In the Name of the Disabled Princess: Disability Metaphor in “In The Name of the Mermaid Princess”

• Author: AJ Mack

• Editor: Nicole Mejias

Metaphor can be tricky when it comes to discussion of representation. Often it can come across as heavy handed or dismissive, especially for disability metaphors. Writers (mostly able-bodied ones) will crash headfirst into ableist pitfalls and completely fail to pull themselves out again. For example, many read Deku in My Hero Academia being Quirkless as disabled based on the social model of disability: where a person is only disabled by the social attitudes and structures put in place around them. Yet, the effectiveness of this interpretation becomes muddled when he is given a power and uses that power to function in his society as well as anyone else. His disability informs his actions, but ultimately the story is more that of finding a cure rather than changing social views. It is this notion of curing a disability that brings about issues, as it implies that being disabled is the worst thing to be and must be overcome. A better narrative is one that presents disability as a beautiful and powerful thing in and of itself, that shows that it is society that causes these problems and not the disabled person in question. This is exactly what makes Ribbon’s 2020-2023 In the Name of the Mermaid Princess, (written by Yoshino Fumikawa and drawn by Miya Tashiro) such a breath of fresh sea air. Unlike Deku, Princess Mio does not seek a cure, but rather acceptance. Whether intending to or not, Mio’s story resonates with disabled people. From its approach towards what it means to take medication, to the parallels Mio’s story has with real-life, flesh-and-blood people.

In the Name of the Mermaid Princess is set in a world where some people are born with mythical abilities and appearances. These are known as “Unhumans,” and any person can give birth to an Unhuman, regardless of their own status. Unhumans come in different shapes and forms: some are fairies, some are kitsune and others just have cool rocks growing out of their body. This notion of anyone being able to give birth to an unhuman combined with the plethora of forms it can take, some which have a greater impact on their ability to function within the status quo, is an immediate parallel to disability. A fairy and a kitsune are both Unhumans but have different experiences of the world, much like a person with Epilepsy and a person with Cerebral Palsey are both disabled but have vastly different access needs. The protagonist of the series is Mio, the princess of Blognig. Mio’s whole worth to her father, the king, is that she can be married off to Prince Chika of Aquatia to form a stronger alliance between their kingdoms. But there is one issue: Mio is an Unhuman, a mermaid in fact, and Blognig is a human-only country where Unhumans are meant to be banished at birth.  

It is not the first series to use mermaids as a parallel to disabled people, disabled people have often found solidarity in the idea of a person who is powerful and elegant in one environment, yet feel as though they are “treading on pointed swords and sharp knives” anytime they try to walk. Mermaid Princess takes the seriousness and depth of Dvořák’s Rusalka, but gives it the safe PG romantic tone of Disney’s Little Mermaid. It makes for an ideal series for young disabled girls to imagine themselves as the heroine of the story. 

One of the most obvious parallels to real-life disabilities is the tablets that Unhumans take to allow them to literally walk amongst humans. When these tablets are first introduced, it’s presented as a medication to cure her of her afflictions - namely having a tail instead of legs like a normal person should, and having fins-like ears instead of normal regular human ears. Her father has been forcing medical experimentation on her since birth. This treatment is shown to take a huge toll on her body, and doesn’t last a full day, a thing that Mio’s Father sees as a flaw on her behalf. She is also denied access to salt water, and only given fresh water, because salt water only strengthens her abilities rather than suppresses them.  

This raises some interesting real-life parallels. Taking medication often comes with a lot of emotional baggage, not just from the innate emotional toll of having to take multiple pills a day (my personal count is currently between 20-28 tablets a day), but also the social pressures that come with it. There's often simultaneously pressure to take medication to assimilate into the status quo, and pressure to not take medication because treating your debilitating illness means you're not embracing who you are.

 In Mermaid Princess, the medication that Mio takes is at first forced upon her. It's given in a high dose that results in physical exhaustion but makes her appear “human” for much longer. When she escapes to Millicuffs, her new friend Dr. Dansman gives her the exact same medication however this time rather than to suppress her abilities – it's to allow her to go out and use them! Her tail would mean she couldn't be able to work or interact with people on land. But with legs, she can use her other powers to heal people! It's similar to real life, in particular for Neurodivergent people. Sometimes medication is forced on people in order to make them appear “normal.” But for many, medication allows them to work and function, and utilise their innate abilities. It's all about informed choices. Medication that helps a person is a good thing, we just need to not define “help” as “fit in with our idea of how a person should behave” but rather “achieve their full potential.”  

The series began life as a two-chapter short set in a circus entitled “Enos Flight” about an Unhuman named Eno with angel wings who lives in a circus, where she is being exploited for her beautiful wings. Yet, because the circus ring master is seemingly kind to her and treats her as an important asset, whereas before she was considered a hideous burden, she believes herself to be free, even as they literally pluck away her wings to make a profit. Eventually, when another angel Unhuman is captured, he makes her realise that she is being held prisoner and makes her escape. In the main series, we see hints of this story going on throughout. Mio is initially told about circuses as if they were sanctuaries where Unhumans could make a living, but later discovers that people are kidnapping Unhumans to sell them to circuses for a profit, or put into auctions as exotic pets for the wealthy. This is reflective of how disabled people were put on display in “freakshows”, and the complex history thereof. 

