Mermaid Forest (TV) · Episode 8: The Last Face (Part I)
The Last Face (Part I)
2003-11-2925 min
Yuta and Mana meet Nanao, a 10-year-old boy carrying a cinerary box. Nanao was kidnapped by an unknown man with the help of his grandmother, but he escaped. Yuta and Mana take Nanao home, where Nanao's grandmother shows Yuta and Mana a photograph of Nanao's mother, who is not the woman Nanao calls Mother. Alone, Nanao's mother opens the cinerary box, revealing the skin of a scarred woman's face. The next day Mana and Nanao see Nanao's mother enter the cellar, but later the woman from the photo emerges with a bandage on one side of her face. In the cellar, Mana discovers surgical instruments…
1Mermaid Does Not Smile2003-10-0425 minIn a mountain village, inhabited half by identical young women and half by identical old women, live two unique individuals, Mana, a girl who has just turned fifteen, and Baba (Nanny in the English dub), the old woman who pampers Mana while keeping her shackled in bed. The secret the women keep, even from Mana, is that all the identical women are mermaids and that aged mermaids need to eat young immortal women to regain their youth. After Baba feeds the flesh of one of the mermaids to Mana, Yuta learns about their ultimate plan for Mana and tells her about it. While trying to stop Yuta and…2Village of the Fighting Fish (Part I)2003-10-1125 minIn a flashback, Yuta remembers Rin, the daughter of the pirate chief of Toba island, and the ruthless rival pirates of Sakagami island. Isago, the wife of the Sakagami chief, convinces the chief to use his men to hunt mermaids. She also hires Yuta and some other men in a nearby port for the hunt. On Toba, Rin's father is gravely ill, so Rin leads the raiding parties on passing ships, demanding a tenth of their cargo as a toll, but killing no one. Yuta, drowned in a violent storm while mermaid hunting for Isago, washes up on Toba. As Rin places flowers on Yuta's grave the next day, he revives…3Village of the Fighting Fish (Part II)2003-10-1825 minYuta and Rin take a fishing boat and capture a mermaid to save Rin's father. The Sakagami islanders, who followed them to sea, kill the mermaid and Yuta, taking Rin to Sakagami. Rin sees Isago there and realizes Isago is immortal. Isago reveals that she has been pregnant for three years by her previous husband, whom the Sakagami islanders killed, and that she needs mermaid flesh so she can finally give birth. A revived Yuta arrives to save Rin. The chief and his men alternately fight Yuta and Rin and eat mermaid flesh. Those who don't die from the mermaid flesh, including the chief, become…4Mermaid Forest (Part I)2003-10-2525 minA truck strikes and kills Mana. Shiina, the old doctor who examines her, tells the police and Yuta that she survived and wandered away. Shiina takes her corpse to Sawa, an old woman, and Towa, a young woman with a heavily bandaged right arm. As he begins to replace Towa's arm with Mana's, Mana revives. Yuta realizes that Shiina lied and follows him to Sawa's and Towa's house, where local legend says a mermaid is buried. Towa has a Deformed dog kill Yuta. When he revives, Shiina, Sawa, and Towa confine Yuta to a cell in the basement. Towa kills Mana, to have Shiina transplant her head onto…5Mermaid Forest (Part II)2003-11-0125 minTowa tells Sawa that revealing the mermaid's location will save Mana. Mana revives as they approach the mermaid tomb. Yuta arrives at the tomb and tells Towa that eating mermaid flesh will only complete her transformation into a Deformed One. He also says being immortal was lonely before he found Mana. Towa says immortality or transformation makes no difference and forces a piece of mermaid flesh on Sawa, explaining that Sawa had desired immortality. Too afraid to try it herself, Sawa had experimented on Towa, her biological twin. Then, while Towa had lived in confinement, Sawa had lived a…6The End of the Dream2003-11-0825 minYuta and Mana fall off a cliff chasing a butterfly. Mana is unconscious, but Yuta dies. A heavily bandaged man, Big Eyes, as nearby villagers call him, carries Mana to his cave. An old hunter from the village finds Yuta, but Yuta revives during his burial rites. That night when Mana awakens, Big Eyes tells her that she is safe. The next morning Big Eyes tells Mana that long ago he lived in a fishing village. He ate mermaid flesh, blacked out, and, regaining his senses, discovered everyone in his village had been killed. He ran into the mountains and had lived alone ever since. When Yuta and…7Bone Princess2003-11-1525 minIn a flashback to the first year of the Tokugawa shogunate, when Yuta was 120, Yuta remembers Natsume, an apparently 