Line #54 Manga/TheMermaidPrincesssGuiltyMeal


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mermaid_8.png]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:''[[WesternAnimation/TheLittleMermaid1989 Les poissons, les poissons, how I love les poissons...]]'']]
3	->''So this... this is what the barbaric, heartless humans call... '''''seafood!'''''''
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5	''The Mermaid Princess' Guilty Meal'' (''Ningyohime no Gomen ne Gohan'') is a manga written by Hiroshi Noda and illustrated by Takahiro Wakamatsu, which was serialized from 2017 to 2019 in ''Yawaraka Spirits''.
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7	Deep, deep under the sea, in the fish kingdom, there was a mermaid princess named Ela. The kindhearted princess had many fish friends whom she loved dearly. But one day, poor Benito the bonito was snared by a fisherman's hook and turned into a delectable meal. Heartbroken, Ela goes to land to mourn his death and aid his passing into the great beyond...
8
9	If only that was the end of the story. Remember how in ''WesternAnimation/TheLittleMermaid1989'' fish were sentient and friends with merfolk, and humans were seen as evil because they ate fish? This manga takes place in a world quite like that... but as Ela finds out to her horror and dismay, the humans might just be on to something with the whole 'eating fish' thing...
10
11	Follow Ela as she discovers the wonders of seafood!
12	----
13	!!''The Mermaid Princess's Guilty Meal'' contains examples of:
14	* AbdicateTheThrone: In the final chapters, [[spoiler:the Sea King crowns Ela as the new sovereign and retreats from public life to devote himself to mobile phone games.]]
15	* AccidentalTruth:
16	** When Yellowtail tries to come up with scandalous tabloid headlines involving Princess Ela, she comes up with two that she promptly rejects as being too far-fetched to be believable but which are actually more-or-less 100% correct: that Ela is involved with organized crime like motorcycle gangs and the Yakuza, and that she's a kleptomaniac who's been stealing money from the government.
17	** In Chapter 28, Marin [[spoiler:wonders if Ela might be a mermaid due to her having the name she suggested to the Sea King for their prospective children, but dismisses it as impossible since no mermaid would ever eat seafood -- let alone enjoy it as much as Ela does]].
18	* AchievementsInIgnorance: When Ela smacks her head and loses her memory, she ends up being recruited by the Independent Party and runs for Japanese Prime Minister. If not for a porgy dinner jogging her memory, ''she would have won''.
19	* ACupAngst: Sango is clearly jealous of Ela's figure, though she keeps it to herself.
20	* AmbiguousEnding: In the final chapter, [[spoiler:after Ela has apparently reformed from eating fish and offered herself as a sacrifice to stop the Leviathan's rampage, she bursts out of the Leviathan's head holding a pair of chopsticks and repeating her catchphrase, showing she survived but indicating she may have relapsed]].
21	* AnimalMotifs: Cats for Ela, between her love of seafood and her MaidCafe [[CatGirl outfit]]. At one point when she's wearing the aforementioned outfit, she catches a falling fish out of the air in her mouth in a very feline manner, and her yukata for the festival is adorned with kitty designs.
22	* ArtShift: The fish are drawn in a cartoony style... while they're alive. Once they're dead, they shift to a realistic portrayal.
23	* AssholeVictim: The Yellow(journalism)tail. After spreading nasty rumors and causing no end of chaos in the kingdom, she's fished. A gruesome enough fate, but Ela goes up to eat her, and Yellowtail's last moments are her going LaughingMad at realizing a real scandal that eclipsed anything she'd imagine was right under her nose the whole time and she'd never get to reveal it.
24	* AuthorAvatar: A cartoonish, toque-wearing fish with a gaping, three-toothed grin. He usually shows up to give the educational segments on the dish of the day, but can be seen in the background at times as well. [[spoiler:Chapter 38 reveals that he used to be Madame Bonita's son, Nakajima, before being driven to despair by his failure to save Benito from being fished and begging the spirit of Troutadamus to end his suffering. Troutadamus acquiesced, reducing Nakajima to a soulless shell doomed to aimlessly wander until the end of the sea world.]]
25	* BaitAndSwitch:
26	** PlayedForLaughs in chapter 26, where after attending a mixer, Alisa is approahced by a rich, American oil-king, foisting her into a LoveTriangle between herself, Ryo and this new suitor. [[spoiler:It turns out that Aburoil is actually a ''fujoshi'', and he's just requesting her to get him some BL manga from the upcoming comiket.]]
27	** In Chapter 28, it's strongly implied that Ela's birth mother is actually [[spoiler:Marin, who dated the Sea-King twenty years prior and has a similar appearance and mannerisms to Ela. However, it's later revealed that this was a RedHerring and that Ela's birth mother was her stepmother's late twin sister]].
