1.Setting
World where free-imagination is limited. A boy met with a mermaid and spend wonderful time together.
2.Conflict
The boy told his parents that he met a mermaid. There was a big water tank in his room, and he pointed out a fish in the tank and insisted that is a mermaid. For that, police men took him to court and showed him many pictures of fish and asked "Is this a mermaid did you see?" Police men didn't believe in his story.
3.Climax
He sat on a electric chair, and put a helmet on. Suddenly, he given an electric shock. After the penalty, he came back home to see the thing inside the tank was a fish or not. He scoop the fish and let her go back in the ocean, and it became a mermaid. Next moment, he went into the ocean and swam together and went anywhere.
4.Symbol
Symbol for the story is the fins. When he was asked many things about the mermaid, he started to forget about what she looked like. But he never forget about the fins. I thought fins suggest the free imagination in the story. If you have fins, you can go everywhere, nobody cannot stop you imagine.
5.Irony
In the animation, the mermaid was a symbol of freedom because she can go everywhere of the ocean. However, the mermaid was labeled as "imagination" in the world and nobody believed it. So the world where he lived has no freedom. That is why author, Osamu Tezuka, chooses to use mermaid for the symbol of freedom in the animation.
6.Theme
Theme is the "free imagination." There are some countries that prohibit people freedom of speak, write, and publish. This animation suggest the importance of imagination and believing in one's thought.
