Ok, so it seems that parthenogenesis NOT requiring mating with a male only occurs in sharks. Not in bony fish, although there are variants of reproduction in which the sperm only incites the egg to develope, but does not contribute genetic material. Therefor my hypothesis is thus: The Mermaids are partly shark and they can reproduce both sexually and asexually. The asexual reproduction only produces female offspring (both in nature and in Mermaids), but for male offspring there needs to be sexual reproduction involved. Which means that this one boy who is a Merman definitely had a father. From Wikipedia: ""Mako" comes from the Māori language,[6] meaning either the shark or a shark tooth. Following the Māori language, "mako" in English is both singular and plural. The word may have originated in a dialectal variation, as it is similar to the common words for shark in a number of Polynesian languages-makō in the Kāi Tahu Māori dialect,[7] mangō in other Māori dialects,[7] "mago" in Samoan, ma'o in Tahitian, and mano in Hawaiian." This supports the hypothesis of the Mermaids being partly shark. Which is evolutionary weird, because humans are actually bony fish, not sharks. The even weirder thing is of course, that their tails look like that of bony fish but rotated by 90° to resemble those of cetaceans.
@@neivilde.1242 Yea. I think it was the first one I saw. Tho it's all becoming one long 8 hour mush in my brain kajk. Gonna have to re-watch it I guess
As someone who was obsessed with H2O as a kid, I am so excited to finally have an appropriately long video essay on this universe because I TOO OVERTHOUGHT THIS SERIES AND I THOUGHT I WAS ALONE
I would actually like to partially disagree with your assessment of Rikki. While I agree that choosing to keep/sell the artifacts to random buyers feels un-Rikki-like, her choosing to use her special gifts that give her an advantage in order to make a profit is dead-to-rights the Rikki that emerged in S3 of H2o. As she began to run "Rikki's" she started coming into her own and grew a taste for running a business and making a profit. Combine that with the fact that Rikki usually liked to take shortcuts to get things done, this diving business is the perfect evolution of the girl we ended H2o with. Of all 4 main girls in H2o, Rikki was the most insecure about her financial situation, they had a whole episode about her living in a trailer park, and her desire as an adult to make herself financially secure feels natural and like a natural extension of who she was becoming. Idk, my 2 cents on Rikki. The rest of the video is great! I hope you keep making content like this because this was both highly entertaining and educational. (Edit) I don't believe you can "steal" from the ocean. That doesn't make sense at all. If a man-made object ends up in the ocean, that item is now considered "lost" and therefore belongs to no one. Now, if it was made within a culture and is representative of a certain aspect of that culture, I agree it should be returned to that culture/county of origin. Rikki should have sold the service of retrieving lost artefacts instead and made herself famous by being the one to claim the retrieval. She, and by extension all mermaids/mermen, have a special gift and should be allowed to use it to profit.
These are excellent points^^ at the end of the day capitalism sinks it’s claws into any and everyone and from a girlboss/gamestop debacle perspective I can definitely see a world where rikki is like “this system kept me poor and miserable for so long now is my time” and there’s probably a whole video essay to be written on the merits and intricacies of that! I felt for this essay on the ethics of ecofeminism and the way that mako mermaids lore is so drastically different from H2O lore it was more interesting to look at from the angle I did but I’m stoked you saw something else in it & that it got you thinking that is the coolest thing ever thank you for your thoughts!!
And there was already an H2O Episode in Season 2 where Rikki used her mermaids powers to dive for an expensive sunken statue to get money as reward for finding it, and then she was exhausted and the Statue fell down on her head and she got unconscious, so Zane and the others had to help her
This is exactly what I thought to .that as somebody who else grew up in poverty I know you will do just about anything to stay out of poverty once you are out. But that being said my one main agreements with the creator that this is an alternate Rikki, is Rikkl always wears red. In the original show main color was red always red .red blue purple those were the 3 girls colors always the same and now she comes back and she's wearing a blue dress a white dress none of this is Rikki. At least not The Rikki we know I only think that because the colors were such a big deal in the original series I don't think that they would just leave them behind. I think it's a clue while those dresses have red accent pieces those are just small parts of our Rikki but that is not our Rikki.
@@upinurbiz Mako mermaids is probably also an alternate universe/timeline of H2O and in this timeline Cleo and Emma don't exist so Rikki is just mermaid by herself that would make the topic discussed here more likely
I love these kinds of deep dives, perfect thing to find after my utter disappointment earlier today finding a 2hr long video claiming to be a deep dive on h20 but she's actually just describing the plot 😭
I’m all for a good recap when I’m trying to get caught up on a show I didn’t watch but my brain is far too under-stimulated to make that content cause I’m always like “BUT THE IMPLICATIONS?!?” even my scandal recap is half ethical theory lol
I think I’ve seen that video you’re talking about, and while I did enjoy watching it, yeah I was also a disappointed upon seeing it was more recap, less analysis.
i watched it too but the one i saw was a breakdown…i liked it because i watch a lot of videos where they explain entire shows (kenyan carlisle, quinton reviews, mikes mic, & more) but i do love a good deep dive as well especially the commentary although they do make me a little sad because i watched all of these when i was like 8 and loved them so when i see valid criticisms i’m like man how did i not see that…
I won't lie, I really loved the series simply because of how chaotic it was. It wasn't until I rewatched the series that I realized a lot of the characters were just straight up toxic. I don't even feel like it was *that* one-sided because even Zac and his friend were assholes at times. Fair that these girls lied to you and manipulated you, but there were times when he could have accidentally not only revealed their secret (which I admit he didn't want to happen) but could have revealed his because he was being reckless. They all were so reckless lmao. My favorite character was Evie and I was so annoyed when they took her powers and was just like "Oh well, be happy you had them".
i just finished this and watched the gnd/midnight mass video earlier and please make more of these. i’m also an nd queer essay enjoyer especially of things i’ve never seen and don’t care about and i genuinely admire your ability to put this together. you communicate in the same way i do and it’s you’re truly a delight to watch. i know i get anxious that no one wants to listen to me ramble about the stuff i’m into so just know that i very much enjoy listening to you talk about all this stuff and make connections and yeah it’s all just very good and i hope to see more.
I may be a year late and have forgotten at least half of this video but it was a good time. I would love to see you talk about H2O proper. Maybe something related to like, consumerism? Cause season three had a lot to do with like money. Or something about Will in a negative light cause I have never gotten over how he forced Bella into a situation where she would have to turn into a mermaid near him AND when he refused to help Cleo and Bella find Rikki after the counterfeit money situation because he wanted to learn about mermaids. It's as icky as when Sophie kisses Zane but he gets the blame for it. Also remember how they gave Mimi a love interest for like two episodes and one episode was about her helping him befriend a dolphin and she does so by going into the water. Where anyone can see them? I swear there was no available jobs anywhere that didn't include not being around liquid. Are you telling me there wasn't a single retail store that wasn't also a cafe?
OMG I FORGOT ABOUT THE DOLPHIN BOY PLOTLINE lol she was like “close your eyes” and that was enough. Also ooh yes those are interesting points! I made this video so long ago and people are just now finding it that perhaps I am far enough away from the H2Overse to be willing to return….
Mako Mermaids was originally supposed to be a prequel (don't know if you mention this in the video, haven't finished it yet), so explaining why there weren't any mermaids around the island in H2O because the pod had already left. I don't know why it changed, but at some point it was turned into a sequel.
@@han6061 I was talking about in canon, like what the writers had intended. I don't remember if I finished the video, so are you saying she said the writers called it a parallel universe or is that her personal theory on how to explain it?
"Mako Mermaids is badly written because the producers don't actually care about the show and just wanted to squeeze more money out of the massive success that was H2O" - boring, old, crusty "Mako Mermaids is an ecofeminist utopian nightmare set in an alternate reality in which Rikki was NOT everyone's queer awakening" - hot, fresh, extremely moisturized Also when you said "Why does nobody else care??" at the end, I literally screamed BUT I CARE PLEASE I CARE at my screen. I WANTED those hours of fish research 😂
love the video, but the audio was very low, unless it's just me. Anyway, I had this head canon that the moon pools have existed always on earth, and there were always people turn into mermaids. We do have a book with spells for mermaids in H2o, that did work, witch means there was a culture of merpeople that did in fact wrote down their knowledge. I will keep to that head canon and pretend that Mako mermaids is just another not related thing.
After my watching of the show seton I came to the conclusion that it had its own layer of bullcra too (the main villain in season 1 being the black mermaid and the other black merman being killed off in a failed sex ritual with the lead mermaid).
