The Fall Anime 2025 Preview Guide - This Monster Wants to Eat Me

"I've come to eat you." So softly utters the mermaid Shiori as she emerges from the sea and takes high school girl Hinako by the hand. Hinako lives alone in a town by the sea and possesses an unusually delicious body that is irresistible to nearby monsters. To ensure that she matures to the best condition, Shiori seeks to protect Hinako—all so that someday, she can devour every piece of her.

This Monster Wants to Eat Me is based on the manga series by Sai Naekawa. The anime series is streaming on Crunchyroll on Thursdays.

Content warning: Suicidal ideation.

There is a great deal that this first episode does well when viewed from a realistic perspective. A lot of people suffer from depression, and at least in my experience, depression can make me feel like I'm drowning. My body feels heavier; it's harder to do everyday activities that felt natural to me originally, and the worst part is, this feeling can hit you out of nowhere. I really liked the way that the show utilized water and drowning as a visual metaphor. Obviously, Hinako's family died from drowning or by some association with water, so there is a traumatic element to seeing her constantly submerged. However, on its own, it also acts as a perfect visual representation of how she feels.

There are numerous slow-burning moments throughout, with Hinako fully feeling the weight of their depression, and I appreciate that. For a good portion of this episode, you can't fully tell if she wants to end her own life or if she's going through the motions. She seems to have support in her life, but it's very clear that these relationships are distractions from the trauma that she's experienced. One of my favorite scenes is when everything looks fine when she's around her friend at school, but the minute she leaves, she's back in the water. I could watch an entire show about this girl navigating those complex emotional beats. Then the supernatural elements then take over, and suddenly everything feels a lot more predictable.

From the cinematography to the dialogue and how scenes are cut, it implies that this is supposed to be some semblance of a horror show. Hinako is sought by underwater creatures who probably had something to do with her parents' death, but it's OK because she has a protector in the form of this mysterious transfer student who also wants to kill her, but only when the time is right. Suddenly, things seem much more generic and less believable. During the big mermaid reveal scene, all I thought was that it's weird that this is taking place in the back of a school, and nobody noticed. Also, it's really convenient that our protagonist didn't get any blood on her. It would've been tough to explain what she had just witnessed if she were trying to keep a secret. Do you see what I mean? Suddenly, things feel a lot less special.

There are different angles you can take with this setup. Maybe it will lean more into the horror and go for something truly unsettling, it could explore some of the psychological aspects of a character who really wants to die, or it can go for a dark comedy or even a really screwed up romance show. I like a show that presents us with options, but if those options come at the expense of elements that I already think the show excels at, then I would argue there's no point.

This Monster Wants to Eat Me, a.k.a. WataTabe started strong. The protagonist Hinako wakes from a dream of sinking into open water with a blank, empty expression in her eyes. She receives a text from her aunt stating that she won't be able to make it to “the anniversary,” followed by a text from her friend about being late to school. She responds to both of them that she's fine, but it's clear that she's not. She stares at a picture of a smiling family, then makes her way to school, monologing about how much she hates summer as she walks past happy families. Within the first five minutes of the episode, we've learned everything we need to know about Hinako and her world, despite none of it being stated outright. We love a show that doesn't over-rely on verbal exposition or narration.

But by the end of 20 minutes, I was pretty much over it. The visual representation of Hinako's dissociation as her being underwater was potent at first, but after it came up for the third time, I felt like I was being beaten over the head with it. The animation looks brilliant at a glance. The overwhelming blues of the water imagery contrast with vivid, warm violets and oranges around Shiori, and again with the deep red of the blood splatter against her white dress. However, the impact of the color symbolism is diluted considerably by the long, meandering pans of the scenery and cheap lighting effects, such as lens flare.

But I'm not ready to give up on WataTabe just yet. With a few exceptions, I tend to like yuri best when it's mixed in other genres, such as Mayonaka Punch and The Executioner and Her Way of Life. Creeping horror is hit or miss for me, though having queer elements pushes things toward “hit,” and I have a definite weakness for mermaid stories. Hopefully, the next episode will do a bit more to set up the character relationships and give me a better idea of what the show will look like for the rest of its run.

Allow me to tell you the problem with this episode. Near the end, we get a fight between a mermaid and an iso-onna. Our heroine, Hinako, says the following in narration:

“It was like a scene from hell itself. I was paralyzed by the unfolding atrocity, and yet… and yet… I… I…”

But that's not what we see. We see choppy, low framerate footage containing vision-blocking waves, extreme close ups that show nothing, and a reaction shot of Hinako's face. The most gore we get comes in the form of two severed arms floating through the air.

I have no doubt this line comes directly from the original book—that it allows the author to sidestep spending paragraph upon paragraph describing the graphic violence Hinako is witnessing and add a bit of character insight at the same time. However, while this works for a novel, anime is a visual medium—you have to show, not tell. If a character says something “was a like a scene from hell itself”, we need to see it and agree.

As for the rest of the episode, it serves to get its point across if nothing else. Hinako lost her parents and brother to the sea. Since then, she has been suffering from severe depression. Her only lifelines are her best friend and her aunt. However, when not directly interacting with either, she becomes disconnected and listless—and the visuals of the show do a good job of showing this with the visual metaphor of being under water. She may not be actively attempting suicide but she certainly wishes to die—to end her suffering and be with her family.

And from this is born our setup: a girl who wants to die and the mermaid that wants to eat her (you know, once she's been fattened up a bit). It's a solid enough premise for a yuri show and there is a lot of drama to be had should one or both come to value the other so much they change their mind. But the make or break challenge facing this anime is how it acts until that point—if it can keep an audience interested as it builds toward the easy drama. We'll just have to wait till next week to see if they are up to it or not.