ChaO is an adorable and beautiful rom-com from Studio 4°C and acclaimed veteran animator Yasuhiro Aoki that is distributed by GKids. It’s an unexpected and delightful remake of The Little Mermaid that you never thought you wanted to see but will be glad you did afterward.
Future Shanghai is a bustling city inhabited by humans and merpeople with water ways intertwined throughout the city of skyscrapers for merpeople to commute quickly from one place to another. A young reporter is running late to an interview when he spies an old sailor in the port who matches the man in his pamphlet about how humans and merpeople became at peace with one another. The story in the pamphlet tells of a young boy who fought a large sea creature. Having failed, he sinks underwater for several days before re-emerging with his love, the mermaid princess, and thus lived happily ever after, brokering peace between humans and merfolk. Sensing there’s probably more to the story, the reporter jumps aboard the old sailor’s boat and asks for the real story. After much pestering, the old sailor gives in and tells the reporter his tale.
The old sailor, named Stephan, recalls several years ago, he was young ambitious engineer who worked at a ship manufacturing company. It was his dream to make an air jet ship engine that didn’t use metal screw propellers which can injure both people and merpeople. It would be like the Dyson fan except for under the water and attached to a boat. At the time, the relationship between humans and merpeople were very tense with the sticking point being metal screw propellers on commercial ships killing merpeople. King Neptunus, the ruler of the ocean and the merpeople, wanted the humans to stop killing merpeople with their ships or else he would cut all ties with the humans. Unfortunately, Stephan’s boss doesn’t really care about Stephan’s revolutionary but costly air jet idea, so he rejects Stephan and tells him to go scrub his yacht’s decks. As Stephan is washing the decks, a huge almost round goldfish leaps out of the water and swallows him whole!
Stephan regains his consciousness later back on land, surrounded by his friends and his boss at the hospital. They tell him the mermaid princess, nicknamed ChaO by Stephan later, has declared her love for him and wants him to marry her?! ChaO is the large but adorable round human-sized goldfish that swallowed Stephan whole! Stephan’s boss tells him that the very future of the relationship between humans and merpeople hinges on Stephan’s marriage to ChaO, and if Stephan agrees, the company will help him develop his air jet ship engine! Reluctantly, Stephan agrees to marry ChaO even though he doesn’t know a thing about her and thinks she’s a disgusting fish, but he feels as if he has no say in the situation.
Having agreed to marry ChaO, the couple is given tons of lavish and extravagant gifts from dignitaries. Given the choice of living in a beautiful large condominium, Stephan chooses for them to live in his small dilapidated apartment instead. What follows is a series of cute slice-of-life fish-out-of-water endearing moments as the two of them learn to live together. ChaO does her very best to be a loving and devoted wife to Stephan while Stephan’s friends, Robelt, a scientist and engineer, and Mybae become pseudo parents to ChaO in the ways of the human world. ChaO even burns her fins learning how to cook for Stephan instead of serving him live electric eels. Through ChaO’s kindness, Stephan begins to tolerate ChaO a bit more even though he still feels she’s a burden on his life.
After a while, King Daddy Neptunus visits the newlywed couple and sees that ChaO is still in her goldfish form. He tells Stephan that it doesn’t look as if they have truly bonded with one another. Merpeople can only take on humanoid form when in the water or if they truly are comfortable in their surroundings. Stephan has seen glimpses of ChaO in her humanoid form which is a beautiful slender teal haired woman while she showers in the bathroom. Stephan does leer at ChaO while she showers, which is just one of a few male-oriented sexual innuendos and jokes that dot the movie, making the film not quite appropriate for kids. At best, it could be rated PG-13.
The couple tries to go out on dates to get to know one another better. It’s on one of those dates that Stephan and ChaO really bond with one another, sort of like the “Kiss the Girl” sequence with Ariel and Eric in Disney’s The Little Mermaid, and ChaO reveals her full humanoid form for Stephan! However, just like the “Kiss the Girl” sequence, it’s not all happily-ever-after. At the debut of Stephan’s new air jet ship engine, ChaO tries to gift Stephan a mecha robot for some unknown reason, and chaos ensues. Enraged that the whole presentation and air jet now seems dead-in-the-water, Stephan tells ChaO how he’s felt pressured into marrying her and that he really has no feelings for a disgusting fish! Stephan’s every word cuts into ChaO like a knife as she slowly morphs from her humanoid form back into the large goldfish. In tears, ChaO leaps back into the ocean. Is this the end for Stephan and ChaO?
I really loved watching ChaO! Even though it’s loosely based on The Little Mermaid, the story is fresh, unexpected, and charming! ChaO is so adorable in her goldfish form, and seeing her as a literal fish-out-of-water in that form is incredibly heartwarming and funny! The characters’ can stretch and morph their expressions to extremes which matches the craziness of the story itself. The moment when ChaO reveals her humanoid form to Stephan is a gorgeously hand-drawn dance with water droplets that flow with ChaO that rivals Disney’s Beauty and the Beast‘s ballroom sequence. You really are not sure of the ending too considering where the reporter has found Stephan in the present. There are tiny hints throughout that are meant to build up to something near the end. You can’t help but tear up a little in several places while also giggling at the outrageous moments! I definitely recommend you watch ChaO when it comes out either through streaming or physical media!
