Mermaid (1964)
Summary
One day a boy found a small fish on the beach. The fish transformed into a mermaid in front of him. However, in his country free thinking is not allowed. He was sent to the mental institution and controlled his imagination by many kinds os tortures. Then, he run away from the institution and went to the beach. At the last shot, the image of two mermaids swimming toward offshore is projected.
Evaluation
Osamu Tezuka tried to tell people in 1964 that how great having imagination is and at the same time how violent prohibiting people from free thinking is. He succeeded in both of them by impressing people by using simple pictures and no line. What I thought through this short video is that under our consciousness thought controlling might still remain in this modern world. Especially in the video, he was forced to read books and gain “right” knowledge as the last method of controlling his mind. I believe, on the other hand, we are in the same situation by the power of the Internet. If this story happen in the modern world and we were the boy in the story, we would Google "mermaid existence" after we see the transformation into a mermaid. Searching on the Internet destroys the imagination immediately. We surrounded by useful information sources all the time should notice that our thoughts might be controlled by them. Also, we should stop asking “right” answers on the Internet, but give a lot of care to your original thought.
