 Hey everybody, welcome back to the manga geekdom, Gio here. We're going to take a look at Mermaid Scales and the Town of Sand written and drawn by Yoko Komori. In a nutshell, it tells the story of young Tokiko as she and her father moved to a small seaside town to live with her grandmother and go to school as sixth grade is about to start. However, the sight, sounds, and smells of this town bring back distant locked away memories for young Tokiko as she revisits a painful memory of seven years ago when she almost drowned at sea. However, she was saved by a merman. Yes, we're talking about mermaids on this episode. But before we dive in, see what I did there, I need to give you guys a crash course on mermaids slash ninjo which would be the Japanese equivalent of these folkloric creatures. Now mermaids appear in folklore across many cultures worldwide including Europe, Asia, Africa, and many more to say the least. Mermaids are sometimes associated with perilous events such as storms, shipwrecks, floods, and overall disasters and drownings. In other folklore traditions, however, they can be benevolent, bestowing boons and falling in love with humans. If we travel to Japan, the human fish species is called Ningyo, which are somewhat different from the mermaids of Western tradition. Ningyo in the Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Japan are not the prettiest thing to behold. Ningyo appear more fish than human and can have ugly, deformed, fish-like faces, human torsos, bony fingers, and sharp claws. When people consume Ningyo meat, you gain immortality. So a lot of stories tell of people hunting down the mermaids in order to acquire this mythical power, this incredible feat of being immortal. Unfortunately that comes with tragedy, sadness, frustrations, and overall just bad luck for the person willing to attempt this. But to scale it back to the topic in hand, we're talking mermaid scales and the town of sand. We're doing coastal towns, we're doing a more Western style of mermaids. I thought, what better way to do research on a manga than some on-field experience? Living in an island, I get the benefit of having somewhat of a same scenario that Tokiko is experiencing in this manga. So I decided to take a trip to my nearest beach and of course try and see if I could spot a mermaid myself. I got soaked, looked around, saw some interesting things, and maybe spotted something pretty neat. But we'll come back to that in a minute. Before we find something interesting, let's go back to mermaid scales. At the beginning of the video we talked a little bit about the plot of this series and to expand on that and give you my thoughts, mermaid scales and the town of sand is this beautiful coming of age story with a wonderful female protagonist. This is a Jose manga and I highly recommend you guys check it out if you're interested in the supernatural, if you're interested in coming of age stories, or if you just want a nice chill slice of life manga about this wonderful story that takes place in a quiet seaside town. The character of Tokiko is excellently written, she is sympathetic, she's a bundle of joy, but she also has some trauma in her life that gets explored as you read through the story. Unfortunately, when she travels to this new town to live with her grandmother and father after her parents decide to take a break from each other, the town sort of kick starts a nostalgia for the main character as she starts to remember her past and the things that happened where she almost drowned out in the sea and was saved by a merman. Now of course the story plays with the idea that she's making this up or that it wasn't what she thought it would be. There is no such thing as mermaids, but the character is insistent that it is and it did happen and she is going to try and prove it. So throughout the story you get that little subplot as well as her making new friends at school and them showing her around the town and exploring the legends and folklore of this small seaside town. One of the most integral things about mermaid scales and the town of sand is how interconnected the lore of the town is with the characters and the plot of the book. While this search for merman is happening, Tokiko is of course missing her mother so that is also one of the big topics in this book that I really appreciated. The fact that you have a character that doesn't have all the answers, she's kind of an introvert at first, but I did appreciate that the story does not involve bullying of sorts. She comes into her own and is welcomed by her classmates and they form a friendship. And even when things go south a little bit with some slight teasing, if you will, from certain characters, it's nothing too traumatic. It's not something that would trigger some people out there that have experienced rough childhoods. I did really like that fact. The art on mermaid scales in the town of sand is spectacular. At first glance, you might be fooled by the cover, you might be fooled by the character designs and think, oh, this is a very indie looking, simply drawn manga by Yoko Komori, but there is a beauty, a simplicity and a complexity to it when you see the backgrounds, when you see how nice and beautiful this coastal town is, when you see the school, and also when you have shots of the beach and the characters altogether either playing or having a powerful, emotional or wonderful experience or when it touches upon the supernatural aspect of life, but also it is very refined in its expressions. I really admired that you got what these characters were feeling based on the look on their eyes and their facial expressions. It really conveyed that emotion pretty damn well and I thought Yoko did an exceptional job at that. So at just 12 chapters, if you include the bonus side story, this is a very simple yet effective beautiful story of a young girl finding herself confronting trauma and moving forward in life while also dabbling in what makes towns and culture so important. So for that, I wholeheartedly recommend it. I think it's a worthwhile read and an excellent addition to your library. But we're not done. Let's go back to the ocean as I continue my search for a mermaid. Unfortunately, it was getting kind of late. I didn't really find anything except this little buddy right here, which I nicknamed Little Tokiko. Alright little dude, see you later. Unfortunately, I did not find any mermaids, ningyo, and such. And whenever I see a story that mixes a mythological creature, folklore, and coming of age stories, I remind it by the fact that these characters or creatures have a lesson to play. They teach us that even though they might be elusive, they might spell disaster and doom, they serve a purpose. And that is to fuel our imagination and make us forget about our troubles and seek to the horizon for the promise of a better day.