You won't find Ariel, Flounder, and Sebastian in this adaptation of The Little Mermaid. This one stars a blonde mermaid princess named Marina, who along with her dolphin friend Fritz, really wants to see the world beyond the water, as her older sisters are always telling her stories about it. But against her father's wishes, she and Fritz manage to ascend to the surface, where they find a ship in the middle of a bad storm. Marina manages to save one of the passengers, who turns out to be a prince named Fjord, but is made to flee before she can talk to him so she won't get caught by onlookers. Yearning to see him again, Marina decides to visit the Sea Witch and ask her for a way to live as a human. The Sea Witch gives her a potion that can turn her tail into human legs, but at the cost of her voice and can never become a mermaid again. Not only that, if the prince marries another girl, Marina will dissolve into sea foam and die. Marina manages to reunite with Fjord, but things don't exactly work out in Marina's favor.
Honestly, there's really no point in not mentioning that Marina dies in the end, as this movie makes no secret of the fact that it's more faithful to Andersen's original story, even down to the tragic ending. Hell, even Discotek's now out-of-print DVD release doesn't attempt to hide it! The fact that the mermaid dies in the end has been referenced in pretty much any media that makes homages to the story, even stuff like Puella Magi Madoka Magica. One other thing that differentiates this version from the Disney film is that the mermaids...don't wear bikinis. Yeah, the mermaids' chests are exposed, complete with uncensored though distant shots of their nipples, though their long hair covers them on occasion. It's not to the level of hentai or anything, but I can easily picture some parents finding this inappropriate to show their kids. Then again, the company that first dubbed this edited some shots, but even that wasn't enough.
From an animation standpoint, it's fairly obvious that this adaptation doesn't have anything close to the budget the Disney version had. This was a Toei movie made in 1975 after all, and it was made around the time Toei began making cheaper movies to rake in money easier. The character designs are rougher and more rustic and the actual motion can be a little stilted barring certain scenes. But that doesn't necessarily mean The Little Mermaid's animation is bad, per se, and it does have its own charm that also sets it apart from the Disney version. And that's also not to say that the animation can't be creative in its own right, because the waterlife have great designs and the hand-painted backgrounds are well made and do a masterful job at giving this particular movie a more cutthroat atmosphere to it. Oh, and the Sea Witch's design is great, too. Sure, she's no Ursula, but she doesn't need to be.
Speaking of the characters, the closest thing this movie has to a Flounder analogue is the dolphin named Fritz, who is Marina's friend, though Fritz technically came before Flounder's conception. I haven't seen the Disney movie in a while so I have no memories of Flounder or his personality, but I found Fritz to be fairly entertaining and fun, both as comic relief and as Marina's ally. Plus, Fritz is shown to be surprisingly badass for a character of his caliber. He gets to do a lot in this movie, from managing to fight off bad monsters to help Marina when she needs him. The other characters...they're admittedly kind of one-note, but they serve their roles well, even if they're not as active as the characters in Disney's adaptation. The only character I don't get is this cat named Gemmy, who for some reason conspires to kill Marina, and why they want to do so is never explained. Also, for some reason Gemmy is able to talk with humans and again, the movie never bothers to explain why. What even was the point of this character? Plus, Marina spends a good portion of her time as a damsel in distress and not really doing much. Again, I haven't seen Disney's The Little Mermaid in years, so I have very few memories of Ariel as a character, other than that Ariel is more headstrong and rebellious, so other than those qualities, I can't really comment on Marina as a character, as it's kind of pointless to compare her to Ariel.
And I will admit, there is one other thing that keeps me from loving the movie as a whole: The extremely rough voice acting. I'm not talking about the English dub which, while definitely a product of its time, is actually pretty good. I'm talking about the original Japanese voice acting. What do I mean? Their overall acting is fine, but several of the characters' voices either sound way too deep or way too shrill. Marina's voice is said to be beautiful and angelic, but Fumie Kashiyama's voice for her makes her sound really deep in a way that doesn't match Marina's design. On the other hand, Fritz's Japanese voice seems to be set to permanent loud, nasally shrill every time he talks. It's not the most annoying voice I've heard (Looking at you Misaki Kuno, Nichika Omori, Takeshi Kusao as Coco, and Eimi Naruse), but if you have sensitive hearing and can't stand certain noises, it'll get real grating real fast. It says a lot that I prefer the English dub voices over the Japanese voices by virtue of the fact that Marina and Fritz have voices that actually match their appearances and personalities and don't grate on my ears. But it's been a while since I've seen the dub, so for all I know, my opinion might change if I watch it again.
But I don't want to end this review on a negative note, so I will finish this off with one other thing that I did like about this adaptation: The soundtrack. It has plenty of harps, pianos, and wind instruments giving it all a slow, pleasant atmosphere, and the songs sung by the late great Kumiko Oosugi are given the right amount of wonder and whimsy. Now, this would be the part where I'd mention that The Little Mermaid is now available on DVD, and for a while, it was. Discotek Media put it out in 2015, but unfortunately, that release fell out of print. You can rent or buy the dubbed version off Amazon Prime if you have an account, but that's it as far as accessibility goes. I'm lucky I managed to buy my DVD copy when I did. Overall, Toei's adaptation of The Little Mermaid doesn't entirely hold up well under modern scrutiny, and some baffling narrative decisions and uncensored nudity make it hard to recommend to a casual view, but this is one of the more faithful versions of Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale, so if you're tired of Ariel, feel free to check this one out.
