Lover Merman

Beautiful Faces, Gorgeous Tails

This series honestly started off with a lot of promise. The plot felt fresh and unique, especially with the whole mermen angle—it’s not something you see every day, and it immediately caught my attention. The casting was spot‑on too; the actors really looked the part, with their striking faces and lean, athletic builds that made them believable as these mythical sea creatures. The underwater visuals were another highlight. The shots had a nice polish to them, and the mermen tails in particular were well‑designed and looked pretty convincing on screen. But as the episodes went on, the excitement just fizzled out. The story lost its direction and started dragging, almost like the writers weren’t sure where they wanted to take it. Instead of building momentum, it felt repetitive and meandering, which made it harder to stay invested. So in the end, while it had the potential to be a standout series, it ended up being just okay. Not terrible, but not memorable either. I’d give it a fair 3.5 out of 5 stars—worth checking out if you’re curious, but don’t expect it to blow you away.

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Good story, messy execution, still fun. Personally, worth the watch

The beginning made me laugh at the bad acting and filming pace. By the middle of the series, it got a bit boring, but the story itself was actually interesting, and the crazy ending somehow pulled everything together to make a decent series.

Now, talking about the main couple. Nawa’s backstory and his home life were very nicely shown, the struggle of a family having a merman son and a mother who seemingly didn’t like him was a good reflection of real life issues, parents not fully accepting their kids as they are. It felt real and raw at times, and the character development between mother and son felt natural.
The chemistry between the main leads was good. Nawa’s struggles with hiding his identity, dealing with a persistent “friend” who kept manipulating him, and his perception of human merman connections, shaped by his home life and the lies he was told until the last minute, were interesting and definitely gave an unsettling feeling. But Phu’s story, with his understanding and acceptance of mermans while being afraid and confused, felt extremely rushed."

The second couple’s story was less intense, but still interesting enough to watch.

As for the ending, it was unexpected and unbelievable, but also kind of beautiful. The sacrifice over mistakes, lies, and deception was an interesting way to show the level of obsession one can have and how those obsessions can impact your self as a person. The hidden secrets within families, which can ruin generations, added a lot of weight to the story.

Overall, the series wasn’t amazing. It had a good story and interesting plot twists, but it wasn’t executed well enough. The ending felt rushed, with all the major events crammed together, making it jarring and a bit confusing, which made it less engaging. Although the individual stories, characters, and their development were good, the series didn’t let the viewer fully attach to the characters, making the turning points feel less impactful. The bad acting didn’t ruin it for me it actually made some scenes pretty funny and gave off a bit of that older BL vibe.

If you want something light, easily watchable, and enjoy series like this without expecting perfection, it’s a good time spender. Personally, I don’t regret watching it.

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This BL merman series could have been so much more

Disclaimer

What I am writing here are my views and thoughts about this series. Some of you may not like it. That does not give you the right to try to come at me with your opinions on why this series should get a higher or lower score and why it is better/worse than I think it is. You have your own opinions, and I have mine. Kindly respect that.

I was super excited to watch this series, as this would have been something new for me in the BL world, as I had never watched a series that was dealing with mermen. However, I felt disappointed by (nearly) all of the episodes when I watched it weekly. There were parts that were good in this series, but as it continued on, I felt that there was no need for some of the supporting characters -what was the point of the introduction of Phurit's brother and adoptive (?) brother? Just picked up screen time that could have helped to develop Phuirt and Nawa's relationship or even their characters.

Pharaphai was hella annoying, and he just made me not enjoy this series at all. Look, you can have a character that is a dick, and if something happens to that character, you can feel empathy for them. But for me, every time Pharaphai was on the screen, I got very annoyed and just wanted him off the screen. When you get to (finally) learn the story of Nawa's parents, it's heartbreaking. I wish that he did not have to suffer through that, especially when you learn whose fault it was.

The story between Phurit and Nawa was actually okayish – just that I felt that the same trust that they (Nawa and Phana) wanted from Phurit, they should have given it to him earlier, because that episode where they were only telling him to trust them was annoying me because it clearly shows that they did not trust him enough as yet to tell him the truth, and trust, to me, is a two-way street.

I felt that the secondary couple was also not handled properly; when they finally got together, I felt nothing. But, it was good to see that Ping resolved his family issues in the end. There are many more issues with this series (background music playing too loud for my liking in the early episodes and scenes not flowing properly from each other, just to name a few), but I am glad that something new was tried with CGI that was actually good. I'm just dissapointed as this series could have been so much more.

