Guinea Pig: Mermaid in the Manhole

In 1988 Japan, an artist (Shigeru Saiki) paints the squalor of a city sewer, still reeling from the loss of his wife. Down there he finds a mermaid (Mari Somei) trapped in the filth, and he carries her home to his apartment to heal. Hideshi Hino sets the story in the artist's studio, where her condition keeps worsening and the paintings are all the time he has left.