Miko, on the outside, is an ordinary high school girl. She lives with her mom and little brother. Has a friend in Hana. But on the inside, she has a secret. At some point in her life, she began to see things. Grotesque things actually. And they appear at many inopportune times to the point where she’s freaking terrified. But she acts like she can’t see them. How long can she keep this act up? We’ll have to find out as we read Mieruko-chan!
Mieruko-chan is horrifyingly hilarious. Usually when you have a premise that revolves around one thing, it means it better be funny consistently or else it’ll be a slog. And the basic premise is that Miko actually sees these terrifying abnormalities, but acts like she doesn’t. Will we ever know if she’ll stop seeing these ugly things? I’m preparing to never actually know the answer to this until we know the manga’s going to end. So it’s all about how does this series make things as unique as it can with its one premise.
And it does! It may play a bit too much with the positions of Miko and Hana that can be a turn off, but it does create hilarious scenarios that I couldn’t help but crack up on. You’ll get to it in the first chapter where Miko meets many creepy monsters, none more so creepy than the one she finds in her bed — and tries to ignore! There’s a chapter that involves Miko on the bus, and only she could hear the monsters repeat the same words over and over and over again…and then when they finally get off the bus, a normal girl on the phone gets on the bus and says the exact same words right where Miko can hear it. You can probably guess Miko was not amused by that, but it also made that girl feel really bad despite not knowing the context!
Think what gives this manga its kick is these creatures. They’re just butt-ugly and weird. Definitely not something I’d like to see in my bed. Or in the bathroom while in the tub. Or down a completely desolate alley. Note that all of these are scenarios Miko faces bravely alone, and even the one time she actually runs into someone who can sense these apparitions fails…to the point that someone quits their shady business! Their positioning is also where the manga shines too, so you’ll get the normal scenario where a creep is behind Miko and the one where oh look there’s a really cute cat and a grotesque humanoid thing in the box with said cat, and while Hana adores the cat Miko can only hold back her sanity.
Overall, while I do worry about its longevity, Mieruko-chan’s debut volume was pretty funny most of the time. Not all of the jokes land, but if it can be consistently hilarious, this certainly will be worth your time. Also, I hope this manga gets into Miko’s backstory based on how this volume ended…