Episode 7 anime Mieruko-chan offers the familiar spooky images but lacks the prominence that sometimes elevates the series away from its demonic origins and draws on Miko’s comical fear form. Of course, there’s still a lot to like about the anime’s new stuff when the fundamentals of Mieruko-chan are solid. Our three heroines get together in earnest for the first time, and their burgeoning triangle relationship makes for some interesting interactions. Of course, for a story that is supposed to deceive the devil, a lot of misunderstandings also arise. But they’re not quite hype compared to the rest of the anime.
The main humorous highlight lies in Yulia’s gross misinterpretation of Miko’s words and actions. She is too focused on the human world, while, ironically, completely oblivious to the worst threats of the other world. The other core irony that she is right about Miko is in terms of her abilities when it comes to her psychic abilities over Miko; She’s just wrong on how to do it. Yulia, like so many of us, was raised too much by manga and anime. She enjoys magic circles and flashy exorcisms, when Mieruko-chan’s premise is much simpler — and all the more unsettling in its simplicity.
Miko’s only defense is laziness, which creates an element of tension in every haunting battle. She’s the only one who has to be afraid of being subjected to the complete attention of a ghost. There’s a laugh to that, which comes from some classic tenets of horror stories. Monsters are scary when we don’t know much about them, and they’re even scarier when we can’t fight them. Like previous episodes, Mieruko-chan doesn’t provide the background for the climax of shounen but introduces invisible fear and the way to avoid it is to ignore it. Kodoani continues to appreciate this restriction. It’s not about trying to turn Miko into an action hero who can dispel the dark specter with a single thought. To the extent that a premise like this can come to fruition, the anime approaches her as if she were an ordinary teenage girl trying her best despite the circumstances. It’s a very logical anime.
However, the trade-off of this mundane approach is that it is prone to cracking. Not with psychic exorcisms like the anime or manga Yulia imagined, Mieruko-chan relies on other innovative avenues to keep herself fresh. Previous episodes have done so by making more subtle gestures towards the big picture or by uncovering authentic emotional moments facilitated by Miko’s “curse”. Kodoani enjoyed both of these approaches, especially for the ways they helped Mieruko-chan feel like a comedy. However, kodoani feels there is no thoroughness in this week’s new episode. Yulia’s contributions are the same, the creatures’ appearance and actions are no different from what we’ve seen, which was last week’s climactic re-read.
Episode 7 with Hana excited about her knack for photography and inadvertently dealing with gruesome ghosts, Yulia’s active imagination and suspicion backfire on her in interesting ways, and Miko remains a who worries about Hana. Yulia somehow always misinterpreting Miko’s kindness as death threats, Yulia has found a place where she feels like she belongs. The episode could have done a much better job at evoking some of the actual emotions from this development—it ended with a happy ending.
Mieruko-chan is built around the paradoxical attraction of the occult. A haunting is a scary prospect, but it’s also a confirmation that there’s something more to this world than our own relatively dull lives. Miko’s terrible experiences go hand in hand with those that connect her with her father, with strangers in need, and with the divine. The spirits in the shrine were most likely counting down to how many more times they would save her, and Miko was understandably humbled and amazed by the gods’ appearance. These are interesting moods that I hope watching the series will explore more deeply.
Via: Kodoani.com
