Reviews for Anko-san of the Deep-sea Fish

In the era of anime/manga where people are going rampant with anthropomorphism, it's not surprise that they would do it with fish; something though that does set this manga somewhat apart is the fact that the humanized fish are technically mermaids, just with different ocean-life species. And I gotta admit, the idea of having a manga centered around mermaids that actually include different species of fish is a pretty interesting one. The characters are decent at first glance, but the meat of most of them is how the author places characteristics of the fish into their personalities. Anko's bulb lights up when she's angryor scared (the bulb fittingly drawing other fish towards her), the eel character has slimy skin, the pufferfish can bloat up and expel poison, it is really fun to see what sort of things each fish will do in their human-esque bodies. One of the characters in particular leads to a strangely funny (though horribly awkward for Anko) situation where, being a pearlfish, she feels the need to stuff herself into dark, small places.

The only human character presented prominently through the manga is a girl who has a thing for mermaids. She plays the typical role of genki girl and tends to be a bit generic because of this, but still tends to be enjoyable through most of the manga.

The art is typical of a slice of life, with soft, rounded lines and equally soft colours. A few times here and there the faces are a bit off model, though not enough to totally distract from reading. Fitting for the subject matter, the tails for each mermaid are more detailed than the manga really deserve.

Although the story is essentially your very typical 'cute girls do cute things'/'monster girls living amongst people' shtick, it differs in a couple ways: the facts it teaches about fish are actually pretty damn interesting (some of them I was unaware of) and it's fairly light-hearted with minimal fanservice, giving those who are tired of the stream of erotic monster girl manga a breath of fresh air; both things that made up for part of me continuing to read it.

So if you're looking for an oddly factual monster girl series with cute characters, cute scenarios, and without the intense eechi factor, this could definitely be up your alley.

Very very VERY mild spoilers ahead Shinkaigyo no Anko-san, or "Anko-san, a Deep Sea Fish" is one of those chill, funny manga about girls enjoying their friendships in a slice-of-life format. However, almost all of them are half-fish! Playing on the 'monster girl' theme seen across many manga and anime, Anko-san is fairly generic in terms of being just another monster girl manga, however, plays slightly less into ecchi scenes (of course there still are multiple, mermaids on the beach were unavoidable) and more into the biology of each species of fish. Indeed, as a new character is introduced, their personality is entirely based off of thecharacteristics of their fish component, fighting fish being boisterous and playful, sunfish being laid-back and 'bright'. The author goes somewhat into depth about the fish species during character introduction, and tries to make the characteristics shaping the character's personalities very clear. I found this quite enjoyable, as the biology was not difficult to understand and made a lot of sense, helping immensely with characterisation, and also taught me new things!

However, it wasn't needed so much as you could pretty much tell the character's personality instantly upon seeing them. This made the manga feel very generic and basic at times, not detracting from the enjoyment, but from the overall feel. Especially the main human girl who accompanies Anko, Wakasa, is your generic happy girl, which is fine, but makes the fun and basic manga a little more plain. (Not like soooo many other manga and anime have generic mc's either though)

The art in Anko-san was good, each mermaid's tail fin, their major distinguishing feature in this manga, was drawn with extreme detail, even contrasting a little with the detail of the rest of the manga (this was not a bad thing).

Overall, Anko-san was a very enjoyable manga that played on the monster girl slice of life theme, with mermaids on land this time, and had nice art, characters and most importantly amusing scenes. It's definitely worth a try, only being 27 relatively short chapters long. Enjoy!