I never really got into maco but I loved H20 and 11 year old me made up the theorie that both shows are a mirror or more like reverse Alternative Universe of each other and the magic of Maco - and only that - connects them only by the island and pool. (One show they have legs but get tails the other show has tails and then they get legs, you get my child logic there)
omg i grew up in aus watching this show and yes i am very sad to say that i watched it before h2o (i was shocked when that show started airing let me tell u) AND THIS VIDEO IS BRINGING BACK SOOO MANY MEMORIES
awesome video, here's some of my thoughts: i totally agree that the mako pod was sexist at times, the fact that 1 merman was enough to make them want to leave their home is insane, and the way it's revealed later that mermen have to grow up on land presumably because they aren't accepted in the ocean is awful!!! the reproduction thing is so mind boggling too, like i guess they don't even need mermen to reproduce? and what would happen if a mermaid "accidentally" had a son like nerissa did? how many merman sons were killed or left on beaches because of this?! new theory: maybe h2o & mako mermaids weren't alternate universes? perhaps sophie and zane using dynamite in the moon pool is what drew the mako pod's attention towards it and they didn't know about it before or didn't think it needed guarding. this would explain why they never noticed the h2o girls coming in and out all the time, because they probably wouldn't automatically assume they were actually land girls, and they may not have even known there was a land entrance. since the moon pool is directly tied to their powers they could have been weakened due to the damage in h2o s3, which caused them to start patrolling it (as sirena, nixie and lyla the first scene in mako mermaids) i think this makes a lot of sense, and also serves as a reason why the moon pool looks quite different in s1 of mako mermaids vs s3 of h2o. on the topic of the mermaids gaslighting the hell out of david, i totally agree with you, but don't blame sirena, it wasn't her idea and she cares a lot about david. i think the mako pod being really mean doesn't apply to her, she was always so sweet and was usually a victim of the rudeness (when they used their powers and took her voice in s1) also i totally agree that david totally deserved to be let in on the secret at that point, and sirena wanted to tell them but she didn't for her friends sakes (sirena is my favorite character pls go easy on her lmao she's so perfect) stopping now at 40:00 but may finish the video another time. i love the h2o franchise so much despite all of its weirdness
Yeah, i at least there were an accepted mermen colony that ha some place?! Like why, th irt show has goo enough having a dud in, but the sequel, cant youhave bias and them having their australia.
So many points you have that I agree with, one thing I'd like to add that supports your point. In my head cannon, not all pods are this homogenous and by extension racist (Ondina's initial reaction to Weilan). ◇I feel like it's sometimes forgotten that the Mako pod isn't the only one that exists and that there are more of them that exist, I think it's just because in the actual show we never really saw more because obviously that costs more money. This, for me, explains why the mako pod mainly consisted of women who were white (I mean, keeping in mind, that one bts scene where the director made a bit of an iffy comment on how they came about choosing the actress for Sirena😬). Because aside from the initial 3 girls, then the 2 replacements, the diversity we get is Mimi and Weilan, who are explained in the show cannon wise that the reason they may speak different is due to being in a different pod, I think Mimi said western pod but I'm not sure, and Weilan being from not only the eastern pod but also having lived already on land before.
Idk why everyone hated season 3 tbh. But Im bias bc I had the biggest crush on Bella. Like that scene where she walks toward cleo and ricky at the beach. Oh you bet your ass 11 yo me replayed that shit like 76 times. (I did NOT in fact know that you could have crushes on girls at the time, so imagine my surprise when I found out being gay exists😂) Anyway season 3 is objevely a mess and I will defens H2O and Mako Mermaids to my death. These are not mutually exclusive
My favorite Biz returning joke is the "We've all done (insert x highly specific thing) when we were younger" Ma'am no, no I have not been in a jacuzzi and pictured it being a Moon Pool, I was too preoccupied thinking of myself becoming human soup 😋
44:48 YES God that is exactly why I latched onto this show so hard. Is it bad writing? No, it is simply a genius production behind-the-scenes but they could only give us pieces of it, much like what mer-young get from their elders, because if they gave us more we would be too powerful... and it wouldn't be as fun to overthink if we weren't stuck stranded with inconsistent pieces of lore flung to us like fish to the marine park dolphins. (Fr I always loved the no-written-records worldbuilding piece in this show, but I never thought about how info restriction was used as a result and I am LIVING for these thoughts. It really makes sense for Rita, too, being someone who was ~top of her class~ in mermaid school and was probably training to be a teacher even back then, to so naturally exhibit such a careful distribution of knowledge.) I also really loved your point about how in the original, Mako Island felt like a personified presence that chose people... It was special. It really explains why, despite Mako Mermaids having so much magic up-front, it feels less magical to me and like it's just land to fight over. 1:15:44 Please can we get some non-binary mers with purple tailssssss, your mind. I can't remember if you mentioned anything like this, but my only thought about the timeline weirdness is that the Mako pod fled when Rita left to be with Harry because they realized that whole situation could put them in danger. (And I'm a hopeless Veridia/Rita shipper so part of me self indulgently thinks Veridia was pissed/heartbroken and used whatever political influence she had to help convince the then-council that Harry couldn't be trusted. She and Rita were well established gal pals so surely she would personally know that Harry was ~no good~ and the others would be foolish not to listen to her.) The Mako pod probably then moved to hang with another pod, kinda like them leaving for the South Pacific(?) pod when Zac transformed. Despite that inter-mingling, they kept their identity as the Mako pod since they intended to return, hence the young protagonist mermaids still having a strong Mako identity. Then they conveniently returned sometime after the Just Add Water girls left on their own adventures. Anyway, this video was pretty much everything I could have ever wanted. Taking the 2013 kids mermaid show too seriously is the biggest mood and it was amazing hearing another hyperfixated adult's perspective on it all. 100/10 quality content, I can't wait to watch your other videos and see what else you might do next! Particularly if you ever go more in-depth about the mermaid reproduction hell spiral you went down because I unfortunately give a shit about it, lol. I'm also hyped to check out some of the books you mentioned to further rotate these concepts in my brain, thank you for introducing me to them in such an intelligent, beautifully unhinged way!
Ok I am 3 minutes in and thinking "oh I feel like I remember the main plot points but I watched it like 7 years ago, hmm, not sure how much I'll recall" and then the MILISECOND that theme song came on I was singing and could have KEPT singing all of it. I am going to enjoy this video. Thank you in advance
Dang, I am...so impressed. That was one of the best video essays I have ever seen. Wow, just wow. As a huge fan of the h2overse and just someone who loves essays on topics that don't have meaning (but like of course they do everything has a meaning), I am thrilled. This took me two days to watch in like it's full and comprehend it and I love all of the points you made. Plus your energy. Well done
What an experience from start to finish- truly wild. I haven’t even seen this show 🤠 your vibes are immaculate, and when you poured the wine in the icee? I felt that in my soul… thank u for your service 🐸
Honestly so bummed I don’t live walking distance from a 7-11 anymore because my slurpee intake has decreased and it’s so sad :( also watching video essays on shows you didn’t watch is such a mood I love it
they could have stone slabs and carvings though. and sculptures. it’s not weird they don’t have much writing but it’s weird they didn’t write down or draw the most important stuff. like there should be a mural about the mermaid war. that’s important history
I loved every second of this video. So fun and I was way too invested literally the entire time. Like the mermaid content was great but I also did not expect to learn so much about ethics and I’ve never even heard of ecofeminism before today 💀 thank you for the vital education
Thank you for making this! I never watched Mako Mermaids despite being a huge fan of the first two seasons of H2O, this was a great deep dive and served as perfect company while sorting through my memory box
"Because land people have _GUNS_" plus the wide eyed stare that cut directly into my soul really is the cherry on top of this essay. I'm a marine biologist and I wish I could tell you how mermen and mermaids reproduce, but it's a mistery to me also. The species can reproduce with eachother, so they either are the same specie or they're sister species (menaing that evolutionary they became distinct a very short time ago). I personally think the mermen reproduce with humans and hybrids mantain full mermen traits (thus making mermen dominant genetically?), but either the mermaids reproduce by parthenogenesis or they steal human men to make new mermaidlings, because their ability to continue to reproduce doesn't make any sense
Another (horrific) thought that crossed my mind. Some of the mermaids may be human children who were either captured (or in a best case scenario rescued), and transformed in the moon pool, kind of like a changeling situation.
@@jjayjae_ I hope rescued, it ounds bettr i they took them rom an uncaring oster system or something If they dont lure humans at full moon to hypnotize them with a sirens song. That they dont remember.
Please make a whole video about the marine park. I get that it's a necessary setting for the show to create drama, but it's such a big suspension of disbelief that they would go there more than once.
1:30:00 This i kind of don't agree with, because how would they return the items? I get it with Ricki, because if she has a whole company focused on retrieving artefacts then she has a good excuse (like she was able to go so deep because of expensive, specialist equipment) but the rest don't. They can't just waltz into a museum carrying a backpack of treasures and go "Oh, i found it all at the beach" or some shit, they would definitely have cops called on them. Even if they left it at shore people would get suspicious and there would most likely be expeditions to try and find more, meaning it would be too dangerous to ever come back to the same spot (think Sophie and Ryan's plan in H2O). It seems like the only logical choice would be to just leave it in the ocean to continue rotting in there or "steal" it for yourself.
I will never stop loving Mako for having so many nice underwater shots with those beautiful tails. I'm OBSESSED with mermaids and especially as a kid I binged h2o or any other mermaid content. But the cameras were so bad it made me really sad until Mako came out and idk the visuals 100% carry the show for me😂 also I'm a trans guy so it was also nice to have mermen. And I love seafood too so this entire series was me discovering my liking for Mukbang before discovering Mukbang lmao
HAHAHAHAHA I FORGOT ABOUT HOW MUCH SEAFOOD THEY EAT IN THIS SHOW - also agreed the tails are BEAUTIFUL especially the mermen’s tbh so I get it. We’re you also into the 13th Year in Disney because that’s a wild merman ride as well lol
Yeah mermen good, alo merermen are needed too, plus why not have eyecandy mermen that do stufff, afn i cant believe that a sequel was needed to try that dynamic and how a dude feel about that. Mermaid shoulsnt be gatekeepy. Also ther i the disney movie about a tguy tenage merman that discovers that.