28	* BeastOfTheApocalypse:
29	** Invoked in Chapter 38, where it's revealed that the great sage Troutadamus had prophesied that a monster with an insatiable appetite for sea-life would arise and devour everything in the ocean. While Madame Bonita was a believer in the prophecy, her son Nakajima scoffed at it due to [[spoiler:his psychic powers letting him foresee that he would die to prevent Troutadamus' prophecy from coming to pass. Unfortunately, Nakajima befriending Benito -- thus giving him hope -- derailed his destiny and led to Benito being hooked in his place, thus bringing about the fulfillment of Troutadamus' prophecy when Princess Ela ate Benito and became addicted to seafood, making her the prophesied monster that would devour the oceans.]]
30	** Resurfaces in the final pages of chapter 40, and turns into the focus of chapter 41, the finale. [[spoiler:While Nakajima has managed a miracle to get Ela to reform, Leviathan -- the monster originally prophesied by Troutadamus -- instead awakens. It's a mighty unstoppable beast with an insatiable appetite that had to be sealed away by the combined might of two kingdoms... and Era eats it from the inside-out, seemingly reawakening her seafood addiction in the process.]]
31	* BlackComedyCannibalism: Basically the whole premise. Ela's addiction to seafood is dark, tragic and hilarious at the same time.
32	* BlackEyesOfCrazy: Mister Ripper the shark has almost completely black eyes with light-colored rings indicating where his irises and pupils are. He's also a notorious serial killer who ate ten fish. Ela, who by that point had eaten more than twenty, is mortified, but he assumes she's mocking him when she mutters "Only ten?" in disbelief.
33	* CarnivoreConfusion: Played with: Ela and the fish she ends up eating are different species, but they're still '''[[InterspeciesFriendship friends]]'''.
34	* CatchPhrase: Whenever Ela consumes seafood made from one of her friends, she says "Forgive me [insert name here]... but you taste so good!"
35	* CollectorOfTheStrange: Sango is in charge of studying humanity, and has collected all manner of memorabilia dumped from the surface world. She's kind of like [[WesternAnimation/TheLittleMermaid1989 Ariel]], except it's a job instead of a hobby and she actually knows what everything is. Her stockpile of human money comes in handy when Ela wants a bite to eat, the princess helping herself in secret much to Sango's chagrin.
36	* CoolOldLady: Ryo's grandma is a tough-as-nails, sake-swilling hunter who takes on bears at her ripe old age.
37	* ContrivedCoincidence:
38	** Out of all the thousands of fish being served around Japan, Ela invariably manages to be served the remains of the VictimOfTheWeek, who she personally knew, every single time in the same restaurant no less. Although chapter 12 shows she explicitly follows her fished friend to see where they go, she still ends up at the same restaurant.
39	** And even this has ''absolutely nothing'' on [[spoiler:TheReveal regarding Ela's parentage. To make it short, the Mer-king dated Marin -- who happened to look similar to Ela -- but they broke up and found love somewhere else. The king met Ela's stepmother who introduced him to her twin sister whom he married, but she died after giving birth to Ela. This in turn caused her grieving sister and husband to get closer and eventually marry each other.]]
40	* CorruptTheCutie: Ela is ''very slowly'' becoming more casual with eating fish. In Chapter 34, it almost seems like she was ''trying'' to get her VictimOfTheWeek caught. [[spoiler:After she becomes Queen, she tries to go cold turkey and makes going near the surface illegal... but her closet is stuffed full of fish snacks and when she learns someone was fished she is grimly delighted.]]
41	* CruelAndUnusualDeath: The general fish populace see what humans do to fish after being caught as this trope, tempura in particular: Sango describing it to Ela's friends is framed like a horror story... one that's interrupted by Ela's GrowlingGut as she zooms off to try it.
42	* DeathGlare: Despite giving her signature eulogy to the remains of the Yellowtail spreading vicious rumors about her family and friends, Ela is shooting a thunderous glare at the dish the whole time. Later, as Mullet is threatening her with blackmail, even with her back to the reader, Ela is clearly getting angrier with every word out of Mullet's mouth. We don't get to see her expression when she finally turns to face him, but it's so terrifying that Mullet immediately swims out of there as fast as his fins can carry him... and slams right into a fishhook in his blind panic.
43	* DoppelgangerReplacementLoveInterest: Era's father eventually reveal that her stepmother is [[spoiler:the twin sister of Era's biological mother]].
