Welcome to the first Manga First Impression post! This one is about Mieruko-Chan, a horror-comedy slice of life (weird mix, right???) about a girl named Miko who can see horrific, supernatural entities -- but pretends she doesn't.
You see, manga is a very broad medium. There's a famous statistic that they use more paper to print manga than they do to make toilet paper in Japan, and this is actually true (mostly because they use bidets, but I digress). There's a manga that fulfills every niche market that exists, and I'd be willing to bet we don't get even a fifth of it over in the west.
To further expand on this point, manga is broad not only in subject matter, but often in format as well (maybe I'm not picking the best way of describing this, but let me try). What I mean by that, is that there's many different kinds of story formats -- we have long-running narrative titles, four panel titles (that are typically comedies told in a only four different frames), and episodic titles that play off of one core idea. While I can't say I've read many manga of the latter two categories, good examples of them would be Don't Toy With Me, Miss Nagatoro, and Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle. These titles don't have a significant amount of plot progression; they just have a core idea (high school girl bullies an upperclassman she likes / captured princess is very sleepy, and wreaks havoc with her sleepiness, respectively) and each chapter is an "episode" with that idea. There's still a general timeline, but it's not that important.
Mieruko-Chan is one of those manga. Miko, one day, is just capable of seeing weird, spectral monsters. She realizes that if she doesn't react, they won't be capable of interacting with her... so she never acts like she can see them.
I love the juxtaposition of the generic, typical manga style and the frighteningly grotesque detail of the monsters. And it uses them for more than just horror, but humor too.
You see -- laughing is often a reaction to shock. That's why a lot of humor is made around being abrupt, or pertain to taboo or offensive ideas. Culturally, our first instinct when shocked by such humor is to laugh, and it's deeply rooted alongside the same idea of danger in our primal lizard brains. That's also why horror can be so scary... because while we may have evolved into very intelligent creatures, there are parts of our brains that aren't good at dealing with modern concepts. I'd be willing to say all media attempts to play into these animal emotions somehow, and Mieruko-Chan used the humor/horror dichotomy in a very charming and unique way.
I found myself chuckling as I read the volume. I liked Miko, because she showed courage despite the absurd situations she was in; grabbing a phone out of a locker with a creepo hanging out on the top shelf beside it, a weird arm monster crawling out of her friend's school desk, and so on. It lends itself well to good horror imagery, and great comedic response. As I was reading, I expected every chapter to be more of the same; and I didn't have a problem with it. I'd purchased a shorter than average book knowing full well what would be inside, so I had no other expectations.
That's exactly why a part of the manga that happens near the middle caught me so off guard. It was honestly like a punch in the chest, and I don't want to spoil it -- but it had me thinking... is Mieruko-Chan gonna stay one of those episodic titles? Or will it get a little deeper?
My question was further compounded when I'd finished it, and read the scene at the end of the book that was more like a punch in the face than one in the chest. It may have entirely to do with my expectations, but I can certainly say that it's earned my interest in volume two.
I really recommend this!!
