Japan's Little Mermaid Movie
Japan made a Little Mermaid movie in the 70s that most Japanese people know very well. It's called "Hans Christian Anderson's The Little Mermaid" and it seems obvious to me that Goodbye, Lara takes a lot of inspiration from this movie.
Maybe this first thing is just me overthinking it but I feel like the light from the sun in this opening shot and Lara holding the light in the OP are very similar. I can't help but feel this was intentional.
The main character's name is Marina... Did they take inspiration for Mari's name from her?
Marina also has 5 older sisters.
I tried to find a shot of all of the sisters together from the goodbye, Lara anime and failed... but this pic should do
If you look closely I think their hair styles are also inspired from the movie.
Laura would be the one of the furthest right, Rosa would be the second from the left, Lisa would be third from the left, Luna would be the first one on the left, and Lea would be the second from the Right. If you don't know their names see this post.
Instead of rings, they have pearl hair pins. They're shaped like flowers with a pink pearl in the middle.
They require these pins to be able to go outside of the castle grounds and they can use them to contact each other if needed.
They have a very nice shot of an angler fish in this movie. Was that the inspiration for Kouta?
And Marina's best friend is a tiny dolphin named Fritz. To me the princesses all seeming to have animal friends seems to be inspired by this in the movie.
They mention that Marina's mother is already dead and her father blames her Mother's death on trying to help a ship that was sinking.
The coming of age ceremony in the movie where Marina is given her hair pin is very similar to the coming of age ceremony where Lara is given her ring
While the witch from the movie seems to have something like a stingray for a cape, Grace's looks more like a walrus pelt.
There's a shot of the witch watching through what looks like a shining pearl. This could be the inspiration for Grace watching through the mirrors.
Grace is shown with snakes(?) wrapped around her just like the witch from the movie.
When Marina saves the prince, she runs away and another girl comes and helps him. Could Mari be partially based on the girl at the convent?
They definitely took inspiration from this movie to name "Goodbye, Lara" The movie ends with Marina saying she's going to go back to the ocean. She failed to find love but she would love everyone else as foam. She says goodbye to everyone. Here you can see she says "Sayonara" over and over, which these subs translated as "farewell" but "goodbye" is the same lol
and finally, they show the tower from the church that I mentioned in my other post at the end of this movie.
