From all the creepy looking spirits showing up to her school cooking class to Hana’s many escapades involving the lack of food, Miko continues to have a lot to deal with. In reaching out to Rom, however, Miko understands that she has to face those spirits one way or another in order to not only know why she continues to see them but not get Hana involved in this as best she can. That said, old lady spiritualist Mitsue says she doesn’t have to go back there, and she ends up showing up right as the two attempt to go up the mountain to the shrine. What exactly is going to happen as these three end up confronting each other?
Find out in the next volume! Which, admittedly, was pretty disappointing.
Volume 5 of Mieruko-chan’s big story aside from Miko and Hana is the relationship between Rom and Mitsue, where as it turned out, Rom was trained by Mitsue growing up. It appears he had something happen to him that has not only gotten him to do some…let’s say selective sham work, but to break off from the old lady at the same time. Of course, he was taught by one of the best — but Mitsue recognizes this as a big danger, and the more Miko gets involved, the better chances something terrible is going to happen.
So despite that build up, we got to wait until the next volume to find out how it goes. If the rest of chapters leading up to it were just a bit better or humorous, then it’s possible I could’ve let it slide, but some were merely ok. We had a cooking class chapter that was funny as Miko does a lot to make sure no one can tell she’s crying because of one ugly spirit cooking another ugly spirit (just smaller) right in front of her — onions for the win! — but other chapters involving Hana were more ordinary, and that’s saying something since one of them involves Hana being pulled back out of the river with bread, which she grabs mouth first.
Will not go far in saying this someone spinning their wheels before getting to the main crux of things though. The story involving now Miko, Hana, and Yuria begins to tread into more dangerous territory, but it still ends up having more misunderstandings that do turn out to make you laugh. As Yuria becomes involved in the narrative — and her believing she actually has good spirit powers and still believing in the old lady — there’s a sense things will come to a head at some point despite the goofy scenarios (like stuffing Hana’s face with lots of food every minute to raise her aura levels). Which means the payoff will have to be pretty good for all this buildup.
Still, we have more grotesque creatures popping up where Miko thinks they won’t and they are still drawn awesomely ugly and more spiritualists popping up with their own motivations. The butt buns are back. We even had a teacher “attempt” to not do his job in saving his student, but that’s more of an aside than anything. (Zen and Miko’s relationship is something else isn’t it!) So while lacking in areas, this was still a solid volume of Mieruko-chan thanks to the art and some funny scenarios.