44	* EarlyInstalmentWeirdness: Tuna is introduced trying to eat Squid, and Ela berates him for eating those he should consider friends while Tuna scoffs that he's just obeying the natural order of predators and prey. Later chapters zig-zag this, with the rockfish sumo wrestler being implied to have eaten his dieticians, but for the most part it's established that fish eating each other is such a horrifying taboo that a shark who'd eaten only ten other fish was treated as a serial killer and locked up in solitary confinement.
45	* EasilyElected: When Ela smacks her head and loses her memory, she ends up being recruited by the Independent Party and runs for Japanese Prime Minister. If not for a porgy dinner jogging her memory, she would have won.
46	* EmptyEyes: As Princess Ela's [[SlowlySlippingIntoEvil addiction to seafood worsens]], she's sometimes drawn with solid black irises both when [[DullEyesOfUnhappiness despairing]] over her [[BlackComedyCannibalism growing desire to eat her friends]] and when she lets her KillingIntent come to the surface. [[spoiler:As the Queen of the Sea, her irises are drawn as solid black until Nakajima restores her memory of her friends -- causing her eye-shines to reappear.]]
47	* EveryoneHasStandards: Despite eating seafood, a near MoralEventHorizon among her kind, Ela draws the line at learning to fish for herself.
48	* EvilCostumeSwitch: After she [[spoiler:becomes the dictator of the undersea kingdom]], [[spoiler:the former princess Ela]] starts wearing a black dress and keeps her hair up.
49	* {{Expy}}: The magician fish David Hokkerfield is a blatant parody of real life magician David Copperfield.
50	* FaceOfAThug: Himada looks like an intimidating {{Yakuza}}, but he's a friendly, lovable goofball who strikes up a friendship with Sango.
51	* FaceOfAnAngelMindOfADemon: Just look at the cover for chapter 2 (the page picture). The denizens of the ocean see Ela as a kind, beautiful PrincessClassic, oblivious to the fact she's been ''eating their friends and loved ones.'' While the Princess isn't necessarily a bad person, later chapters imply she's eating fish more for the taste rather than to honour their memory. That said, Ela's angelic face can occasionally slip. The KillingIntent Ela unleashed when Queen Death Needles reveals that some humans consider her to be a delicacy was apparently so terrifying it freaked out a ''professional assassin.'' On a different note, Cody mentions that the Princess has a darker side, presumably something unrelated to her eating her fellow sealife.
52	* FailedASpotCheck: Sango is distracted watching Himada leave after they first meet, oblivious to the huge array of TV sets behind her displaying Ela eating seafood as part of a cuisine show. She later gets enraptured watching fireworks for the first time at a festival: Ela's sitting right next to her munching on a grilled squid.
53	* FatalFamilyPhoto: {{Parodied}}. Once during the Great Sea War, the King showed a picture of Era to Sergeant Herring and gushed over her before getting shot in the chest immediately after. For extra hilarity, he was shot in the same panel where the sergeant [[GenreSavvy warned]] him from raising so many [[DeathFlag Death Flags]].
54	* FanservicePack: Ela's breasts become larger over the course of the manga, to the point where in later chapters the bra she wears in mermaid form doesn't cover them as well as it did at the beginning.
55	* FlatCharacter: {{Zigzagged}}. While no character actually falls under this trope, Ela has ''made'' many of her victims into this in her memory, as she's only able to remember them as meals she's had and not ''people''.
56	* FoodPorn: The various seafood dishes are drawn with loving attention to detail: it's clear at a glance how Ela fell into temptation.
57	* FormerlyFit: Marumi Honnōji was stoic and slender as a 17-year-old, but in her twenties has packed on a lot of weight. She's also quite happy the way she is, and rejects her friends' attempts to fat-shame her.
58	* FreudianSlip: By Chapter 35, Ela has become so addicted to seafood that she frequently slips up -- [[spoiler:even when talking to a police officer, leading him to suspect her of being involved in a recent fishing-related murder. This leads to him figuring out that she's been "paying respects" to deceased fish by eating them, only to meet that fate himself]].
59	* GyaruGirl: Alisa Alisaka is a ''ganguro'', and thus has tanned skin and dyed blonde hair. While she's currently a nice girl, she was a bit of a bully in high-school.
60	* GodSaveUsFromTheQueen: Ela gets crowned Queen in chapter 39, and enacts a very strict policy that keeps the fish from getting fished up. Her tyrannical rule is also her means of keeping herself from succumbing to the temptations of seafood, though her janitorial staff note that even after her coronation she would sneak up to the surface and she still has a room full of seafood snacks. [[spoiler:She sports a PsychoticSmirk upon finding out someone was fished and sets out to devour the poor unfortunate soul on the surface. At first the unlucky fish is implied to be Mackerel, but when Ela arrives at the restaurant she's surprised and disappointed to be served seared bonito instead. This turns out to be Nakajima, who is able to remind Ela of the friendships she once had, thus fulfilling his destiny in the process.]]