Some, like siblings Maximo and Bartola (exhibited in the 1850s as “The Aztec Children”) from El Savador with microcephaly, were tricked into being displayed after their parents were promised a better life and education for them. Others like Joseph Merrick (whose life “The Elephant Man” was based on and had what we now believe to be Proteus Syndrome) felt as if they didn’t have a choice but to allow themselves to be put on display because it was better than entering the workhouse. Naturally there is a lot of interconnection between the treatment of people of colour, and disabled people within the circus. For example, Saartje “Sarah”  Baartman (c. 1789-1815), a Khoisan woman from South Africa, was enslaved and put on display alongside wild animals, simply because her body was built differently to the average European. Whilst some, like Little Person Charles Stratton were able to find financial success in the circus, it doesn’t change the fact that it was all built on exploitation and discrimination. 

While discrimination against Unhumans in Mermaid Princess is prevalent throughout all kingdoms, it is Blognig that has it the worst. Here, the rigorous segregation laws are reminiscent of the“Ugly Laws” in the USA. These forbade any “person who is diseased, maimed, mutilated, or in any way deformed so as to be an unsightly or disgusting object” to be seen in public spaces. These were first introduced in 1891 and weren’t fully rescinded until 1974. In the case of Mio’s mother, she was also banished for giving birth to an Unhuman as it was seen as a great betrayal to the crown. In chapter two, we witness parents desperately praying to the gods that they will not give birth to an Unhuman child, and another mother being refused service because she dares to carry a memento of her Unhuman children that were forcibly taken from her. The institutionalisation of disabled children is still a thing of living memory. Disabled and chronically ill children were often taken from their homes and put in long term stay hospitals, where parents were often banned from visiting them. There are also first hand accounts of disabled children being tortured by those meant to care for them. In “Pride against Prejudice” by Jenny Morris, one British woman recounts witnessing a fellow disabled child who the nurses took a dislike to, being held under the water for so long she drowned. 

Mio’s life in the palace is also very similar to how disabled children of royal lineage have been treated in recent history. The working class and ethnic minority disabled children were, and still are, the most likely to be put into institutions. Yet that does not mean we don’t have a strong historic record of disabled royalty being put through such turmoil. Born in 1885, Princess Alice of Battenberg was the great-granddaughter to Queen Victoria. After she’d shown difficulties in speech development as a baby, Alice was diagnosed with congenital deafness. In order to assimilate into a society made for the hearing people, she was encouraged by her mother to learn how to lip read. At the time, it was recommended that Sign Language be banned from schools and all focus go on lip reading instead, but Alice was able to learn how to fingerspell.  In 1930 Princess Alice was diagnosed with “Paranoid Schizophrenia” and put into a sanatorium against her will. Sigmund Freud believed that her condition was caused by sexual frustration and prescribed repeatedly X-Raying her Ovaries to remove her libido. Alice always insisted that she was sane, and in 1932 she was finally able to leave. She did not see her children the whole time she was inside, and was forbidden to even attend their weddings. 

Alice’s story has a lot in common with Mio’s. Both experienced severe isolation from their families and their kingdoms. Alice was made to assimilate by learning to lip read, and Mio was forced to assimilate by learning to walk when swimming came easier. Alice had medical treatment forced upon her against her will, as did Mio. While I doubt that these exact parallels were in Fumikawa’s mind when she wrote the story, it just goes to show how much of Mio’s story resonates with the lived experience of disabled people. And much like Mio is a heroine who helps save lives through her kindness and understanding, so is Alice – who in the 1940s personally hid the Jewish widow Rachel Cohen and her five children, saving them from the Gestapo. 

Mermaid Princess is one of those series where the old “Don’t Judge A Book By Its Cover” adage rings true. Whilst the Mucha-esc covers do accurately reflect the fairytale elements of the series, and Mio sure is a pretty little princess, the cover doesn’t show any hint of the deep disability metaphor that runs throughout. The story on the whole can be a little melodramatic. No matter how you interpret it, it's still a fairy tale about a princess who is secretly a mermaid on the run with a prince in disguise, and a wolf boy. Everything is given to you on a plate with the kind of sappy obvious monologues about love, friendship and self belief you’d expect from a Disney movie. Yet, I do not think this is any particular detriment to the series. Shojo covers a large age range and multiple genres. Sometimes Shojo can be cute girls looking after even cuter animals, other times they can be complex crime stories about the impact of war and violence on working class queer teenagers. Yuzu The Pet Vet and Banana Fish can exist side by side without one being seen as “lesser” than the other. 

The series is sadly (as of volume three) lacking in explicit disability representation. Yet, I believe the metaphor and parallels are strong enough to be seen as appropriate representation. There is also a sense of wish fulfilment. After all, many little girls dream of getting to be mermaid princesses! And whereas The Little Mermaid suffers in the metaphor because she must give up elements of herself in order to marry the prince, in Fumikawa and Tashiro’s adaption, the Prince is the one to show how she is perfect as she is without needing to change her body in any way. Instead of her climbing on land to save him, he dives into the sea to save her. It might not be perfect, there’s plenty to be said about the “Able Bodied Man Helps Disabled Woman See She Is Beautiful” narratives – but I do think that we need to meet the series where it is. And where it is, is a sweet fairytale romance that disabled children deserve to see themselves in.