Review: Wild Fish

Review: Wild Fish by Reiichi Hiiro (2000)

Yaoi merman romance, the main plot of Wild Fish details the romance between merman prince Kagetsu (seme) and Ayase Kai (uke), a young businessman who inexplicably survives drowning. In fact Ayase is a half-merman, son of an exiled minister to the king. The king and his minister were in love, but Ayase's father left the sea forever when the mer-king married a mermaid in order to have heirs, not willing to share his beloved. Of course Ayase knows none of this and is very disconcerted when Kagetsu comes on to him, and indeed turns up at work as an important client to which he must indulge his every desire. Kagetsu moves in with Ayase and determines to live on land until his shy lover agrees to marry him and return to his undersea kingdom.

One of Kagetsu's five brothers, Sakuya, comes to escort his wayward brother home. When he sees how adamant Kagetsu is so secure Ayase's love, Sakuya decides to stay on land as well and moves into Ayase's apartment building - He literally commandeers Ayase's neighbour, reporter Ryuji Toba's apartment. Clean freak Sakuya takes one look at scruffy Toba, and decides its his personal mission to clean him up - he washes him until he's shiny, shaves him until he's hairless and then moves on to the apartment - the mismatched pair become lovers and I actually found the sub-plot characters more interesting than the Kagetsu/Ayase arc. 

When Ayase finally admits his love for Kagetsu, the pair return to the undersea kingdom. Kagetsu's father realises who Ayase is and decides he wants to marry him rather than his son! Ayase and Kagetsu elope and swim off into the ocean.

There's a lovely scene early on where Kagetsu tries to seduce the reluctant Ayase in the shower - Ayase turns the shower on and the water makes the Prince grow his tail so he can't do anything.

The scenes of clean freak Sakuya in the bath are also really nice.

Sex scene is reasonably erotic, but the wonderful thing about it, is that Ayse manifests a full mer-tail when he reaches climax which shocks them both, since normally merfolk manifest tails when they hit water.

Being a single volume, Wild Fish doesn't have the emotional depth or subtlety of longer yaoi romances; it's what I'd call a bit of fluff, but for all that it is great fun. And its a gay merman romance, with tails. Yay! The art work is really nice and clean, especially the cute Ayase. This is more realistic in style rather than BESM (big eyes small mouth), but that suits the story. It's not very chibi either though I have to share my absolute favourite panel of the whole piece which is a side bat illustration of baby Kagetsu and Sakuya - so cute!!!!

Sadly I can only find a hard copy of this manga in German, however there are numerous English translations online. You should be able to read it at the link below:
Wild Fish online

Verdict: 5/10