61	* GoodAngelBadAngel: Ela's show up when she's trying to resist a cod hotpot. The devil tells her to forget everything and eat, while the angel takes her gently by the hand... and pulls her toward the chopsticks, telling her to eat.
62	* GoodStepmother: It's mentioned that the sea queen isn't Ela's biological mother. Regardless, she deeply loves her stepdaughter, having taken multiple trips to the ocean floor to search for Ela when the princess went missing.
63	* GuiltyPleasure: It's right there in the title, folks: the mermaid princess Ela is addicted to seafood. Later chapters imply that she's slowly but surely getting used to it, to the point she asks for seconds at one point [[spoiler:and even expresses malicious glee at the thought of eating Mackerel]].
64	* HateSink: Yellowtail and Mullet were both thoroughly unpleasant individuals: Yellowtail used malicious slander to throw the royal family into chaos for [[ForTheEvulz laughs and popularity]], while Mullet was a SpoiledBrat leader of the SecretPolice who used his position to threaten and intimidate everyone around him into doing what he wanted. Of all the fish that ended up on Ela's plate, she showed almost zero remorse for having eaten them.
65	* HeroicSacrifice:
66	** [[spoiler:Benito takes the line for Nakajima to save him from getting fished, kicking the whole plot into motion. Nakajima, after months of wandering as a blank slate, gets inspired by memories of this friendship to take the line for Mackerel and lead Ela to reform]].
67	** [[spoiler:Ela, having known an insatiable hunger like that of the Leviathan, offers herself to be eaten in order to finally pacify it. This doesn't stick, as she not only survives but ultimately eats her way out of its stomach.]]
68	* HijackedDestiny:
69	** Chapter 38 reveals that Madame Bonita's son, Nakajima, actually possessed psychic powers and had forseen he was destined to sacrifice himself to save the ocean world from a terrible monster's insatiable hunger for sealife. [[spoiler:However, when Nakajima befriended Benito this derailed his destiny and led to Benito being hooked instead. Nakajima tried to use his psychic powers to [[GroundhogDayLoop jump back countless times]] in order to save Benito, only to be told by the spirit of the sage Troutadamus -- who had prophesied the destruction of the ocean world -- that it was too late and that Benito's death had guaranteed the rise of the monster destined to destroy the oceans (that being either the Leviathan or Princess Ela).]]
70	** The finale reveals that [[spoiler:the Leviathan was the monster prophesied by Troutadamus to devour all life in the seas... but Ela usurped its place by becoming addicted to seafood. The moment Nakajima fulfills his destiny, the Leviathan breaks free to fulfill its destiny... only for Ela to ultimately eat it from the inside out]].
71	* HorrifyingTheHorror: Shark the Ripper boasts of eating ten fish, a crime that landed him in a Hannibal Lecter-style straitjacket and mask. Ela, who by this point has eaten more than twice that amount, is naturally mortified by what that means for her. When her mutterings catch Shark's attention, he assumes she's mocking him and demands that she look him in the eye, only to be struck by a terrifying vision of her surrounded by the skeletons of the fish she's eaten. He ends up equally scared and impressed.
72	* HotGuyUglyWife: The mer-king is a PrettyBoy. His wife the queen is a ''ningyo'', or Japanese mermaid: a koi with a {{Gonk}}-y human face. Going by Yellowtail's tabloid, however, she's considered a supermodel-level beauty by merfolk standards.
73	* {{Humanshifting}}: Merfolk can transform to and from human form whenever they please: handy for going up on land for a bite of seafood.
74	* IAmAMonster: Early on, Ela believes that she's become a monster; by merfolk standards, she probably would be considered this.
75	* InterspeciesFriendship: Ela befriends Ryo, a young human fisherman whose family owns a modest seafood bar. It's this friendship that causes her to slowly warm up to humans despite their fish-eating ways (on top of her realizing for herself how delicious seafood is). Sango also makes a friend on the surface, Himada, and [[spoiler:she quickly falls in love with and even gets engaged to him]].
76	* JapaneseDelinquents: The cod school is styled this way, with an aggressive leader who decides to attack a fishing boat that caught their prior leader in a manly display of revenge. [[EpicFail Cue a newspaper clipping from the surface: 'BIG NEW YEARS CATCH OF CODS AND POLLOCKS!']]
77	* KillItThroughItsStomach: [[spoiler:In the final chapter, Ela offers herself to be eaten by Leviathan to pacify its hunger for good. Cut to the manga's final pages, and Ela ''bursts'' out of its head, ending the series with her long-running catchphrase.]]
