Arc 1: Rhine, Agares and Desharow

Rhine needed to be less... Rhine. There’s no build up. He throws out s*xual assault as a punishment and consistently exists afterwards as a Yandere interested in Desharow. There’s little building of their relationship and I wasn’t convinced they had a student/mentor relationship reading it. Sure. It was said they do, but the actions towards each other wasn’t reflective of this.

Agares could have solved a lot if he spoke to Desharow immediately. But he didn’t. Honestly he’s interesting as a species, and the reason I continued Arc 1 anyways.

Desharow is an idiot. Like. Point blank I’m surprised he didn’t die in the first arc.

I loved the mind control and erasure that occurred. The way it builds Agares as a manipulative creature.

I would have preferred if there was more biology involved with the Biologists. Like clearly Rhine isn’t one but you’d think that would be reflected more in the plot.

This arc establishes the s*xual relationship between Desharow and Agares. With blink and you miss it foreshadowing and character introductions. Of characters with minimal involvement. Honestly my second favourite arc. 3/5

Arc 2, Back to the Island.

Tell me why you introduced a predator species, and never expanded on it. Between the fact that Rhine and Sarakos’s military involvement could have been better handled, and better revealed. The pirates were discarded as immediately as they came in.

Desharow’s still enamoured by the merman. The merman is still violent and manipulative. Rhine is still a rapist who is 1 dimensional.

The entire Arc is to build Agares up as some powerful entity. I was majorly disappointed in this arc. But c’est la vie. At least there was an attempt to expand on the universe. 2/5

Arc 3: Island, na*is and Cannon Fodder

na*i plotline is used to make Agares look better. Otherwise, useless. So bloody useless.

Does anyone remember Lia (?) Davis and the others? No? Because they hardly got screentime, we’re meant to believe that they’re important to Desharow and then yeah, they kind of only move the plot forward.

The promise they’d all succeed against the na*is was s*upid, even counting they had military training, that wasn’t going to happen.

Desharow attempting to run away when he’s in the middle of mutations made me scream. I wanted to rip my hair out.

Yakimura. A sweetheart. Still jack all about him as a person even in later arcs.

I wish we got more about the island and the culture that the Merpeople have with it. We don’t. Ant then a hurricane comes and destroys everything and Desharow stares into the abyss. Oh and merpeople are aliens? Never expanded on. Fairly certain we learn Agares helped raise Desharow in this arc. And is, in merculture, his biological father. The in*est doesn’t end here. 1/5 I couldn’t stand this arc.

Arc 4: Amnesia, Mafia and Transdimensional Merpeople

We start this back in Desharow’s diary. We learn he lost his memory and after regaining it, he desperately looks for Agares but eventually disregards it all as a hallucination.

Literally all in the first chapter. We get told this. Rather than the chance to explore it. I hate amnesia tropes but give me that over the diary stuff. I want to see him connect with the crew and deal with his issues over time.

Then we land in Venice. He apparently is friends with Nick and the salvage girl. Again. Nothing reflects this really. A bit of banter but then they are irrelevant until the author needs them again.

Captain of the ship lost his hand? Eh no big deal.

Agares mutates and feeds on people to have a human form. How? He can randomly develop mutations.

Desharow and hum f*cking reverses it. Do they stop? No. Does it get them in trouble. Yes. Oh and Agares is infected with dark matter and could kill Desharow.

Desharow, the king of learns nothing. Kind of just keeps deciding to do dumb things. Like run after Agares onto the na*i ship where he saw Rhine.

It’s all good he was disguised. Rhine still recognized him but Agares rescued our poor damsel.

By this point I was a bit fed up between their dynamic and Desharow’s personality. But the dark matter stuff pulled me in.

We get Yukimura and his Asura’s backstory. Then Yukimura dies. All in a few chapters.

Oh and Rhine KNOWS it’s Desharow now and is again, threatening r*pe. Desharow manages to get into the dive to the Hiroshima bomb (cause of the dark matter and destruction of Atlantis.)

Mutant Merpeople merged with mutant spider crabs. Terrifying ordeals. We also find out Desharow was first r*ped by Agares as a teen. Which was either a plot hole from the author or a lie from Agares. Given how badly the plot is structured, I could say the former.

Desharow is sent through the wormhole/portal/time-tunnel, with a scale to change the past and prevent the destruction of Atlantis.

Oh yeah and his new friends also die.

Without the interesting plots around the dark matter premise, and some lore about the Yiola, I would have dropped the book here. But because of that, I’ll give a solid 3.5/5

Arc 5: Alternate Dimensions, Reincarnation, Child s*xual ab*se, Disappointment

I probably won’t finish the last chapter, but man this kind of s**ked. First off we are captured as a merman on Yukimura’s ship. Turns out he’s working for his evil scientist father, Shinichi, who genuinely matters the most in this arc, for 10 lines, maybe a little more. Shinichi, Sarakos and Rhine are the major villains by the way. And they suck at it.

After escaping, this leads into Desharow finds alternate Agares, can’t figure out how to give the scale in his chest to them, comes up with the idea they f*ck to do it. Blatant just throwing s*x in there because we can. s*x doesn’t work entirely at the start. Need to do it a few times first.

Then we’re also thrown into Asura and Yukimura’s plotline as well. Saving merpeople from the Imperialist Japanese army.

Levjet, Desharow’s grandfather, is a prisoner of war here. Oh wait. He’s also a merman. And sent to join the humans as punishment for not agreeing to a world domination plan. Wooo.

I cannot state, this isn’t an exaggeration. This is the plot. I’m not mentioning every bit, but I’m structuring it the best I can. Because there’s so much with no substance.

Rhine, through Shinichi’s meddling, becomes a merman for the sole purpose of trying to r*pe Desharow. And then kills him by ripping open his tail.

Why does that matter? Because Agares has been healing Desharow since like? Act one or two. With his tongue and saliva. And blood worked better later. But yeah, Desharow dies half transformed fade to black.

BUT DO NOT WORRY THE STORY CONTINUES.

Back to the journal of 14 year old Desharow. Who joined NATO’s Army in repelling the Merpeople invasion. Yup. Agares went through with his plan. And Desharow, the little genius he is, was let into- not a military academy- but just the military at 14! Wooo! My suspension of disbelief died 80 chapters ago.

He joins a military operation, immediately gets captured by the merpeople. Agares attempts to f*ck him.

These attempts keep happening until Desharow regains his memories from his alternate timeline self. He is still fourteen.

Levjet remakes an appearance, as a young good looking man. And surprise. He’s Desharow’s father, not grandfather.

And another human descendant of Agares shows up to try and steal the merman away, not that it works.

Levjet is punished for going near Desharow, and eventually controls Asura so that he can steal his son away.

But wait, actually he just wants to f*ck his kid and gain control over Atlantis.

This plot lasts for like 6 chapters. Then it’s all over.

Desharow is revealed to be an ancient merperson due to dna manipulation and has dorsal fins allowing him to fly through the air.

He saves Agares, they kiss, he’s havily wounded, they go back to Atlantis/Where merpeople are born for Desharow to heal. Time passes and Desharow wakes up and Agares has dorsals now too. Bigger than Desharow’s of course. 0/5 I hated every second of this arc.

now switch back and forth between somewhat human and merman because how else would he get by in Atlantis with two legs and wings???

neither MC nor ML had interest in other people, never fell for others nor did the deed with anyone else even though there's an or*y tag lol which is also crazy since Merfolk are kinda described as hypers*xual creatures