Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch/Headscratchers

Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch

• How exactly does the turning-into-foam thing work? We know it only works for humans, which leaves Kaito, Rihito, Hamasaki and Michal fair game to discover the girls' identities, which they all do. But what about Tarou? He was completely human! And is Lucia's theory of letting them figure it out on their own correct?
  • I think it's an urban legend to keep mermaids away from humans.
    • If so, why?
      • A Wizard Did It?
  • Wait a minute, isn't Hamasaki human in the anime? Or at least they never went into his backstory...
  • I think, the whole sea-foam thing is just a legend after all. It's actually comeing from the original fairytale "the little mermaid": In Andersen's fairytale, mermaids don't posses the part of soul, that makes you go to heaven, so they just disolve into sea-foam when dieing. To make up for that, their average life-span is at least 4-times as long as that of a human.
• Why do all the civilian mermaids let the princesses get away with their bullshit, and even praise them for it? Gaito is attacking mermaid kingdom after mermaid kingdom, destroying it and probably killing a lot of people, and the princesses spend their time on land dicking around whining about how their crush doesn't love them and going on dates. Lina even joins in this mentality, even though she at first yelled at them for it...then the little blue mermaid girl comes to Hanon after her mother's disappearance and, after feeling upset by this behavior and temporarily betraying them she decides Hanon's a good princess after all - even though Hanon's done jack crap to help this kid's mother. Seriously, what the hell? They almost never even take action against Gaito, they sit around and wait for his minions to attack - but everyone acts like they are. Hell, the extra girls turn into this even after seeing first hand what that destruction meant!
  • Obviously, you were Completely Missing the Point of the entire first arc. The Meru story, which you cited, was written to combat this point of view. Meru thinks exactly like you do: that Hanon and the girls should be solely focused on fighting and any enjoyment of life on the surface, falling in love, going to school and going shopping are careless and cruel insults to what the other mermaids have gone through. It's because of this that Yuuri preys on her, and Hanon rescues her even though she likes to, shock horror, have fun. Furthermore? Although Meru thought that "Hanon has done jack crap to help (her) mother" (quoting you here), she shows at the end that, even though she was shopping and flirting, she was also working the whole time to find Meru's mom (with a jellyfish spy network, no less). You also cited Rina's intro, which is basically the same thing -- her single-mindedness just blinded her to what was really going on, and she learned to let go and was better off for it. On the other hand, there is one real example of lazy, flighty, duty-shirking princesshood in Pichi Pichi Pitch -- and can you guess who it is? Sara. Though her servant's cruel manipulation of her to try and make sure that she and Tarou were separated forever contributed some to her madness, poor Baaya didn't feel that she had much of a choice -- those two were going to run away together, completely neglecting the fact that Sara had a kingdom to run. In the end, she realizes that it was at least partially her fault for trying to run away from her responsibilities. Hanon and Rina learn from this and acknowledge that they only have a little time with their human (or semi-human, in Hamasaki's case) love interests, and that their most important task is to be princesses. The laziness and irresponsibility that you see the main characters as possessing is actually condemned by the series, and shopping for bikinis and chasing after boys does not mean throwing away ruling a kingdom and fighting off invaders.
• When Kaito is getting ready to leave for Hawaii, we have to hear Luchia going on at length about how she won't see him again...when only a couple of episodes before, Hanon and Lina swam there in less than a day.
  • Pichi physics make no sense period. Water Is Air, anyone?
  • I think she's just being overly dramatic.
• Am I the ONLY one who thinks Luchia is a total Mary-Sue?
  • She's not.
    • Lucia isn't a Mary-Sue, due to the fact she isn't THAT remarkably beautiful and she doesn't have an angsty backstory, although I can see why you would think that she is a Sue, considering she's destined to be the next Aqua Regina, has large breasts etc.
    • Lucia, large breasted? (snicker) Sorry, I found that funny. She has to be the second flattest in her civil form, above Hanon. Now, Sara's milk jugs should be on that entry.
    • Seconded. IMO, Coco looks like the second largest bust in the set, in mermaid form at least. All the others not named Lucia and Hanon get tied at third place.
    • Lucia does have a large bust for a normal human being in her mermaid form ^{[dead link]} , as well as when she is revealed to be the next Aqua Regina. She doesn't exactly have large breasts.
• Who is Seira's father?
  • Who are any mermaid's parents? In Seira's case, she is parentless because she is Sara, reincarnated at level 1 (lol, too much Disgaea?) but the rest... maybe the idea is that their pearls contain their souls and when any mermaid dies they just reincarnate. Anyway, why are there no MALE sirenoids anywhere?
  • Then Lucia gave away her SOUL to Kaito seven years ago?
  • The merfolk could be a One-Gender Race. You know, kind of like what says in the article itself.
  • Or maybe, the Panthalassa are this story's mermen. Ops, now I can't explain their Gendercide...
  • Mermaids are a One-Gender Race; it says so in the manga. There are also female Panthalassa, such as Mrs. Amagi, so it isn't a case of Gendercide. The fact that Meru has a living mother, that mermaids have a heteronormative society (note Hanon's immediate assumption that everyone else is interested in boys and that there's nothing wrong with that, as well as her transphobia as seen by her treatment of Lady Bat), and that mermaids also have a legal age of consent means that some mermaids have mermaid mothers, with fathers from other races. (Suiyou, perhaps?) Others, like Seira, are created when their predecessors' pearls are placed in the giant shell -- this is probably what happens when a mermaid dies without having children.
• The fact that 13-year-old mermaids are considered adults, and they can do whateeeever they want. I'm sorry, I just think that it's a bit...disturbing........
  • That I can't buy, sorry. Anime makes them look 16 at the very least. Seira is canonically 6 year old (actually, it should be just a few months) Yet she looks more like a 13 year old than her mermaid peers. Age is screwed up in the mermaid kingdom, it seems.
• The manga structure itself. Given I've only read the first two volumes so far, feel free to correct me, but it feels like things move in fast motion or something. Like, they'll be out on a walk, then suddenly Kaito appears and says something chivalrously perverted and then they'll be in the bath house again and then suddenly they're in a concert hall and AUGH.
  • You have a point there, but I'd say that the last three volumes are the most rushed. The Michel arc actually only takes place in two volumes, and half of the last volume is used to tie up loose ends (the other half is other non-Pichi-related stories by the mangaka).
• Why do the mermaids have belly buttons?
  • My personal Epileptic Tree to tie in with the "male sirenoids anywhere?" up above is that mermaids can and (unless their pearls are used to give birth to a new mermaid) have to reproduce sexually with human men. (Atlantica Needs Men, basically.) Thus, some of the mermaids are actually born (presumably the mother goes to land to give birth, like sea turtles), and the others have belly buttons because it's in their genes for mermaids to have them.