A Sinner of the Deep Sea Volume 2 Review
Jo is a carefree, spunky mermaid, who finds herself in the middle of a huge scandal when her best friend, Ryuu, is caught contacting a human and is thrown in jail for it. Mermaids are forbidden to communicate with the human race as they’ve attacked their kind in the past, but Ryuu says she’s in love with a human named Yuki, and longs to be with him. Despite her disagreeing with Ryuu, Jo decides to help her best friend anyway and tries to find a pill that will turn her human. When the ocean patrol catch Jo in the act, she’s forced to take the pill and escape in the chaos. Luckily she’s rescued by none other than Yuki, Ryuu’s lover, and the pair decide to work together to save Ryuu, even though it seems as if the whole ocean are out to capture them.
I really loved the first volume of this The Little Mermaid retelling, but I’m sad to say that Volume 2 wasn’t as strong as its opening. I had to sit on the book for a few days to collect my thoughts as to why, but it mostly boils down to three things. First of all, there’s a noticeable atmosphere change in this volume. I praised the first book for taking its time, immersing the reader in the underwater world and also having the guts to have its opening chapter with very little dialogue, instead letting it show, not tell, the world these mermaids inhabit. There’s even a slow mid-section where Jo reels from Ryuu’s confession, and starts teasing some humans in a submarine to help release her frustration. None of that was part of the plot, but it made the atmosphere of the deep, dark blue sea seep into the audience and made the reader feel for her character. Sadly all of that is gone, there’s no downtime for these characters to feel what’s going on or for the audience to understand their world because the book never stops to let that atmosphere back into the story.
This leads into the second issue: the pacing really ramps up to the detriment of the story. On top of having no breathing room for the atmosphere that the first volume did so well, it also doesn’t help with Jo as a character. She was very headstrong and competent in the first volume, but this time she’s constantly being chased and captured by either the patrol team, or extensions thereof. On one hand, it makes sense: Ryuu committed a serious crime (for mermaid-kind) and Jo is her only friend, so the patrol team are suspicious of her. But there’s a lot of instances where Jo says she has a plan to give the patrol team the slip, and also a backup plan to avoid them if they’re found, only for her to never execute them and get caught immediately. She’s captured quickly and frequently, with either dumb luck or a random character showing up to help her escape.
And this leads to the third issue: the pacing is compounded with a lot of plot developments in this book. Jo decides to help Ryuu, who tells her about a pill that apparently turns you human. Jo searches Ryuu’s place for the pill, is caught by the patrol team, decides to take the pill and is then chased by the patrol mermaids. She is then rescued by Ryuu’s human boyfriend Yuki, and the pair quickly bond and plan a rescue for Ryuu, only for an acquaintance of Jo’s named Maya to suddenly turn up and act antagonistically towards her. He’s then interrupted by Yuki’s sister, who takes them to the port so they can get a boat elsewhere. Yuki and Jo bond once more on the boat, and use another pill to become human, and use the current to get away from the patrol, only for ANOTHER capture and…see what I’m getting at here? There’s a lot of coincidences and suddenly new characters popping in to keep the plot going, but none of these events are allowed time to breathe so we see the characters develop naturally. Like I get why Jo and Yuki start to bond as humans, and I can see the chemistry developing, but I don’t buy the big emotional final pages because their development happens so quickly. There are a few things the editor could have done to help. For example: the introduction of Maya isn’t really needed; he’s a sleazy man who doesn’t add much stakes except to be very possessive over Jo, but considering the number of patrol mermaids going after her, and the emotional conflict with Yuki and Ryuu, the added antagonist isn’t really needed. They could have replaced him with Akira, a mermaid patrol officer whom we met in the previous volume and is still here as an antagonist and it would have helped to streamline the story effectively.
I’ve talked quite negatively so far but there is still a lot to like about this volume. I do like the twist/changes on The Little Mermaid tale, such as having magic pills to turn a mermaid human cuts out the sea witch. There’s also Jo developing a connection with Yuki, despite him loving someone else, which is a callback to the original fairy tale. There’s also the art which is still as gorgeous as ever. The few pages we get where the character don’t talk are beautifully detailed, such as Jo’s first swim with Yuki when she becomes a mermaid once again and is portrayed as so happy and full of life. The one-page title spread of Jo in the reflection of a shark’s eye is magnificent too. The translation by Caleb Cook also continues to be very good, and I appreciate the translation notes at the back.
A Sinner Of The Deep Sea continues to look absolutely gorgeous, but has struggled to maintain its excellent atmosphere and quality storytelling in the second volume. I hope the story can pick itself up when the final volume comes out in March 2025.
Our review copy from Yen Press was supplied by Diamond Book Distributors UK.
