Takurou Mukoujima is your ordinary High School boy who likes to go fishing at the pier in the afternoon. One day, he accidentally catches a green-haired mermaid named Muromi, and an unlikely friendship between the two begins.
Muromi-san (Namiuchigiwa no Muromi-san, lit. Muromi of the Shore) is a gag manga by Najima Keiji, which was serialized in Weekly Shonen Magazine from 2009 to 2014. It received a thirteen-episode anime adaptation which aired on April 6th of 2013 with twelve minutes length per episode. Now available for viewing at Crunchyroll
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This manga provides examples of:
- A-Cup Angst: Muromi, while she doesn't actively complain about her small breasts, gets incredibly angry when people make fun of her for them or the larger Fuji merely being within view. She deals with it by executing Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs onto Fuji's boobs, or whatever physical abuse she can muster.
- Advanced Ancient Humans: It is mentioned that the continent of Mu had an advanced civilisation, using technology from the alien Wiseman, that was destroyed by Levia-san by orders of the gods... in passing.
- All Myths Are True: Every myth brought up by the show is shown to either relate to a mythological being that Muromi hangs out with, or were events caused by the mermaids or their friends. The mummified kappa corpse in the Zuiryuji Temple in Osaka is the preserved body of Kawabata's older brother after he was killed by humans, various accounts of apocalyptic events were caused by Levia...
- Animal Talk: The mermaids can casually communicate with animals, especially aquatic life.
- Angry Cheek Puff: In episode 4, Muromi-san puffed up her cheeks super big when Takkun didn't want to go to the Kamo river with her and Yetchi.
- Back for the Finale: Every single character who appeared in the series comes to celebrate New Year's Eve with Muromi and the mermaids in the last episode.
- Berserk Button: Muromi has quite a few buttons, due to her rather impulsive temper. She considers it very impolite to ask about her age, she goes into angry rants when confronted with sea mammals due to a bad break up, she always snaps when Fuji is merely existing near her, etc.
- Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and Yeti: Yeti exist in this universe... but the only example of the fearsome species we see is actually a young, small ninja Cute Monster Girl that peacefully lives in the Himalayas.
- Bighearted Bigfoot: The series' resident yeti is a cute little ninja girl.
- Bizarre Taste in Food: Being a mermaid, Muromi has no problem eating ragworms or other kinds of fish bait.
- Black Comedy: Witch hunts, tsunami waves, multiple instances of the apocalypse... the list goes on.
- Boke and Tsukkomi Routine: Mostly with the loud Muromi (boke) and the reserved Takkun (tsukkomi). Muromi lampshades this in the fourth episode.
- Brain Upload: Wiseman digitized his mind some time before the series, allowing him to inhabit the robots he creates and make effectively infinite copies of himself.
- Buxom Beauty Standard: Fuji's well-endowed chest gets a lot of Male Gaze shots and her figure is a constant source of envy for Muromi.
- Cloud Cuckoo Lander: All the mermaids, but especially Muromi. Being around for 200 million years must have done a number on their sanity...
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Muromi becomes Harpy's punchbag in the fourth episode, and she's unable to even the score at all. She also gets this treatment at the flippers of a group of penguins later on.
- D-Cup Distress: Fuji expresses frustration over her bustiness because it's difficult for her to do any physically strenuous activities well, unlike the streamlined Muromi.
- Dirty Old Man: Wiseman, in spite of being an ancient robot, is one of the most perverted characters on the show. He doesn't charge money for his inventions, but seemingly demands some form of erotic act as payment.
- A Dog Named "Dog": Yeti befriends a harpy, and she imaginatively names her Harpy.
- Double Entendre: Invoked for a gag, as all the mermaids' act and descriptions of joy of eating cucumbers can easily be interpreted naughtily.
- The Dreaded: Muromi is basically Satan to the entire Coelacanth species, due to her scaring the tar out of one who was on the verge of evolving into a land animal back in prehistoric times. The resulting terror was so bad that it actually got genetically encoded into that fish's DNA and was passed down to the future generations that followed it, causing the species to stay deep in the ocean with an ingrained phobia about the surface and instinctively flee from her.
- Everything Trying to Kill You: Muromi is constantly attacked by predators that have fish in their diet, both in the ocean and outside of it.
- Evolving Credits: A small and subtle example in the opening. After episode 9, Yeti now sports the fluffy tail Wiseman gave her.
- E.T. Gave Us Wi-Fi: Discussed, but averted, in episode 9. Turns out, all the weird gadgets Muromi has (including her camera phone) were given to her a long time ago by the alien Wiseman. It also turns out he's responsible for giving advanced technology to the people of Mu, which led to their destruction (and it's why he is no longer allowed to give his technology to humans).
- Fantasy Kitchen Sink: The series starts with mermaids, and then quickly adds various other mythological beings to the mix since they all have the same social circle, like a yeti, a harpy, a muscular kappa...
- False Camera Effects: The opening ends with Muromi hitting the "camera" and shattering the lens.
- Fetish: Fuji has one for mermaid tails. Muromi used to have a gorgeous one, but it's been torn up from her journeys above land, so now Fuji wants to keep her off land long enough for it to heal.
- The First Cut Is the Deepest: After being rejected by an aquatic mammal (actually a fish trying to live on land) and stewing on that event for literally millions of years, Muromi now has trouble making friends with dolphins and whales, to put it simply.
- Freudian Excuse: Muromi's hatred for aquatic mammals stemmed from being dumped by a fish who gave up in evolving into land mammals. She never knew that the fish didn't evolve into a mammal, thus her hate is misplaced.
