The latter half of Mermaid Saga offers no resolution about Mana and Yuta's fate, no revelations about the mermaid's curse of immortality or how to cure it. It only continues to explore the world and mythology set up in the first volume, offering an anthology of spooky stories connected only by Yuta and Mana's presence. If you were hoping for a series that offers a traditional overarching plot that carries through the volumes to arrive at a satisfying conclusion, look elsewhere. However, if you're looking for creepy examinations of human relationships through the lens of desperation and the desire for everlasting life, Mermaid Saga is a safe bet.

Most of what I had to say about the first volume still applies. Rumiko Takahashi's art and writing style is so distinctly her own, even when dealing with dramatically different subject matter than her typical oeuvre. Her bold blacks and simple, clean lines make the action easy to follow and give the characters a wide range of expressions, even if they're gaping in horror more often than not. She rarely indulges in out-and-out gore, but there is a lot of blood splashing around.

In this volume, there are very few actual mermaids. Instead, Yuta and Mana generally encounter people who have eaten the flesh or body part of one. There are also, fortunately, not nearly as many damsels in distress in the second half. Rather, the story tends to focus on familial relationships, particularly parent and child. It's a different and much more interesting angle on the central thematic exploration of the downsides of immortality, and how it strips people of their humanity.

The first story, “Mermaid's Scar”, was one of the ones adapted into an OAV back in the early '90s. If you bought a VHS tape released by Viz in the mid-to-late 90's, the image of a small child gouging out a man's eye is probably burned into your brain; this is the story that originated it. It's a well-executed version of the classic “spooky ageless child” story; nothing new, but effective nonetheless. There's a reason why the eternal child strikes a chord in many cultures; to be trapped in a child's body with an undeveloped brain, with all the experience and ennui that comes from eternal life, paired with the desire to be loved and lack of empathy natural to the age is a horrifying idea, both from the perspective of the child and of the adults around them. It's one of the most striking stories in the series, and not just because it traumatized me when I was twelve years old.

The second story, “The Ash Princess,” goes back about three hundred years to the seventeenth century, when Yuta was wandering Japan by himself. He quickly identifies the man claiming to be selling mermaid's flesh as a charlatan, but his daughter's unnaturally rapid healing is unmistakably the real deal. He bonds quickly with the twelve-year-old, Natsume, who didn't partake of the mermaid's flesh but was resurrected using one's liver, which has given her an insatiable taste for the liver of living creatures. This is one of the weakest stories in the series; it doesn't tread any new ground and when the two immortals plan to run away together, Natsume's youth and still-living father creates the unfortunate implication that Yuta is kidnapping her.

The third story, “Mermaid's Gaze,” gains most of its power from execution, rather than its concept. Yuta and Mana follow rumors to a supposedly-haunted mansion where Yuta once worked, decades ago. The family had two grown children: the son, Shingo, a psychopath whose bad behavior was shushed up by the family's money; and the daughter Yukiko, whose escape from her sibling was thwarted when her fiance was poisoned. Yuta left when the two supposedly committed double-suicide, but now Shingo seems to be back from the dead, and he's after a doll that looks eerily like Yukiko. Most of the story plays out more like a thriller than the kind of creeping horror that characterizes the other stories of the collection, but the twist at the end pack a punch of existential dread.

The final story, "Mermaid's Mask", focuses on another strange mother and son pair. The boy, Nanao, has a medicine that makes his wounds heal strangely quickly. His mother insists he take it, but he doesn't seem to understand just what it is. While it's far from the most memorable story of the series, it functions to sum up the series' overarching themes: the search for a lasting connection when everyone around you withers and dies and leaves you behind. Immortality may seem desirable, but after a time, it only means an eternity of loneliness with no escape from your pain.

The final page struck my heart. Yuta and Mana, having resolved the encounter, are leaving to continue their adventures. One final time, they look over their shoulder and tell the survivor, “We may not recognize you, but you'll recognize us.” The final chapter of Mermaid Saga was published in 1994; the two of them are eternal and unchanging not just as people who ate the mermaid's flesh, but as fictional characters rendered in ink on paper. The person I am now may be unrecognizable from who I was when I first picked it up, but I will always recognize the stories and characters that made me.