マグメル深海水族館 1

Fun manga for learning about sea life

I enjoyed the educational aspect from this series. Each chapter is dedicated to a certain marine animal, and throughout the chapter you learn a few facts about it, and then at the end of the chapter there’s a short description about the animal, usually expanding on the information mentioned in the chapter. E.g. Venus Flower Basket is カイロウドウケツ. The カイロウ is 偕老 “growing old together” and ドウケツ is 洞穴 “being buried in the same grave” so 偕老同穴 basically symbolizes a happy marriage. The Venus Flower Basket got this name because shrimp couples sometimes crawl into them while young and then grow too big to escape, so they spend the rest of their lives together in the Basket. When the shrimp procreate, their offspring are small enough to leave the Basket, but the original pair will be stuck together forever. For this reason, Venus Flower Baskets are a symbol of love in some Asian cultures, and are given as wedding gifts. Even though I love reading and learning about stuff like this, the mc is too boring for me to continue. His only character trait is “I like fish :D”