Merman in My Tub vol. 1 (Manga Review)

Merman in My Tub vol. 1

manga by Itokichi
English release by Seven Seas

A Highly Opinionated, Somewhat Ranty Review by QuartzWolf
Jan. 2016

Merman in My Tub (originally Orenchi no Furo Jijo, The Circumstances in My Home's Bathtub) is a cute little slice-of-life gag comedy with very well-drawn mermen by the new-ish author Itokichi. In a dry desert of anything to do with mermen, Itokichi has filled a void. A void often made of fibreglass or ceramic and otherwise known as a bathtub. It doesn't really need a synopsis... Everything you need to know is written clearly in the blurb on the back of the book. Along with a very lovely picture of Wakasa. If that doesn't net you, well, there are other fish in the sea.



So... Seven Seas got a hold of this one. (Resist the urge to make a joke about it, resist the urge to make a joke about it... RESIST.) My first experience of this series was from piecing together various fan translations of the original Japanese version of the first volume, before the show came out. I wasn't sure what to expect of it, and the series ended up really charming me. I wished I could get a hold of a hard copy of it in a language I could actually read (Japanese characters make my head swim), but I really wasn't convinced it was the kind of thing that would, realistically, ever be picked up for translation into English copies... (or even French, for that matter.) The premise "Cute, heartwarming slice-of-life gag comedy featuring nearly or entirely naked young men in a bathtub; no actual sex. Young men's lower halves are marine animals." doesn't really strike me as something American manga publishers would deem marketable to the audience they've cultivated over here. Subtlety (notoriously) isn't a real favourite of American audiences. (Or at least that's how marketers perceive it to be...) By the time the animated series came out, I was starting to dread that the more overtly sexualized tone of the show and the current marketing environment would land the manga in the hands of a company like Digital. (It's true Digital doesn't just do porn, but that's still their primary product. (And yaoi fans account for almost the entirety of their established buyer base, so far as I can tell...) It didn't... but I still find myself really disappointed with the result.

Translation: 2 out of 5
It's legible English and generally free of errors, but it loses almost everything that made it entertaining and unique, in favour of becoming dumbed-down pandering fanservice for cashing in on Monster Musume in the cheapest possible way. This series deserves better.

To their credit, the jokes were all very subtle and 'Niponspecific'... They did try to translate some of the jokes, and did sometimes succeed. But a lot of stuff seems to be changed, and without any warning or the translator's notes we sometimes find in other manga releases...

It's just... somehow... awkward and wooden, no matter how I go back to it and try to re-read it. It doesn't feel as if Seven Seas preserved any of the subtlety.

Artwork: 4.5 out of 5
It's gorgeous and beautifully drawn. I keep coming back to look at it. At this point, this is probably the volume of manga I take off the shelf and re-read most often. The artist (Itokichi) pays a lot of attention to detail. There's a wide variety of appropriate facial expressions (which can be pretty rare in manga), all of which match the characters' personalities. Each of the characters is visually unique and recognizable; it's almost impossible to forget who's who. Takasu's character design or stock character type is one that isn't very widely used, especially not in a setting like this, and he actually came off to me as ever-so-slightly 'original'. Tanned badboy/octopus handiman? When was the last time anyone ever saw that in a manga?

Story: 3 out of 5
It was a welcome relief to me that despite being a gag manga, each little episode isn't written in an amnesiac sort of a way. (One of the things that frustrated me the most about Ranma ½.) There isn't any overarching plot - it really is a slice of life gag comic - but events that happened in the past aren't forgotten, and the story builds on itself as it progresses. The pacing is very fast, but it's a gag comic. It's meant to be bite size and kind of staccato.

Pacing and Layout: 4 out of 5
Itokichi's pacing is very good. (Minus some awkward bits of dialogue that seem to come from nowhere... I can't blame it all on Seven Seas.) The artist often escapes from the typical setup of a 4-koma, stretching pictures into spreads, and using diagonal or oddly-shaped panels.

Characterization: 4 out of 5
The characters are all very consistent in looks and behaviour, and look distinct from one another. The cuteness is on target and isn't chafing, forced, or shoehorned... in fact I found it so honestly cute it was almost disturbing. Even in just this first volume, there's a little bit of character development, but given that it's a slice-of-life gag manga, I'm not expecting much.

Sexiness: ??? out of... something
I'm still trying to figure out just how dirty this series is supposed to be. A lot of the time it just comes off as cute... clean, even (almost despite itself)... and then snailboy arrives and amps up the squeamishness to max. (Ever watched a snail on aquarium glass?) Nevermind the now-infamous "tentacle massage", Maki's dietary habits are enough to make anyone squirm. Hard.

Bottom Line:
"It's a delight." I found it a really, truly delightful series, and out of all the manga on my shelf, in the three or four months since it was released to the time I'm writing this, this is main book I keep taking out and re-reading. However, it feels to me like it's been terribly dumbed down, and flavoured somewhat to take advantage of the success of Monster Musume. This doesn't really take that much away from it, but the flavour and style of Orenchi no Furo Jijo, as I gathered it, isn't really in the same vein as Monster Musume at all... and I get the impression that after this translation, very few people will notice that. This isn't a raunch comedy. Losing the subtlety (including the title) means it loses a lot of its charm.

Overall, I still highly recommend it. Even if that is a bit shellfish selfish.



Remember, everyone (to paraphrase a line from South Park): "Being gay isn't a choice! Fangirls decide that for you."