as a “deformed one” looked exactly like how one of Yuta’s friends transformed when he ate mermaid flesh, and Yuta decides to take Kajika to the village to have her treated, but not before hiding Mana who can hardly stand on her two feet in the forest. He warns the villagers they’ll never find Mana if they kill him, and he notices that there are only women in this village and they all have the same face either young or old. In a hut, he reveals to the caretaker that he’s immortal and looked for a mermaid because he wants to become mortal again, to which she answers that he can die by simply cutting his head off, but Yuta wishes to grow old and die naturally. Meanwhile, Mana tried to walk on her own and is found by Kajika and two other women who escort her back to the village. The caretaker reveals that the women in the village are mermaids, and that eating the flesh of a human girl who successfully became immortal by eating mermaid flesh restores a mermaid to youth, meaning Mana who was captured when she was a baby is to be fed to the mermaids and the deformed ones in the caves were also girls the villagers captured, so Yuta disgusted refuses to hand Mana back, however Mana is brought back and Yuta is impaled by a spear. The caretaker tells him that there is no way to become mortal again, and that a mermaid can only help him die with her carcass rotting into a mixture of herbs to make a poison, which was applied in the spear. Yuta however doesn’t go down and retrieves Mana, and both set the hut on fire and escape. As Mana is shocked to learn the villagers wanted to eat her and Yuta is upset as his dream is shattered, they hide in a different cave and Mana helps Yuta remove the spear from his body and sucks the poison out of his wound. Meanwhile, the caretaker decides to flood the caves by opening up the floodgate of a lake not minding the village getting sunk underwater to drive them out to the ocean through the only outlet where the mermaids would wait to devour Mana. As they are pushed out to sea, Yuta sees the villagers becoming mermaids and they try to eat her, so he swims back to the surface with an unconscious Mana and fights the mermaids off with a spear. The caretaker approaches Mana and aims a spear at her throat, but Mana wakes up and resists, refusing to die no matter the pain of living forever. The caretaker then sights in defeat as the mermaids can no longer assume human form as they reverted to their true form, and reveals that she too is an immortal and she shall remain with the mermaids until the end of time. Yuta takes Mana with him, and on top of a hill, he tells her that it’s not bad to keep living until getting tired of it. | |||||
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Published in: Shonen Sunday Zokan 1984 August-September (1984年 『週刊少年サンデー増刊』 8-9月号) | |||||
The Village of Fighting Fish[]
| 3 | "The Village of Fighting Fish (1)" (闘魚の里［前編］, Tōgyo no Sato Zenpen) | ||||
| Out at sea, a ship is attacked by a group of men led by an armored young woman named Rin who come from Toba Island and only demand 10% of the vessel’s cargo as toll for sailing through their waters without killing anyone. On their way back to their island, they come upon the pirates of Sakagami Island who comparatively slaughter the entire crew of a ship while stealing their cargo, and their leader mockingly assumes Rin’s father has died. Upon their return, Rin is informed by her brother Tokichi and sister Sayori that they found a dead body washed up on shore so she asks her men to give him a proper burial. She visits her bedridden father and tells him that she heard the Sakagami islanders are searching for a mermaid for it is said that its flesh can grant immortality therefore she hopes to find one first and let her father eat its flesh to cure him, to which he replies that the Toba islanders think of her as a good leader in his stead. Later, Rin accompanies her siblings as they bring flowers to graves on a hill, and much to their shock, the man who was buried earlier comes out of his grave. He is introduced to Rin’s father, where he reveals himself as Yuta and that while working as a sailor at a harbor, he was hired to hunt for a mermaid by a woman whom Rin identifies as Isago, the wife of the leader of the Sakagami Pirates. At night on Sakagami Island, Isago reports to the Sakagami leader that the men she hired at the port all vanished, and he kills one of his men to show how life is fragile and persuade his men on his quest