Goodbye to the Fairy Tale: Life Lessons from Goodbye, Lara
At first glance, Goodbye, Lara might seem like a simple retelling of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid. It features a mermaid princess, a forbidden love, and a tragic deal with a sea witch. However, this anime, created to celebrate Kinema Citrus’ 15th anniversary, quickly reveals itself to be a much more profound and subversive story. By hurtling its protagonist two centuries into the future, the show forces both Lara and the audience to confront deep questions about the nature of love.
The Inconvenient Truth About Your Own Love Story
Lara begins her quest believing in the singular, romantic fairy-tale solution. Her goal is to find a prince and secure his love to save her underwater kingdom. The show doesn’t waste time shattering this illusion. In a brutally poetic moment, her mermaid form is exposed to the prince, and he recoils in fear, ending her naive pursuit before it can truly begin.
This devastating failure is a crucial lesson. Love isn’t a transaction. It isn’t an obligation or a prize for sacrifice. Lara learned that she can’t make someone love her by giving up her voice or her entire life. The prince’s rejection was a rejection of the fantasy, not of Lara herself. The show argues that clinging to a single, idealized version of love—especially one that requires you to lose yourself—is a recipe for disaster.
Learning the Value of Discipline and Process
One of the show’s most charming and profound lessons comes from Lara’s time working at a bakery, which a reviewer described as her “walking on knives moment”. Lara, desperate to express her love for cake, believes her passion alone is enough. She rushes the process, causing kitchen disasters and nearly giving up.
The lesson here is invaluable: True love for anything requires respecting the work behind it. Lara only loved the idea of eating cake; she didn’t yet love the process of creating it. Her journey in the bakery reflects the earlier lesson about love: you can’t just wish for a relationship or a successful life; you have to put in the effort, learn the steps, and accept the messy, difficult parts. It’s about moving beyond a superficial appreciation and embracing the full, challenging reality of your passion.
Finding the Many Faces of True Love
Ultimately, the core theme of Goodbye, Lara is that “true love” isn’t a single thing. The show explores love as a diverse and multifaceted concept. It’s not just the romantic, passionate love Lara once sought.
The show examines familial love, as Lara’s actions were driven by her love for her kingdom and her desire to save her family. It explores the love of a craft, as Lara begins to understand baking not just as a means to an end, but as a practice she can respect. It even touches on the darker side of love, as Lara witnesses the destructive power of possessive love through the actions of her sister. This teaches us that love is complex; it can be a source of immense joy, profound responsibility, and even pain.
People have noted the show’s sapphic subtext and Lara’s clear feelings for the human girl, Mari, suggesting her “true love” won’t be the prince she expected. This reinforces the idea that her journey isn’t about finding the one but about discovering what love truly means to her—a lesson that applies far beyond the screen.
