So everyone’s pointed out the whole cutting to Mari when Lara says “do you think I’ll find love here in Shiga?”
Mari saving Lara from drowning, both physically in the water and emotionally in her own despair of feeling like she no longer has a home, telling her “let’s go home”
Grace telling Lara about how her finding her “true love” is akin to her finding her light, and right afterwards Mari enters the room saying “it’s so dark in here” and TURNS ON THE LIGHTS. LIKE GRABBING THE AUDIENCE BY THE THROAT TO SAY SHE’S LARA’S LIGHT Ouugghhhh the cymbal isms….
Seeing the flashback to when Mari saw Lara in her full scaly mermaid form and choosing to help her. Obviously Grace asked her to, but also like. The Prince who had gotten to know Lara as a person before seeing her turn into a mermaid, was still afraid and willing to kill her upon seeing her change, unable to accept her. Mari on the other hand had just met Lara and shows no disgust, fear or judgement in seeing Lara’s true form.
The meet cute of Lara falling into Mari’s life and Mari punching her out of the sky to stop her descent and ground her (and subsequently is the one to ground her in an emotional sense in the following episode) . It’s hilarious, it’s iconic, it’s beautiful with how they’re framed against the golden moon with Lara’s ring flying off and in between the two of them (like foreshadowing they’re going to be engaged). It also comes right after the scene where Lara's sisters are telling her about finding her true love. It’s just such a great meet cute that starkly contrasts her picture perfect fairytale one with the Prince with how blunt, imperfect, and real it is.
Beyond any of the tidbits of symbolism and foreshadowing of Mari’s being Lara’s true love, I wanna talk a little about how great the two compliment one another and can potentially help the other to grow too, just from what we’ve seen in the first two episodes.
So Lara is a curious, passionate and outgoing girl who is very driven by her own emotions and what she wants. She clearly loves very deeply, but what’s interesting about Lara is that her impulsiveness is a flaw of hers, that she can be so focused on doing what she feels and what she wants, when she wants, (and I think being raised as a sheltered princess and the youngest child would have only fed into this, her being a little spoilt) that it can cause destruction and harm to those around her, even if it is not her intention. And they set that up right from Lara’s introduction to seeing her as a baby and toddler.
She’s so focused on eating whatever she feels like, whenever she feels like, to the point she destroys the head of her family’s statue:
And of course, becomes so focused on wanting to learn about the human world and pursuing the love of the prince that it destroys her family and home.
And when she arrives in Shiga and awakes in episode 2, she spends the whole episode very much wrapped up in her own feelings and problems, and has very little regard for Mari, as shown in her destroying her window and belongings. Yes, it’s completely understandable why she acts this way, (especially given Mari punched her in the face on their first meeting) given how overwhelming her situation is of being in modern day japan and having learnt her family has been destroyed because of her, but like. Mari is still the only person who has gone out of her way to help her and who understands her situation fully thanks to Grace, and who knows she’s a mermaid. And she calls Lara out on this too:
Lara: Because of you, I lost my ring!
Mari: What? Try not falling on me from the sky, then!
Lara: It’s important to me!
Mari: The things in my room are important, too! You even broke my window!
We’ve had less time with Mari than Lara, but so far her characterization has her as being very blunt, straight forward and no-nonsense, and this has the potential to balance out Lara’s more impulsive and romantic self.
Despite seeming aloof and cold, we see she’s also caring and kind. She saves Grace as a child and takes care of her, she does the same with Lara, calls out Grace for making Lara cry, goes after Lara and saves her from drowning even when she told Grace it wasn’t her problem to go after her and was going to training instead. And to go back to comparing her to the Prince, when we see the Prince showing Lara how things work in the human world, he finds her confusion and clumsiness amusing and cute.
Isn’t it cute when a girl doesn’t know anything? When she’s dependent on you for everything? (maybe I’m being harsh lmao but I’m still mad at this Danish twink). When Mari is giving Lara the hot chocolate, again, there’s no laughter, no judgement or infantilisation. She’s patient and demonstrates to Lara how to do it herself. …this is something I’m curious about if Lara learns to become more independent and to come into her own thanks to Mari’s influence. She was a sheltered princess, and then was living with a prince in his castle before becoming sea foam. I’m wondering if that, in order to grow to be more confident as her own person and find out about the outside human world (like she wanted to originally) all different kinds of “love” (that of friends, community, and self love) that she has to learn more about the real world, before she can find her “true love” (which is what she needs to do to save her home and family). And the beginning and end of that might just be Mari.
But I think Lara has a lot to give Mari too, since if Lara needs to be more grounded in reality, Mari needs to be more idealistic and open herself up to people more. Lara gives up her life to chase after a fairy tale love, to learn about a world not her own. Mari is far too content to stay closed off from everyone in her own world, her family making a point of how strange it is that Mari has a friend over or has made a friend at all, and Mari seemingly dead set on staying in her routine of doing her boxing training and nothing else. In the opening of the anime we see Lara enthusiastically taking people by the hands and pulling them along, and them subsequently being caught up in her charm and energy. So, due to her extroverted nature she’s very open to other people and the world around her. We also see her pulling Mari along too, like she’s getting her to come out of her shell and open up as well.
Mari has a very stubborn mindset of seemingly being opposed to fairy tale idealism (the kind Lara is defined by) despite seeing a mermaid fall into her face from the sky. She can accept that Lara is a mermaid, but not a princess:
Grace: She’s a princess who could end up destroying this place!
Mari: A princess? Yeah, right.
She can accept that Grace is a talking fish, but not that she’s a witch:
Lara: She’s a terrible witch, you know!
Mari: She’s just a cute little fish to me.
Again there’s something about this leading to her challenging Lara’s idealism and breaking from fairy tale roles of the princess and the witch (the opening also implies Grace, like Lara, was a princess who also fell in love with a human. Is there really that much of a difference between the heroine and the villainess?). But there’s a strength to be found in fairy tale ideals, of the love, beauty and hope that can be found in the world, of opening yourself up to endless possibilities. And that’s something I think Lara will help Mari to see.
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