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I went into this with low expectations due to the poor reviews, but I ended up enjoying it more than expected. For the first 6 episodes, anyways. The last two episodes were a mess and really annoyed me.

My biggest issue was that Nawa was either too stupid or naive to understand Phraphai’s intentions, or he understood perfectly well and was playing dumb and refusing to establish proper boundaries for literally the entire series. Phraphai had feelings for Nawa and Nawa didn’t reciprocate, and that’s fine. But why was Nawa CONSTANTLY letting Phraphai touch him, pet his hair, and hold his hand? (And what’s with the hair petting? He’s not a damn dog.) Half the time, he was the one initiating the hand-holding. He’s not stupid — he understood that Phu was hitting on him right away.

Nawa takes off the necklace Phraphai gave him the morning after he and Phu officially get together. But if he understood that the significance of that necklace was non-platonic, why did he wear it for so long after he already had feelings for and was involved with Phu? There’s a scene where Phraphai says that he wants to care for and protect Nawa, and Nawa definitively catches on then if he didn’t before, because he makes a pointed comment about caring for Phraphai as a brother. But after that, during the same scene and for the rest of the series, why is there still hand-holding and hair petting going on? Even in the scene where he finally tells Phraphai that he and Phu are in a relationship, he’s STILL HOLDING HANDS WITH HIM. He’s still letting him touch his hair and hug him. He says that he’ll swim alone that night, so that means he must have understood the non-platonic significance of spending every full moon with Phraphai, but yet he’s been continuing to do it this entire time while involved with Phu. When Phraphai insists that he “protect” Nawa by driving him to and from work and having someone stay at his house every night, Nawa goes along with it for literal WEEKS. Why did those measures mean that Phu couldn’t come stay over? Why couldn’t they still act like a couple just because Phraphai was insisting on acting like a bodyguard? Why was Nawa so willing to sacrifice his relationship instead of just telling Phraphai the truth about him and Phu?

And when Phu finds out the truth by witnessing Nawa’s transformation, Phraphai lies and says he ran terrified and that humans can never love mermen. Not only does Nawa accept that as fact without even talking to Phu, he agrees to go live with Phraphai for “protection” BEFORE even hearing about Phu’s reaction. He spent the last 3 weeks ruining his relationship, finally stands up to Phraphai and tells him about his relationship and that he wants to be with Phu, only to immediately agree to move in with Phraphai and ruin his relationship again. He’s so quick to give up on his relationship without even talking to Phu. They’re holding hands again during this conversation by the way, because of course they are. And when Phraphai later says he wants Nawa by his side forever while he leads the merman, Nawa just agrees (while holding his hand). I know he knows Phraphai isn’t talking platonically at this point, so at what point is he going to shut him down?

The answer is never, because Phraphai proceeds to attempt to kill Phu, and when Nawa tries to sacrifice himself to save Phu with his merman blood, Phraphai chooses to sacrifice himself instead. During the sacrificial scene, Phraphai has Nawa tied up so he can’t interfere, and he kisses Nawa through the duct tape on his mouth. And Nawa allows it. And Nawa is more devastated about Phraphai than Phu, because he definitively cries much harder than when Phu was dying, and when he’s untied, he goes to Phraphai instead of Phu, who is also lying unconscious. He goes to Phraphai’s funeral while Phu is still unconscious instead of staying by his side. And when Phu wakes up, Nawa barely seems happy. He seems more upset about Phraphai’s death than happy about Phu being alive.

And why was Phraphai given a redemption arc? Man was manipulative as fuck. The whole time, he was lying to Nawa about “protecting” him and about there being humans out there hunting merman. His own father orchestrated the merman killings, and he continued the lie after finding out the truth. His only motive was to make Nawa hate humans and Phu so that he could have Nawa to himself. But at his funeral, he and his father were both being praised as martyrs. For what? The only good thing Phraphai did was sacrifice himself to save Phu, and he wouldn’t have had to do that if he didn’t try to kill Phu in the first place.

