The anime movie ChaO puts a bizarre spin on Disney’s The Little Mermaid

The anime movie ChaO shares many of the core plot points of Disney Animation’s The Little Mermaid, telling the story of the titular mermaid princess (Anna Yamada) as she leaves the sea for a man she’s fallen for. But director Yasuhiro Aoki (Batman: Gotham Knight) and Studio 4°C (Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox) have crafted something far weirder than Disney could have imagined. ChaO combines grotesque stylized animation, fish-out-of-water romantic comedy in the vein of Ron Howard’s 1984 mermaid story Splash, and a bit of science fiction for an incoherent but ultimately very sweet modern spin on the classic fairy tale.

Stephan (Ouji Suzuka) dreams of protecting sea life and improving relations between humanity and merfolk by replacing ship propellers with air jets. But his boss, Sea (Ryota Yamasato), doesn’t see the value in the work — that is, until Chao inexplicably declares her love for Stephan after he nearly drowns in the ocean.

While underwater, Chao looks like a beautiful woman, albeit one with webbed fingers and shark teeth. But on land, she appears as a giant goldfish wearing sneakers. Stephan isn’t excited about dating a fish, but everyone else seizes on the fairy-tale romance. Hounded by paparazzi and seduced by the promise of career advancement, Stephan quickly marries Chao and finds living with a fish is even more awkward than dating one.

ChaO is at its best when Aoki is blending the mundane and the bizarre. Sea gives Stephan a necklace to present to Chao on their first date, but Stephan can’t figure out where the fish’s neck actually is. Stephan is so fixated on his work that he doesn’t spend much time helping Chao adapt to surface life, and her clumsy attempts at being a good wife include presenting him with electric eels for breakfast and soaking his shoes. A cat dozes on the hood of a car throughout a chase scene, only waking to groom himself when the action is over.

One of the movie’s funniest scenes involves Chao’s whale-like dad King Neptunus (Kenta Miyake). He’s all smiles around Chao when he comes to visit her new home — which is too small for his significant bulk — but as soon as she steps out to buy groceries, he berates Stephan for not being a good enough husband. Chao could maintain human form on land if she fully trusted Stephan, adding a connection between her physical and emotional awkwardness that’s a clever iteration on The Little Mermaid’s kiss of true love.

The animation adds an extra dimension of surrealism to every scene. Studio 4°C further exaggerates the grotesque style it used in All You Need Is Kill to make the humans look even weirder than the fish-people. Sea is shaped like Humpty Dumpty; his massive head is perpetually getting stuck in doors. Cyclists with seemingly normal-sized heads pull off helmets to reveal massive noggins. Facial stubble is as exaggerated as clown makeup.

Image: GKIDS

The filmmakers seem determined to keep viewers from getting comfortable, spending 90 minutes abruptly changing tone through plot twists and manic action sequences. A section where Chao pilots a mech as a poorly thought-out birthday present for Stephan is the peak of the film’s incoherence. Beyond feeling like an abrupt genre shift, the stunt requires giving Stephan a roboticist buddy who otherwise feels entirely extraneous.

Still, the sci-fi misstep can be forgiven because of how well Aoki pulls everything together in the end. ChaO ups The Little Mermaid’s stakes by making the romance key to a coexistence between humanity and merfolk, but the film never loses focus on the individuals at the core of the story. The revelation of why Chao is obsessed with Stephan — a tale that seems inspired by Hayao Miyazaki’s Ponyo — and why the boating project is so important to Stephan adds depth to the characters, as well as a strong environmentalist message. Aoki still keeps viewers guessing by punctuating the film’s most sentimental moments with a ludicrous fight scene.

Using a tale as familiar as The Little Mermaid as the foundation of ChaO allowed Aoki and Studio 4°C to take some very big creative swings. They don’t all work, but the film moves so fast that you don’t have to dwell on its missteps for long. For every moment that feels a bit too weird, there’s a scene that’s absolutely hilarious or heartbreakingly sincere. This fairy tale is particularly twisted, but that just makes its happily-ever-after ending feel all the more earned.

ChaO is screening in select theaters now.