1:08:27 I agree but also you have to take into a fact that one of the reasons Mako held this magical essence was because they weren't natural born mermaids, they were 3 teenagers turned mermaids, so of course what didn't make sense to them would be mystical
Also the fact during a interview with Jonathan M. Shiff on TVTonight (highly recommend go there & read it there) while he & his production were working on The Bureau of Magical Things Season 2 and a couple more projects he is planning in future that he would eventually retire after being in the film industry since 1988 (originally Westbridge and had oddities like some animal documentaries & Kelly which featured a German Shepherd dog as the star, until Ocean Girl became his first creation and his official production name & logo we know them today with the iconic UFO that has went through changes over the years) and how it would change Australian children's tv forever, for better or worse.
I haven’t started BoMT but it’s in my list! He definitely changed the landscape FOR SURE and I’m quite grateful. If nothing else his work gave me something to do for 6 months lol. (Also I’m sorry did you say German Shepard as the star?!?)
@@upinurbiz Yeah it was a thing, back in 1991 the 3rd show Jonathan produced sort of be the next Lassie, The Littlest Hobo or heck Skippy The Bush Kangaroo (the latter being in Australia too). It lasted 26 EPs & 2 seasons, to my knowledge it was on VHS and so far, only a few EPs are on YT, even one of his shorter series as a result, while some of the others got lucky being uploaded, released elsewhere via DVD or streaming. The Bureau of Magical Things i rank pretty high on my list of his shows, it's so good. They recently released the score for Season 2 which is good, but has some missed opportunities..
@@huskylluvr I feel like i'm one of the few people who has seen Thunderstone, seriously that show gets deleted via copyright claim like 2 to 3 times on YT & it sucks that is a really good underrated sci-fi show from the 90s, in Australia which they do good with sci-fi.
If I am not mistaken Rikki does travel with the objects she finds for a few months after recovering them, but she then donates them back to their country of origin. I know the object are not hers to donate in the first place, but also if she didn't recover them, those objects would have been lost to myth and the ocean. So I can get behind Rikki using her magic to her financial advantage and for her philanthropic endeavors.
I don't think Rikki exhibits any powers that are different than those she possessed in H2O. Weilan mentions that she wasn't sure she was one of them until she made that hand gesture, which likely made her stop pushing the glass of water. I think she reflexively put her hand up, ready to boil the water in case it spilled. As to her profiting off of the ocean relics, it was stated that she donates them to the foundation. We could assume she just tours around with the stuff she finds to discuss the retrieval of them, and it doesn't seem like she really profits off of the actually items per se. If the foundation to which she donated them was non profit, wouldn't she technically be still within her original morals from the original show? We don't know if the foundation returns them to their original owners after they are shown around, which is better than having them sit in a museum being stolen property. We just don't have any evidence that they are actually keeping the items. She could be bringing them up in loads and touring with them until they get returned. I don't think there would be anything technically wrong with Rikki making money from talking about items she found, it seems within her character to have started a business and be working for herself. The dress is also relatively within her style guidelines because we know her attention was drawn to that red dress in season one. I love all of your points and this video is so good
How does everyone else hear everything behind the scenes but completely misses when Jonathan said that mako mermaids was suppsed to air first and h2o was to be the spin off. He interchanged both names. This is one of the reasons i will never understand the hatred for mako mermaids as this entire plot was supposed to be the original in what we know as H2O Just add water that we know and love today
I mean, even if it was *meant* to be a prequel, in the end its not It could make sense as a prequel if 1)they hadn't included Rikki which completely messes the timeline (but i get it probably was just to satisfy the fans) and 2) we are to assume Mako mermaids would have ended in a very sour note with the pod abandoning the island in order for it to be empty when H2o starts As it stands, the best fannon explanation is the alternate universe lol Still, i don't see much of the criticism as being hatred of it At least i *love* both shows and will nitpick them to the end of time cause its fun
YES MY TARGET AUDIENCE lol it’s such a wild show those of us that endured it are like hardened soldiers returning from battle 🫡 thank you for validating my madness
One thing that bothered me about this series was, how were those three mermaids meant to stop land people from going into the pool anyway? And why were three teenagers ‘protecting’ the pool, what were they gonna do they didn’t have magic, why not three adult mermaids who have magic and know what to do with land people and let the girls learn what to do during a moon festival? It never made sense and frustrated me to no end. What were they gonna do?? They’re not threatening in any way! They were never told how to deal with land people and they didn’t know there was a chamber above dedicated to merman. Just how??? What did the council expect them to do?? It makes me want to throw my childhood mermaid toys through the TV and burn the whole series and forget it all
I just found your channel yesterday through the ‘flowers in the attic’ video(let’s not analyze why that was in my recommended(i blame caricanread’s mortal instrument videos)) and ohhh boy your videos are so invasively in my niche. thank u for your service❤️ :)
Like Jonathan M. Shiff Productions already uploaded all of Horace and Tina, Cybergirl & the original Pirate Islands on their channel & by view count, Cybergirl clearly has the most, while Pirate Islands sadly isn't as high, but that's only because it's the most recent upload, now if they get Scooter: Secret Agent, Kelly & Reef Doctors, (not H2O: Mermaid Advertures, I rather forget that one). I also really wish YT would just stop deleting, block & getting private, especially older & a bit recent AUS shows & movies that never released ever after airing originally, just release them on VHS, DVD or streaming if fan demand is good enough.
I’m 10 minutes from the end. I have an Australian friend so as soon as you said “I don’t know how much a house like that costs in Australia” I was like. “I do! Well vaguely. We’ve spent time looking at houses and talking about this. A 3 bedroom house that goes for about 200 G in the US is easily over a mil in AU. So, a beach mansion like that would probably be hundreds of millions of dollars, if not over a billion. As for how much a principle makes, same if not less. So your point and assertion is correct. They are “reclaiming” the lost treasures of other cultures from the depths of the ocean, because they can, and selling them to fund their own lavish lifestyles. So your whole point that the mermaids devolved into an individualist right-based exploitative capitalistic hellscape and completely abandoned any actual instinctual care for anything or anyone but themselves is…. Entirely correct. This show seems batshit insane and a huge departure from H2O. Thank you for driving yourself to madness to analyze it and discover that it was made just to be a teen drama and not have any actual worth or message or coherent exploration of deep concept beyond… magical nature beings can be terrible people too. It’s like the pitch for this was “Hey let’s do H20 again, except this time the mermaids are total dicks with no redeeming qualities” 😅😂😭
I was(and still am) a big fan of h2o as a kid(it came out when I was 7-8 y.o.) and when the Mako Mermaids started releasing, I was excited at first, but honestly I never made it past season 1. It just felt different and not in a good way. Like, the bond between Emma, Rikki and Cleo(and Lewis) and them dealing with the everyday teen struggles while also being mermaids felt way more real to me than the shitton of magical shenanigans that were introduced in this show(I mean S3 of h20 is also kind of overwhelming with all of this E.L.E. plot, but it was still fine). I don't hate Mako Mermaids, but I don't like it either. To me it felt like phase 4 of Marvel - a lot of stuff going on that the writers try to make you care about, but you just can't(and I didn't even know that Cariba Heine reprised her role for the series finale until last night, cuz I never made it up to there).
I seem to recall there was an episode in which Riki meets the mermaids in this series- she became a sea diver or something…(just looked it up, there was an episode where Riki met and interacted with the mermaids in this series, which shoots down the theory of alternate universe)
I disagree with you on this "Rikki" not being the original. There's an episode on her trying to find an artifact for money in the original series. I think this was the clear direction for her character to develop in to. Maybe not the book aspect, tho.
The way I found H20 randomly on RUclips and grew attached to it and H20 sequel just.... it just took TOO many wild turn. Although the short mermaid girl in season 1 was funny
I love h2o so much. I may have rewatched it too many times though because I can tell which episode is playing just by listening to the first few seconds of an episode :')
this is my new favorite video of all time. i’ve watched this show 20+ usually once or twice a year and you truly deep dived like only a stan like me could thank u
Hi from Sydney, i watched parts of this video & in my mind i thought, I swear if this is another H2O fan hating on Mako Mermaids, thankfully it wasn't like that, which good. I've been a fan of Jonathan M. Shiff since the 2000s with Cybergirl, my 1st show seen as a kid from the production team (besides Ocean Girl briefly), yet nobody but me & some people have seen, which is most of the H2O & Mako fandom, same applies to every other show that they did (i made playlists of their stuff from the shows, promos, openings & music lol) like The Bureau of Magical Things which the poor US fans hasn't seen Season 2 because it hasn't aired it over there for about over half a year now. Sub Also i used to this show having 3 seasons, because Netflix splitting Season 2 into 2 halves is weird to make it 4 seasons, when i know Ocean Girl has 4 seasons, 1st half is 13 EPs each & 26 EPs for the 2nd half.
Ahh I’m glad you enjoyed! I’m glad it didn’t come across as just me hating on the show for 2 hours because honestly I can’t imagine spending as much time watching analyzing and writing about something that I genuinely hate. I grew up loving H20 and was interested to see how they updated things. I feel like children’s TV can be so interesting through adult eyes because you start to notice things that get glossed over/left out in favor of a different more palatable message for 9 year olds, and Mako Mermaids was just dripping with little details that seemed so unnecessary but somehow painted this insane picture lol Thanks for hearing me out!
I feel so bad about the mako mermaids cast members they get hated by h20 fans, Ive meet a few of the cast members and they’re super lovely and friendly
Yeaaah this was my first video ever and I had 0 idea what I was doing, it gets slightly better in the other ones! Though if it bothers you do not watch my goncharov video lol I misuse my new cardioid mic and it’s a mess 😭
"I'll probably never do something like this again" was such a wild thing to hear when your voice and video essays have been the background noise of my entire week. Also I just graduated with an English degree and am figuring out my life so the level of acedemic brainrot in your videos feels like home even if it's also a reminder of how much I regret going to college BUT HEY you're my favorite youtube essayist thats the point of this comment
i mean. what if mermaid and mermen gender divisions aren’t the same as sex divisions. like. we assume that their genders are along reproductive lines bc so are ours but. that’s not necessary. there are any number of ways to sexually reproduce in fish ways and just. have human secondary sex characteristics in some ways but not ones that correspond to gender for reproduction
I needed this whole video after watching the show because I was horribly disappointed when there was not one tiktok on my search to try breaking down the lore and timeline for me to make any sense of it.
