Hokkaido Gals Are Super Adorable! – 04 – Springtime in a Blizzard

Both Tsubasa and his gran are under the mistaken impression that Hokkaido locals walk to school even in the middle of a blizzard. Thankfully this mistake doesn’t cost him his life, as Minami’s car happens to pull up. There’s nothing like hopping into a warm car after being out in the piercing cold! This is how Tsubasa meets Minami’s mom, who looks like her sister and isn’t coy about suggesting he officially ask out her adorable daughter.

It’s clear Minami loves having Tsubasa all to himself, but that’s no longer the case at school, where he and Sayuri are all warm and chummy about being so sore from the skiing. Minami wants into this dynamic, even if it means being sore (which she isn’t due to her extensive skiing experience). When Tsubasa notices Sayuri has her handheld game, Tsubasa exercises poor phrasing by exclaiming “I want to do it with you, Akino-san!”

Minami wants to play the game too, so Sayuri suggests the three of them go to the mall after class. Minami is thrown into the video game deep end, but when she clears a level, Sayuri joins her in a joyful celebration as Tsubasa looks on with pride his gyaru friends are getting along. When he makes a pit stop, Sayuri even admits Minami is much nicer than she expected. The two buy cosmetics with Tsubasa’s input, then take a booth photo together.

That photo of Tsubasa with two beautiful lasses adorns the back of his phone in sticker form, but when he texts Minami about a homework assignment, he gets a lot more than he bargained for. Minami is taking her usual “half-bath”, and is hungry for some hilarious reactions from Tsubasa.

She sends him a couple pix, but when his text responses are sober, she video calls him and gets the reaction she wanted. Just when she’s asking if he’d like to join her at a hot spring, her phone slips out of her hand, and she inadvertently gives Tsubasa an eyeful.

However, Tsubasa fumbled his phone at the same time, so he didn’t see Minami in all her glory. Even so, when Minami’s mom observes how flustered she looks, she asks if she’s lightheaded. Minami admits she is, a little bit, but it’s not because of the hot water. It’s because like Nagatoro Hayase, sometimes her teasing the boy she likes goes further than she planned and comes back to bite her!

Jaku-Chara Tomozaki-kun 2nd Stage – 02 – This Aggression Will Not Stand

Operation: Get Konno Erika Motivated goes off without a hitch, thanks to Tomozaki experly deploying three agents to fill up her motivation gauge. It starts with Yuzu asking her to help out with the tournament—Konno is always ready to help out her friends. Hinami then plants the seed in another friend that she doubts Konno’s athletic ability. Finally, Mizusawa tells Konno that Nakamura likes sporty girls.

Put it all together and it’s a home run. Tomozaki technically fails his part of the tournament by fouling out before he can score a lay-up to endear himself to the jocks, but the speed with which he fouls out endears him to them anyway. But the good times only last as long as Konno doesn’t know Izumi and Nakamura are an item.

When she finds out she’s pissed, but instead of taking it out on Izumi, she targets Hirabayashi, the most timid girl in class. Konno scoffs off her attacks as accidental—knocking into her desk, paper airplanes to the head, etc.—but pretty soon everyone notices the malicious intent.

Tomozaki wants to do something to help, but Hinami advises a wait-and-see approach, pointing out that Hirabayashi has yet to do anything to stop the abuse. When Konno escalates by sitting on her desk, Tomozaki stands up and is about to speak up, but someone beats him to it: Natsubayashi Hanabi, AKA Tama.

Tama says what everyone is thinking: that this shit is getting old, but Konno plays games, feigning ignorance. When Tama gets in her face, Konno puts her hand on her arm and says Tama is “shaking like a leaf”; when Tama brushes her off, Konno pretends to be injured, and uses that as ammo against her in subsequent interactions.

Tomozaki observes a change in Hinami when Konno’s target changes from Hirabayashi to Tama, one of her friends. Hinami speaks with all of the mid-level girls to get them sympathetic to Tama (and turn them against Konno), while Mimimi stays close to Tama in order to keep things from spiraling out of hand. It’s as if Hinami is exploiting Tama’s pushback as an opportunity to hurt Konno, while Mimimi is strictly looking out for her dear friend.