for immortality. The next morning, an outraged Rin finds Yuta trying to leave on a stolen boat so jumps on the water to stop him only to drown due to the heaviness of her armor, forcing Yuta to dive in after her. On the shore, Yuta apologizes to Rin and corrects her that he became immortal a long time ago and wants to find a mermaid in the hope of becoming mortal again, so Rin has Yuta indicate the spot where a mermaid is likely to be and offers to lend him a boat in exchange for working for her until the waters are safe for him to travel back to the spot. And so, Yuta lives with the Toba islanders, working as a fisherman and helping Rin’s group collecting tolls. One day, together with Tokichi, Rin and Yuta go to the harbor market on a boat, in which Rin asks Yuta if he’d stay on Toba Island if he becomes mortal, to which he answers yes. Isago finds Yuta and Rin at the market and suspecting Yuta may have found a mermaid stabs his right hand with a hair pin then buys that hairpin and shamelessly puts it in Rin’s hair as a token of apology, much to Rin’s anger. Later during a stormy night, Rin’s father converses with Yuta while Rin watches over her sleeping siblings, and asks him to become her bride. Isago then shows up, notices Yuta’s right hand has healed which confirms her suspicion that he is immortal but disbelieves his statement that he had found a mermaid long ago, stabs Rin’s father with a sword, much to the shock of Rin, and suggests them to find a mermaid in order to heal him. | |||||
| 4 | "The Village of Fighting Fish (2)" (闘魚の里［後編］, Tōgyo no Sato Kōhen) | ||||
| A furious Rin slashes Isago with her sword then heads out determined to find a mermaid with Yuta following her. The two sail out in the middle of the storm, unaware that the Sakagami pirates were waiting and are following them. Eventually, they reach the spot where mermaids are likely to be found and a mermaid suddenly leaps out of the water, so Yuta dives off the boat and manages to grab her, when suddenly the Sakagami pirates throw harpoons at both and capture Rin. Back on Sakagami Island, the Sakagami leader severs the head of the mermaid who bites one of the pirates and Yuta’s corpse is thrown over a cliff into the ocean. In a hut, a bound Rin was about to be raped by a pirate only to be stopped and dismissed by Isago still alive much to her surprise, who reveals to Rin that she’s been pregnant for 3 years with a child of her former husband who was killed by the Sakagami pirates and needs mermaid flesh to nourish her unborn child. Thereafter, Rin is brought to the Sakagami leader as entertainment for the celebrating feast, and watches as he eats the flesh of the mermaid. Meanwhile, Yuta resurfaces, and the Toba Islanders fear Rin was captured by the Sakagami pirates. Rin is being battered by the Sakagami leader for resisting his advances on her until Yuta shows up again, much to her relief. Isago tells the pirates that Yuta can only die by cutting his head off, so the Sakagami leader offers a share of the mermaid flesh to whoever brings his head, but Yuta unties Rin and both fight off the pirates. Yuta throws a sword to the Sakagami leader’s chest, and as he retaliates, the injured pirates take the chance to eat the mermaid flesh and all of them either die coughing blood or turn into deformed ones. As Isago eats mermaid flesh herself, she explains how only the luckiest can become immortal, and the Sakagami leader believes he was lucky and keeps fighting Yuta until he starts transforming. While Yuta and Rin fight the deformed pirates outside and the Toba islanders arrive to support them, Isago mocks the Sakagami leader, saying he shouldn’t have kidnapped her and reveals herself to be a mermaid with two legs. As the Sakagami leader fully becomes a deformed one, Rin orders her fellow men to throw harpoons at him and Yuta climbs up to his back to continuously stab him to death while he goes after Isago who climbs toward a cliff and jumps off to the water, turning into a mermaid and swimming away with her newborn children. Still immortal, Yuta leaves Toba Island on a boat steered by Rin, who tearfully hugs him, telling him to live long, although it’s not something he wants to hear. | |||||
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Published in: Shonen Sunday Zokan 1985 September-October (1985年 『週刊少年サンデー増刊』 9-10月号) | |||||
Mermaid Forest[]
| 5 | "Mermaid Forest (1)" (人魚の森［前編］, Ningyo no Mori Zenpen) | ||||