This video is absolutely phenomenal. As a kid, I LOVED H2O, and when I watched the pilot of Mako Mermaids, I never watched another goddamn episode, and this entire thing makes me glad I did, but for real, you did a fucking wonderful job explaining what happens AND exploring the meaning! One thing though I do want to question is your audio. I was listening with earbuds on 10/10 volume and it was still very quiet. Do you use a specific microphone? Obviously it's your stylistic choice n shit, but I wanted to bring it to your attention in case you weren't aware !
I loved this vid essay, thank you. My flimsy head canon on how merpeople reproduction works is that it’s yet another very well kept secret that male and female merpeople simply mate. At one point Eric has a throwaway line that mermen don’t have pods. This is the entire foundation of my thought. It’s similar to how African Lions’ social structure works where females and cubs group together and the males are (mostly) solitary, traveling from group to group. From here on out is massive speculation. I imagine that when an egg becomes fertilized, the mermaid lays an egg case similar to sharks, so they won’t necessarily present as pregnant in the mammalian sense, but it’s also never addressed how merbabies show up; if they gestate in a case, somebody just shows up with a new hatchling?? We don’t see male hatchlings because merpeople gender is determined by temperature and they choose where to place the eggs, controlling the sex ratio of the future population. Additionally, since the ocean is warming females are more likely, so mermaids don’t really care about the environment, which is an extension of your insight that the mako mermaids don’t care about Mako the island at all. Anyway, thanks for your vid and also I’m sorry.
I think, in the original H2O, mermaids went extinct. The wars probably still happened, one side one and killed the other, but they couldn't find a way to reproduce without the other side and as a result, all extinct. But these moon pools, they are still around. So while the they couldn't be born any more, people have been turning into merfolk. And in the reality of the sequel, they did find a way to reproduce without the other side.
Also, I think the most Not Rikki thing Rikki did in this show was they didn't let her try to beat the dragon herself. Rikki would have not hesitated to fight that dragon to save the island. If they wanted a random thing to save they day, at least let it be Rikki's awesome powers, not some bracelet.
Listen, you are not the only person wondering about the merfolk reproduction. i've seen it get explained in several mako mermaids fics at this point (yes I've read several mako mermaid fics why do you ask)
I was trying to tell someone the other day about this show and to my horror described season 1 as "Shakespearian in the sense that if the character's just communicated properly, none of this nonsense would be happening." Also mermaid sexuality ?? Cuz they seem to reproduce asexually but all the mermaids are shown as only being attracted to males??? Like, something about that doesn't compute cuz like, they don't live among mermen so don't have romantic attraction among those in their pods (presumably) but the second they get on land they're into boys?
I've never heard of this show before, and this was a wild ride from start to finish. I'd love your opinion on Disney's "The thirteenth Year" and it's mermaid lore too.
Hahahaha I am so sorry to you and your cats, you are very correct and luckily this is probably the worst of it (besides maybe the goncharov video) 😭 I’m working on it!
This show was me and my bestie’s jam as kids! We would swim in her pool and pretend to be mermaids in the show. I am totally interested in revisiting it and seeing your points in this video.
1:28:31 How can a person steal artifacts from however deep deep it was in the ocean? At that point it's basically lost until someone finds it and at that point, considering how deep Rikki mentioned she dove in...
I have not watched much of this yet (I'm absolutely buckled in to watch this all though) but my autism compels me to ask: if they were so bad freaked out by this boy why didn't they just unalive him
I like to think as far as mermaid reproduction goes, I think it's best to just make up the sea turtles and the seahorses for yourself. anyways here's my theory: mermaids are like clownfish where they can change their sex for reproduction (like prolapse the fussy into fenis (fish penis)) and they FERTILIZE (idk i guess the fertilizer is stored from whatever hole squirting comes from) another mermaids eggs through the fussy (fish pussy) and then because giving birth out of a tale isn't really viable and also they are referred to as hatchlings they lay the eggs probably somewhere safe like the bottom of the moon pool or some cave and then when the eggs mature they are like a placenta that when the mermaid is ready to hatch it just burst open and blammo baby with a tail. As for the mermen id just say omegaverse impreg would be the best bet because they do go on land and could give birth out of their omegaverse hole and then take the merbabies back to the sea with them. but now that i think of it they didn't go on land before the merwar so I'm assuming they did the same thing as mermaids but instead their fenis would invert into a fussy do the sex and then nut out the eggs. and the rest is the same as mermaids. While on this thought its very clear the mermen and merwoman never liked each other so I don't think they'd reproduce with each other and there is something to be said about me classifying this in a kind of heteronormative like maybe the mermaids just rub fussy and mermen rub fenis together until eggs fly out but either way mer-reproduction is most certainly homosexual and if not asexual and all mer people are intersex and they're gender is soley based on their pods culture and other attributes like having fiddies (fish tiddies) or not or who looks attractive and who looks like human men. like maybe over the years their genes have separated to either hyper femineity or hyper masculinity. But this is all binary of course and while there is no example of non-binary mermaids in either h20 series I would say on pure speculation they are certainly intersex without having to physically change their bodies and probably exhibit more androgynous characteristics with maybe fem or masc leaning depending on the merenby. Anyways thanks for listening my ted-talk.
Thank you for sharing that. It's definitely a satisfactory answer in that it has satisfied my impulse to write the creators of a show I have never personally watched to ask about mermaid reproduction. Also, I keep coming back to the word "fiddies" and laughing hysterically.
“none of you care about where mermaid babies come from” i care. i care about where mermaid babies come from
I do too!
We have to care about where mermaid babies comes from! Otherwise, how can we support mermaid reproductive rights?
I am in favor ✋
Ok, so it seems that parthenogenesis NOT requiring mating with a male only occurs in sharks. Not in bony fish, although there are variants of reproduction in which the sperm only incites the egg to develope, but does not contribute genetic material.
Therefor my hypothesis is thus: The Mermaids are partly shark and they can reproduce both sexually and asexually. The asexual reproduction only produces female offspring (both in nature and in Mermaids), but for male offspring there needs to be sexual reproduction involved.
Which means that this one boy who is a Merman definitely had a father.
From Wikipedia: ""Mako" comes from the Māori language,[6] meaning either the shark or a shark tooth. Following the Māori language, "mako" in English is both singular and plural. The word may have originated in a dialectal variation, as it is similar to the common words for shark in a number of Polynesian languages-makō in the Kāi Tahu Māori dialect,[7] mangō in other Māori dialects,[7] "mago" in Samoan, ma'o in Tahitian, and mano in Hawaiian."
This supports the hypothesis of the Mermaids being partly shark. Which is evolutionary weird, because humans are actually bony fish, not sharks.
The even weirder thing is of course, that their tails look like that of bony fish but rotated by 90° to resemble those of cetaceans.
SO DO I I care so much
Finally, after all these years, I've found it
The perfect background noise to fight off the ADHD paralysis
this is the highest form of praise thank you so much
i watched mako mermaid 4 times, i saw the theme song every episode, i would never ever skip it. i've heard i over 270 times in total.
@@m-rmeladka so like 4 rewatches?
Bc same 😭
@@alexjd1278 yeah 4 rewatches
@@upinurbiz so true....
The way I’ve been watching EVERY H20 and mako mermaids 2 hour plus essay vids 😂
how many are ther, i've only found 2
I love that h2o is getting it’s moment again that show was a marvel
@@neivilde.1242 There this one, one but The Scary Godmother and one by Pompous Unhelpful nit
@@agostoangosto9442 ive seen them haha. have you seen the ones by ashley norton?
@@neivilde.1242 Yea. I think it was the first one I saw. Tho it's all becoming one long 8 hour mush in my brain kajk. Gonna have to re-watch it I guess
As someone who was obsessed with H2O as a kid, I am so excited to finally have an appropriately long video essay on this universe because I TOO OVERTHOUGHT THIS SERIES AND I THOUGHT I WAS ALONE
I would actually like to partially disagree with your assessment of Rikki. While I agree that choosing to keep/sell the artifacts to random buyers feels un-Rikki-like, her choosing to use her special gifts that give her an advantage in order to make a profit is dead-to-rights the Rikki that emerged in S3 of H2o. As she began to run "Rikki's" she started coming into her own and grew a taste for running a business and making a profit. Combine that with the fact that Rikki usually liked to take shortcuts to get things done, this diving business is the perfect evolution of the girl we ended H2o with.
Of all 4 main girls in H2o, Rikki was the most insecure about her financial situation, they had a whole episode about her living in a trailer park, and her desire as an adult to make herself financially secure feels natural and like a natural extension of who she was becoming.
Idk, my 2 cents on Rikki. The rest of the video is great! I hope you keep making content like this because this was both highly entertaining and educational.
(Edit)
I don't believe you can "steal" from the ocean. That doesn't make sense at all. If a man-made object ends up in the ocean, that item is now considered "lost" and therefore belongs to no one. Now, if it was made within a culture and is representative of a certain aspect of that culture, I agree it should be returned to that culture/county of origin. Rikki should have sold the service of retrieving lost artefacts instead and made herself famous by being the one to claim the retrieval. She, and by extension all mermaids/mermen, have a special gift and should be allowed to use it to profit.
