Title: Mieruko-chan Vol. 8
Author: Tomoki Izumi
Publisher: Yen Press
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 162
Genre: Sci-Fi, Supernatural, Horror
Publication Date: September 19, 2023
The Story
The eighth volume of Mieruko-chan focuses on Michiru and her… otherworldly obsession with Miko. In fact, she corners Yuria in a bathroom stall and makes her sit on her lap. She then asks her weird questions like if she likes mushrooms or caterpillars. She then begins to ask her some personal questions about Miko including what part of her body she starts with when she bathes.
The next day, they are all together and the tentacle monster that is possessing Michiru wraps itself around Miko. She pretends to see a cat and chases after it only to almost get isekai’d by Truck-kun; however, Michiru saves her. Miko goes to the hospital to get checked out but right when she’s about to receive a clean bill of health, she randomly asks the doctor about seeing things but she can’t answer the questions truthfully because there are a ton of spirits in the room with them. Because of her odd answers, she gets admitted!
At night, she needs to go find the bathroom; however, a giant tube-like mouth that’s pushing a wheelchair is roaming the halls. Then, a ton of other spirits show up and she’s surrounded. Suddenly, Rom shows up and saves her. Apparently, Rom received reports of paranormal activity in that hospital so he was checking it out. Miko explains how she ended up there and they have an interesting conversation about their ability to see and how varied it is between the two of them.
The volume ends with them celebrating Miko’s release by going to Mrs. Donut and Hana getting a platter that is specially made just for her because she’s such a frequent customer… because, of course, she is!
The Characters
Obviously, the biggest development in this series so far is Hana having her own special donut platter. This is the pinnacle of her character. But seriously, that was hilarious.
An interesting thing to note is that a few of the spirits in the hospital looked, talked, and acted completely human. One girl named Chiharu ends up talking to Miko and says that she can see the spirits. This tells Miko that there really are other people out there besides her who have been given this “gift.” But because of this revelation, it may become even harder for Miko to tell them apart which could end up being a problem.
Outside of that, there wasn’t really any major development. I could say that Michiru developed some but… not really. She’s still weird and as creepy as ever. One day, the light will get shed on her. Until then, we’ll just have to keep wondering, along with her, about what body part Miko washes first in the bath.
Final Thoughts
Even though the introduction of Michiru in the last volume seemed like the beginning of a new story arc, this volume felt more like a filler than anything. I get that Michiru was the root cause of us taking a detour but I thought we would have done a bit of a deep dive on her here. I guess not. The hospital section didn’t really lend too much to the story other than Michiru possibly stalking (well, not possibly, she IS stalking) Miko. The Rom interaction was interesting but didn’t really seem to lead anywhere either. I feel as if they could have accomplished so much more but, here we are.
Despite that, it was still a decent volume. We did human-like spirits out of it so that’s a new dimension to the things that Miko can see. It does set up a sub-plot of her figuring out who the safe spirits to talk to are and which ones aren’t. The thing is, does she even WANT to talk to ANY spirit? That’s the real question here. Hopefully, we’ll get some more on Michiru in the next volume but for now, let’s sit back and enjoy a donut tower platter. After all, once they’re done eating that monstrosity, we’ll probably be treated to another hospital arc.
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This item was provided for review by Yen Press
