So lately I’ve been ordering a lot of manga. I’m in the mood to discover my next big manga love story. I’ve also not been reading as much webcomics. At least not family-friendly ones. As such, I figured I would switch my webtoon recommendations for manga first impressions until I build up a nice stock of webtoons to recommend once again. That way, maybe you can discover your next big manga love. And this one might end up a bit divisive. Here is what I thought of Mieruko-chan
Why I Picked up Mieruko-chan
To be honest, the summary made me think that this was more or less a girl Natsume (as in book of friends). Besides, my great love of Yokai makes me buy any manga that even loosely fits the bill when I come across it. OK, that’s an exaggeration but I basically got it because Yokai.
Official Summary
A normal girl was living a normal life-until she wasn’t.
One day, she could see…everything. What’s a girl to do when hideous monsters appear no matter which way she turns?
And on top of that, nobody else can see them! Obviously, there’s only one thing that makes sense-ignore them.
Kinda hard to put theory into practice, though, when the ghosts know she’s watching…
One day, Miko suddenly started seeing grotesque beings that others couldn’t. Her response was not to run, not to face them, but to do everything she could to completely ignore them! Can she keep a straight face and continue her day-to-day life while surrounded by horrifying monsters?
My First Impression
I have a feeling I am not the intended audience for this series but I bet I can name a bunch of bloggers who would put this on their favourites list!
What I liked
There is a clash in the art style between the ghouls and everything else which is very visually interesting.
Mieruko-chan is foremost a comedy and the chapters are short and snappy.
Any drawbacks?
Unfortunately, the first chapter is extremely repetitive. It’s basically two elements over and over again. Miko sees something really disturbing, and comedy is derived from the fact that she strains to act normal while no one else even notices anything. This happens every 3 pages and is the core premise of the series. It’s not a bad idea but as far as the first volume goes, there is no real variation on the theme. Miko’s reactions are very similar every time, as is the set-up and delivery.
The other two pages are fanservice. This is a somewhat horny book with a lot of teenage girls getting groped by ghosties. It’s not particularly scandalous, I’m not sure it would even qualify as ecchi but volume 1 is mostly sexy fanservice. That aspect is also a bit repetitive.
Like I said, the series simply doesn’t work for me. It’s not the type of fanservice that does it for me and the comedy was just a bit too repetitive to work for an entire volume. However, I do think there are a lot of my readers who would enjoy it.
Have you read Mieruko-chan? Are you one of my readers who enjoyed it?
I like reading this manga but the one that I’ve noticed is its slow pacing on how the protagonist can get rid of the hostile ghosts that she encounters. The next chapters hopefully will have her be taught exorcism techniques so I’ll wait patiently for that to happen since I’m kinda tired of seeing her always being frightened by the unseen.
As someone who also found the first volume somewhat repetitive, I have to say it’s worth reading further because it goes from a mediocre comedy to a really compelling mystery/horror with a unique spin! It’s probably one of my favourite ongoing manga right now, even though my opinion of the first volume was the same as yours.
Well that’s intriguing! I might give it a try then, or at least pick up the anime
I don’t really read manga; I don’t really read about manga. So I was wondering why the name sounds familiar. Turns out there’s an anime in production; that’s why. The trailer makes light ecchi content quite obvious. I was curious about the concept, so I probably remembered the name. Also, because doesn’t “mieru” meen “to see”? Or to “look like”? Or something. It seems like one of those telling names; maybe one of those kanji puns?
It is! I have a feeling this would be way more fun as an anime