| While walking on a seaside town, Mana finds a cat and wants to bring it along, but Yuta tells her it won’t live long unlike them. While he sleeps under a tree and dreams about his loneliness, Mana wanders off with the cat. She finds herself in the middle of the road as she follows the cat and gets hit by a semi-truck. Yuta wakes up and overhears a man telling an officer that a girl was hit by a truck and was taken to a doctor named Shiina. At a clinic, the doctor tells Yuta and the officer that Mana had minor injuries and left, so Yuta leaves to look for her, but Dr. Shiina actually lied and is keeping Mana’s dead body. Later at night, Dr. Shiina brings Mana’s body to a mansion where he speaks to a lady named Towa hidden in the shadows and starts cutting off Mana’s right arm. Just then, an old lady named Sawa shows up disgusted at this process, but Towa tells her not to interfere as her own arm hurts and needs to be replaced, and much to everyone’s surprise, Mana revives and her incision in her arm disappears. Suspecting Dr. Shiina’s claim to be a lie, Yuta goes to the police station where the officer tells him that the doctor makes a house call in the Kannagi estate and he learns a legend about a mermaid caught by an ancestor of the Kannagi family and buried in a forest. Yuta finds and breaks in the Kannagi estate, where he meets the white-haired Towa who unleashes a deformed dog on him, after learning he’s Mana’s friend. The next morning, Dr. Shiina and Sawa were about to bury Yuta, but Towa realizes he’s immortal too so has him locked in a cell beneath the house with his arms shackled to the wall before he wakes up. As Mana is treated as a guest and waits for Yuta, Towa sympathizes with her, expressing her envy for having a friend and her youth and tells her that she hopes to find a buried mermaid but Sawa wouldn’t reveal its location. Later, Mana takes a bath and allows Towa’s offer to wash her back, but as Towa admires her skin and cops a fell, Mana slaps her and Towa strangles her to death with the bandages around her right arm which is revealed to be that of a deformed one. Meanwhile in the cell, Sawa severs Yuta’s chains and reveals that Towa is her twin sister who looks young on the outside but is aging on the inside. About 60 years ago, Towa contracted a fatal disease, thus Sawa became the sole heiress of the Kannagi family line, and had her sister drink the blood of a mermaid she got hold in a hidden repository called Mermaid Hill, which cured her illness but caused her right arm to become deformed resembling that of a deformed one’s and turned her hair white, so she was reported dead and forced to live confined in the cell by their father until his death. Then, Towa shows up dragging an unconscious Mana, and reveals that due to her deformed arm causing pain, she repeatedly gets the right arms of still fresh dead young girls to reattach them to her, since each arm would become deformed after a few years causing the pain to come back, and she plans to switch her entire body with Mana this time. She drives a spear through Yuta, then asks Sawa to come out of the cell and leaves her deformed dog with Yuta. | |||||
| 6 | "Mermaid Forest (2)" (人魚の森［後編］, Ningyo no Mori Kōhen) | ||||
| While Yuta fights the deformed dog and impales it through the back of its head with a spear, Towa tasks Dr. Shiina to cut off the head of Mana still unconscious and place her own head onto Mana’s body unless Sawa accepts to reveal Mermaid Hill’s location, however Dr. Shiina can’t cut off the head of a living person so Towa was about to cut off her head herself but Sawa eventually relents and accepts to take her to Mermaid Hill. For insurance, Towa brings Mana along strapped to a cart, ready to chop her head off if Sawa lied, and Mana revives and yells for Yuta who in a weakened state gets out of the house. They arrive at a giant tree where Sawa uncovers an entrance hidden by rocks below. They enter the cave together with Mana and a mermaid is found in a pit. Just then, Yuta shows up and warns Towa about how it is actually rare to attain immortality and the other outcomes that could most likely occur by eating mermaid flesh, but she answers that it makes no difference to her. She throws Mana into the pit, demanding her to bring the flesh of the mermaid, and a deformed one appears before Mana. Yuta jumps into the pit and despite his weakened state, manages to kill the deformed one with Mana’s help. As Yuta collapses into Mana’s arms, Towa comes down together with Dr. Shiina and Sawa, and