 Today on the channel we go back to the sea with more mermaid action from Satoshi Kahn's early manga, Tropic of the Sea. Hey everybody, welcome back to the channel. Gio here and today we're going back to Satoshi Kahn's work, this time for his 1990 manga, Tropic of the Sea. Now I have to backtrack a little bit. Back in 2021, I did a review on Opus and in that video I talked about how I was a little bit oblivious of Kahn's manga career. I neglected that part, I guess. He is one of my favorite directors of all time and for some reason the manga, I never associated the two, you know? So now in these past years, I'm rediscovering all of that. I made a video about Opus. I had a lot of fun talking about that book and now we're going to talk a little bit about Tropic of the Sea. So the story follows the character of Yosuke Yashiro and his family. For many years they have been partaking in this tradition where the mer people or mermaids hand off an egg for protection. The family will take care of it in their shrine and until it hatches for around 60 or so years and as a result of that symbiotic relation their coastal town is blessed with a bountiful harvest and good tides, favorable conditions and nature and all that stuff and it's a very healthy ecosystem that they've established. Now some people don't believe in it. They think it's sort of a fairy tale, a thing that you use to or say to attract visitors and tourists and stuff like that. You have the main character's grandfather who did do the pact when he was young and now his son or the main character's father is in charge of the shrine but he doesn't really believe in the story and is just going along with it if you will. So the character of Yosuke is sort of trapped in the middle between his family. Now what I like about the setting in this story, it has a very local feel that can only be experienced by those that have lived in coastal towns like myself and you see a lot of the same people and the fishermen and the people just enjoying the public beaches and stuff like that and I found that really special and could sympathize and could see myself in that situation. I really enjoyed the vistas. The art on this thing is beautiful compared to opus. I enjoy the art on Tropic of the Sea a lot more. It's very beautiful delicately drawn and well-defined. Everybody has nice facial structures. It's very easy to distinguish people. It sort of feels real. It feels like you're there with them in that story. You could almost sense the and feel the breeze of this hot summer day if you will or a cool night. It really has that ambiance to it that I really enjoy and rarely do get from manga because sometimes you know we like to read a lot of fantastical stuff and this plays out sort of like a modern type of fairy tale honestly. Very quickly in the story you see that Josuke's father is working with investors and construction people and all that stuff to help build this large spa hotel resort type of thing and that will obviously disrupt the coastal town. It will disrupt the water and the roads and everything and the nature aspect of it being a rural town compared to the big cities. Now they obviously know about the legend of the egg and they sort of start this commotion about it being sort of like this touristy thing that they can exploit. None of them really believe the stories unlike Josuke's father and Josuke who's sort of trapped in the middle like I said earlier. Now there aren't a couple of characters that help Josuke along in the story like a good friend that returns from the city back to our hometown. There's possibly a love connection forming or slowly blossoming. Josuke's sister is also part of the story along with his friends and stuff like that that really enriches the story to me because it's not just about them. The story is also about the town. The town is integral to the plot of Tropic of the Sea. It's not just Josuke's adventure with a mermaid egg and the possibility of a mermaid really existing. It really does explore the nature of a town being exploited for resources, the industry taking over the coastal town and ruining the flora and fauna and stuff like that. So I got to admit at first glance when I started reading the book it was kind of a slow burn and I wasn't really digging into it as other books that I've read and I like this stuff. I love folklore and I love you know urban legends and the more fantastical side of life and sort of wondering like could all of this really happen? Is this sort of like a hidden chapter in the book of life if you will? I really enjoy stuff like this but at the beginning I wasn't really feeling it. I thought it was a little bit too slow and I wasn't getting myself emotionally invested in the characters. It wasn't until a particular scene right from the first few pages. I believe this was only seven chapters but they're big in size compared to modern day manga chapters. So there's this one scene that I really enjoyed where they're looking out at the sea at night. You have Yosuke in his boat with his friend and Yosuke is contemplating about the mermaid and the egg and all that stuff and remembering about his life and his deceased mother and stuff like that and he sees something off the distance. Now he doesn't know at first and obviously his mind could be playing tricks. He thinks like it couldn't be a mermaid right and it turned out to be his friend Nami that I mentioned earlier coming back into town and all that stuff. She loves to swim and was playing a prank on them and wants to climb on board the boat. So when she does she knocks Yosuke's flashlight. It falls into the water and I saw for a brief second and immediately clicked with me. Yes this is a Satoshi Kan work. I love this so much. There's this quick scene of the flashlight illuminating the ocean water and you see this gigantic tail possibly swimming beneath the boat and it was so well done and executed. Kan is a master at his transition work and this I was right at home and I'm like yeah I'm in. I'm in for the long haul and you don't really see and I'm not going to spoil it but you'd think man if it's really about a mermaid I wonder if you're going to see the creature and you don't really see anything. It's more about the characters and whether they believe in this folktale or not. How do they react to incoming changes to the town you know being more industrialized I guess with the construction of a modern hotel sort of disrupting their common day life. The fishermen are upset because they want to tear down an island nearby a small island where there is a shrine inside which was used for the whole mermaid thing inside of a cave. They want to knock that down to help with the hotel expansion and all that stuff and suddenly there are no fishes or the coral reefs are gone or they're dead so it's that so it's that struggle of modern technology and the hotel business and commercialism and all that stuff invading the lives of a coastal town that lives a more simpler way of life and you can also understand that the people that want to do this they're not doing it to be evil they want obviously to make money but they also want to improve the town's life there's a scene where Yosuke's father saying like we also deserve or our town folk deserve the same treatment and the same luxury as the city folk with their hotels and fancy places and I totally understand that coming from a rural town myself and a coastal town of that trust me I really do understand that so you gotta have to find a balance between the two facets you know sort of a nice balance between modernization and keeping to your traditions and roots and all that stuff so it's a really nice theme being explored here by Satoshi Kahn I think he did a fantastic job the art like I said is wonderful the story plays out just as I would have imagined it I could easily see this being an animated film and it's a damn shame that we never got an anime adaptation of this I think it would look amazing and do really well I said earlier in the video that the pacing was a little bit slow at the beginning but once I got to that little reveal and scene that I told you about in the water the story picks up dramatically and you become invested in the story and Yosuke's dilemma of keeping to tradition but also you know there's this plot thread where he is wanting to get into college and study and move away from the town but kind of doesn't want to because he wants to keep to his family's traditions and his grandfather's a huge influence in that so he's sort of in this maelstrom if you will of conflicting emotions to whether go or stay or see things through and of course how do they deal with the hotel construction and the the people with the big money trying to make it happen then trying to just renovate the whole town and get rid of the traditions and even the shrine and the mermaid egg also becomes a huge focal point of the story as they start investigating into the matter they start seeing some kind of freaky stuff happening when it comes to the egg and it may or may not be what they believe it to be yeah so overall I do think the tropic of the sea is a fantastic series I connected with the plot I connected with the characters and setting the art is beautiful what more can I say uh go check it out if you haven't go read it I think it's gonna be worth your time the ending uh was great and there are a lot of vistas and panoramic scenes that are beautiful in this that I highly recommend just for that so yeah that's going to be about it thank you everybody for tuning in thank you for liking commenting and subscribing being a part of a week in geekdom I truly do appreciate it have you read tropic of the sea from satoshi khan if you have let me know in the comment section down below what you thought of it and if you haven't what are some other mermaid themed manga that you think I should check out I've already talked about um mermaid saga from romego takahashi so I'd be interested in checking out other mermaid themed books as well thank you everybody for tuning in like I said god bless stay safe out there I will catch all of you on our next video