When the back-and-forth between the girls doesn’t stop and the class mood starts to sour on Tama, Hinami agrees something should be done, but they disagree on what. Tomozaki proposes that Tama takes a step back. Hinami strongly objects to this, since Tama is “in the right” and shouldn’t have to change. Her usual gamer’s pragmatism is being overridden by her apparent desire for revenge against Konno, no matter what happens to Tama. (h/t Vance!)

One day after school, Tomozaki hangs out with Mimimi and Tama. Mimimi is her usual cheerful, bubbly, clingy self with Tama, but once they see Hanabi off at the station, Mimimi’s demeanor changes drastically. On the verge of tears, Mimimi asks if she’s doing a good job keeping Tama in good spirits. It’s something she could only as “Brain.” I love their easy chemistry.

Tomozaki answers that she is, and I agree. Mimimi is doing what she can, and it is helping, but it’s hard for her to feel good about it when things are still so unpleasant in class. Still, seeing how putting up a brave front for Tama’s sake is taking its toll on Mimimi, Tomozaki decides he’s going to try proposing the retreat strategy to Tama.

Meeting one-on-one with Tama, Tomozaki is about to begin his proposal when she points out that the two of them are a lot alike, never afraid to say what’s on their mind whatever the consequences. When he asks if maybe it would be best to withdraw from the hostilities, she politely declines.

Tama admits it sucks, but she knows she’ll be fine because she knows she’s in the right. She doesn’t want to betray “the Hanabi who believes in things.” Tomozaki respects her choice, but is then caught off guard when she goes on complimenting him.

She’s observed that he’s been able to change and improve himself and his ability to read and influence a room and mood. And while Tama knows she’ll be fine, like him she’s far more worried about Mimimi. So she does want to change for her sake, while remaining true to herself. Since she’s watched Tomozaki change, she wants him to teach her how to “fight”.

Firstly, I want to underscore just how awesome Natsubayashi Hanabi is this week, and in general. She had her fill of Konno picking on someone weaker and didn’t hesitate to stand up to her again and again. In a battle of wills, I’ll take her over anyone, even Hinami. At the same time, Konno may be acting like a petty, petulant bitch right now, but that doesn’t make her a bad person.

Konno just isn’t dealing with her frustration over losing the guy she liked to another girl well, like, at all. So I’m looking forward to Tomozaki taking Tama on as his “apprentice”, and the two of them finding a way to cut through Konno’s bullshit, taking the pressure off Mimimi, and resolving the unpleasantness, if they can. If this ends up at odds with Hinami’s plans, but so be it.

The Wrong Way to Use Healing Magic – 01 (First Impressions) – The Right Stuff

Usato Ken considers himself an unremarkable, run-of-the-mill high-schooler. He’s intimidated by the likes of Inukami Suzune and Ryuusen Kazuki, the president and vice president of the student council. But on a rainy evening when he forgets his umbrella, he soon learns they’re nothing to fear.

In fact, they’re friendly and generous. Kazuki lends Ken his spare umbrella, and he and Suzune are happy to walk home with him. He learns they’re much nicer and more down to earth than he thought, and despite rumors, they’re not dating (they also thank him for asking about it directly, unlike others).

These opening minutes aren’t just an opportunity for Ken to meet Kazuki and Suzune, but for us as well. It efficiently introduces all three leads as likeable good kids with distinct personalities—a lot like Reign of the Seven Spellblades. Then a magic circle appears and Suzune reveals her otaku side and is jazzed about it!

We kinda know why, too, thanks to what they spoke of just before. Despite being a third-year and the top student in school, Suzune hasn’t figured out what she’s going to do yet. We know Ken yearns for a more interesting life where he can make a difference. And we can infer that Kazuki has the most planned out future of the three.

They emerge in the throne room of another world and are told by a King Lloyd of Llander that they’ve been summoned as heroes to defeat the armies of the demon lord. That’s a lot to take in, but Suzune at least is loving every minute of it. Ken is a lot more guarded by this situation, while Kazuki is straight-up pissed about this sudden abduction.

