One year after American Independence, a mermaid is born in a palace of light. A peculiar child, she chomps everything around her—from tiny fish to statues of her father, the King Rowan. But there’s something even more worrisome about Lara. While she grows up to be a beautiful and kind girl, she is obsessed with the surface, and specifically with humans, who are deemed evil and forbidden by her father. Her sisters wonder about her preoccupation with humans, but Lara cannot help herself and rescues a prince who has fallen into the ocean, interacting with him. When her father finds out, it leads to a series of events—instigated by the evil Sea Witch, Grace—which will allow Lara to dwell on land but lead to catastrophe.

Based upon The Little Mermaid—borrowing mostly from Disney’s classic cartoon and a bit from the original Hans Christian Anderson Tale (plus perhaps a few more iterations) while also putting its own spin on the tale (most profoundly as the episodes ends and leads into the series proper), the first episode of Goodbye, Lara is a captivating take on the fairy tail. Lara (sounds a little like “Ariel,” doesn’t it?) is every bit as precocious and lovable as Disney’s heroine, while the Sea Witch in this adaptation, Grace, feels like a mixture of Ursula and devil himself (much of the episode feels like allegory of the Garden of Eden). I also enjoyed the character designs, which are call backs to those of earlier shoujo series, with shorter faces, sharper noses, and watercolor coloring. The animation itself is gorgeous, and the music works well too (though I’m waiting, still, for Hana Hope’s opening song—which I imagine will play in episode two). The only thing I’m not sure about is where the show is headed from here as it moves into modern day—which means, of course, that I don’t know what to think about the entire series, since this episode is just the set up for the rest of the anime. But based on how lovingly the first episode was told, I have a feeling that the rest of the series will likewise be a treasure.

Goodbye, Lara can be streamed on Crunchyroll.