78	* LetsMeetTheMeat: Each and every dish was living sealife at some point, and we get to meet them either before their untimely demise or through flashback.
79	* LocalHangout: Uotomo, an izakaya owned by Ryo's family: it's got great seafood, as a certain mermaid princess can attest.
80	* TheLostLenore: Ela is ''significantly'' more haunted by the death and consumption of Tuna than she is by almost any other character.
81	* MadLibsCatchphrase: "I'm sorry [x], but you taste so good!", uttered by Ela whenever she eats one of her friends, where [x] is the name of the VictimOfTheWeek.
82	* MaidCafe: Himada runs one as part of his Yakuza-lookalike FaceOfAThug gag: he never takes advantage of his staff, treats them well and is in turn beloved by them.
83	* MamaBear: The Queen apparently swam from near the surface of the ocean to the ''deep sea floor'' on multiple occasions to try and find Ela. It's implied she did this for ''months'' on end.
84	* MeatOVision: When Ela returns from her first seafood meal, still reeling from how delicious it was, she's approached by some of her other fishy friends... who she envisions as all sorts of tasty dishes before snapping herself back to reality. By Chapter 36, it's gotten ''worse.'' She's no longer able to see her friends ''at all,'' and apparently hasn't been able to for some time.
85	* MsFanservice: As a mermaid, Princess Ela wears nothing but a bra that becomes increasingly too-small as the manga progresses, and as her fish-tail only goes up to her thighs her butt is often on full display.
86	* MyGodWhatHaveIDone:
87	** Ela is properly mortified after her first seafood dinner, not simply because she ate one of her friends, but because she found him ''so delicious''...
88	** In Chapter 40, [[spoiler:Nakajima triggers a very strong one in Ela that reminds her that everyone she's eaten, and all the fish she rules over, are her friends. Still, she's so mortified over what she's done that she keeps herself cooped in the central tower to figure out how to atone.]]
89	* NiceGuy: Himada's intimidating and eccentric, but he's one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet. Ela has this reputation among the fish, and to be fair she is an AllLovingHero. But she has her darker side...
90	* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: The fish news anchor seen in the final chapters is clearly based on the infamous North Korean news anchor [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ri_Chun-hee Ri Chun-hee]].
91	* ObliviouslyEvil: Humans seem to be unaware that most marine life in this world are sapient.
92	* OddFriendship: Chapter 33 reveals that Alisa Alisaka and Marumi Honnōji have been best friends since high-school, where the former was a brash delinquent with a soft side and the latter was a stoic socialite.
93	* OhCrap: In later chapters, typically anybody's reaction to [[spoiler: discovering Ela's love of eating fish. They rarely live past this trope.]]
94	* OnceAnEpisode: Ela inevitably laments [[MadLibsCatchphrase "I'm so sorry (x), but you taste so good!"]] as she tucks into her latest meal, with (x) being the poor soul who wound up on her plate.
95	* OnePersonBirthdayParty: Himada throws one for himself when it seems that everyone's too busy to celebrate with him. Fortunately, Sango shows up... followed by his staff, who had been setting up a surprise party for him.
96	* OrgasmicallyDelicious: The inevitable result of Ela taking a bite of seafood is her having a foodgasm worthy of ''Manga/FoodWars''.
97	* PaperTiger:
98	** Himada certainly looks terrifying, but he outwardly admits he sucks at fighting. Sure enough, he gets pummeled by the thugs he tries to defend Sango from. Even the nasty scar on his forehead is from he when he tripped and fell down the stairs when he was younger.
99	** His subordinate Takozaki is also this, but even worse than Himada.
100	* PhonyPsychic: Madame Bonita once had actual psychic powers, but after she lost them she turned towards scamming people.
101	* PokeThePoodle: The merfolk have a ''very'' low standard for crimes. One of the inmates of a prison got in there for yelling at his mom for buying the wrong manga, which even the others found hardcore. A Gillman who participated in a war was traumatized for 15 years, because he drew something on his superior's head and hasn't apologized.
102	* PokemonSpeak: Ela's mom is only capable of saying ''"Gub gub."''
103	* PoseOfSilence: Ela reveals herself as having [[ImAHumanitarian having a palate for fishpeople]] in a conspiratorial whisper to Gill-chan. {{Subverted}} because everyone else hears her asking how one of his sergeants tastes.
104	* RedHerring: Following the revelation that the Sea King's wife isn't Ela's birth mother, it's strongly implied that [[spoiler:Marin, Ryo's high-school teacher, is her mom. The first half of Chapter 28 sets it up to confirm this... only for the Sea King to pull a BaitAndSwitch and reveal that Ela's real mom is his current wife's twin sister]].
