Neptina/Syrena...

I don't know if anyone'll actually read this, given that there's so far only three posts here for this show (something which surprises me), but, anyway...

I'd just like to clarify something written about "Marine Boy" here on IMDb in the "trivia" section. Now, anyone who remembers this show will know that Neptina, the hero's mermaid girlfriend, was always depicted as topless (although, as it states, her hair did always cover her breasts). However, the trivia section also states that "no other children's animated show has ever dared to do this". This isn't strictly true.

Is anyone here familiar with a 1992 French cartoon series called "Omer et le fils de l'étoile"? The title translates roughly to "Omer and the Starchild", and that's the name it was (at least briefly) shown under on Cartoon Network early in the morning back in the 1990s. It features a mermaid character named Syrena, who was also topless, but whose hair conveniently hung down in front of her chest to preserve her modesty. (There are some clips on YouTube, if you want to see what I mean.) She was the love interest of the main hero, a young blonde man named Dan, and was rescued by him from the villains in the final episode. Like Neptina in "Marine Boy", her hair always covered her breasts no matter how she was moving or what position she was sitting in, and, whilst I certainly didn't have a problem like some others might have with a cartoon showing a topless mermaid, I can remember being quite surprised at the time that an animated show on Cartoon Network would risk such a thing. (Then again, "Omer" *is* a French series, and I've heard that many Europeans tend to be more relaxed about moderate nudity than most North American audiences generally are.)

Is anyone else here familiar with "Omer"? I'm not sure it ever got significant circulation in the English-speaking world. In fact, although the one episode I saw of it was definitely in English, and although I've looked on the internet recently, it seems like all records of the English-language version of the show have just up and vanished. Strange...

Also, it's interesting to note that a topless mermaid also appeared in an episode of the original "Cutey Honey" series in the '70s. You can find it on YouTube, here:-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RG3r5Q3gPfU&feature=related

Then again, I suppose that whether or not "Cutey Honey" is a children's show is up for debate.