Mermaid by Osamu Tezuka
In Tezuka's video "Mermaid" from the year 1964 a boy is tortured for seeing
things differently than the others.
He is daydreaming at the beach when he finds a little fish in a puddle.
After returning the fish into the sea, it transforms into a mermaid.
He takes the Mermaid home and shows it to his parents. However, his parents and all the other people
can't see the mermaid. He has been imagining it.
He keeps on believing in the mermaid but is getting a therapy because of that. He's tortured and manipulated
by the military to make him think the way they want to.
Finally he runs away to bring the Mermaid back to the ocean and eventually dies.
My thoughts on the video:
Since the video was made after WWII I can imagine that the message was
about being oppressed and forced to adapt to the ideals of the
government. Thinking, differently and standing out was a danger so people were educated or even tortured to become "normal" and to obey.
Also, Tezuka may wanted to imply that the way of education in Japan was going to literally kill creativity as we were able to see at the ending. The boy is returning into the ocean with the mermaid which is symbolizing creativity/imagination
. Eventually he and with him his creativity dies.
I felt very sad seeing the video clip but at the same time felt that we have to appreciated our current environment where
we are not as oppressed as the people at that time. Sadly, there are still many countries where people are not allowed to think freely or state their opinions.
Umeka