105	* RealPersonCameo: Kiyoshi Kimura, the 'Tuna King' and owner of the famous ''Sushi Zanmai'', makes a cameo in chapter 2, personally making and serving Ela's tuna roll.
106	* ReformedBully: In Chapter 8, the mostly stoic and laidback Ryo is revealed by Himada to have been a notoriously violent delinquent in high school, earning himself the nickname "Man-Eating Shark". Alisa was also a bit of a bully in high-school, forcing Marumi to give her money -- albeit only to feed a stray kitten she found.
107	* TheReveal: Chapter 28 reveals that Era's mother is [[spoiler:[[BaitAndSwitch the twin sister of her stepmother]] who died shortly after childbirth]].
108	* RescueRomance: Likely a strong component of Sango's crush on Himada: despite outwardly admitting he sucks at fighting, Himada doesn't hesitate for a second to protect her from a pair of thugs.
109	* RoomFullOfCrazy: Ela's pictures of her devoured friends have officially become this as of chapter 34, where we get to see them taking up the ''entire wall'' they're hung on.
110	* RuleOfFunny: The underwater society pretty much runs on this. Cod biker gangs? Clam and oyster yakuza? It's absurd and funny, so why not?
111	* SayingTooMuch:
112	** When she assumes that Gill-chan ate his CO during the war, Ela believes she's found a kindred spirit and [[PoseOfSilence conspiratorially asks]] how Gunnery Sergeant Hamoman tasted. Fortunately for her, Gill-chan and everyone else present assume she's joking.
113	** Ela's frequent freudian slips in Chapter 35 lead to [[spoiler:Detective Hatahata figuring out she's been eating the sealife she's supposedly gone to the surface to mourn]].
114	* SerialKiller:
115	** Later chapters paint Era as a serial killer, with multiple investigations trying to find out the dark secret, or hardened criminals feeling unnerved at her presence, sensing something ''wrong''. Granted, she only eats the fish, doesn't actually kill them herself, and the whole thing is PlayedForLaughs.
116	** In contrast to Tuna [[EarlyInstallmentWeirdness eating other fish with little-to-no consequences]] beyond Ela scolding him, Shark the Ripper is locked up in solitary confinement with a straitjacket and Hannibal Lector-style mask, the other characters treating him as a monstrous serial killer due to having eaten just ten fish.
117	* ShipTease:
118	** Alisa has a blatant crush on Ryo, who is completely ObliviousToLove, and sees Ela as a romantic rival for his affections. Ultimately nothing comes of this, as Ela's only interest on the surface is eating fish.
119	** Sango and Himada: Sango is shown spacing out after her first encounter with Himada, and when Mooray ribs her about having a crush on the surface she gets incredibly flustered. The Sea King seems furious when he hears rumors of it, but is disappointed when she nervously stammers that Himada means nothing to her, and [[ShipperOnDeck offers her his support and advice]] due to having been in a relationship with a human himself. [[spoiler:In chapter 36, it stops being 'tease': the two become engaged!]]
120	* ShoutOut: [[ReferenceOverdosed Holy carp, where to begin?]]
121	** The Chapter 3 cover references Nirvana's 'Nevermind' album.
122	** Several characters based on the [[Film/CreatureFromTheBlackLagoon Gill-man]] show up, starting in Chapter 3.
123	** The Cod [[JapaneseDelinquents bosozoku]] gang's old boss is a fishy [[Film/MadMaxFuryRoad Immortan Joe]].
124	** The fast-food seafood chain that threatens Ryo's restaurant is [[Series/BreakingBad Los Pollos Hermanos]]: Seafood Edition, complete with an owner that's a dead-ringer for Gus (his name is ''Sug'', for Pete's sake). When 'Sug' shoots Ela a DeathGlare after she exposes his dirty dealings, the horrified princess envisions him [[DemonHead with half of his face burned to the skull]] in another obvious shout-out to the character.
125	** The Salmon Troop flag in chapter 7 is obviously based on [[Manga/AttackOnTitan the Survey Corps']], with fins in the place of wings.
126	** Sango has a ''Film/{{Hannibal}}'' poster hung up in her office. How... disturbingly fitting.
127	** One of the assassins who attempted to kill Era portrays herself as an [[VideoGame/FateGrandOrder Assassin class Servant]].
128	** The guys who attack Sango during her first trip to the surface are almost ''traced'' from screenshots of Sherlock and John Watson from ''{{Series/Sherlock}}''.
129	*** Himada ends up in the memetic [[Anime/DragonBallZ Yamcha death pose]] after the aforementioned thugs beat him up.