These are excellent points^^ at the end of the day capitalism sinks it’s claws into any and everyone and from a girlboss/gamestop debacle perspective I can definitely see a world where rikki is like “this system kept me poor and miserable for so long now is my time” and there’s probably a whole video essay to be written on the merits and intricacies of that!
I felt for this essay on the ethics of ecofeminism and the way that mako mermaids lore is so drastically different from H2O lore it was more interesting to look at from the angle I did but I’m stoked you saw something else in it & that it got you thinking that is the coolest thing ever thank you for your thoughts!!
And there was already an H2O Episode in Season 2 where Rikki used her mermaids powers to dive for an expensive sunken statue to get money as reward for finding it, and then she was exhausted and the Statue fell down on her head and she got unconscious, so Zane and the others had to help her
This is exactly what I thought to .that as somebody who else grew up in poverty I know you will do just about anything to stay out of poverty once you are out. But that being said my one main agreements with the creator that this is an alternate Rikki, is Rikkl always wears red. In the original show main color was red always red .red blue purple those were the 3 girls colors always the same and now she comes back and she's wearing a blue dress a white dress none of this is Rikki. At least not The Rikki we know I only think that because the colors were such a big deal in the original series I don't think that they would just leave them behind. I think it's a clue while those dresses have red accent pieces those are just small parts of our Rikki but that is not our Rikki.
I man the, its uncharacteritic irresponsible but the selling and needing money and that tracks, she would the most likely .
@@upinurbiz Mako mermaids is probably also an alternate universe/timeline of H2O and in this timeline Cleo and Emma don't exist so Rikki is just mermaid by herself that would make the topic discussed here more likely
I love these kinds of deep dives, perfect thing to find after my utter disappointment earlier today finding a 2hr long video claiming to be a deep dive on h20 but she's actually just describing the plot 😭
I’m all for a good recap when I’m trying to get caught up on a show I didn’t watch but my brain is far too under-stimulated to make that content cause I’m always like “BUT THE IMPLICATIONS?!?” even my scandal recap is half ethical theory lol
I think I’ve seen that video you’re talking about, and while I did enjoy watching it, yeah I was also a disappointed upon seeing it was more recap, less analysis.
i watched it too but the one i saw was a breakdown…i liked it because i watch a lot of videos where they explain entire shows (kenyan carlisle, quinton reviews, mikes mic, & more) but i do love a good deep dive as well especially the commentary although they do make me a little sad because i watched all of these when i was like 8 and loved them so when i see valid criticisms i’m like man how did i not see that…
@@oliviabrownvlogs204because, at least when I first watched it, we were young, maybe kids, we don't think of the implocations
I just love how 95% of the gaslighting was Ondina & Layla? 😂
absolute nightmares the both of them
@@upinurbiz Listen don't discount Nixie's gaslighting power too
I won't lie, I really loved the series simply because of how chaotic it was. It wasn't until I rewatched the series that I realized a lot of the characters were just straight up toxic. I don't even feel like it was *that* one-sided because even Zac and his friend were assholes at times. Fair that these girls lied to you and manipulated you, but there were times when he could have accidentally not only revealed their secret (which I admit he didn't want to happen) but could have revealed his because he was being reckless. They all were so reckless lmao. My favorite character was Evie and I was so annoyed when they took her powers and was just like "Oh well, be happy you had them".
RIGHT EVERYONE WAS SO MEAN ALL THE TIME CONSTANTLY
Oh my God if I had been watching the show that scene would have *infuriated* me
Nah Rita is better in my opinion, I feel bad for her cuz these deluded teens decided to move into her basement 😭
I can't believe I was fully convinced Rita was at least 60 years old when I watched the show a 12. lmao
that would explain how they had time to do those renovations though
i just finished this and watched the gnd/midnight mass video earlier and please make more of these. i’m also an nd queer essay enjoyer especially of things i’ve never seen and don’t care about and i genuinely admire your ability to put this together. you communicate in the same way i do and it’s you’re truly a delight to watch. i know i get anxious that no one wants to listen to me ramble about the stuff i’m into so just know that i very much enjoy listening to you talk about all this stuff and make connections and yeah it’s all just very good and i hope to see more.
Ahh thank you! I literally never shut up I’m so glad someone is actually enjoying it lol
I may be a year late and have forgotten at least half of this video but it was a good time. I would love to see you talk about H2O proper. Maybe something related to like, consumerism? Cause season three had a lot to do with like money. Or something about Will in a negative light cause I have never gotten over how he forced Bella into a situation where she would have to turn into a mermaid near him AND when he refused to help Cleo and Bella find Rikki after the counterfeit money situation because he wanted to learn about mermaids. It's as icky as when Sophie kisses Zane but he gets the blame for it.
Also remember how they gave Mimi a love interest for like two episodes and one episode was about her helping him befriend a dolphin and she does so by going into the water. Where anyone can see them? I swear there was no available jobs anywhere that didn't include not being around liquid. Are you telling me there wasn't a single retail store that wasn't also a cafe?
OMG I FORGOT ABOUT THE DOLPHIN BOY PLOTLINE lol she was like “close your eyes” and that was enough.
Also ooh yes those are interesting points! I made this video so long ago and people are just now finding it that perhaps I am far enough away from the H2Overse to be willing to return….
Mako Mermaids was originally supposed to be a prequel (don't know if you mention this in the video, haven't finished it yet), so explaining why there weren't any mermaids around the island in H2O because the pod had already left. I don't know why it changed, but at some point it was turned into a sequel.
She said its an alternative universe so idk anmymore
@@han6061 I was talking about in canon, like what the writers had intended. I don't remember if I finished the video, so are you saying she said the writers called it a parallel universe or is that her personal theory on how to explain it?
@@han6061for their sake it's an alternate universe but canon wise it's like a pre/se quel
"Mako Mermaids is badly written because the producers don't actually care about the show and just wanted to squeeze more money out of the massive success that was H2O" - boring, old, crusty
"Mako Mermaids is an ecofeminist utopian nightmare set in an alternate reality in which Rikki was NOT everyone's queer awakening" - hot, fresh, extremely moisturized
Also when you said "Why does nobody else care??" at the end, I literally screamed BUT I CARE PLEASE I CARE at my screen. I WANTED those hours of fish research 😂
"you may never know where do merbabies come from, but still have to email the showrunner" what a bizarre yet surprisingly good quote
the merperson who found Kim's earring must've been so happy when they sold it on land and became rich
Did I watch the sequel series? No. Did I watch the original? Barely?
Am I super invested in watching this entire video? Yes.
love the video, but the audio was very low, unless it's just me.
Anyway, I had this head canon that the moon pools have existed always on earth, and there were always people turn into mermaids. We do have a book with spells for mermaids in H2o, that did work, witch means there was a culture of merpeople that did in fact wrote down their knowledge. I will keep to that head canon and pretend that Mako mermaids is just another not related thing.
As a former professional mermaid and a trans girl, I adore this video and the way it calls out the BULLSHIT that was present in this series. Guuurl.
Fr 😅
After my watching of the show seton I came to the conclusion that it had its own layer of bullcra too (the main villain in season 1 being the black mermaid and the other black merman being killed off in a failed sex ritual with the lead mermaid).
I never really got into maco but I loved H20 and 11 year old me made up the theorie that both shows are a mirror or more like reverse Alternative Universe of each other and the magic of Maco - and only that - connects them only by the island and pool. (One show they have legs but get tails the other show has tails and then they get legs, you get my child logic there)
Okay but why is this exactly the way my sirens and finfolk (merpeople) are linked in my novel 😭😭😭😭😭
@@rue...whenwasthis idk? Great minds think alike? But I need to know more about your novel!
@@mrsscreamgirl5332 OHHH don't even get me started
@@rue...whenwasthisis it to read anywhere?:3
I would donate all of my organs just to make sure David lives a happy life
omg i grew up in aus watching this show and yes i am very sad to say that i watched it before h2o (i was shocked when that show started airing let me tell u) AND THIS VIDEO IS BRINGING BACK SOOO MANY MEMORIES
STOP THAT MUST HAVE BEEN A FEVER DREAM like where are the other mermaids? what happened to the secret rooms? Why are they all dressed like that??
awesome video, here's some of my thoughts:
i totally agree that the mako pod was sexist at times, the fact that 1 merman was enough to make them want to leave their home is insane, and the way it's revealed later that mermen have to grow up on land presumably because they aren't accepted in the ocean is awful!!! the reproduction thing is so mind boggling too, like i guess they don't even need mermen to reproduce? and what would happen if a mermaid "accidentally" had a son like nerissa did? how many merman sons were killed or left on beaches because of this?!
new theory: maybe h2o & mako mermaids weren't alternate universes? perhaps sophie and zane using dynamite in the moon pool is what drew the mako pod's attention towards it and they didn't know about it before or didn't think it needed guarding. this would explain why they never noticed the h2o girls coming in and out all the time, because they probably wouldn't automatically assume they were actually land girls, and they may not have even known there was a land entrance.
since the moon pool is directly tied to their powers they could have been weakened due to the damage in h2o s3, which caused them to start patrolling it (as sirena, nixie and lyla the first scene in mako mermaids) i think this makes a lot of sense, and also serves as a reason why the moon pool looks quite different in s1 of mako mermaids vs s3 of h2o.
on the topic of the mermaids gaslighting the hell out of david, i totally agree with you, but don't blame sirena, it wasn't her idea and she cares a lot about david. i think the mako pod being really mean doesn't apply to her, she was always so sweet and was usually a victim of the rudeness (when they used their powers and took her voice in s1) also i totally agree that david totally deserved to be let in on the secret at that point, and sirena wanted to tell them but she didn't for her friends sakes
(sirena is my favorite character pls go easy on her lmao she's so perfect)
stopping now at 40:00 but may finish the video another time. i love the h2o franchise so much despite all of its weirdness
Yeah, i at least there were an accepted mermen colony that ha some place?! Like why, th irt show has goo enough having a dud in, but the sequel, cant youhave bias and them having their australia.
