It's a beautiful day to go diving through the ocean. Come with me, embrace the salt air and the sea breeze before we plunge beneath the waves! Yes! Taste it... the thrill of adventure! The romance of the waves! The thrill of scraping an abalone free from the rocks with only a small knife and your bare hands! Experience the majesty and wonder of the pelagic world! Meet a specter in your ghostly image and experience the Memory of your own imminent death! Truly, this is the peak of summer.
This month, Sara and Runa discuss PARANORMASIGHT: The Mermaid's Curse (2026), released earlier this year in February as the follow-up to previous Say it in Red Subject, PARANORMASIGHT: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo. Like its predecessor, The Mermaid's Curse uses a 360 degree camera to great effect and nicely utilizes the three-dimensional space around the player as you explore its world. We begin this horror mystery visual novel with a diving mini-game, and a dangerously enjoyable one at that, as we meet our protagonist - Yuza Minakuchi. Yuza has returned to the fictional island of Kameshima, off the coast of Ise, after a long absence away on the mainland. Five years ago, his parents died and he nearly drowned in a terrible accident out at sea. He was saved, or at least so he claims, by a Mermaid, and now he's enlisted the help of his best friend Azami to find a Mermaid no matter what. Meanwhile, a pair of investigators working with the Tokyo Metropolitan Police in the Paranormal Affairs division arrives in the region to quell an ancient curse, right after they solve the mystery behind a string of mysterious skeletons that have washed up from the sea floor. At the same time, a fantasy author from abroad has enlisted the help of his distant relative, a young psychic, to search for clues about mermaids and the secrets of immortality on Kameshima. Their paths all tangle together around one strange girl, Sato, who arrived on Kameshima some months ago and seems to have an odd connection to Mermaids, the Curse of Raging Waves, and perhaps even the Tale of the Heike.
A warning for listeners: While you don't need to listen to our previous Paranormasight episode to follow along here, we will drop a few spoilers for the first game throughout our discussion. Please be advised and plan accordingly.
As always, if you enjoy our podcast please give us a rating and write a review wherever you listen, and if you'd like to hear even more Say it in Red, you can find our rich backlog of bonus episodes on patreon at patreon.com/sayitinred! Check it out now to hear our recent episode in which Sara tells Runa all about the lads of LADS (Love and Deepspace), or go back a bit further to hear Runa tell Sara about storytelling in trading card games like Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh, and Magic the Gathering!