130	** The bear that attacks the salmon migration is holding [[Franchise/WinnieThePooh a pot of hunny]].
131	** Ryo's grandma and [[NoNameGiven the poofy-haired fisherman]] strike [[Manga/JojosBizarreAdventure Jojo poses]] when they square off over whether oysters or clams are better ([[https://i.pinimg.com/originals/be/6d/9a/be6d9aab9d03ec447f8dc39ba004e744.jpg Josuke's]] and [[https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/jjba/images/5/55/GiornoProfile.png/revision/latest?cb=20190119135508 Giorno's]] respectively).
132	** Shellza the scallop is almost a dead ringer for Shellder from ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'', minus the cartoony tongue.
133	** When Alisa laments that she's gained weight and that she wishes she had a perk that prevented that, a video game icon resembling Vault Boy from the ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'' series is shown.
134	** After Madame Bonita is fished, Ela recites "[[WesternAnimation/FindingNemo Fish are friends, not food!]]" to herself.
135	** The cover of Chapter 21 shows Ela lounging on the Iron Throne from ''Series/GameOfThrones'', a la Cersi Lannister.
136	** One of the assassins -- a former member of the Gillman squad -- planning to take out Ela is a near-dead-ringer for [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyIV Cagnazzo]].
137	** Shark the Ripper is a combination of Hannibal Lecter and [[Manga/JojosBizarreAdventure Dio Brando]], wearing the former's iconic mask and straitjacket and quoting Dio's '[[ButForMeItWasTuesday Do you remember how many loaves of bread you've eaten?]]' line (the line is parodied when it turns out he does remember the exact number of fish he's eaten).
138	** In Chapter 28, the Sea King reveals that if his child was a boy he would've named his son [[Manga/{{Berserk}} Guts]], [[spoiler:which Marin actually named her son]].
139	** The cover of Chapter 30 is a parody of ''Film/TheShapeOfWater'', showing Ela embracing Gill-chan in the same pose as on movie's cover. The chapter itself has a parody of ''Film/FullMetalJacket'', with a drill sergeant eel named Gunnery Sergeant Hamoman in reference to Gunnery Sergeant Hartman.
140	** Ela turns down her final meal with a [[Film/AvengersEndgame "No, I don't think I will."]]
141	** The fish doctor in chapter 40 is pretty much an aquatic Manga/BlackJack.
142	* ShooOutTheClowns: Sango and the human characters are largely absent for the final chapters, which while not entirely without humor are far more serious
143	* ShrineToTheFallen: Crosses over with StalkerShrine. Ela keeps a portrait of everybody she's eaten. By Chapter 34, there are enough to cover an entire third of the page.
144	* SlasherSmile: [[spoiler:It may just be the angle, but Ela's got a ''demented'' little smile as she's eating Fluke at the end of Chapter 21. Even if it is just the angle, it's the first time she's outright smiled when eating seafood.]]
145	* SlowlySlippingIntoEvil: It becomes apparent how low Ela has fallen when she sports a chilling smile while eating Fluke in Chapter 21, and in Chapter 34 it's revealed that she owns a collection of seafood cookbooks to read and a large box of fish sausages to snack on. Even as early as Chapter 18, she happily nods in agreement when recalling Cody's last words assessing her as being the worst among them.
146	* SmallRoleBigImpact: The [[NoNameGiven unnamed, poofy-haired fisherman]] dining alongside Ela when she goes to mourn Benito. She would have left after paying her respects and that would have been the end of it, but then the fisherman half-jokingly remarks that Benito wouldn't be able to get to heaven if he was just thrown out. Through a combination of fear that he's right and morbid curiosity, Ela takes a bite and the rest is history.
147	* TheSocialDarwinist: When Ela scolds Tuna for trying to eat a squid, he scoffs that it's a "fish-eat-fish world" where the weak become prey for the strong. Immediately after telling her this, he is caught and his words stick with Ela when she eats him.
148	* SpellMyNameWithAnS: Is it 'Ela' or 'Era'? This is a bit of a funny one, considering Japanese pronunciation.
149	* SpiritAdvisor: In Chapter 23, the ghost of Madame Bonita attempts to act as one for Era, helping her kick her addiction to seafood... only to fail miserably and give up.
150	* StarCrossedLovers:
151	** Ela is revealed to have been in love with Tuna, but never told him how she felt before he was hooked. While eating him she consoles herself that at least they can now be together forever, and she mourns him the most of all her fallen friends.
152	** Fukko and Seigo, the former being a seabass heiress and the latter her servant and childhood friend. When Fukko is pressured into an arranged marriage by her father, Seigo ends up being hooked before he can confess his feelings for her and Fukko is DrivenToSuicide as a result.