So many points you have that I agree with, one thing I'd like to add that supports your point. In my head cannon, not all pods are this homogenous and by extension racist (Ondina's initial reaction to Weilan).
◇I feel like it's sometimes forgotten that the Mako pod isn't the only one that exists and that there are more of them that exist, I think it's just because in the actual show we never really saw more because obviously that costs more money. This, for me, explains why the mako pod mainly consisted of women who were white (I mean, keeping in mind, that one bts scene where the director made a bit of an iffy comment on how they came about choosing the actress for Sirena😬). Because aside from the initial 3 girls, then the 2 replacements, the diversity we get is Mimi and Weilan, who are explained in the show cannon wise that the reason they may speak different is due to being in a different pod, I think Mimi said western pod but I'm not sure, and Weilan being from not only the eastern pod but also having lived already on land before.
Watching this has returned the brain cells I lost watching Mako Mermaids 3x in a row during lockdown
I blame season 3 of h2o
I’m not gonna go into it but I blame season 3 of h2o
Idk why everyone hated season 3 tbh.
But Im bias bc I had the biggest crush on Bella.
Like that scene where she walks toward cleo and ricky at the beach.
Oh you bet your ass 11 yo me replayed that shit like 76 times.
(I did NOT in fact know that you could have crushes on girls at the time, so imagine my surprise when I found out being gay exists😂)
Anyway season 3 is objevely a mess and I will defens H2O and Mako Mermaids to my death. These are not mutually exclusive
My favorite Biz returning joke is the "We've all done (insert x highly specific thing) when we were younger"
Ma'am no, no I have not been in a jacuzzi and pictured it being a Moon Pool, I was too preoccupied thinking of myself becoming human soup 😋
44:48 YES God that is exactly why I latched onto this show so hard. Is it bad writing? No, it is simply a genius production behind-the-scenes but they could only give us pieces of it, much like what mer-young get from their elders, because if they gave us more we would be too powerful... and it wouldn't be as fun to overthink if we weren't stuck stranded with inconsistent pieces of lore flung to us like fish to the marine park dolphins.
(Fr I always loved the no-written-records worldbuilding piece in this show, but I never thought about how info restriction was used as a result and I am LIVING for these thoughts. It really makes sense for Rita, too, being someone who was ~top of her class~ in mermaid school and was probably training to be a teacher even back then, to so naturally exhibit such a careful distribution of knowledge.)
I also really loved your point about how in the original, Mako Island felt like a personified presence that chose people... It was special. It really explains why, despite Mako Mermaids having so much magic up-front, it feels less magical to me and like it's just land to fight over.
1:15:44 Please can we get some non-binary mers with purple tailssssss, your mind.
I can't remember if you mentioned anything like this, but my only thought about the timeline weirdness is that the Mako pod fled when Rita left to be with Harry because they realized that whole situation could put them in danger. (And I'm a hopeless Veridia/Rita shipper so part of me self indulgently thinks Veridia was pissed/heartbroken and used whatever political influence she had to help convince the then-council that Harry couldn't be trusted. She and Rita were well established gal pals so surely she would personally know that Harry was ~no good~ and the others would be foolish not to listen to her.)
The Mako pod probably then moved to hang with another pod, kinda like them leaving for the South Pacific(?) pod when Zac transformed. Despite that inter-mingling, they kept their identity as the Mako pod since they intended to return, hence the young protagonist mermaids still having a strong Mako identity. Then they conveniently returned sometime after the Just Add Water girls left on their own adventures.
Anyway, this video was pretty much everything I could have ever wanted. Taking the 2013 kids mermaid show too seriously is the biggest mood and it was amazing hearing another hyperfixated adult's perspective on it all. 100/10 quality content, I can't wait to watch your other videos and see what else you might do next! Particularly if you ever go more in-depth about the mermaid reproduction hell spiral you went down because I unfortunately give a shit about it, lol.
I'm also hyped to check out some of the books you mentioned to further rotate these concepts in my brain, thank you for introducing me to them in such an intelligent, beautifully unhinged way!
as someone who’s only seen h2o and not make this was fascinating
The amount of effort put into this has to have been insane 😭 it’s so good
More effort was put into this than the entire season 3 plot change my mind 😂
Ok I am 3 minutes in and thinking "oh I feel like I remember the main plot points but I watched it like 7 years ago, hmm, not sure how much I'll recall" and then the MILISECOND that theme song came on I was singing and could have KEPT singing all of it. I am going to enjoy this video. Thank you in advance
Dang, I am...so impressed. That was one of the best video essays I have ever seen. Wow, just wow. As a huge fan of the h2overse and just someone who loves essays on topics that don't have meaning (but like of course they do everything has a meaning), I am thrilled. This took me two days to watch in like it's full and comprehend it and I love all of the points you made. Plus your energy. Well done
What an experience from start to finish- truly wild. I haven’t even seen this show 🤠 your vibes are immaculate, and when you poured the wine in the icee? I felt that in my soul… thank u for your service 🐸
Honestly so bummed I don’t live walking distance from a 7-11 anymore because my slurpee intake has decreased and it’s so sad :( also watching video essays on shows you didn’t watch is such a mood I love it
1:23:12 didn't realize how much I needed to hear someone dissect this show, thank you
it was like watching a car crash I COULDNT LOOK AWAY I’m just glad someone else found it worth obsessing over tbh
It makes since that an aquatic dwelling civilization would not have books. Paper and pens don't seem to work well underwater
you…. have made a very valid point
they could have stone slabs and carvings though. and sculptures. it’s not weird they don’t have much writing but it’s weird they didn’t write down or draw the most important stuff. like there should be a mural about the mermaid war. that’s important history
I loved every second of this video. So fun and I was way too invested literally the entire time. Like the mermaid content was great but I also did not expect to learn so much about ethics and I’ve never even heard of ecofeminism before today 💀 thank you for the vital education
Thank you for making this! I never watched Mako Mermaids despite being a huge fan of the first two seasons of H2O, this was a great deep dive and served as perfect company while sorting through my memory box
"Because land people have _GUNS_" plus the wide eyed stare that cut directly into my soul really is the cherry on top of this essay.
I'm a marine biologist and I wish I could tell you how mermen and mermaids reproduce, but it's a mistery to me also.
The species can reproduce with eachother, so they either are the same specie or they're sister species (menaing that evolutionary they became distinct a very short time ago).
I personally think the mermen reproduce with humans and hybrids mantain full mermen traits (thus making mermen dominant genetically?), but either the mermaids reproduce by parthenogenesis or they steal human men to make new mermaidlings, because their ability to continue to reproduce doesn't make any sense
Another (horrific) thought that crossed my mind. Some of the mermaids may be human children who were either captured (or in a best case scenario rescued), and transformed in the moon pool, kind of like a changeling situation.
@@jjayjae_ Oh shit. That _is_ terrifying
@@jjayjae_ I hope rescued, it ounds bettr i they took them rom an uncaring oster system or something
If they dont lure humans at full moon to hypnotize them with a sirens song. That they dont remember.
Please make a whole video about the marine park. I get that it's a necessary setting for the show to create drama, but it's such a big suspension of disbelief that they would go there more than once.
1:30:00 This i kind of don't agree with, because how would they return the items? I get it with Ricki, because if she has a whole company focused on retrieving artefacts then she has a good excuse (like she was able to go so deep because of expensive, specialist equipment) but the rest don't. They can't just waltz into a museum carrying a backpack of treasures and go "Oh, i found it all at the beach" or some shit, they would definitely have cops called on them. Even if they left it at shore people would get suspicious and there would most likely be expeditions to try and find more, meaning it would be too dangerous to ever come back to the same spot (think Sophie and Ryan's plan in H2O). It seems like the only logical choice would be to just leave it in the ocean to continue rotting in there or "steal" it for yourself.
Where has this been the last 6 years, thank you so much.
Using the magic tree house to explain a trope awakened something primal in me
as someone who did not watch this show and still watched this whole video, yes we do exist, and it was a great video!!! loved it!!
I will never stop loving Mako for having so many nice underwater shots with those beautiful tails. I'm OBSESSED with mermaids and especially as a kid I binged h2o or any other mermaid content. But the cameras were so bad it made me really sad until Mako came out and idk the visuals 100% carry the show for me😂 also I'm a trans guy so it was also nice to have mermen.
And I love seafood too so this entire series was me discovering my liking for Mukbang before discovering Mukbang lmao
HAHAHAHAHA I FORGOT ABOUT HOW MUCH SEAFOOD THEY EAT IN THIS SHOW - also agreed the tails are BEAUTIFUL especially the mermen’s tbh so I get it. We’re you also into the 13th Year in Disney because that’s a wild merman ride as well lol
@@upinurbiz No I wasn't lmaoooo I never explore uncharted waters😂😂
Yeah mermen good, alo merermen are needed too, plus why not have eyecandy mermen that do stufff, afn i cant believe that a sequel was needed to try that dynamic and how a dude feel about that. Mermaid shoulsnt be gatekeepy.