The last two episodes are all about that Phraphai arc, so that’s why they pissed me off so much. The plot in those two episodes was also weak. Like why does Nawa collapse because of not transforming when both Ping and Phraphai are fine? How does Nawa know that Phu fell in the water and needed to be saved exactly when and where it happened? Why did he kiss Phu underwater before pulling him up when he’s literally drowning? Why does someone have to die to get blood from a merman heart? Isn’t all blood from your heart anyways? Can’t you just extract some? Phu was about to die and about 12 hours must have passed while Nawa and Phraphai were monologuing about nonsense. The whole Phu-almost-dying arc ended up being mostly about Phraphai when he’s not even the main character. It totally took away from the Nawa-Phu romance. And why did they have to have 500 million flashback scenes? Plus after all that, we didn’t get any sweet moments with Nawa and Phu. The side couple (Phana and Ping) had a sweeter ending moment and kiss than the main couple did and that was disappointing.

Also, I was annoyed that Nawa wasn’t ultimately the one to tell Phu about mermen. He was about to, before he almost collapsed and Phraphai took him to the ocean to transform. So he ends up finding out by witnessing the transformation. I was kind of okay with that because Phu was about to tell him himself. But after that, it’s Phana who explains the whole merman history and lore to Phu, not Nawa. And after Phu finds out about the merman thing, he for some reason needs time to process and starts questioning the relationship. He ultimately comes to the conclusion that he still wants to be with Nawa no matter what, but I don’t understand what there was to question in the first place. It’s not like he was upset about the lying part, it was the merman part that he didn’t know how to handle.

There were some weaker points in the earlier episodes as well. There were often random montages (like swimming and making drinks) as well as flashback scenes of things that we just saw 5 minutes ago within the same episode. And there were too many extended periods of just staring and smiling at each other. The dialogue was often awkward. The background music was often reminiscent of bad porn music, and not just in the NC scenes. The sound mixing was off sometimes, with the music louder than the dialogue, and sometimes the foley background sounds didn’t match (for examples, the footsteps when Ping’s mother is walking were totally off). The leads were the weakest actors in the entire series. I’d say Ping and Than were the only ones that delivered convincing performances. The underwater scenes weren’t great. Even if you excuse the bad effects as budget restrictions, the costumes were also awful and the actors were doing a very bad job of not looking like they were holding their breath when they were supposed to be able to breathe underwater. And their swimming very much looked like what humans look like when they’re trying to awkwardly swim underwater without floating up. The first episode in particular was pretty weak, with a 4 minute drink making competition that added nothing of value and 25 seconds of staring during their first meeting.

But I enjoyed the romance in episodes 2-6. It was problematic in that Nawa explicitly rejected Phu multiple times, but Phu refused to stop pursuing him. I’m not excusing that as acceptable behavior, but of all the BLs I’ve seen with this problematic trope, I think this one executed it in the least disturbing way. Because Phu was never controlling, never violated Nawa’s boundaries (at least not in a way that was romanticized or excused as acceptable), and never violated his consent. Even when Nawa was going off with Phraphai on a daily basis and not explaining anything to Phu, Phu never stopped him. The one time he violated Nawa’s boundaries, by following him and Phraphai, Nawa calls him out for violating his privacy and Phu agrees to never do it again. And he sticks to that. The only physical interaction between Nawa and Phu that had questionable consent was their first kiss / sexual encounter, during which Phu was drunk. He was an active participant though, and had made his interest known in advance, which made the scene less disturbing to watch than other similar dub con scenes. Every other interaction was fully consensual. Even when they were deep into it, when Nawa stopped them and said he was tired and didn’t want to continue, Phu stopped and didn’t pressure him to keep going.

There was also good consent in the NC scene with Than and Yu. Although they were both drunk, when Yu stops Than from unbuckling his belt, Than immediately stops and they discuss what’s wrong. When Yu leaves the room to sleep elsewhere, Than tries to convince him to stay but doesn’t force him to. Consent as a whole was good. There were dub con drunk scenes, but I found them less disturbing (although not acceptable) because everyone was an active participant.

The NC scenes as a whole were also more explicit than you usually see. There were several scenes with stimulated blow jobs. But the camera work and editing weren’t the greatest in some scenes. And sometimes the facial expressions didn’t match what was actually going on. Like sometimes the actors’ faces were looking like they were mid-sex, but all that was happening was their partner kissing down their back, and their pants were still on. Also there was one scene where one of the side couples answers the phone mid-blowjob, and wtf? Who does that?

Also, everyone was an equal in all the couples! No dom / sub dynamics to be found, which I really, really appreciated. The one couple where there stereotypically would be dom / sub dynamics was Phana / Ping due to the boss / employee relationship, age difference, and size difference. But they were also equals, and Ping took the lead in and out of the bedroom just as much as Phana did.