12-year-old immortal girl who works in a market with an old man, whom she calls Pa and who purports to sell mermaid flesh. An itinerant monk who has been searching for Natsume finds her and cuts off her left arm. Yuta carries Natsume and her severed arm back to Pa, who reattaches her arm. In truth, the monk had used a piece of mermaid liver to resurrect Natsume for Pa. When the monk had decided to end Natsume's existence, Pa had run away with her. Yuta doubts destroying Natsume…8The Last Face (Part I)2003-11-2925 minYuta and Mana meet Nanao, a 10-year-old boy carrying a cinerary box. Nanao was kidnapped by an unknown man with the help of his grandmother, but he escaped. Yuta and Mana take Nanao home, where Nanao's grandmother shows Yuta and Mana a photograph of Nanao's mother, who is not the woman Nanao calls Mother. Alone, Nanao's mother opens the cinerary box, revealing the skin of a scarred woman's face. The next day Mana and Nanao see Nanao's mother enter the cellar, but later the woman from the photo emerges with a bandage on one side of her face. In the cellar, Mana discovers surgical instruments…9The Last Face (Part II)2003-12-0625 minIn the cellar, the scarred woman attacks Mana, but Mana and Nanao escape. Then the woman uses the surgical instruments to remove the skin from her face and to replace it with the unscarred face, becoming the woman Nanao thinks is his mother. Not knowing the two women are the same person, Nanao tells her where the injured Mana is hiding. As Nanao's mother is dragging Mana to the cellar, Yuta and the older Nanao arrive. Mana throws the box with the scarred face outside, where it opens to allow Yuta to see its contents. Nanao's mother admits that she replaced the face scarred from mermaid poison…10Promised Tomorrow (Part I)2003-12-1325 minIn a flashback to 60 years before, a girl, Nae, tells her servant, Sokichi, and Yuta that local villagers used mermaid ash to create the Red Valley, a field of perennially blooming red flowers. Elsewhere Yuta heard that a villager killed a nun to steal the ash, but the nun came back to life and killed many of the villagers. When Yuta leaves, Nae disappears. The village holds a funeral for her, even though there's no body. Over the decades, Eijiro, Nae's former fiance, buys the village land. In the present, Mana finds one of Eijiro's men beating a girl named Nae. Nae kills the man, but two…11Promised Tomorrow (Part II)2003-12-2025 minIn flashback, Nae arranges a signal with Yuta if he wants to meet her in the Red Valley on the day he is to depart. Eijiro leaves the signal to test Nae's loyalty to him. When Nae goes to the Red Valley, Eijiro kills her. Eijiro thinks he can revive Nae with mermaid ash. He cannot find it, however, because Nae hid the remaining ash to keep her father from finding out that she used it to make the Red Valley. Eijiro looks for the ash for decades and finally finds it, using it to revive Nae's still pristine corpse in the Red Valley. In the present, Yuta and Sokichi escape Eijiro's men. Nae leads…12Episode 1213Episode 13
Mermaid Forest (TV)★ 66%Synopsis
According to an ancient legend, mermaid's flesh can grant immortality if eaten. 500 years ago, Yuta unknowingly ate a piece of mermaid's flesh. For centuries, he travels across Japan, hoping to find a mermaid, thinking she may be able to make him a normal human again. When he finally finds one, he discovers that she and her companions have been raising a girl to be their food so they can eat her and take on her youthful looks. That is how mermaids stay young. Yuta kills the mermaids and rescues her, but she has already eaten some of the mermaid's flesh. Although he had to kill the mermaids, Yuta isn't too disappointed. Yuta's once lonely existence is now over, as he has found a companion in Mana. And Mana, who had been trapped in a small hut her whole life, finds delight in even the simplest of things. Together, Yuta and Mana attempt to seek out more mermaids, trying to become normal humans again. (Source: Anime News Network)
Characters & Voice Actors
YuutaMain
Kouichi YamaderaJP
ManaMain
Minami TakayamaJP
MasatoSupporting
Makiko OomotoJP
IsagoSupporting
Ai OrikasaJP
RinSupporting
Houko KuwashimaJP
Nae KogureSupporting
Yuri AmanoJP
Big EyesSupporting
Daisuke GouriJP
Towa KannagiSupporting
Sumi ShimamotoJP
Rin no ChichiSupporting
Kinryuu ArimotoJP
Staff
Rumiko TakahashiOriginal Creator
Chiaki IshikawaTheme Song Performance
Chiaki IshikawaMusic
Chiaki IshikawaTheme Song Lyrics
Chiaki IshikawaTheme Song Composition
Masaharu OkuwakiDirector
Yasuo UrakamiSound Director
Raffaele FarinaADR Director (Italian)
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