Also ther i the disney movie about a tguy tenage merman that discovers that.
this is what i want in a video essay, it doesn’t matter what it’s about (although this is my niche interest) very well done !
I rewatch this video so often, thank you for making it
I was searching for this exact video and I am very satisfied. Thank youuuuu
cannot BELIEVE that this entire video came and went with nary a mention of local icon Poseidon the cat.
1:08:27 I agree but also you have to take into a fact that one of the reasons Mako held this magical essence was because they weren't natural born mermaids, they were 3 teenagers turned mermaids, so of course what didn't make sense to them would be mystical
I've never been so thankful for where the TikTok algorithm brought me
honestly I’ve never been more grateful either. Team “obsessive thinkers with dark academia playlists and too much time on their hands” am I right
The anxiety that lit candle burning directly behind where you keep like rustling your hair gives me is immeasurable lol
Also the fact during a interview with Jonathan M. Shiff on TVTonight (highly recommend go there & read it there) while he & his production were working on The Bureau of Magical Things Season 2 and a couple more projects he is planning in future that he would eventually retire after being in the film industry since 1988 (originally Westbridge and had oddities like some animal documentaries & Kelly which featured a German Shepherd dog as the star, until Ocean Girl became his first creation and his official production name & logo we know them today with the iconic UFO that has went through changes over the years) and how it would change Australian children's tv forever, for better or worse.
I haven’t started BoMT but it’s in my list! He definitely changed the landscape FOR SURE and I’m quite grateful. If nothing else his work gave me something to do for 6 months lol. (Also I’m sorry did you say German Shepard as the star?!?)
@@upinurbiz Yeah it was a thing, back in 1991 the 3rd show Jonathan produced sort of be the next Lassie, The Littlest Hobo or heck Skippy The Bush Kangaroo (the latter being in Australia too). It lasted 26 EPs & 2 seasons, to my knowledge it was on VHS and so far, only a few EPs are on YT, even one of his shorter series as a result, while some of the others got lucky being uploaded, released elsewhere via DVD or streaming. The Bureau of Magical Things i rank pretty high on my list of his shows, it's so good. They recently released the score for Season 2 which is good, but has some missed opportunities..
@@huskylluvr I feel like i'm one of the few people who has seen Thunderstone, seriously that show gets deleted via copyright claim like 2 to 3 times on YT & it sucks that is a really good underrated sci-fi show from the 90s, in Australia which they do good with sci-fi.
@@upinurbiz The bureau o magical thing is pretty good as well. Yess.
Also one seaon but it holds up really well.
If I am not mistaken Rikki does travel with the objects she finds for a few months after recovering them, but she then donates them back to their country of origin. I know the object are not hers to donate in the first place, but also if she didn't recover them, those objects would have been lost to myth and the ocean. So I can get behind Rikki using her magic to her financial advantage and for her philanthropic endeavors.
I don't think Rikki exhibits any powers that are different than those she possessed in H2O. Weilan mentions that she wasn't sure she was one of them until she made that hand gesture, which likely made her stop pushing the glass of water. I think she reflexively put her hand up, ready to boil the water in case it spilled. As to her profiting off of the ocean relics, it was stated that she donates them to the foundation. We could assume she just tours around with the stuff she finds to discuss the retrieval of them, and it doesn't seem like she really profits off of the actually items per se. If the foundation to which she donated them was non profit, wouldn't she technically be still within her original morals from the original show? We don't know if the foundation returns them to their original owners after they are shown around, which is better than having them sit in a museum being stolen property. We just don't have any evidence that they are actually keeping the items. She could be bringing them up in loads and touring with them until they get returned. I don't think there would be anything technically wrong with Rikki making money from talking about items she found, it seems within her character to have started a business and be working for herself. The dress is also relatively within her style guidelines because we know her attention was drawn to that red dress in season one. I love all of your points and this video is so good
How does everyone else hear everything behind the scenes but completely misses when Jonathan said that mako mermaids was suppsed to air first and h2o was to be the spin off. He interchanged both names. This is one of the reasons i will never understand the hatred for mako mermaids as this entire plot was supposed to be the original in what we know as H2O Just add water that we know and love today
This
I mean, even if it was *meant* to be a prequel, in the end its not
It could make sense as a prequel if 1)they hadn't included Rikki which completely messes the timeline (but i get it probably was just to satisfy the fans) and 2) we are to assume Mako mermaids would have ended in a very sour note with the pod abandoning the island in order for it to be empty when H2o starts
As it stands, the best fannon explanation is the alternate universe lol
Still, i don't see much of the criticism as being hatred of it
At least i *love* both shows and will nitpick them to the end of time cause its fun
Dude i love ur vid😢ur channel is underrated i looked up mako mermaids and ur the only one who’s covered it thanks for enduring this show with me!
YES MY TARGET AUDIENCE lol it’s such a wild show those of us that endured it are like hardened soldiers returning from battle 🫡 thank you for validating my madness
One thing that bothered me about this series was, how were those three mermaids meant to stop land people from going into the pool anyway? And why were three teenagers ‘protecting’ the pool, what were they gonna do they didn’t have magic, why not three adult mermaids who have magic and know what to do with land people and let the girls learn what to do during a moon festival?
It never made sense and frustrated me to no end. What were they gonna do?? They’re not threatening in any way! They were never told how to deal with land people and they didn’t know there was a chamber above dedicated to merman. Just how??? What did the council expect them to do??
It makes me want to throw my childhood mermaid toys through the TV and burn the whole series and forget it all
I love this video! But some audio correction so that all the levels are similar would probably help it do a lot better.
I just found your channel yesterday through the ‘flowers in the attic’ video(let’s not analyze why that was in my recommended(i blame caricanread’s mortal instrument videos)) and ohhh boy your videos are so invasively in my niche. thank u for your service❤️ :)
Like Jonathan M. Shiff Productions already uploaded all of Horace and Tina, Cybergirl & the original Pirate Islands on their channel & by view count, Cybergirl clearly has the most, while Pirate Islands sadly isn't as high, but that's only because it's the most recent upload, now if they get Scooter: Secret Agent, Kelly & Reef Doctors, (not H2O: Mermaid Advertures, I rather forget that one).
I also really wish YT would just stop deleting, block & getting private, especially older & a bit recent AUS shows & movies that never released ever after airing originally, just release them on VHS, DVD or streaming if fan demand is good enough.
I’m 10 minutes from the end. I have an Australian friend so as soon as you said “I don’t know how much a house like that costs in Australia” I was like. “I do! Well vaguely. We’ve spent time looking at houses and talking about this. A 3 bedroom house that goes for about 200 G in the US is easily over a mil in AU. So, a beach mansion like that would probably be hundreds of millions of dollars, if not over a billion. As for how much a principle makes, same if not less. So your point and assertion is correct. They are “reclaiming” the lost treasures of other cultures from the depths of the ocean, because they can, and selling them to fund their own lavish lifestyles. So your whole point that the mermaids devolved into an individualist right-based exploitative capitalistic hellscape and completely abandoned any actual instinctual care for anything or anyone but themselves is…. Entirely correct.
This show seems batshit insane and a huge departure from H2O.
Thank you for driving yourself to madness to analyze it and discover that it was made just to be a teen drama and not have any actual worth or message or coherent exploration of deep concept beyond… magical nature beings can be terrible people too.
It’s like the pitch for this was “Hey let’s do H20 again, except this time the mermaids are total dicks with no redeeming qualities”
😅😂😭
I was(and still am) a big fan of h2o as a kid(it came out when I was 7-8 y.o.) and when the Mako Mermaids started releasing, I was excited at first, but honestly I never made it past season 1. It just felt different and not in a good way.
Like, the bond between Emma, Rikki and Cleo(and Lewis) and them dealing with the everyday teen struggles while also being mermaids felt way more real to me than the shitton of magical shenanigans that were introduced in this show(I mean S3 of h20 is also kind of overwhelming with all of this E.L.E. plot, but it was still fine).
I don't hate Mako Mermaids, but I don't like it either. To me it felt like phase 4 of Marvel - a lot of stuff going on that the writers try to make you care about, but you just can't(and I didn't even know that Cariba Heine reprised her role for the series finale until last night, cuz I never made it up to there).
I seem to recall there was an episode in which Riki meets the mermaids in this series- she became a sea diver or something…(just looked it up, there was an episode where Riki met and interacted with the mermaids in this series, which shoots down the theory of alternate universe)
It was the series finale. She talks about how her and the other girls grew apart as they grew up.
I disagree with you on this "Rikki" not being the original. There's an episode on her trying to find an artifact for money in the original series. I think this was the clear direction for her character to develop in to. Maybe not the book aspect, tho.
i love your dedication to h2o content i love it sm thank u girl
The way I found H20 randomly on RUclips and grew attached to it and H20 sequel just.... it just took TOO many wild turn.
Although the short mermaid girl in season 1 was funny
These girls are "carpool to youth group and tell the pastor they think you're a lesbian to get you sent to conversion camp" mean.
Damn that hit hard.
I love h2o so much. I may have rewatched it too many times though because I can tell which episode is playing just by listening to the first few seconds of an episode :')
this is my new favorite video of all time. i’ve watched this show 20+ usually once or twice a year and you truly deep dived like only a stan like me could thank u
This was what my vaguely high brain needed to ring in my Sunday work day. Loved EVERY minute of this deep dive. Time to subscribe!!!