He makes a good point: the three of them have families from whom they’ve been torn away. But Ken calms Kazuki down, telling him there’s no point in starting a fight. Kazuki stands down, and the king approaches them, goes down to a knee in apology; the entire court does the same.

He knows it isn’t fair what they did to them, but the hour is late, and his kingdom is desperate, as the demon lord’s forces continue to expand. He promises that they’ll find a way to send them back as soon as possible, but for now he humbly asks if they’ll be the heroes they need. Mind you, they only intended to summon two exemplary people from the other world, making Ken’s presence confusing.

Intended heroes like Suzune and Kazuki heard bells before they were summoned, but Ken didn’t. It appears that he was simply caught in the proverbial transporter beam. Nevertheless, he is treated the same as the other two, and evaluated for magic affinity. Suzune learns lightning is her element, while Kazuki’s is light—as in the opposite of dark, perfect against demons.

But when the crystal ball used to evaulate their magic turns green when Ken touches it, the royal mage Welcie suddenly freaks out, grabs Ken, and runs back to the throne room. She informs King Lloyd, who also freaks out. Up until this point, everyone in this show has acted reasonably and amicably.

The minute Rescue Team Captain Rose stomps into the room, we suddenly see everyone’s panicky side. They try to keep Ken’s magical ability secret, but then he blurts out that his light was green, and within thirty seconds Welcie the mage has gathered him up in a bubble and shot him out of the castle, and Rose brandishes a devlish smirk and gives chase.

She catches him with ease, and carries him to Rescue Team HQ. Green means healing, an extraordinarily rare type of magic. Rose introduces some other Rescue Team members, books Ken judges by their covers because they resemble a wrestling stable more than anything else! Not only that, none of them have healing magic!

Captain Rose intends to whip Ken into shape as a healing magic user, in effect bestowing upon him the significant purpose he desired in his original world. But it’s clear from the fear Rose instills in everyone he’s seen that it may be tough sledding. He’s going to have to step up his game: run-of-the-mill ain’t gonna cut it here!

And there you have it: one minute Ken is befriending the two most popular students at his school as they walk home, and that night he’s in a strange bed sharing a room with a snoring hulk in another world, his old dull life path replaced with a one filled with far more danger and promise.

What Wrong Way lacks in original ideas it more than makes up for with its execution. Its characters are instantly charming and rootable, the dialogue pops, and the production values are solid. This has the look and feel of a show made with care and thought, and I’m excited to see how Ken, Suzune, and Kazuki fare in their fantastic new circumstances.

The Ancient Magus’ Bride – S2 03 – A Gathering Fog

Rian’s appeal to Chise to teach him magic is interrupted by his guardian/teacher Tory, who thinks the two of them and Alice would make a good circle of friends. Rian is also interested in Alice, who isn’t the slightest bit interested in becoming a mage. That’s when her familiar Will-o’-the-Wisp pops out, gives Rian a glance, and tells him he’s “no good [for magic]”. Rian expected as much, but isn’t so ready to give up.

Rian leads Chise and Alice to the teacher’s lounge where Renfred is scolding Elias for being too laissez-faire with safety precautions in his class. Narcisse is also there, and after studying Chise and placing his hand on her shoulder, determines that she’s just a normal girl, and welcomes her to the College. He reports to vice-principal Gregory on the steps that she’s no threat to the school’s present balance of power…left unsaid is the qualifier “for now.”

These little ominous scenes on the periphery aside, Chise finds herself in the hustle and bustle of daily school life, and while it’s a little overwhelming, she takes it in stride. There are many classmates to meet, and while nearly all of them are cordial or friendly, Lucy eats all by herself, and the vivid green-haired Zoe Ivey has to flee the table, so distressed at the prospect that neither Elias nor Chise are human.

The energy and rhythms of the College prove draining to both Chise and Elias, accustomed as they are to a much slower, quieter life in their country house. The two of them, joined by Ruth and Silver, have a rest in the shade of a tree. Elias tries and fails to lie on his back like Chise due to his protruding horns, but Chise has him lie on her lap, enabling him to look up at the sky for the first time since taking his current form.

