A tragic mermaid's tale deserves a romantic, happy ending! Asana Amamizu's life changed forever when a red, scale-like mark appeared on her wrist. Ever since, her family has treated her like she's a monster. Now sixteen years old, she does her best to live normally and attends the Yotsuru Girls' Academy. One day, the school is suddenly abuzz with exciting news: the handsome new Language Arts teacher, Sakuya Shigure, has arrived. Unlike the other girls, Asana keeps her distance. After all, a guy like that wouldn't have anything to do with a girl like her. That is, until an unexpected marriage proposal falls right into her lap! She and Sakuya may have more in common than she could have imagined.

The Bubble Love of the Mermaid has a story by Akumi Agitogi. English translation is done by Nicole Wilder. Published by Yen On (April 14, 2026).

Content Warning: domestic violence

Rebecca Silverman
Rating:

There comes a point where you have to wonder why an author writes the same type of trauma across multiple series. I don't say this to open any sort of inquiry into Akumi Agitogi's life, but it is striking that heroine Asana suffers the same sorts of domestic violence as Miyo from Agitogi's series My Happy Marriage. Both are violently abused by family members in both physical and emotional ways, both are taught that they're less than human based on supernatural factors, and both end up with beautiful, slightly older men with long hair. It's an interesting observation.

That said, where My Happy Marriage was a Cinderella story, The Bubble Love of the Mermaid is rooted in both Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid and the Japanese legend of Yaobikuni, the woman who ate the flesh of a mermaid and lived forever. (Rumiko Takahashi's Mermaid's Scar series is also based on this tale.) Asana's family are the descendants of Yaobikuni, and every few generations, a girl is born with the blood of the mermaid. She's reviled and used for pharmaceutical purposes by her family; despite the horrors Asana endures, her great-aunt was locked up and eventually murdered. The moment Asana's mermaid scale birthmark appeared when she was eight years old, her mother erased her from her mind and her father and brother began physically abusing her – something they could do with great violence because she will heal from any injury that doesn't kill her outright.

It's a lot to take. When her fiancé Sakuya appears, it's as her teacher at school, so that just adds a bit to elements some readers may find uncomfortable. But Sakuya, who bears an unusual folklore-related birthmark himself, isn't going to stand for Asana being mistreated and abused. Sakuya is the only person who sees Asana for herself, and he's aghast at people who tell him that she's a monster. Rumors about her family's vileness do prove true, but he's not willing to lump Asana in with them. He's very much a knight in shining armor figure, and Asana badly needs that. While I wouldn't call them sweet together, that's really only because they don't know each other well enough.

Set in what appears to be the late Meiji period, or possibly the very early Taisho, The Bubble Love of the Mermaid is well-written and full of interesting lore. (It's worth mentioning that the text inside the covers is nothing like the modern-tinged cover copy; no idea what Yen On was thinking there.) But it's also a very difficult story, more so than My Happy Marriage. If you're at all sensitive to depictions of domestic violence, consider giving this a miss.