Young

Mermaid Forest OVA

Towa's twin sister who inheritted the family line and thus was placed in charge of guarding Mermaid Hill. When Towa was dying, she fed her the blood of a mermaid. Towa recovered from her illness, but her arm became deformed and her hair turned completely white. As years pass, Sawa is married and gives birth to a child, but her husband dies fighting in World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

. Her child and father died sometime after that. Sawa reluctantly reveals the location of Mermaid Hill after Towa threatens to kill Mana. Upon arrival, Towa tries to force her to eat the mermaid's flesh. But Sawa suddenly dies of a cardiac arrest. Her body is apparently burned in Mermaid Hill.

Mermaid Forest OVA (English)

Towa Kannagi's fiancé. Shiina begged Towa many times to leave with him and go somewhere else, but she always refused telling him that there was something she must do. However, Towa did ask him to cut off the arms of dead girls and replace her deformed arm, which he agreed to. Shiina recounts to Yuta and Mana his history with Towa and how she would never look his way but was always fixed on her "other self" (in the OVA, after Towa ran into the burning Mermaid Hill to end her life of revenge, Shiina chased after her to join her in death, making up for fifty-five years of lost time).

He was once a mortal, but he ate the flesh of a mermaid corpse he found lying on the beach in the hopes that he would gain imortality. When he woke up, he saw that his village has been destroyed and everyone - including his family - had been murdered. The flesh had transformed him into a Lost Soul, though not fully as he can speak and has human feelings. He had apparently lost control of himself after transforming and done the deed himself. The transformation had caused his eyes to swell so he was called "Big Eyes" from then on. He is without company for a long time until Mana came along. He finds her just reviving next to a dead Yuta at the bottom of a cliff they fell from. He takes her to his cave and feeds her after she wakes up. He wants Mana to stay with him for company as she is the first person to treat him kindly since his transformation. Upon finding Mana and Big Eyes, a hunter who lost his left eye to Big Eyes 40 years ago attacks him. The attack causes Big Eyes to lose control of himself and revert to his Lost Soul side. Mana tries to protect him, but Yuta and the hunter have no choice but to kill him in the end. As he lay dying, he calls out Mana's name with his last breath. Yuta tells her that this shows Big Eyes died as a human.

She died as a young girl during the Warring States period

Sengoku period

The or Warring States period in Japanese history was a time of social upheaval, political intrigue, and nearly constant military conflict that lasted roughly from the middle of the 15th century to the beginning of the 17th century. The name "Sengoku" was adopted by Japanese historians in reference...

. A Buddhist

Buddhism

Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...

 monk

Bhikkhu

A Bhikkhu or Bhikṣu is an ordained male Buddhist monastic. A female monastic is called a Bhikkhuni Nepali: ). The life of Bhikkhus and Bhikkhunis is governed by a set of rules called the patimokkha within the vinaya's framework of monastic discipline...

 found her father mourning the loss of his only daughter. Pitying the man, the monk attempted to resurrect Natsume with an ancient art called "Hangon". Even though he was inexperienced, the monk used mermaid's liver in the process. Using a mermaid's liver for Hangon not only brought Natsume back to life, but also granted her immortality. However, it also caused her to eat the livers of animals and even humans. Many decades later, Yuta meets Natsume while he is questing to find a mermaid. He also meets the monk who has decided to return Natsume to bones. When Yuta meets the monk, he agrees that he'll try to help the situation, but Natsume befriends Yuta and asks if she can come with Yuta on his journey. But her father became angry at this and tries to kill Yuta to prevent Natsume from leaving him. With her father dealing with Yuta, Natsume is now unprotected from the monk, who is able to rip out her liver. Natsume saves Yuta from getting killed, but her father jumps from a cliff with her in his arms. Her father died from the fall, but Natsume was able to live a little bit longer. She tells Yuta a good-bye and she says that she'll always be with him in his journey, and then she returns to bones.

Young (English)

A young boy who seems to be a kidnapping victim. Yuta and Mana found him terribly injured when he escape from the moving car. Nanao swallows his mother's medicine and suddenly, his wounds healed fast. Yuta and Mana takes Nanao home where they meets his mother and grandmother. Nanao's grandmother is behaving strangely and tells Yuta and Mana that they shouldn't bring Nanao back home. She then shows them a picture of the boy and his mother. Yuta looks at the woman's face and said that this woman is different from Nanao's mother and the boy is much different than Nanao. By that time, Yuta discovers that man who kidnapped Nanao is actually Nanao's father, who is also named Nanao. Nanao's "mother" is actually Nanao's grandmother who became an immortal 25 years ago and plans to feed the mermaid's flesh to him. The medicine Nanao's mother gave him is actually mermaid's ashes to build up his immunity to the mermaid flesh. Nanao is about to eat the flesh but stopped by Yuta and Mana while Nanao's mother didn't have the strength to stop him from eating it. Nanao's mother then leaves Nanao's father her gift and the boy back and went off to the world.

She became an immortal in 1969 after her divorce with her husband and about to be separated with her son, Nanao. She fed her son mermaid flesh and she ate it, but Nanao spit out the flesh and left him scarred. However, Nanao's mother became an immortal, but she has a scar on her face, making her feel the pain for all enternal. Years pass, she sees her son all grown up, got married, and has a baby son. With the baby as a reminder, she kidnaps the baby, naming him Nanao and raising him as her own son. By that time, she saw a dead woman lying on the beach, replacing her face into another's, making her look like a different person and hide away the scar and she lived in almost constant pain. When she met Yuta and Mana when they bring "Nanao" back home, "Nanao"'s grandmother showed them a photograph with a woman and her son. Both "Nanao" and his mother are much different. They have learned that "Nanao"'s mother has fed him mermaid ashes all along, but they're not sure why. Mana and Yuta learns that the two people are the same person who switches faces. "Nanao" is her grandson as a replace of her real son, who is also named Nanao. She plans to feed the mermaid flesh to her grandson, but could not because of what happened to her real son. She finally gives up her gift from her real son and gives him back the boy and went off to the world. Her body was found at a warehouse that was apparently set on fire.

