What’s it about? Long, long ago, a mermaid princess named Lara fell deeply in love with a human prince. In order to be with him, she used a magic potion, but all magic has a cost, and for her, failing to find true love would mean she turned into seafoam. Now, two hundred years in the future, Lara awakens in Japan with one last chance to find love and save herself from a dismal fate…
The year is 1777 beneath the sea. A royal family of mermaids gather around a clamshell. Inside is the sixth princess, Lara, a red mermaid with a penchant for biting pretty much everything. Years later, Lara is a precocious princess of light who still loves to nibble and has developed a taste for adventure in her underwater realm. In the arms of her sister, she ventures forth, only for her wicked aunt—a banished mermaid—to return, even if it risks her execution.
We follow her life across the years as Lara grows and becomes properly welcomed as a Princess. With it comes her ability to swim as far as she’d like, with one prohibition: she cannot become defiled by humanity. Yet humanity is the thing that’s most curious to Lara, driving her to secret away human trinkets and earthen items. So when she encounters her Aunt, the witch Grace, she takes a chance at trading fins for feet, only to have it change her life forever.
When given the chance, I will watch a dub over a sub because they’re just really great these days, and have been for a long time. Goodbye, Lara carries on that legacy with a dub that reminded me a lot of the quality of a Ghibli production. That, combined with the gorgeous animation, captured me from the first moment Lara was born. I was sat and focused, and that’s not just because I started my first round of ADHD meds today.
No, it’s because Lara is so compelling as a character, even though her journey is just beginning. While being a Princess weighs on her so heavily, it never destroys her natural curiosity, even to the point that she questions her father and fiercely pushes back against cultural ignorance and the bonds of her being imprisoned. It’s inspiring because you want to root for Lara, even if you know the wicked fate of the fairy tale she’s based on. When that fate comes, it hurts: I genuinely teared up. Yet Lara never gives up even as her inner light leaves her and she fades to bubbling seafoam.
When paralleled against Lara’s rebirth, the story grows even more complex, especially since Grace remains both villain and motivation for Lara to get her family, and presumably everyone in her kingdom, back. We don’t yet know how her life in Japan is going to affect that, but what I can say for sure is that I firmly believe Kinema Citrus can deliver a really excellent story that will absolutely have me crying all manner of tears over its run.
Also, like: damn, Goodbye, Lara is gorgeous. It’s like looking at cells on a lightbox, just so genuinely beautiful in its art style, that I couldn’t decide which of the many, many screenshots I took to actually select. “Eye-catching” feels like it doesn’t cut it, because this is premiere was just so lush and colorful. So colorful, and in a time where a lot of fantasy anime—no matter the time period—seem to be washed in muddy browns and desaturated greys. Finally, a feast for the eyes: an anime that loves its rich red and bold blue and creates an underwater world that is washed in vivid hues and pastel tones that make Lara’s world feel alive. It’s a delicacy, a feast for all the senses, and once again, totally engaging.
I worry that people will automatically compare this to The Little Mermaid and see it as a riff on that movie. Yes, it’s drawn from the same fairy tale, but Goodbye, Lara is absolutely doing its own thing. And that’s not to dismiss Disney’s story, both in its animated and live-action forms: it’s just that I feel like reflexively, it’s easy to look at this premiere on the surface and see similarities. However, I found Goodbye, Lara to be rich and sure of itself and its storytelling. Lara feels human in her curiosity, intimately relatable in her desires to understand the world above her, affected by her culture, and at her core, a young girl who simply yearns. And haven’t we all yearned for something, especially if it’s forbidden to us?
I think that, more than anything, really makes this all come together from start to finish: we understand who Lara is so quickly and how that’s going to affect her when she lands in 2026. The core of who she is never wavers: instead, it becomes the light that illuminates the path to her picking up the pieces of her shattered heart and avoiding the fate of being turned to foam once again.
Lara’s story is so deeply complex: she’s raised with anti-human sentiments, and unlike Disney’s version, she falls in love and stays there even when the Princess betrays her love when she starts to revert to being a mermaid—a fate which Ariel never has to worry about. Because Lara is so unflagging, it sets up her modern day story quite well, offering a second chance in a fairy tale that punished the mermaid princess at its core. Here, Lara has to deal with trauma and grief, but also… she gets to carry on her true passion for humanity by seeking love yet again.
If this wasn’t on your radar, it needs to be—quick, fast, and in a hurry. Goodbye, Lara is fantastic, capturing the heart of what makes anime so deeply moving in a single premiere. I already know this is going to be one of Summer’s best, but I see in it the potential to be one of the best series of 2026. So please, take a dive beneath the waves and witness Lara’s story with what will probably be the entire AniFem team.