- The Friend Nobody Likes: According to Muromi in episode 10, nobody likes the Kraken. This is due to him being an obnoxious lightweight by the hard-drinking mermaids' standards, and he almost caused World War 3 by almost crushing a Russian nuclear submarine just to show off. They agree to get him wasted and stick him with the bill at a mixer.
- From the Mouths of Babes: Harpy starts spouting random internet slang and insults in Episode 9, which gets some confused reactions from the others. Wiseman taught her those words.
- Hard-Drinking Party Girl: You can save some time and say most of the mermaids, such as Sumida, the blue-haired mermaid, and Levia. Muromi too can hold her liquor.
- Hive Mind: Wiseman digitized his mind, and already copy-pasted himself into various robot bodies.
- Hot Springs Episode: The second part of episode 13. The mermaids visit a hot spring just before New Year's Eve. Levia-san opted not to go, since the waters are not hot enough for her. She went to a Lava Pit instead, and in spite of glowing red hot afterwards, wished that the pool was a little hotter.
- Kappa: Kawabata-san, yet another friend of Muromi. Unlike stereotypical kappa who are short and timid, he's huge, muscular, and is a manly man of few words. He doesn't like humans, but he considers Takurou a friend since Takurou is Muromi's friend.
- Katanas Are Just Better: Yeti certainly thinks so, as she's immediately enthralled by katanas once she's shown one. Upon returning to her cave, she forges one for herself using her souvenir as an example and begins training with it.
- Killer Rabbit: Unlike in the Greek myths, harpies in this setting are small, stupid, and very adorable. However, the myths are not wrong in portraying their viciousness and savagery when fighting.
- Kraken and Leviathan: Kraken gets a mention in episode 10. Also, he's (rightfully) afraid of Levia-san.
- Living Forever Is Awesome: Every mythological character is explicitly shown to have lived for millions of years and they expect to keep going for millions more, but none of them angst about it at all. They mainly pass the time exploring the world and having fun where they can. There's brief mentions that if Muromi's affection for Takurou actually goes anywhere, it will be a Mayfly–December Romance... but she lives in the present and calmly (for her) accepts that it won't last.
- Mermaid Problem: Parodied when Muromi presents Takkun with a pile of eggs and asks him to fertilize them. (He does not.)
- Misplaced Wildlife: Muromi encounters a hungry polar bear in Antarctica after being rescued from a group of penguins. She immediately lampshades this.
- Mushroom Samba: Muromi, Kawabata-San, and Tsuchinoko, all get into a drunken state after eating the poison mushrooms they've collected, and it's implied that they do this every year.
- Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Say Levia's name with the appropriate Japanese honorific, and you get Levia-san (which sounds phonetically similar to Leviathan).
- Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Ninja samurai blacksmith Yeti. Time Abyss Person of Mass Destruction mermaids. The list goes on and on.
- Non-Standard Character Design: Masuda in episode 11, whose plain dot eyes stand out among everyone else's big bishoujo-style eyes.
- Person of Mass Destruction: Levia-san can transform into a giant sea serpent that can spit nuke-sized explosions, and is solely responsible for various civilizations dying in an apocalyptic ball of fire. But she hasn't done it for hundreds of years. Muromi has cellphone photos of the last incident.
- Riches to Rags: Otohime, formerly a rich and powerful princess of a legendary castle in the ocean, lost all her wealth because her business in the same Sea Dragon Castle went bankrupt, and she went through back-to-back economic losses while trying to recover. Otohime's now a cashier at a fishing supply store in Takkun's seaside town, trying to remain undercover so her former customers/friends don't see the poverty she's now in.
- Shout-Out: Several, such as to Gundam in episode 8 (Muromi losing her tail is compared to the Zeong).
- Spoiler Opening: It's not like plot matters considering the show's premise, but several characters make an appearance in the opening way before their debut in the series (most notably Ciel and Wiseman).
- Surreal Theme Tune: The opening has the mermaids fly into space to stop a meteorite from hitting the Earth (and only fail because Muromi accidentally presses the self-destruct button, resulting in an Earth-Shattering Kaboom).
- Suspiciously Specific Denial: There's no way Otohime from the Sea Dragon's Castle would work in a fishing goods shop, right? The shop attendant denies the possibility if you ask her.
- Time Abyss: Muromi and the other mermaids have been around since the Mesozoic Era, if not longer. Constantly Played for Laughs; Muromi constantly hints at being ridiculously old so she can punt Takkun when he "rudely" asks how old she is.
- Too Kinky to Torture: Episode 12 has Muromi beating up Fuji and trying to rip off her tail fin... and she enjoys it.
- Unlucky Everydude: Poor Takkun has to deal with Muromi's whims and her odd friends using "the boy at the pier" as a meeting point.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Muromi and Levia love visiting surface towns to see the sights and do their shopping, and absolutely nobody seems to care about a real mermaid on a skateboard rolling around. They seem to get mistaken for particularly devoted cosplayers who love mermaids.
- Watching Troy Burn: Yup. The mermaids literally did watch Troy getting burned down and treated it like humans would a fireworks show. While laughing and drinking, that is.
- Weird Historical War: The Mongol invasion of Japan (approximately 800 years ago) was stopped by some mermaids singing which caused a big storm. Later on, the witch trials were abolished because of Levia-san's rampage to avenge Muromi, who had gotten swept up in them after getting accused of being a witch.
- Weirdness Magnet: Ever since he met Muromi, strange things keep happening around Takurou. He rapidly gets acquainted with the mythological beings of the world, mainly due to how sociable Muromi is.
