Meroune's Mother

Meroune's Mother (メロウヌの母親, Merōnu no Hahaoya) is the currently unnamed mother of Meroune Lorelei. She is also the current Queen of the Mermaid Kingdom.

Appearance
As the current mermaid queen, Meroune's mother has an incredibly regal appearance, consisting of an elaborate headpiece and necklace, a frilly skirt and trail, and long hair styled in several thick, tightly wound curls. Despite being royalty, the outfit is very revealing, and shows off her cleavage and midriff as much as a bikini. She is also seen wielding a long trident.

Personality
Of all the main characters' parents that have been encountered so far in the series, Meroune's Mother is by far the most twisted and morally reprehensible encountered in the story so far. At first glance, Queen Lorelei seems like a stern and reserved ruler who bases her decisions on what is best for the Mermaid Kingdom without letting her personal sentiments cloud her judgment. She is later revealed to be a self-absorbed and dangerously immature tyrant who prioritizes her own passions at the expense of her family and her people.

As with many mermaids, she has a fascination with tales of "tragic romance" involving another species, especially The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen. This proves to be dangerous given her political position, glaringly illustrated when she secretly engineers a diplomatic crisis with the human world to set the stage for the "perfect tragedy" and nearly murders Kimihito to punish her daughter for desiring eternal happiness with him.

After Mero nearly died saving Kimihito's life she abandoned most of her desires for tragedy, as almost losing her daughter showed her that tragedy was not all it is supposed to be, and publicly dispels rumors surrounding Octo and a human elopement problem. However, she notably refrains from admitting her responsibility in engineering such rumors and ultimately evades punishment for her misdeeds.

Personal Skills

 * Diplomacy: As the ruling monarch of the mermaid species, Meroune's mother is presumably skilled in diplomacy. Her reign coincides with mermaids starting to take part in human society under the Cultural Exchange Between Species Bill, implying that she has some experience dealing with human governments.
 * Manipulation: The mermaid queen is quite skilled at manipulating events so that they play out to her desires. The entire situation involving Octo, the mermaid elopement problem, and decline in human-mermaid relations were all the result of her machinations to create "the Ultimate Tragedy". Her abilities to manipulate events are not perfect as she was unable to stop things from spiralling out of control when her plans were uncovered, but she was still able to avoid any punishment by misdirecting and misinforming the entire Mermaid Kingdom.
 * Unfamiliarity with new technology: As shown in Chapter 37, Meroune's mother is quite unfamiliar with new technology such as operating a tablet. This ultimately led to her losing the control of the situation because the individual symbols and their functions were too complicated for the queen.

Physical Traits

 * Mermaid Physiology:
 * Amphibious: As a Mermaid, Meroune's mother possesses gills on the side of her torso, which allows her to breathe water. She also has a humanoid respiratory system that enables vocalisation and breathing through the mouth. However, if she breathes chlorinated water it can be dangerous for her health. As long as her gills remain moist (which is easy because of her slimy skin) she can breathe on land.
 * Cold Resistance: Because Mermaids' natural homes at the bottom of the ocean are very cold, Meroune's mother is naturally resistant against cold water and air. However, the Mermaid queen is not totally immune to cold weather as temperatures below freezing will cause her discomfort.
 * Swim Bladder: Located inside her chest is a sac of air that allows the Mermaid queen to control her buoyancy in water, allowing her to sink or rise. However, should she expell all the air in that bladder, she will sink fast underwater.
 * Slimy Skin: Her body naturally secretes a slimy substance to keep her skin moist, which can cause wardrobe malfunctions. Because of this, the Mermaid queen has to wear special clothing that doesn't easily slide off. If not properly clothed in cold weather, the coating will cause her to freeze quite quickly.
 * Swimming: Since she is part fish swimming is as natural as breathing for Mero's mother. In fact, since she has gills, swimming does indeed play a role in her natural breathing and not requiring to resurface at all.

Plot
Meroune's mother's first interaction with the members of the Kurusu House was when she had Sebasstian and Flounnder hire TALIO to accompany Mero back to the Mermaid Kingdom from her onsen trip with the rest of the girls and Kimihito. Upon talking to Mero she informed the young mermaid that she could not return to human society with her friends, as "human-mermaid relations were not well."

When her daughter returned to her to clear Octo's name, the queen revealed that she was the one spreading the rumors about Octo. Her motiviations were that she wanted to ruin the relationship between humans and mermaids so that her human lover would have to leave and she would be unable to follow him because of her duties as queen, creating what she considered "The Ultimate Tragedy". Upon hearing this Mero was upset over both that her mother was cheating on her husband/Mero's father and referred to marrying her father as a "mistake" that her liasion was correcting, claiming it was not cheating. Her cheating is part of the reason the king eloped with a human himself, but had nothing to do with motivating the queen to start the rumors of elopement going out of control, as she had no real issue with him leaving.

Mero's mother then accuses Mero of not loving tragedy anymore and that she would make her remember it by causing Kimihito's death. The mermaid queen used a tablet device to start flooding the room they were in so that Kimihito would drown. Mero asked her mother to spare Kimihito's life as she wanted to have a "happily ever after story" with him. The queen agreed to save his life, but only if Mero would return home, to which Mero agreed even if it meant leaving Kimihito. However, when Mero's mother tried to drain the room she found the tablet device had been damaged, causing the ceiling to collapse, strong underwater currents, Fin Eater piranhas to appear, and for spikes to protrude from the bottom of the room.

Later after Mero nearly died saving Kimihito's life Mero's mother had a change of heart and decided to let Mero return to human society with her friends. She also broadcasted a message to the Mermaid Kingdom saying that there was no elopement problem and that human relations were fine, thus exonerating Octo of all crimes. She also introduced the kingdom to her human lover, but left out that all the rumors were her doing, as there would have been a revolt if anyone knew the truth.

Zoological Classification


The Mermaid (人魚族, Ningyo-zoku) is a humanoid liminal race with the upper body of a human and the lower body of a fish.

Living beneath the sea, mermaids are protected from the interference of the other land-based races and as such have been free to establish their own civilization beneath the oceans of the world.

Trivia

 * She is the only one of the homestays mother's to appear and not end up in a sexually compromising position with Kimihito.
 * She is also the first of the homestays mothers to appear in more than one chapter of the storyline.
 * When above water she uses a special "royal wheelchair", which is self propelled, using tracks rather than wheels (possibly all-terrain), and has a body built to resemble a throne.