Hi from Sydney, i watched parts of this video & in my mind i thought, I swear if this is another H2O fan hating on Mako Mermaids, thankfully it wasn't like that, which good. I've been a fan of Jonathan M. Shiff since the 2000s with Cybergirl, my 1st show seen as a kid from the production team (besides Ocean Girl briefly), yet nobody but me & some people have seen, which is most of the H2O & Mako fandom, same applies to every other show that they did (i made playlists of their stuff from the shows, promos, openings & music lol) like The Bureau of Magical Things which the poor US fans hasn't seen Season 2 because it hasn't aired it over there for about over half a year now. Sub
Also i used to this show having 3 seasons, because Netflix splitting Season 2 into 2 halves is weird to make it 4 seasons, when i know Ocean Girl has 4 seasons, 1st half is 13 EPs each & 26 EPs for the 2nd half.
Ahh I’m glad you enjoyed! I’m glad it didn’t come across as just me hating on the show for 2 hours because honestly I can’t imagine spending as much time watching analyzing and writing about something that I genuinely hate. I grew up loving H20 and was interested to see how they updated things. I feel like children’s TV can be so interesting through adult eyes because you start to notice things that get glossed over/left out in favor of a different more palatable message for 9 year olds, and Mako Mermaids was just dripping with little details that seemed so unnecessary but somehow painted this insane picture lol Thanks for hearing me out!
I feel so bad about the mako mermaids cast members they get hated by h20 fans, Ive meet a few of the cast members and they’re super lovely and friendly
Please remember to do volume checks in the future, i have to turn my volume all the way up to hear your speech 😅
Yeaaah this was my first video ever and I had 0 idea what I was doing, it gets slightly better in the other ones! Though if it bothers you do not watch my goncharov video lol I misuse my new cardioid mic and it’s a mess 😭
"I'll probably never do something like this again" was such a wild thing to hear when your voice and video essays have been the background noise of my entire week.
Also I just graduated with an English degree and am figuring out my life so the level of acedemic brainrot in your videos feels like home even if it's also a reminder of how much I regret going to college BUT HEY you're my favorite youtube essayist thats the point of this comment
23:18 "because we don't know how they're made..." **visible frustration**
I need someone to say something... I've been sitting on this for years. I needed someone to do a deep dive. Finally, I can rest.
i mean. what if mermaid and mermen gender divisions aren’t the same as sex divisions. like. we assume that their genders are along reproductive lines bc so are ours but. that’s not necessary. there are any number of ways to sexually reproduce in fish ways and just. have human secondary sex characteristics in some ways but not ones that correspond to gender for reproduction
I needed this whole video after watching the show because I was horribly disappointed when there was not one tiktok on my search to try breaking down the lore and timeline for me to make any sense of it.
This video is absolutely phenomenal. As a kid, I LOVED H2O, and when I watched the pilot of Mako Mermaids, I never watched another goddamn episode, and this entire thing makes me glad I did, but for real, you did a fucking wonderful job explaining what happens AND exploring the meaning!
One thing though I do want to question is your audio. I was listening with earbuds on 10/10 volume and it was still very quiet. Do you use a specific microphone? Obviously it's your stylistic choice n shit, but I wanted to bring it to your attention in case you weren't aware !
WHEN THE THEME SONG STARTED PLAYING YOU UNLOCKED SO MANY MEMORIES OH MY GOD
OMG A LITERAL MASTERPIECE! Why am I just finding this now ?? I want more😢
don’t worry literally EVERYONE is just finding this now you’re right on time
So glad this popped up on my recommended!!
Hi Biz, real live for me is a nightmare, NOT H2O, Just Add Water/Mako Merfolk as Zac is a merman, this is an escape from reality which keeps me sane.
At least one of us is staying sane thank GOD
God I love these incredible inter-textual analyses you make
thank youuuuu !
I loved this vid essay, thank you. My flimsy head canon on how merpeople reproduction works is that it’s yet another very well kept secret that male and female merpeople simply mate. At one point Eric has a throwaway line that mermen don’t have pods. This is the entire foundation of my thought. It’s similar to how African Lions’ social structure works where females and cubs group together and the males are (mostly) solitary, traveling from group to group. From here on out is massive speculation. I imagine that when an egg becomes fertilized, the mermaid lays an egg case similar to sharks, so they won’t necessarily present as pregnant in the mammalian sense, but it’s also never addressed how merbabies show up; if they gestate in a case, somebody just shows up with a new hatchling?? We don’t see male hatchlings because merpeople gender is determined by temperature and they choose where to place the eggs, controlling the sex ratio of the future population. Additionally, since the ocean is warming females are more likely, so mermaids don’t really care about the environment, which is an extension of your insight that the mako mermaids don’t care about Mako the island at all.
Anyway, thanks for your vid and also I’m sorry.
Nicely done looking forward to future works
Thank you so much! Can’t believe somebody actually watched you are an absolute star lol
I think, in the original H2O, mermaids went extinct.
The wars probably still happened, one side one and killed the other, but they couldn't find a way to reproduce without the other side and as a result, all extinct. But these moon pools, they are still around. So while the they couldn't be born any more, people have been turning into merfolk.
And in the reality of the sequel, they did find a way to reproduce without the other side.
Also, I think the most Not Rikki thing Rikki did in this show was they didn't let her try to beat the dragon herself. Rikki would have not hesitated to fight that dragon to save the island. If they wanted a random thing to save they day, at least let it be Rikki's awesome powers, not some bracelet.
Listen, you are not the only person wondering about the merfolk reproduction. i've seen it get explained in several mako mermaids fics at this point (yes I've read several mako mermaid fics why do you ask)
I heard there was a rumor about a Mako Mermaids movie based on china with Weilan! Also you should try tweeting JMS, he might answer there!
i would definitely watch that tbh !! & hmm perhaps I will….
I was trying to tell someone the other day about this show and to my horror described season 1 as "Shakespearian in the sense that if the character's just communicated properly, none of this nonsense would be happening."
Also mermaid sexuality ?? Cuz they seem to reproduce asexually but all the mermaids are shown as only being attracted to males??? Like, something about that doesn't compute cuz like, they don't live among mermen so don't have romantic attraction among those in their pods (presumably) but the second they get on land they're into boys?
I've never heard of this show before, and this was a wild ride from start to finish. I'd love your opinion on Disney's "The thirteenth Year" and it's mermaid lore too.
just found this channel, really enjoying the vids. however, the audio mixing in this keeps scaring the shit out of me and my cats
Hahahaha I am so sorry to you and your cats, you are very correct and luckily this is probably the worst of it (besides maybe the goncharov video) 😭 I’m working on it!
1:13:50 "In that case of Women, in this case of Mermaids" would make a great alternative title for this whole video
This show was me and my bestie’s jam as kids! We would swim in her pool and pretend to be mermaids in the show. I am totally interested in revisiting it and seeing your points in this video.
1:28:31 How can a person steal artifacts from however deep deep it was in the ocean? At that point it's basically lost until someone finds it and at that point, considering how deep Rikki mentioned she dove in...
I'm really enjoying this episode but the audio for your voice is WAAAAAY too quiet and quieter than it has been in other videos.
56:25 I'm sorry, but what article? 😅 and what massive description? It's literally only tags
I love that the mermaid council got boss music. Haha.
Yeah the reproducing thing is also a mystery for me ad everytime a go to bed I can't sleep, because I think about it.
IT HAUNTS ME TO THIS DAY
I have not watched much of this yet (I'm absolutely buckled in to watch this all though) but my autism compels me to ask: if they were so bad freaked out by this boy why didn't they just unalive him
I found you and I'm never leaving
let me get the pull out couch set up how many pillows would you like
the alternate timeline theory does make a lot of sense, except for that episode where Ricky has a cameo
lol, you got me!
I like to think as far as mermaid reproduction goes, I think it's best to just make up the sea turtles and the seahorses for yourself. anyways here's my theory: mermaids are like clownfish where they can change their sex for reproduction (like prolapse the fussy into fenis (fish penis)) and they FERTILIZE (idk i guess the fertilizer is stored from whatever hole squirting comes from) another mermaids eggs through the fussy (fish pussy) and then because giving birth out of a tale isn't really viable and also they are referred to as hatchlings they lay the eggs probably somewhere safe like the bottom of the moon pool or some cave and then when the eggs mature they are like a placenta that when the mermaid is ready to hatch it just burst open and blammo baby with a tail. As for the mermen id just say omegaverse impreg would be the best bet because they do go on land and could give birth out of their omegaverse hole and then take the merbabies back to the sea with them. but now that i think of it they didn't go on land before the merwar so I'm assuming they did the same thing as mermaids but instead their fenis would invert into a fussy do the sex and then nut out the eggs. and the rest is the same as mermaids. While on this thought its very clear the mermen and merwoman never liked each other so I don't think they'd reproduce with each other and there is something to be said about me classifying this in a kind of heteronormative like maybe the mermaids just rub fussy and mermen rub fenis together until eggs fly out but either way mer-reproduction is most certainly homosexual and if not asexual and all mer people are intersex and they're gender is soley based on their pods culture and other attributes like having fiddies (fish tiddies) or not or who looks attractive and who looks like human men. like maybe over the years their genes have separated to either hyper femineity or hyper masculinity. But this is all binary of course and while there is no example of non-binary mermaids in either h20 series I would say on pure speculation they are certainly intersex without having to physically change their bodies and probably exhibit more androgynous characteristics with maybe fem or masc leaning depending on the merenby. Anyways thanks for listening my ted-talk.
Thank you for sharing that. It's definitely a satisfactory answer in that it has satisfied my impulse to write the creators of a show I have never personally watched to ask about mermaid reproduction.
Also, I keep coming back to the word "fiddies" and laughing hysterically.
I think i they use sironing tolure dudes that think it was a dream to do the deed?