Ero♥Märchen: Ningyo-hime

This is not your little child’s fairy tale; the name itself gives it away. When it says Erotic, it really means so with sex happening in almost every chapter, full of passion to the occasional rape scenes… and yet the story felt like the sex was not fully forced within the main part of the story. Well not entirely anyway. Let me explain a bit more about the story so you can understand where I am coming from. Lottie was a very innocent and naive mermaid who fell in love the moment she met the Prince Abel. After saving him, she meets a demon whotells her that he has a way to turn her human but at a cost, she would have to consume something that mermaids don’t have or she would die… and this is where the erotic part is. It seems that that thing mermaids don’t have is life force and the only way to ‘consume’ it is to have sex. Saying this, you might be wondering why I said that the sex part was not fully forced within the story but trust me, it isn’t. If you took the word sex and replaced it with a more tame word like ‘kiss’ or even ‘touch’ then it wouldn’t be as erotic. It might not have as deep a meaning in this case, but it still could have been replaced. For the first few chapters, my thoughts were that this was going to be the same as any other hentai style manga out there, or anime for that matter. They would have sex in the first three pages, and keep on having it over and over again without much of a character base to them. The prince would always be cold and uncaring as he used the young mermaid as a sex toy while she would become heartbroken since it wasn’t what she wanted. I even thought I knew exactly how it would end, that the mermaid would find he loved another and would kill herself, turning into sea foam like the original Little Mermaid story ended. I was pleasantly surprised in fact when I was proven wrong about all of that. The characters were very thought out and had reasons for their actions… all except J, the demon. He sadly seemed to be on the more mysterious side, with small hints that there was a reason he changed the story so much. He acted so much like a god playing around with the main characters hearts that I actually felt hate for him just as the main characters did. I do have a problem with the story though; it goes a bit too long I think. So sure there was almost two stories that ended up merging into one, with the first half of the story about Lottie and Adel, and the second about Adel’s twin brother and another mermaid but it kind of felt like it was trying to stretch its length. With J manipulating the story so much, twisting and turning it, it felt like he was the author just turning it for his own sick and strange wants to make a long Hentai manga. This might be the longest hentai manga I have even read actually as its 36 chapters long. At the end of the first story though, I just kind of wanted it to end there even if it didn’t have a really happy ending (That’s as much spoiler as your getting there). The second half might have been icing on a nice story, but it was a bit thick of a layer. The artwork is very beautiful and I am surprised how detailed it was. Now I read this on a website so I don’t know if they did this or it was like this in the manga but I was a bit happy that they only had more of a sugjestion of the sexual organs of both the men and women. To me, not showing all of what was there was actually rather pretty in that sense... ok, it was erotic too in that way but for me, the more you can let your mind picture what is happening, the more intreging it is. Everything else though was very highly detailed from the clothing to just the way a strand of hair was laying. I love how they designed it that way. So now we come to the big question, what my thoughts really are about this. Well, It’s a lot better then a lot of manga I have read with sex being a big part of it, but it still goes on a little long. I think where the story shines is in the first part of the manga and if you just read that part, you could have a very full story (minus the part where J trys to keep it going). Still, the second half wasn’t all that bad but it might have been better if I didn’t read it at the same time as the first one. I feel like I would of liked it more if I waited a day, then read the second half. Worth the time to read, just might not be one to ‘marathon’ it even if it is short compared to many series out there… looking at you Bleach and Naruto.