English Dub Review: Goodbye, Lara “Mermaid Princess Lara”
Overview:
Grace, the banished witch, gives Lara, a mermaid princess, a potion that turns her into a human.
Our Take:
We’re in for a great season if these two anime originals are anything to go by. I love when we get anime originals, and not only did we get this, but also Grow Up Show: Sunflower Circus. Both of the shows have great animation as well.
I’ll admit I was hesitant about this show at first because it more or less sounds like an anime version of The Little Mermaid, and for the first episode, you’d be sort of correct. But by the time this first episode wraps up, it seems that we’re headed in a different direction. The prince she fell in love with is prominently featured on the poster, so I have a question about that, since this show takes place in the modern day, long after he should be dead.
The animation is so good because it reminds me of a Studio Ghibli film. When I did some research for this show, I thought I had the wrong one because all the images I saw looked like a show from the 80’s. But then, as I watched the episode, I picked up on the charm that we typically see in those films as well.
The first half of this episode essentially speedruns the movie The Little Mermaid, and then we see that some of her family is alive on land. She is then punched out by a modern-day schoolgirl, who I assume is the character Mari. Lara needs to find true love to break the curse upon her family, and with Mari seeming to be the other main character, I’ve seen some people wondering if this will be a yuri show. Either way, I’m intrigued to see what happens with the story of this show.
Brianna Knickerbocker is the voice of Lara, and I’ve mentioned how much I love her work before. But sometimes a character feels like it was made for a VA. Lara feels like a character that Brianna was always meant to play. She’s a soft-spoken and sweet girl who has a curiosity about all things human. Like a certain other redheaded mermaid we know.
We’re in for a great season of anime if the two shows that premiered over this weekend are anything to go off of. I can’t wait to see what surprises Goodbye, Lara has for us.
