October is here, which means a new anime season with lots of new series to check out. One show I’m enjoying is Mieruko-chan, a spooktastic anime about a normal high school girl who is able to see ghosts and other horrific creatures, which is the perfect anime for Halloween. Should you check out this fun new show? Let’s find out!
Mieroko-chan is a Great Horror Anime
Miko Yotsuya is a normal high school girl doing her best to enjoy her life at school, hanging out with her busty friend Hana and interacting with her younger brother, who likes watching horror programs on TV. One day she realizes she’s lost her favorite plush keychain and returns to the school after dark to search for it. Suddenly, she finds she’s become able to see the many ghosts, ghouls, and spirits that exist all around us!
Miko does her best to ignore them, but the ghosts catch on that she’s able to see them, and take an interest in her, asking her, “Can you see me?” Suddenly “Mieruko-chan” (the nickname means “she can see them”) can’t brush her teeth or walk down the hall without horrific spirits noticing her and trying to interact with her, despite her desperate attempts to not react.
Mieruko-chan Teaches Us About the Japanese View of the Spirit World
Although the Japanese will often insist that they have no religion, they seem to enjoy a healthy connection to the spirit world, and books and TV programs about ghosts are always popular. The ability to sense ghosts and otherworldly events is called 霊感 reikan in Japanese, something I’m quite familiar with because my wife has it, or believes she does. Here are some of the ways this has manifested itself…
- When visiting a waterfall, my wife became convinced invisible hands were grabbing at her ankles, the spirits of people who had died there in the past.
- While staying in an old Japanese inn, she developed kana-shibari, a kind of sleep paralysis that literally means “being tied down with metal straps.” She was convinced someone had committed suicide in the room years before and was haunting the room.
- Salt is considered to be a purifying agent in Japanese culture, and there’s always a dish of salt kept by the front door of J-List to ward off unwanted spirits and keep them from bringing bad luck inside. Whenever someone my wife especially dislikes visits, Mrs. J-List throws salt on the ground to purify it after they’ve left.
- My daughter shares my wife’s reikan ability, or at least did when she was a young girl. A few weeks after my father passed away, my daughter was eating breakfast and started shouting at empty space, saying, “Stop peeking at me!” My wife assumed I had woken up and was watching our daughter around the corner, but I was fast asleep. The consensus in our family is that the ghost of my father came to check on his granddaughter before departing for The Great Beyond.
It’s Got Sexy Fanservice!
As I’ve written before, there are many reasons why modern anime needs fanservice to “grease the wheels” and get fans’ dopamine/serotonin complexes going, allowing us to develop a connection with characters more quickly and start enjoying the story from episode one. I’m happy to report that Mieruko-chan has some fun fan service scenes if you like those!
Horror Anime is an Underserved Genre
Considering the dozens and dozens of anime about isekai, idol, harem, sports, and moe-blobs-doing-moe-blob-things we get every year, having a fresh concept like the Mieruko-chan horror anime is definitely a welcome development. I will keep watching for sure!
Thanks for reading this blog post on the new Mieruko-chan horror anime. Which anime series are you going to watch in the new season, and what shows should we cover on our blog? Tell us below, or on Twitter!
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