Talk turns to Halloween and its origins as Samhain, and how the gods of yore have faded with the rise of science. As she washes harvested pumpkins in the river, Chise accidentally crushes one of the gourds in her freakishly strong dragon hand. She’s then visited by Joseph, who doesn’t eat, only drinks water, and sleeps a lot. She brushes back her hair and her green eye becomes steel blue like his. The battle between Carty’s curse and the dragon is ongoing within Chise, so she’ll be borrowing his eye a bit longer.

Joseph shuffles off back to sleep, while Ruth informs her that she has a guest: Stella, who had texted she was visiting well in advance. Chise forgot, because she just doesn’t use her phone that much. I don’t think we’ve even seen it yet this season! But just as Chise and Stella are in the middle of a conversation, a thick fog surrounds them, and Chise and Ruth are transported to another plane. Chise asks the right question—Where are we?—but we’ll have to wait till next week to find out.

Mieruko-chan – 11 – Meowruko-chan

While last week seemingly confirmed that Toono Zen was a Bad Dude who was behind the local cat abuse, all the episode really did was confirm that he’s an odd, lonely young man; it didn’t explicitly show him actually doing anything. Now we learn that both we and Miko judged him too quickly.

First we flash back to Zen’s childhood, which was strictly controlled by his mother, who wouldn’t let him for relationships with anyone or anything other than her without accusing him of “betraying her like his father,” and punished him by squeezing his head if he kept secrets from her.

Fast-forward to the present, when Miko has decided she can no longer stand by and do nothing while Hana is basically starved by the spirits surrounding Zen-sensei. She carefully follows Zen down mostly empty and isolated streets, until he comes across a mangy stray kitten in a tunnel.

Miko had planned to call the police and catch Zen red-handed abusing a cat, but couldn’t let the act actually happen, and cries out when it looks like he’s about to crush the little kitty’s head…which we already saw was a similar gesture her mother performed on him many times.

Zen asks Miko if she followed him and what she’s doing, and the huge ghoul seemingly protecting him pops out and threatens her. Miko runs with the kitten in hand, but trips and falls, though the kitten is unharmed. Startled, it jumps out of her hands and runs right into the street.

Right on cue, Car-kun races down that street at breakneck speed, threatening to flatten the poor kitty. But then Zen leaps out in front of the car to save the kitten, and suddenly Miko has no idea what is going on. Why would he want to save a cat…then kill it?

Turns out Zen wanted to do nothing of the sort. At the hospital, he tells Miko not to blame herself for what happened; he chose to leap in front of the car. He further explains that someone in his area—not him—has been abusing animals, and he was patrolling the area like usual.

Because of the odd way Miko had interacted with him when he answered the message about adopting another stray cat, as well as her odd demeanor at school, Zen assumed she might be the animal-abusing culprit, proving that both of these people simply needed more information before forming assumptions.

Miko gets more context on the hospital’s roof from Satoru, Zen’s friend since grade school, learning about his strict—nay, fucking psycho mother, who killed his pet cat when she found out about it, which…goddamn. Satoru, a vet, is the one Zen brings all the cats he finds so that he can secure new homes for them.

Lately, with the animal abuser, Zen has only found cats who are either already dead or close to it, which explains last week’s suspicious scene. As for why Satoru helps Zen, well…for the same reason Miko wants to help Hana: if your friend is in trouble, you do what you can to help them!

Now that Miko knows that the cat spirits are the result of Zen encountering the victims of the animal abuser, and the ghoul was once his horrible mother, she decides to help Zen out, for his sake, for Hana’s sake, and hell, for her own sake. She addresses Zen’s mother-ghoul directly, asking her to set him free, and she charges after her into the corridor.

I’m not sure if Miko intended for the fox spirits to arrive and destroy the mother-ghoul, but I’m not sure what else she expected, considering she put herself in harm’s way. It’s supposedly the third and final time they’ll help her, but at least it was for a good cause, and will end up helping both Hana and Zen. But who knows; maybe this is only the beginning of Miko taking a more active role in helping people with her ability.

