Seto no Hanayome was a series I was planning on blogging initially until I saw that no one was fansubbing it to begin with - though a couple groups did pick it up. I’m rather glad I didn’t blog it because a line that Yoshio said in the final episode perfectly describes the entire series:
This is Absurd!
Yeah, that pretty accurately describes the series. I think the setup of being rescued by a mermaid, then having to marry them or else get killed to preserve the mermaid’s secret is a pretty interesting setup. Unfortunately, the series went downhill from there and did so over the course of the entire series, with only a few exceptions.
The final episode kind of epitomized everything I don’t like about this series:
- Being over the top. Ok, so Nagasumi suddenly gains the power to deflect bullets ala the Matrix and suddenly turns into a muscular hunk at the end because he suddenly discovers courage and chivalry in the name of protecting San? Give me a break. Everything from Luna’s father showing up (still wearing the school uniform, which is itself absurd) out of nowhere and, well, I could probably list dozens of things here. The point was that this series was so silly that I didn’t want to laugh with it. It was so dumb that I couldn’t even laugh at it. All I wanted to do was find a good solid door and bash my head against it repeatedly.
- The animation. Whenever there is an action scene, the animation goes way down hill. Not the animation quality per se, but how they animate it. Good luck trying to figure out what’s going on cause I thought I was gonna get seizures from how they animated action sequences.
And in a more general sense over the course of the series:
- Saru. The dude looks like a monkey. I know that’s on purpose but I mean…do I need to say any more? If his character design followed a pattern that all the other characters followed, then fine. But he doesn’t. The humans have their own character design style. The mermaids have their own character design style. Then there is Saru.
- The favorite way to end episodes it seems, and series in general, are for some sort of deus ex machina ending where the mermaid’s power find a way to cure everything - often using some sort of mermaid song which just happens to do something that solves the problem.
- The story is supposedly about San and Nagasumi being engaged and their life as a result. However, it just seemed like most of the episodes, while they dealt with issues that sort of related to this fact, never really addressed it except on a few occasions. Heck, I think they spend more time exploring the relationship between Nagasumi and Luna than they do the relationship between Nagasumi and San.
It’s hard to find anything good about this series, but there are some good moments. A few individual episodes were brilliant. Probably the best was Episode 10 with it’s absolutely hilarious parody of The Terminator. Also, in a general sense, animation quality and music were pretty good. However, this just isn’t enough to save the series for me. I’m sorry to say that it’s going straight into the trash bin.