she approaches the mermaid who surprisingly still lives and bites Towa’s shoulder although Towa chops its head off. She slices a chunk from its tail, and just as Yuta tells her not to eat it, it turns out that she wants Sawa to eat it. She reveals that she overheard their father scolding Sawa that she knew that mermaid flesh is poison and no one had ever attained immortality, meaning Sawa used her as a guinea pig for her own hope to remain young forever, so she resented Sawa who had the privilege of living an ordinary life while she lived in a cell and she planned revenge on her by inflicting the same suffering she made her go through. However just as Towa tries to force her to eat, Sawa instantly die of a heart attack. Robbed of her revenge, Towa cries saying it’s not fair and demands Mermaid Hill to burn. Outside, as Towa dies in the fire, Dr. Shiina reveals that he was her fiancé and tried to take her away from her confined life only for her to decline, for she secretly longed for her revenge. The next day, while walking, Mana asks Yuta if loneliness is painful and Yuta asks her what she would do if he disappeared, to which she answers that she would look for him, and if she couldn’t find him, she’d keep looking. | |||||
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Published in: Shonen Sunday 1987 Vol. 22-23 (1987年 『週刊少年サンデー』 22-23号) | |||||
Dream's End[]
| 7 | "Dream's End" (夢の終わり, Yume no Owari) | ||||
| In a forest, a colossal individual wrapped in bandages and wearing clothes stumbles upon Yuta and Mana lying dead and notices Mana stirring. Yuta revives in a shack, much to the surprise of an old hunter with an eyepatch who had called a priest. The hunter learns Yuta is immortal due to having eaten mermaid flesh and he tells him that Mana was most likely eaten by a monster named “Big Eyes” who took his left eye about 40 years ago. As night falls, Mana wakes up in a cave just as Big Eyes appears, and much to her surprise, he can talk and says he won’t hurt her. The next morning, Mana washes herself in a pond while Big Eyes feels enamored thinking she’s the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen, then she eats a wild boar he roasted and was about to go search for Yuta but he begs to stay with him a little longer. As Yuta and the hunter try to find Big Eyes using a dog to get his trail, the hunter tells Yuta how Big Eyes can be killed only by cutting his head off, so Yuta guesses what they’re dealing with. Big Eyes reveals to Mana that he was once an ordinary man leaving in a village by the sea and he ate the flesh of a mermaid corpse he found lying on the beach knowing it was supposed to be the elixir of eternal youth and immortality, which resulted in his body transforming partly into that of a deformed one and he blacked out, but thereafter, he came back to his human senses and was horrified to see everyone killed and what he had become through his reflection so ran away and has been living in solitude ever since. Finding Mana made him happy, but that happiness is short lived as the hunter and Yuta show up, and as the hunter starts shooting him and Yuta approaches, he panics and knocks down the rocks in front of the cave entrance just as Yuta gets inside, then grabs Mana and runs off with her towards an exit on the other side of the cave. Deeper in the cave, Mana angrily struggles to get free from Big Eyes who then puts her down telling her to go back to Yuta, and the hunter appears showing Mana a pile of bones around them, for Big Eyes reveals that he sometimes would become dizzy and go berserk again and it happens at this moment. As he comes out of the cave after swatting the hunter, he unwillingly hits Mana and Yuta had no choice but to stab him despite Mana’s attempts to reason with him. As Big Eyes lays dying, he feebly calls out Mana who wraps her arms around him telling him to sleep well, and Yuta says he was able to die as a human being. | |||||
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Published in: Shonen Sunday 1988 Vol. 23 (1988年 『週刊少年サンデー』 23号) | |||||
Promised Tomorrow[]
| 8 | "Promised Tomorrow (1)" (約束の明日［前編］, Yakusoku no Ashita Zenpen) | ||||
| To be added | |||||
| 9 | "Promised Tomorrow (2)" (約束の明日［後編］, Yakusoku no Ashita Kōhen) | ||||
| To be added | |||||
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Published in: Shonen Sunday 1990 Vol. 45-46 (1990年 『週刊少年サンデー』 45-46号) | |||||
Mermaid's Scar[]
| 10 | "Mermaid's Scar (1)" (人魚の傷［前編］, Ningyo no Kizu Zenpen) | ||||