Mieruko-chan – 10 – One More Time

The show delivers one of its creepiest scenes yet without showing a single ghost or ghoul…just creepy-ass Toono Zen, cracking open the door of his pitch-black apartment surrounded by crows, accepting some leftovers from a kindly lady with some suspicious blood on his hand. He retreats back inside when talk turns to the recent maiming of cats in the neighborhood.

How such a guy was able to get a job subbing at a girl’s high school is beyond me, but a lot of the class finds him hot. Naturally, this doesn’t include Miko, who now has to constantly see those tortured cat ghouls writhe around Toono, who looks on the surface like he’s not aware of their presence, but at the same time could simply be hiding the fact he’s aware of them…just as Miko tries to do.

One side-effect of their new substitute teacher and his ghoulish kitty entourage started out as a joke, but is now starting to become worrying: Hana just can’t stop eating. She even inadvertently bails Miko out of a very sticky situation with Toono and the ghouls when they to to the nurse’s office. Yulia sees them go in, and immediately correctly diagnoses the problem: Hana’s aura is being drained by the spirits surrounding Toono.

That Yulia knows this could prove crucial to Miko and Hana in the days ahead, but there are two problems: Hana has no idea what Yulia is talking about, Miko does know but is still apprehensive about talking about it, and Yulia thinks Miko is out to get her. To Miko’s point, ghouls can pop up anywhere at anytime; there’s no safe time or place to talk about them, as evidenced in a “peaceful” park where one cute kid transforms into a ghoul and has to be destroyed by Miko’s guardian spirits.

But that marks the second of three times they’ve helped Miko; the third time will be their last, adding one more lump in her throat. The episode is bookended by two students accidentally interrupting their teacher Toono’s seemingly nightly cat-hunting mission. Here I thought the show was going to try to humanize him a bit at some point, but nope, looks like he’s pure evil.

The forces of evil seem to be amassing around Miko, Hana, and Yulia. With only one guardian intervention left to count on, it may be time for Miko to drop her guard and converse with Yulia about ways to protect themselves from the coming scourge…and prevent Hana from gorging herself.

Mieruko-chan – 09 – The Joy of Being Able to React

The arrival of Toono Zen as her substitute homeroom teacher is an extremely vexing proposition for Miko. There are an inordinate number of intense cat-demons constantly surrounding the guy, who doesn’t seem to notice. At least he doesn’t seem to remember her from the stray cat encounter, while Hana can’t quite place the guy and Miko encourages her to believe she’s mistaking him for someone else.

Still, Zen’s demon hangers-on creep out Miko to the point she retreats to the bathroom, only to encounter another gigantic ghoul who climbs out of the toilet in her stall. Miko uses the fact there’s no TP to retreat, only to find Yulia eating her lunch in the stall next door. Mind you, Miko is only alone because Hana went to buy bread to eat after she ate her regular lunch.

Miko is of the mind that no one should have to eat their lunch in a bathroom stall, so invites Yulia to join her and Hana outside. Yet when she spots their teacher once again walking down the halls, Miko’s eyes suddenly fill with tears, concerning both Hana and Yulia.

The bulk of the remainder of the episode consists of a test of courage in the form of a haunted house set up by the local donut concern; if customers can brave the house and get their card stamped, they’ll receive 20 free donuts. Hana is an incurable scaredy-cat, but Miko simply loves the opportunity to be able to react to scary things by screaming. The fact that she smiles as she screams is particularly disturbing to Yulia!

Miko ends up seeing a real ghoul among all of the haunted house monsters, but she’s still able to react because the ghoul can’t be sure who she’s reacting to: the genuine article, or the artifice of the haunted house. When all’s said and done the three friends end up going through the ringer but coming out of it closer than ever…not to mention 20 donuts richer!

Mieruko-chan – 08 – Let Sleeping Moths Lie

While shopping with Kyousuke for a birthday gift for their mom, Miko comes across a very cute dress and decides to try it on, since she and her mom are pretty much the same size. Unfortunately, a ghoulish store rep who says “It looks great on you!” kinda ruins the mood…not to mention Miko wears the dress out of the store, basically nixing it as a gift for mom.