153	** Chapters 24, 27, and 28 reveal that the Sea King, Ela's father, was in love with [[spoiler:Marin, Ryo's former art teacher, but they ultimately broke up due to his laziness and her violent temper. They'd even discussed having children together, and despite breaking up named their respective kids after each others' suggestions]].
154	** Old Man Veteran Herring had a sweetheart who was displaced when the Great Sea War broke out and he joined the army. He spent years searching for her, but when they were finally reunited she sacrificed herself to take a bullet meant for him. The Herring dedicated the rest of his life futilely trying to restore the kelp forest her family had owned, which had been razed by Gill-chan's military unit. After he's fished, Ela requests Ryo wrap his flesh in seaweed as a sendoff, and [[TogetherInDeath he's reunited with his sweetheart in the afterlife]].
155	* StrongFamilyResemblance: Invoked and subverted as part of the BaitAndSwitch regarding Ela's birth mother. In Chapter 28, it's made blatantly obvious that Ela strongly resembles [[spoiler:Marin, Ryo's ex-high school teacher and the Sea King's ex-girlfriend from twenty years prior; with them both being beautiful black-haired women with similar features, even having the same ecstatic expression when eating sea-food. It's ultimately subverted, as Ela's birth mother is revealed to be her stepmother's twin sister]].
156	* SupportingProtagonist: Ela has gotten less and less exposure as more side characters are introduced: there are numerous chapters that [[DevelopingDoomedCharacters focus on the various fish that will inevitably end up on her plate,]] with Ela only showing up at the end to eat the poor pelagic. Nonetheless, it's her actions that drive a lot of said characters interactions, directly or indirectly. Sango, for example, would never have met Himada if she hadn't followed Ela onto land, and Uotomo would have gone out of business if Ela hadn't exposed Sug's misdeeds.
157	* TimeSkip: The final chapters take place one year after [[spoiler: Era is crowned the new sovereign of the mermaid kingdom]], and some unspecified time after [[spoiler: Sango's wedding.]]
158	* TogetherInDeath:
159	** Chapter 16 involves a StarCrossedLovers plot involving a noble heiress seabass named Fukko and her servant Seigo. Fukko is placed into an arranged marriage by her impoverished father, but Princess Ela advises Seigo to pursue his feelings for her... which results in Seigo getting fished. Fukko subsequently [[DrivenToSuicide allows herself to be caught]], and Ela eats them both, with them being reunited and getting married in the afterlife (or rather, Ela's stomach).
160	** In the finale, [[spoiler:when Ela allows the Leviathan to eat her she has a vision of all the friends she herself has eaten welcoming her into the afterlife... which is later subverted as Ela not only survives but eats her way out of the Leviathan]].
161	* TrademarkFavoriteFood: Ela's is, to her mortification, seafood. She knows what she's eating, but it's just so good she can't stop...
162	* TrivialTragedy: One chapter features a sea monster who had crossed the DespairEventHorizon after participating in a war. When Ela counsels him, he seems to be wracked with guilt over [[spoiler:apparently eating his DrillSergeantNasty when the battle situation was going south, while the other fishes react with horror. When Ela asks him how the sergeant tastes, it is enough to snap him out of his depressive state and laughs at her, because he ''didn't'' actually eat the sergeant, but merely scribbled on his face using marker.]]
163	* TyrantTakesTheHelm: Towards the end of the manga, [[spoiler:the former princess Ela is crowned the queen of the undersea kingdom and turns it into a police state with a certain resemblance to North Korea. Even her own father isn't safe from her iron fist, as she has him arrested for stealing from the royal treasury to fuel his gatcha game addiction]].
164	* WhamEpisode:
165	** Chapter 24: When Ryo brings up Ela's name, his former teacher Marin -- who had nicknamed Ela "Kitty Cat" due to her love of fish -- is shocked, realizing she recognizes the name. Having just been showing Ryo a photograph of herself and the man she'd fallen in love with when she was younger, she apprehensively looks down at the photo -- revealing the man is none other than [[spoiler: ''Ela's father the sea king in human form!'']]
166	** Chapter 36 out-whams them all with [[spoiler:Himada finding out that Sango is a mermaid, proposing to her, and her accepting!]]
167	** Chapter 38 delivers a heavy hitter by [[spoiler:giving a backstory and name to the dopey-looking fish that has more or less been serving as the author's avatar along with revealing the circumstances behind Benito's death.]]
168	* WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes: Merfolk have a species-wide fear of cats: Ela jumped away from one so frantically she smacked her head and gave herself amnesia, and later Sango runs in terror from one after it licks her on the ankle.

Context Manga / TheMermaidPrincesssGuiltyMeal