She met Yuta years before World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

. When she learned about Yuta's curse of immortality, she tells him a secret about mermaid's ashes. She spread the ashes all around the field of red flowers, causing to bloom all year long, never to wilt or die by season, including winter. She calls the field "red valley". Soon, she and Yuta fell in love and began meeting in the red valley in private. Her fiancée, Eijiro, got jealous of Yuta falling for Nae, but never believed that she would betray him. He learned about Nae's signal of meeting Yuta in the red valley, so he went there to meet her. When she arrived at the valley, Eijiro became shocked of her betrayal that he strangled her to death. As years pass, Eijiro learns his mistake and sadness of what he done to Nae. But he learns about mermaid ashes and found it. The ashes brought Nae back to life, but she became a shadow of her former self. When Yuta came back to Nae's hometown with Mana, she plans to reunite with him, but Eijiro prevents it. Sometimes, Nae goes into murderous trances because of her shadow form. But Eijiro is deeply in love with her, and overlooks it. As Yuta and Nae reunite once again, she tells Yuta that she is having a nightmare. Then Yuta remembers that there is a village legend that a priestess came to the village, carrying a jar of mermaid ashes. And then a man murdered the priestess, but the ashes went into her mouth, brought her back to life as a shadow, but then wears as she went to the mountains as her deathbed. Nae's affect of the ashes wears off, left her to die once again in the red valley as her deathbed.

Before World War II, Eijiro was a young, bright man who fell in love with Nae Kogure, who is from a wealthy family. Unfortunately, when Yuta came to town, Nae falls in love with him, planning to meet him in the red valley. When Eijiro discovers that Nae is planning to run away with Yuta, he refused to believe that she would go wander off to a world with a wanderer like Yuta. So he staged a meeting to test her loyalty to him. When she failed and tried to go to Yuta, Eijiro became enraged and strangled her to death. After realizing what he had done, Eijiro buried her body in the red valley. He then dedicated his life to finding the rest of the ashes to use on Nae, and when he did he used them on Nae's body, bringing her back to life. When Yuta and Mana return and learn of Nae's resurrection Eijiro stops at nothing to destroy them and keep Nae safe. When he learns that Nae will never love him the way she loves Yuta, he orders his men to kill her too, finally rejecting the monster that he created.

Akiko is the sister of Shingo Kiryu, but unlike him she does not have his violent nature. She is a sweet girl who blames herself for Shingo's disturbing behavior. When they were young, Shingo liked to kill small animals with his knife. Akiko was sickened by this and tried to stop him, but accidentally hit him in the face with his knife and caused him to lose an eye. Shingo continued hurting animals and eventually people, but always blamed it on the loss of his eye. Akiko felt responsible for Shingo and always defended him whenever he did something wrong. Eventually even Akiko grew disgusted by Shingo's behavior and decided to poison him. Because she felt responsible for the way he turned out though, she poisoned herself as well. The poison she used was the flesh of a mermaid, but instead of becoming an immortal, Akiko continued living in an almost comatose state. Many people have come to believe that she is actually a life-sized doll, and she is sitting in a chair in her home to this day. Shingo returns to his childhood home hoping to find his sister. After a battle with Shingo, Yuta decapitated Akiko, thus ending her life as a lifeless doll.

Shingo is the insane brother of Akiko Kiryu. They lived together in the Kiryu Manor shortly before the Russo-Japanese War

Russo-Japanese War

The Russo-Japanese War was "the first great war of the 20th century." It grew out of rival imperial ambitions of the Russian Empire and Japanese Empire over Manchuria and Korea...

. Yuta worked there temporarily and saw Shingo's cruel and sadistic behavior firsthand. Akiko tried to prevent her brother from hurting anymore people by poisoning him. She did not realize though that the poison was actually the flesh of a mermaid. Shingo seemed to die after eating it, but he was able to dig himself out of his grave and return home. His father was so upset to see him that he tried to kill him again, but that failed as well. Because of Shingo's insanity, he was kept in a cell in the basement of the Kiryu home. Once he was released, he ripped the eye out of his sisters corpse and fled. Because it is his sisters eye, every time he murders someone he sees the last thing that she saw, his own twisted face reaching down to rip her eye out. Shingo believes that by killing his sister he can finally make the visions stop, so he continually harasses the elderly women who now live in his home. After a battle with Yuta, Yuta decapitated Akiko, then attempted to do the same with Shingo. After Shingo suffered another vision, he came to realize he would forever be tormented by his sister's last sight, and he took Yuta's sword and decapitated himself.

Mermaids are known to give eternal youth. They are mostly targeted by humans. They live beneath the sea and they are mostly seen jumping out of the water and dive back. In the OVA, Yuta and his friends are on a boat hunting mermaids. They see a mermaid jumping and diving. Then the mermaid jumped again. Unfortunately it was brutally killed by spears and died.

Ayu is a girl who is one of the women who took care of Mana. Ayu was next to sacrifice herself. Ayu is a mermaid. But died after spears pierced her body. One of them got her flesh and left her remains there. Yuta found her dead and showed it to the old women.

External links

• Mermaid's Flesh at Rumic World Features summaries, characters descriptions, pictures galleries, and more.
• Rumiko No Sekai's Ningyo section
• Mermaid Saga Info