While she and Kyousuke find another gift, the trip home is less than stress-free, thanks to a spectral axe murderer walking down the subway car, swinging its axe right into peoples’ heads. Miko has every right to be scared about what the axe might do to someone like her who can see them.

Thankfully, the axe only hurts other ghouls, and goes right through her head without incident. We don’t see Miko and Kyousuke giving their mom the gift of couple mugs. Rather, we watch as their mom makes two cups of tea with them: one for her, and one for her dearly departed husband.

The balance between creepy/gross/spooky/sinister ghosts and benevolent ones continues when Miko and Hana see off their pregnant homeroom teacher, learning that the child she’s carrying is her second try. This explains the odd white specter that’s so interested in the teacher’s belly: it’s the ghost of her dead child.

This was one of the best and most powerful segments of Mieruko-chan to date, because it once again subverts expectations. At first I thought the ghost was a threat like Miko did. But when we see how it interacts with his mother’s hand, it’s as if we and Miko can see the healing love emanate from her. I was well and truly choked up.

Contrast that with just regular choking due to one of the grosser ghouls Miko has come across. With a dozen slithery three-nostriled tusks leaking snot and some unsettling googly eyes, this particular specimen is not the first ghost Miko decides to face “head-on”. Perhaps she’ll face a less gross one later. For now, Miko joins Senpai’s Futaba as a Fall 2021 character who is partial to canned oshiruko.

The final segment brings back two very different cat people. First, Miko and Hana’s substitute homeroom teacher is Toono Zen, the guy Miko wouldn’t let adopt the stray kitten. Between those nasty demonic cats surrounding him and his blood red eyes, I wonder if he has “the sight” like Miko and Yulia, and knows that Miko can see too?

Whatever his deal, homeroom is not going to be pleasant for Miko for the foreseeable future. As for the tough yakuza-looking guy, he takes his time finding just the right cat food and cake to celebrate his late wife’s life, their anniversary, and the lives of their two beautiful white cats, who continue to watch over his new fuzzy companion as benevolent spirits. Mieruko-chan continues to spook me out and melt my heart.

Mieruko-chan – 07 – Tunnel Visions (of Horror)

Things are only getting spookier for Miko, and it’s largely Hana’s fault! When Hana’s photo gets a lot of likes on Instagram (666, to be exact) she believes it’s her calling to be a photographer, and buys a Polaroid to take more. Yulia, waiting for an opening to exact her revenge on Miko for humiliating her/choking her out, eggs Hana on by suggesting a bus trip to the mountains for some prime photo spots.

Yulia’s motivations aside, this is the first time in a long time, maybe ever, she’s gone on a trip with friends. That said, she sticks to her mission, getting Hana to enter a tunnel known to be haunted so Miko will have no choice but to admit she also sees ghosts, and deal with them. Of course, at first it’s normal stuff that gets Hana spooked: the darkness and a sudden drop of water falling on the back of her neck.

When Miko trips in the dark, then dusts off her hands, Yulia believes her rival is setting up some kind of supernatural barrier. Because of the discrepancy between the types of ghosts Yulia and Miko can see, Miko’s gestures seem to coincide with the ghosts Yulia can see shriveling up and vanishing, as if Miko exorcised them. But Yulia can’t bigger and much more horrifying monster that is devouring the ones she can see.

Yulia makes things worse by trying to get Miko to admit she can see the ghosts too, totally unaware the biggest and baddest instantly reacts to the sensation that the humans can see them. Miko has been operating under the assumption that this is, as Egon once said, “very bad”. The monster prepares to swoop down on the three girls, but is stopped and defeated by the shrine spirits, who once again protect Miko.

Hana takes Miko and Yulia’s defeated, exhausted expressions on the ride home as shared disappointment in not getting to the end of the tunnel to the photo spot. So she gathers the two close for a selfie. That ends up making Yulia’s day, as it’s established her belief in ghosts cause other classmates to ostracize her, but she’s finally found new friends.

As for Miko, she’s just trying not to overthink why some spirits protect her while others want to kill her, Hana, and now Yulia, or what one of the ones protecting her meant by “three times”. But as the preview says, things are going to get spookier before they become less spooky, so Miko will likely need all the spectral allies she can get!

