A simple monster hunt leads Geralt (Doug Cockle) and Jaskier (Joey Batey) to Jaskier’s childhood home. Geralt is happy to be away from Yennerfer (Anya Chaltora), Jaskier’s happy to get a little spotlight and his childhood best friend Essi (Christina Wren) is happy to see them both. Then the murders begin…

Sudio Mir’s fluid art style adapts ‘A Little Sacrifice’, the original short story with a fluid grace that suits Geralt’s wheeling arcs of death and stoical grumpiness. It also gives the franchise a chance to cut loose on scale as we get a look at the huge underwater kingdom central to the story and a fight between some hapless human soldiers and a lot of very angry, Krogan-esque fish men. You could do this story in live action but it would be harder to make look good. As it stands, like predecessor Nightmare of the Wolf, the actions scenes sprint along with bloody-toothed abandon. The voice cast are top notch too, with Cockle stepping back into the role he made his own in the games and bouncing off the always delightful Batey brilliantly. Ray Chase and Christina Wren impress too, the former as Jaskier’s former childhood bully Zelest and the latter as Essi, his best friend. All four spark off each other and the other cast members with light, fun energy and that light tone defines the whole movie.

This is, for all it’s centring on a terse, white-haired monster destroyer, a very sweet and light-hearted story. The central Little Mermaid-esque romance especially is nicely played as a diplomatic incident waiting to explode, and Geralt and Jaskier being in the middle of it is both very much on brand and gives the story a chance to tackle some big issues.

At least one mainstream organ that should damn well know better has taken a cheap shot at how all gen-z skewed animation has to have a trans subtext. My first response to that would be asking what cartoons they’ve been watching because they sound GREAT. The second is to assume they’ve never read any fairytales, ever. The third, just for fun, is to point out that kindness is a radical act and so is love, and that’s exactly what this story is about.

Those big issues are dealt with with compassion and humour and moments of honest goofiness, including two musical numbers. They all work, and in fact the one criticism have is Wren’s Essi is too good to waste on a one shot role. I’d love to see her show up in the main show. Given this seems to occur between the first and second seasons that’s unlikely which is a real shame.

Verdict: That aside Sirens of the Deep is fast, snappy, big hearted and fun. It’s a good time and God knows we could all use one of those right now. 9/10

Alasdair Stuart