Lover Merman (2025)

Add Merman to the list of supernatural romances you can't really pull off

I went from incredible curiosity to weird enjoyment to mild annoyance to general apathy, finally landing upon an honest feud with this series. The story itself didn't have as many dimensions as my feelings towards it.

At the outset, Lover Merman had the potential to be metaphorical about so many things including identity, found family, hostility towards things we don't understand and finding love and connection in the rarest of situations. But they didn't care to think deeply enough about any of this and decided to go with "ocean vibes" as the plot. Which is honestly fine but you mess even that up and hey, well I don't like it.

The series begins with a crash course on the lore of the Merman of the island Khen, where Phu has come to take over the operations of a bar he owns with his friend Phana, a native of the island. His very first interaction however is with Nawa, a bartender and Phana's childhood friend, and they of course begin with a bit of flirtation. But the minute Phana sees this, he asks Phu not start anything up with Nawa, for reasons he won't say.

But because Phu is a rebel, he flirts anyway, an action that is not taken to lightly by Nawa, who is actually falling for the bad pickup lines, or by Phai, someone who has known Nawa since they were kids and is sort of a de facto older brother to him, only he has a big secret crush on the man. Sorry. Merman.

Surprise surprise, Nawa and Phai are Mermen and Phai has a deep distrust of humans because apparently humans have been hunting the mermen because of "greed and beauty" (that's the entire explanation), and for that reason, the mermen who once lived freely and cordially with humans on the island now have to hide their identity. But living on land has it's consequences - because every full moon night, they're required to dive into the depths of the ocean and "release the poison", cleanse their blood that has turned poisonous from being away from the water for too long. And when their blood turns increasingly poisonous, a tattoo shows up on their lower back, indicating that they need to "release the poison"

The characters in this series spend half their time flirting and the other half drinking, and Phu of course gets wankered, stumbles onto a secret cove to sober up and sees Nawa. Nawa right after he's "released the poison" and is in his merman form. Before he can figure out it is Nawa, he disappears and Phu chalks it up to an illusion.

This is all in episode 1 by the way, because nothing else happens after this. Atleast not until episode 7 because between the first and seventh episode, we got declarations of love rivalries, a step brothers plotline, absentee parents, a ton of drinking and some unintentionally hilarious NC scenes. There's no plot, no character development, things just happen. Episode 7, and everything is out in the open - most importantly that Nawa is a merman, which has been a secret from Phu for six episodes now.

But this is where the series hit a new low for me because I would rather have a story that hinged on vibes than a shallow attempt to make a point. I did say they could've made a wonderful allegorical plot but key word? Could've.
They didn't. And I'm furious with how they chose to go all preachy in the last couple of episodes, like they didn't actively avoid every semblance of difficult conversations for six episodes and like the audience needs every single action explained to them.

And by then, we got a terrible couple of episodes, yet again with no character development and one very bad redemption arc.

This is far from the worst thing I've watched but it's still not good. Episodes 1-6 were a whole mood. Episodes 7 and 8 will leave you in a bad mood.

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