The one thing I thought was lacking was casual physical intimacy. You could tell that every physical touch was explicitly scripted. So when it wasn’t scripted, things felt awkward. For example, the morning after they officially get together, they’re standing 5 feet apart and don’t touch each other aside from the scripted kisses, which were just pecks. It was oddly awkward and chaste considering they’d already had sex and were officially in a relationship. I also wanted Nawa to initiate and pursue Phu more as opposed to just accepting his affection, but I think he reciprocated more as the series went on. Also, I thought it was weird that Nawa called Phu “Khun” instead of “P” for the entire series.

For the side couples - I really liked Than / Yu. I wanted to see more of them and was disappointed we didn’t get a real conclusion on if their relationship worked out after they left the island. Than’s ride or die mentality when it came to Yu was cute. It had the same unhealthy “I’m going to chase you even if you say no” dynamic that Phu / Nawa had, but it similarly wasn’t controlling or violating of boundaries / consent. I liked the whole forbidden romance aspect of their relationship and would 100% be invested in a full series on them. The actors (particularly Than) were really good at conveying emotions in emotionally charged scenes.

I was less invested in Phana / Ping. Phana was a good boyfriend to his ex-girlfriend. He loved her and he worked hard to make things work with her, even when the relationship was unhappy. I appreciated that he had no interest in Ping while he was with his girlfriend. He was committed, fought for the relationship, and was a good guy. But his dedication to his ex meant that I didn’t really want to see him with anyone else. He was hung up on her for most of the series, and unsure if he actually felt something for Ping or was just lonely and looking for a rebound or replacement. Also, I didn’t like that the show made the girlfriend look like the bad guy when she didn’t do anything wrong other than end a failing relationship.

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if you have nothing else to watch, it's alright

i really dont understand why on ever website people tend to over rate every show, not everything is a 9 point something score. 3 episodes are in for now, no actual plot, there are hints that mermen are in danger because humans used to hunt them down. another case of i'm obssesed with you but don't even know your name or the first thing about you.
maybe i'm too old for this kind of nonsense plot.
main merman guy is an idiot, seems like he has no thought behind those eyes and other main guy which is a bar owner is basically sexually harassing the merman at his work.
and bar owner constantly smiling like that is driving me crazy (in a bad way)

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Interestingly awkward with a side of boring

As I’ve noted before in other reviews, I need more than good-looking actors to make a series good.

I placed spoilers at the end of this review.

The series started off very interesting, but slowly washed away due to very poor execution. This was unfortunate because it had a lot of potential. The one positive thing about the script is it did a decent job keeping me interested enough to get invested in the characters. Although the script did a nice job introduction the merman premise, the rest of the script quickly became tedious with the most basic story elements. This became surprisingly bland at times considering the multiple storylines and conflict scenarios the views were given. This takes some real talent, or is it a curse? I’ll let you decide. The production team was smart enough to give the views just enough at the end of each episode to make you want to see the next one. The script did a lot of telling instead of showing which was paired up with a lot of awkward dialogue. It also did not utilize a core storyline very well. This could have been an island mystery series involving a BL couple instead of a BL series that happened to turn into an island mystery. Another execution problem was really poor director choices. It’s not a good sign when we get a flashback scene 17 minutes into the first episode on something that happened 6 minutes ago. This continues by giving the audience at least 1 visual or voiceover flashback in each episode. The worst is episode 7 in which we get 24 flashback scenes with only 3 of them serving an actual purpose. There is even a flashback montage (7 in total) that last about 2 minutes. Another thing that wasted a lot of screen time was the very long pauses between the actors’ lines. I guess this was supposed to make the scenes dramatic and/or romantic, but it just made the already awkward dialogue worst. On the positive side, the acting was very good considering many of the actors are new. I give them kudos for doing their best with what they were given. Even though it has beautiful cinematography and locations, this also became a problem. The production team relied heavily on this by giving the viewer excessively long scenic location shots. I will say the merman costumes and CGI were good. As for the background music, it was nice but the volume was too loud during many of the scenes.

Random Note:

New Drinking Game: Take a shot for every flashback scene. Caution: Only do this if you have a high tolerance for alcohol.

The ending, although happy, was a little lackluster. They also tried to jam in all the information about the island mystery in the last episode.

