is a Japanese anime

Anime

is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....

 series by Toei Animation

Toei Animation

Toei Animation Co., Ltd. is a Japanese animation studio owned by Toei Co., Ltd. The studio was founded in 1948 as Japan Animated Films . In 1956, Toei purchased the studio and it was reincorporated under its current name...

. The story is based on the Hans Christian Andersen

Hans Christian Andersen

Hans Christian Andersen was a Danish author, fairy tale writer, and poet noted for his children's stories. These include "The Steadfast Tin Soldier," "The Snow Queen," "The Little Mermaid," "Thumbelina," "The Little Match Girl," and "The Ugly Duckling."...

 tale The Little Mermaid

The Little Mermaid

"The Little Mermaid" is a popular fairy tale by the Danish poet and author Hans Christian Andersen about a young mermaid willing to give up her life in the sea and her identity as a mermaid to gain a human soul and the love of a human prince...

. The series has been dubbed into various languages including French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

, Spanish

Spanish language

Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

 and Italian

Italian language

Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...

. It is also often known as Mako the Mermaid, Mako-chan’s Magic, and Magical Mako-chan.

Mahō no Mako-chan aired on NET in 1970, which is now TV Asahi

TV Asahi

, also known as EX and , is a Japanese television network headquartered in Roppongi, Minato, Tokyo, Japan. The company writes its name in lower-case letters, tv asahi, in its logo and public-image materials. The company also owns All-Nippon News Network....

.

Plot

Mako is a mermaid and the youngest daughter of the Dragon King. She longs for the human world despite it being forbidden by her father. One stormy night, she saves a human boy from a wrecked ship and falls in love with him. Mako makes a deal with the Witch of the Sea and is transformed into a human high school girl with the condition that she can never be return to being a mermaid. With the magical pendant called the "Tear of the Mermaid", Mako meets many people and experiences many things as she learns what it means to be human, all while waiting for the day she can once more meet the boy she rescued.

Unlike in the original story of The Little Mermaid, in this adaptation (created by Toei planner Kenji Yokoyama under a pseudonym and featuring Masaki Tsuji

Masaki Tsuji

is a Japanese scenario writer of TV series and films as well as mystery fiction novels. Tsuji was most active in the business from the 1960s through the 1980s, and worked as a script writer on many popular anime TV series for Mushi Production, Toei Animation, and Tokyo Movie Shinsha.Among the...

 as one of its principal writers), the mermaid is still able to speak while in human form, and this adaptation also does not end in tragedy as the original story did. Toei made a more faithful adaptation of the story as a feature film in 1975, which used some of the same staff as this TV series, including animator Shingo Araki

Shingo Araki

was a Japanese animation artist and character designer. He developed an interest for drawing at age five. He graduated in Aichi Prefecture. In 1955, at age eighteen, he debuted as a cartoonist in the "Machi" magazine. He then joined Mushi Production as animator in 1965 and later founded Studio...

.

Characters

Music

The scores and lyrics for Mahō no Mako-chan were created by Takeo Watanabe

Takeo Watanabe

was a Japanese musician and composer. In addition to composing the well known theme song for Cutie Honey he has also composed music for multiple television anime and films including Lone Wolf & Cub, Candy Candy, and Mobile Suit Gundam....

 and performed by Horie Mitsuko.