Moon Child 4

月の子 / Moon Child #4

by Reiko Shimizu

When a merman named Shona meets a young human named Jimmy, who suffers from amnesia, they set off together to find a missing half-mermaid, half-human girl who can bring an end to the feud between humanity and the mer-people.

Genres: Manga, Comics, Science Fiction

190 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1990

About the author

See also 清水玲子.

Reiko Shimizu (清水玲子 Shimizu Reiko, born March 26, 1963 in Tokyo, Japan) is a Japanese shōjo manga writer and illustrator. She made her professional debut in 1983 with Sansaro Monogatari in LaLa, and has written primarily for the publisher Hakusensha. She is noted for her works of science fiction and her art style, and is also known for her illustrations of tarot cards called the Miracle Tarot deck.

She received the 2002 Shogakukan Manga Award for shōjo for Kaguyahime.[1] Her Himitsu - Top Secret has been recommended twice by the Japan Media Arts Festival jury in 2007 and 2008.[2][3] It has also been listed on the Tohan charts four times as of May 2009.[4] Her manga Moon Child is licensed in English by CMX Manga.

Reviews

[Robin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh, the angst and tension coming together in this volumen. I am both scared and excited. Just hoping the best for Jimmy too.

[Leila Anani · Rating 4 out of 5]

4th of 13 volumes in this sci-fi mermaid manga series.
In order to save his dead brother Seth, Teruto, like his mother Seira (The Little mermaid) before him goes to visit the sea witch. He offers her everything if she will bring Seth back to life and cause him to mate with Shonarch instead of Jimmy/Benjamin.

She agrees but the price is far worse than simply a voice and fish tail - she wants him to wipe out all life on Earth. The end of this has Teruto possessing the body of Gil Owen son of the most influential company in the world.

Meanwhile we still have all the love tangles - Jimmy loves Art who's still hung up on Holly. Noera loves Shonarch who loves Jimmy...

There's also lots of gender swapping and sexual ambiguity. Jimmy of course turns into Benjamin and will soon have to mate. Art performs a dance where he starts female, becomes a man and ends androgynous. And then there's Seth and Teruto, currently male but if Teruto's wish comes true will Seth return as a woman?

The artwork in this is beautiful and the story is fascinating. It's so clever how it mixes in so many ideas from mermaids on the moon to Chernobyl, the little mermaid, the fickle world of modern dance as well as love triangles, gender switching and a heavy ecological theme about man destroying the Earth. Wonderful stuff.

[scarlettraces · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the most effortlessly strange manga I've read so far. It follows that familiar Japanese pattern of combining unlike elements that clearly appeal to the creator, but unlike the predictability of most (highschool girls and tanks, or maids and mobile suits), these are genuinely unusual - Hans Christian Andersen, New York, space-travelling aliens. Or to put it another way, it doesn't really seem like a retelling of the Little Mermaid, more a story whose elements have come together in a way that serendipitously uses the fairytale as a keystone.

Lovely 80s art too, if that appeals.