Mieruko-chan – 06 – Aw, No…Hana!

While there’s equal or greater Miko at either end, the middle of this episode is All Hana, All The Time, starting with her waking up to find her clock stopped, eating a giant stack of pancakes for breakfast, and lights flickering and going out around her. This is because one of the bigger and more grotesque ghouls to appear in Mieruko-chan is following Hana around, even using her dazzling aura as a kind of grill to sear smaller ghouls to snack on!

I love that as sinister and deadly as this monster looks, the only thing we know for sure is that he loves barbecue…that could be the only reason he’s haunting Hana! For while he gets awfully close to Hana and messes with lights and clocks around her, he doesn’t seem capable of actually hurting Hana, even when she braves a haunted abandoned building to retrieve a crying boy’s dog.

Once both boy and dog are happily home, Hana swears she’ll never put herself through something that terrifying again. And Hana didn’t actually see any ghosts! Like most people, she was simply scared of the unknown in the darkness. It’s probably for the best she can’t see what’s actually there, like Miko.

This proves especially true when Miko takes Hana to a shrine with an ulterior motive: pray to the local deity to do something about the monster still haunting Hana’s steps. While Hana soaks in the Ghibli vibes (even humming a bit of a tune from Nausicaa), Miko watches all paranormal hell break loose…or is it heaven?

Why not both? The black shadowy monster seemingly bests the two golden fox deities, only to be destroyed by what seems to be their big, big brother.

After the shadow monster is pulverized, the golden monsters converse in a strange language neither we nor Miko understand, then the larger of the three does…something to Miko while saying the one thing we do understand: “Three times,” then vanishing with a gust of wind.

Did this deity protect Miko from three future hauntings? Both we and Miko will have to wait to find out what, if anything, these deities did. All the while, Hana grabbed some sweet Insta pics that don’t even need filters!

Mieruko-chan – 05 – Of Moms and Manjuu

Mieruko-chan sticks to two main stories, one in which Niguredou Yuria is finally introduced as a third character who can see ghosts and ghouls—more clearly than the old fortune-teller but less clearly than Miko. As we’ve seen on the margins of past episodes, she’s been watching Miko, convinced she can see what she sees.

The thing is, Mieruko is still committed to not disclosing that she can see them, especially when a much larger and spookier ghoul is in the gym storage room that Yuria can’t even see. Her solution for not discussing it is to use a signature submission move of her favorite wrestler, Badger: a serpent drop. It’s not surprising Yuria thinks Miko is threatening her in the nurse’s office later, but it’s just a bit of miscommunication.

Meanwhile, Miko is now seeing so much that others can’t that sometimes she can’t tell ghouls from humans, as she mistakes a tiny, ancient, but very much still alive granny on some steps. She carries the lady to her house, where her daughter proceeds to thank her by going in the house to grab some manjuu. That’s when a creepy business suit-wearing ghoul approaches Miko and she just wants to leave.

The thing is, the ghoul keeps repeating the same four-digit number, which Miko finally types into her smartphone and shows the old lady. Suddenly, like a switch flipped, the granny, whose daughter said had serious dementia, is lucid again. She uses the code to open her safe, use the comb within her departed husband gave her to put her hair up, and prepares to make some pork miso soup.

The granny invites Miko to join them, but seeing what amounts to a mother-daughter reunion (with the ghoul of the father thanking Miko before shambling off), Miko is eager to get home to her family. She makes sure to text her mom she’s on the way home, and when her mom sends a goofy sticker back, Miko can’t help but smile.

Once again, in a very real and meaningful way, Miko’s ability has allowed her to help improve the lives of others. Even if it wasn’t entirely intentional, she helped that lady home and typed that code into her phone. Yuria may want to be a spiritualist, but Miko seems to already be a kind of saint—an individual performing unexplainable deeds for the betterment of others.

Mieruko-chan – 04 – Chestnut Pudding

First of all, a ghost haunting the konbini Miko frequents adding three percent tax to the items the living cashier is ringing up, and Miko’s dry observation of it, got a huge laugh out of me. I just loved the creepy, absurd, yet mundane nature of it.

