Mermaid's Scar is the second volume in
Rumiko Takahashi's Mermaid Saga, a
gothic horror manga and later an
anime. With this volume she continues the journey of the immortals
Yuta and
Mana from
Mermaid Forest.
Yuta and
Mana are
immortals, they became this way from eating the fabled
mermaid flesh. The mermaid flesh is a very strong
medicine that sometimes makes a human
immortal, but it can also
kill a human instantly or turn them into a
monster, called a
lost soul.
The first story in the volume is
Dream's End. An
accident befalls Yuta and Mana, and they fall dead for awhile. In the time that they are unconscious, a
lost soul comes and takes Mana away. But this
lost soul is different, it has retained some of its
humanity. It can still speak and feel like a human. In the mean time, Yuta has been found by a
hunter who had lost his eye to the lost soul, and is on a mission to kill the lost soul...
The second story is
Mermaid's Promise. Yuta returns to a city that he had lived in for a short time, sixty years ago. He visits the
grave of one of his past loves, and Mana, bored, decides to look around and gets into the wrong place at the wrong time. Yuta also runs into a past acquantince quite older than when he had met him. Apparently, Yuta's deceased love is still around.. at least in body..
The third story is the title story,
Mermaid's Scar. Yuta and Mana have arrived in a new town, and met a boy on the train who is going to live with his mother. Yuta and Mana take on some simple jobs in the town, and soon(in a matter of days in the anime, two years in the manga) meet up with the boy again. However, something strange seems to be happening in his house.. his mother is trying to kill him!
The story
Mermaid Scar was also made into an
OVA anime. Unlike
Mermaid Forest, this anime actually follows the story rather accurately, none of this "Let's make it a really bad romantic tragedy" junk. This
anime was seriously creepy, and
bloody.. very good. If you compare the anime with the manga page-by-page, you'll be amazed as to how close it is.
The fourth and last story of the volume is
The Ash Princess. In this story we return to Yuta's long past again. A
travelling merchant goes around selling mermaid flesh. He proves its abilities with his daughter cutting her arm, and her wound healing quickly. The flesh, as discovered by Yuta, is luckily fake.. but the girl is a different matter..
Mermaid's Scar is followed by
Mermaid's Gaze.