| To be added | |||||
| 11 | "Mermaid's Scar (2)" (人魚の傷［後編］, Ningyo no Kizu Kōhen) | ||||
| To be added | |||||
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Published in: Shonen Sunday 1992 Vol. 5-6 (1992年 『週刊少年サンデー』 5-6号) | |||||
The Ash Princess[]
| 12 | "The Ash Princess" (舎利姫, Shari-Hime) | ||||
| In the early 17th century, an old man puts on a sideshow where he tells about mermaid flesh granting eternal youth and longevity and proves it by showing what appears to be a mermaid in a small box and a girl named Natsume cut her arm and show her wound get healed instantly, then sells some portions to the spectators. However, Yuta learns from a man that the portion tasted like carp and a wound of his didn’t heal. As night falls, Natsume eats the liver of a dog she killed in a field and is approached by an old monk who unsheathes a blade from his staff. Yuta spots Natsume being chased by the monk who cuts off her left hand so he jostles the monk causing him to hit his head against a rock before he could kill her. He carries Natsume back to the old man who reattaches her left hand to her arm in their hut, much to the surprise of Yuta who reveals himself to be immortal and that he’s looking for a mermaid in hope of becoming mortal again, so Natsume shows the mermaid used in the sideshow which turns out to be a monkey with a fish tail and the old man says Natsume didn’t actually eat mermaid flesh. Yuta was offered to sleep over, but during the night, Natsume bites his belly thus the old man apologizes to Yuta and asks him to leave. Yuta meets the monk who reveals that he met the old man a long time ago when he mourned the loss of his daughter which was a heartbreaking sight to him thus he brought her back to life from her bones using a secret technique together with a mermaid liver that was handed down through his temple, in order to ensure the process worked, which however made her immortal and have an appetite for livers, and the man disappeared with her and has been using the technique to bring other people back to life for a fee, only for them to return to bones. The next day, Natsume apologizes to Yuta who was tasked to watch over her for 7 days while he strengthens his dharmic power to return her back to bones. For the next few days, she spends time with Yuta, helps her father make preparations to resurrect a princess from her bones on top of a hill at the request of her parents, and buries the fake mermaid which returned to bones. On the seventh day, Yuta eventually asks Natsume to leave with him to which she happily agrees, unaware that her father was eavesdropping. As night falls, Natsume’s father lures Yuta in the hills and attacks him with an ax, saying he won’t let him take his child from him. Meanwhile, Natsume runs into the monk who extracts her liver, but her determination to go with Yuta gives her the strength to cut off the monk’s right arm and she runs away. Much to her shock, she finds her father about to extract the liver of Yuta held captive to use it for the princess to ensure her resurrection would stick, so she pleads with him to stop but he swats her away, causing her to stop the resurrection process by jumbling the princess’ bones. She cries and apologizes to her father who notices that her liver is gone, so he carries her up until reaching a cliff from where he then jumps while still holding her saying he will always accompany her and that she won’t be lonely. Yuta finds Natsume next to her dead father below, and as he holds her in his arms, she says she’ll follow him wherever he goes then reverts to bones. A sad Yuta wouldn’t allow the monk to pray for her and picks up her bones, swearing to take care of the last rites himself. | |||||
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Published in: Shonen Sunday Extra 1992 June (1992年 『週刊少年サンデー』 6月増刊号) | |||||
Eye of the Demon[]
| 13 | "Eye of the Demon (1)" (夜叉の瞳［前］, Yasha no Hitomi Mae) | ||||
| To be added | |||||
| 14 | "Eye of the Demon (2)" (夜叉の瞳［後編］, Yasha no Hitomi Kōhen) | ||||
| To be added | |||||
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Published in: Shonen Sunday 1993 Vol. 5-6 (1993年 『週刊少年サンデー』 5-6号) | |||||
The Last Face[]
| 15 | "The Last Face (1)" (最後の顔［前］, Saigo no Kao Mae) | ||||
| To be added | |||||
| 16 | "The Last Face (2)" (最後の顔［後編］, Saigo no Kao Kōhen) | ||||
| To be added | |||||
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Published in: Shonen Sunday 1994 Vol. 7-8 (1994年 『週刊少年サンデー』 7-8号) | |||||