If you eliminated all the poor director choices that added to the wasted screen time, this could have been a 4-episode series (6-episode max).

The English subtitles on Viki were good with the exception of the timing.


******Potential Spoiler Alert******

I wish the production team focused on just a few storylines. This series could have been more interesting if the production team had slowly incorporated what happened on the island 20 years ago. Instead they just randomly introducing vague information about it midway through and wait for the last episode to give all the important information at once.

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This was awsomesauce

I don’t get yall saying it’s bad. It was peak! The tails were GORGEOUS and they didn’t use CGI it’s REAL. The fact they had to practice with the tails for TWO YEARS really tells how much time and energy they have put in the show. Truely awsomesauce.They recorded underwater. The acting was amazing and the story was so interesting.

Yall who says it’s bad and boring, yall are wrong lol
I HIGHLY RECOMMEND

And the ending was perfect! I’ve need postponing this series for MONTHS cause I read the reviews before and kinda didn’t want to watch it but HOLY MOLY am I glad that I changed my mind cause I cried happy tears (and some sad ones)

The story line was one of the best! It was very easy to follow and very well written. The casting was so good too! The amount of love and NC scenes were perfect, many cute moments but also some spicy moments …

I will never forget this show and will always recommend it!

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Great chemistry, slow story

This series is a bit boring. The first four episodes are slow, and nothing major really happens even by episode 4. Most of the time, it’s just Phu constantly chasing Nawa. The only real event is Nawa being harassed by a customer in episode 4, which felt a bit weak—along with the love-triangle angle that runs throughout the series. I enjoy a little drama, but this one just didn’t hook me. It’s supposed to have a supernatural theme, yet it’s not as engaging as I expected. I’ve watched other mermaid shows in the past, so maybe I expected too much.

On the positive side, there are things I genuinely like. I absolutely love the chemistry between the main leads—it’s truly palpable. The acting is also solid, especially Hasun. The way he looks at Nawa makes it seem like he wants to devour him every single time, lol. All the actors are easy on the eyes and deliver good performances. Their chemistry is great, the beach setting is beautiful with its white sand, and the OST is calming.

I am satisfied with the ending even tragedy happens because it's Phraphai who poisoned Phu, so I think sacrificing himself is a good idea. Overall, this series is an easy watch but not best and it's not a must-watch for me.

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Needed WAY more merman plot!

When I saw how well done the special effects were for this show, I was actually really excited to start watching it. I feel like there have been more and more supernatural/fantasy shows coming out recently, and I'm a big fan of it in general. Unfortunately, this one really missed the mark for me! It seemed like the whole merman plot wasn't even relevant for most of the show, with a (frankly, uninteresting) romance being way more important. The show wasn't bad - there was the right amount of romantic conflict for the length of the show, and there were some interesting plot points that came up at the very end. However, if you're expecting a merman-filled drama, somehow this one isn't it.

When Phurit moves to an island to co-own a bar, he hears legends about the mermen that once lived there, and assumes these are fairytales. Little does he know, the cute bartender Nawa that he's been flirting with is secretly a merman. Nawa has been warned time and time again that humans and merman can't fall in love, but that doesn't seem to be stopping him.

This is basically a Romeo and Juliet style forbidden romance - and genuinely, you could have replaced "merman" with just about any other reason to forbid a relationship and the plot would have gone the same way. Random merman lore was thrown in on occasion, but somehow never seemed all that relevant. Also, mermen hunters were brought up and were barely even an issue! They TOTALLY could have made this show about a merman and a hunter, or at least have one of the major conflict be between Nawa and a hunter. Instead, every plot point revolves solely around the relationship: the hunters just mean Nawa needs to "be more careful" and not see Phurit....okay I guess? This was so close to being a really interesting show, but unfortunately missed the mark by making it way too romance focused for a show that should include way more magical elements.

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I definitely recommend watching

Lover Merman is one of those shows you start for the fantasy charm and end up binge-watching because it’s just that unexpectedly addictive. It’s light, cute, and delightfully silly in all the right ways — but then the plot hits you with a twist that genuinely surprised me and had me not wanting to put the show down.

I really liked the main cast and I couldn’t get over Phu’s smile it was just so captivating. Their chemistry felt effortless, both PhuNava and PhanaPing, and they carry every scene with so much warmth that you’ll wish they get cast together again ASAP. This pairing deserves another project!

I hope to see the leads reunite in another project soon, because they’re too good together to be a one-time pairing.

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