You’d think Miko would want to watch something, anything other than paranormal TV shows, but either she’s being a good big sis by watching with her little brother Kyousuke, or she genuinely likes ghost stories…she just doesn’t like being able to see said ghosts.

Something spooks Miko into going to the nearest vending machine, where she finds tiny little spirits when she drops her 500-yen coin. Oddly charmed by these bitty, seemingly harmless little guys, she follows one as he skitters away, only to end up in an alley with a giant ghost who eats the little ones like a snack. When she tries and fails to pick up the coin, a crow bails her out by stealing it.

Mieruko-chan once again proves its horror movie bona fides by giving us the classic situation of being visited by a ghost in one’s most vulnerable state: while naked in the bath. This is apparently the first time it’s happening to Miko, and she’s genuinely voicing her limits. She thought she could rely on the bathroom for solace, but now that’s no longer true.

This time her savior is Kyousuke. Worried she’s dating some dude (she’s not) wants to get in the bath with her, and she enthusiastically offers to wash his back. If he’s in there with her, the ghost isn’t as scary.

Every morning, Miko tells us she makes a wish to no longer “see them”, but that wish is seemingly ignored day after day, as she’s seemingly seeing more ghosts in more places all the time. She’s not even given a moment’s peace to eat breakfast with her family thanks to ghosts swarming the table and breathing on her food.

Throughout the episode, Miko had been all gung-ho about procuring some chestnut pudding. In addition to sounding freakin’ delicious (seriously, I need to find a recipe and make some if I can’t find some at the Japanese grocery store), I figured it was one small way Miko copes with her ghost sightings.

Then the episode throws us a twist by showing that the chestnut pudding has special significance: it’s not for her, but as an offering for her dad…who was dead all along! It’s a hell of a twist that builds on the fact Miko can see more than the ugly invasive ghosts, but ordinary ones too.

The post-credits sequence is a replay of the first segment in which Miko was watching TV with Kyousuke, only this time we see what Miko saw, and why that shampoo commercial freaked her out enough to go out for drinks.

This episode really accentuated the sheer weight of Miko’s ESP, and how it’s adversely affecting her sleep, behavior, and appetite. Could the new character who’ll (finally) be formally introduced next week, be a fellow “seer” who might have some tips for Miko finding some relief? I hope so!

Mieruko-chan – 03 – A Bus Ride, Don Juan, and Beads

It’s the weekend, and Miko is meeting Hana at a Starbucks ripoff, but she has to take a bus, and the bus is full of ghouls. She comports herself pretty well throughout the ride, only to miss her stop because she’s trying to distract herself from the monsters so much, she forgets to get off at that stop. Fortunately the airheaded Hana did the same thing without an assist from ghosts.

That means Miko arrives at the cafe first. There, she finds a dashing young man waiting for his date, but that doesn’t stop him from hitting on Miko before she arrives. He thinks Miko is staring at her, but she’s staring at a possessive ghost haunting him, while his girlfriend has a half-dozen ghosts haunting her, suggesting these two heartbreakers were made for each other. Miko’s solution for not drawing the ire of the lady-ghoul is to pretend she’s into super macho wrestlers on her phone.

Once Miko and Hana finally meet up, it’s time to buy some prayer beads. Only the first instance in which Miko has to use them, the elastic snaps and the beads go everywhere. Miko knows how much Hana attracts ghouls and wants to protect her, so she takes one for the team and walks through a particularly big and nasty ghoul in a yellow jumpsuit, so Hana doesn’t have to.

Seeking stronger beads leads Miko to a fortune teller whom we learn is just a petty scammer since we can hear her inner monologue. However, she can not only tell that Miko is haunted by ghouls, but that Hana has a dazzling aura that’s like frikkin’ catnip for ghouls. So the lady decides to give Miko a set of beads with what seems to be legit ghoul-repelling power…only for those beads to break too.

Ultimately, Miko decides to give up on prayer beads, as they seem to welcome more ghoulish attention. As for the fortune teller? She closes up shop and turns a leaf, accepting her kids’ invitation to move in with them. Little does Miko know the change she instilled…