Title: Mieruko-chan Vol. 2
Author: Tomoki Izumi
Publisher: Yen Press
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 160
Genre: Sci-Fi, Supernatural, Horror
Publication Date: February 23, 2021
The Story
The second volume of Mieruko-chan continues the day-to-day life of Miko as she does her best to avoid the horrifying entities that only she can see… at least that’s what we thought because this volume introduces a brand-new character named Yuria who can also see those entities as well; however, it appears that she can’t see all of them.
Yuria takes a keen interest in Miko when she realizes that Miko can see the apparitions as well. She ends up tailing her but her imagination is… well… a bit out there. Even if Miko says something, Yuria will interpret it in a completely different way. This sets Yuria up to be a comic relief character.
Despite this, Miko experiences a few instances where the apparition encounters aren’t really that bad. In fact, she discovers that there can be some positive outcomes and, over time, she begins to wonder I she should face her problems head-on and begin to interact with all of these apparitions?
While I am not sure what to make of another story point development, it appears that when they visit a shrine, we are introduced to a couple of other characters which don’t seem to be a one-off appearance as they change a situation for Miko a couple of times. For now, I’ll let you read that to discover it on your own but it adds a new dimension to the overall story.
The Characters
Yuria takes from and center stage this volume. While she looks like a grade-schooler, she’s actually in high school. In fact, she’s in the classroom right next to Miko. Despite her wild, vivid, and completely incorrect imagination, she ends up befriending Miko in order to assess her “power.” Yuria wanted to be the apprentice of the fortune teller we met in the last volume; however, thanks to Miko, she’s long gone. Yuria wonders what kind of power Miko has in order to cause the fortune teller to give up and move away.
That curiosity causes Yuria to follow her around but little simple things that Miko does end up being completely misinterpreted. In one instance, Miko was simply removing a pebble from her shoe before entering a dark tunnel. Yuria understood it as Miko putting up a magical barrier to protect herself. She also mistook a normal conversation with Miko as Miko threatening her! To be fair, though, Miko did choke her out at one point!
Yuria is a pretty fun character. She reminds me a lot of Anya from Spy x Family… except Miko is aware of her abilities. It also seems as if Yuria can only see smaller apparitions and not the larger ones. It just adds a new dimension to the mystery surrounding the ability to see them.
Final Thoughts
While the addition of Yuria to the mix does spice things up, I can’t help but wonder… what happened to the ending from volume one? That alone added a new dimension to the story but it wasn’t followed up or even mentioned in the second volume! I would have loved to see Miko’s reaction to it all, perhaps explain it a bit more and so forth but that ending was completely and totally ignored that really puzzled me. It seemed like a clear and obvious direction for the manga to go but, instead, they introduced us to a comedic relief character instead.
Again, I like Yuriya and all but it’s kind of rotten to give readers a bit of a cliffhanger in one volume only to completely ignore it in the second. That would be my biggest gripe with this volume is the failure to follow through. At least the second volume didn’t really end on a cliffhanger. All they did was meet their new substitute teacher who was, predictably, surrounded by apparitions that only Miko can see. It was kind of a soft ending that just gave us a “to be continued” moment but not one of the Jojo’s variety.
While the content of the volume is good and worth a read, the endings need a lot of work. The first volume ends on a pretty big moment then doesn’t follow through and the second volume ends on a moment that doesn’t exactly hook you or entice you to read the next installment. The series is heavily relying on the bulk of the volume’s content to interest the reader to continue checking it out. That’s a pretty big gamble. The series is interesting enough to keep reading, though so I guess the gamble is paying off.
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This item was provided for review by Yen Press
