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Mieruko-chan
Episode 10

by Steve Jones,

How would you rate episode 10 of
Mieruko-chan ?
Community score: 4.5

This current arc of Mieruko-chan posits that one teacher's vibes can be rancid enough to peel years off your lifespan, which is just completely true. From the cold open to the chilling post-credits scene, Toono remains the focal point of both Miko's worry and, by extension, the episode itself. The presence of a recurring villain gives the series room to flex its fright muscles harder than ever before, while Miko has to weigh some of the most important decisions to pop up since she started noticing the ghouls on the street. In short, it makes for good television.

The opening scene fully embraces horror film conventions. Given Mieruko-chan's genesis in gag strips, I kept expecting some kind of subversion to flip our assumptions about Toono on their heads. But nope, everything including the claustrophobic framing, careful lighting, and omnipresent cawing of crows adds up to an uncompromising portrait of a serial cat killer. Rather than draw out the conclusion with subtle clues, Mieruko-chan seeks refuge in slasher-soaked audacity. This makes for yet another facet of the show with its own distinct style and mood, and as with the others, it wields enough flair and polish to set the tone and make the statement it has to make. It's not virtuosic or anything, but Mieruko-chan feels like one of the increasingly rare adaptations that are given enough space and resources to make an anime comfortably in concert with its source.

Miko's big emerging conflict in this installment is the one we've seen coming for weeks: what does she do about the hauntings once ignoring them is no longer an option? As someone who falls prey to this line of thinking all the time myself (sans the smelly specter problem), I understand where her default passivity comes from. It's easy to put blinders on and assume that a particular problem only affects you, in essence making it “okay” to let it fester, because you're the only one being hurt by it. In reality, there are no delineations that are that clean. Something that affects you negatively is inevitably going to affect the people you care about, whether you're the conduit or not. Miko might have been content to suffer Toono's rotten, demon-luring, soul-sucking energy on her own, but she can't let herself ignore it if it's also eating away at Hana faster than she can replenish her stomach's reserves.

I applaud the way Mieruko-chan has taken the token hungry anime girl trope and turned Hana into an unwitting phantasmal barometer. It just goes to show that you don't have to reinvent the wheel to make a cliché a tiny degree more interesting for your audience. Hana remains a pretty one-note character overall, but I appreciate the levity she brings to otherwise the dourest episode of the series yet. It's nice to see her and Miko playfully confessing their love for the other, or hear her reveal her hobbit ancestry with a detailed explanation of a second breakfast. Even when they're recapitulating the same jokes over multiple episodes, there's a sense of rhythm and comfort to her and Miko's conversations, and it helps us believe that their friendship is strong enough to make Miko reconsider how she approaches things.

Yulia contributes some good material to this episode too. Plot-wise, the most important thing is the confirmation that she can see Hana's aura, while Miko can't. I suspected as much, but it's nice to know for sure now that even Miko's heightened perception can't see everything—which is also thematically relevant to her aforementioned internal conflict. In fact, the main trio all have character-appropriate levels of aura and/or ESP. Hana is a blissfully ignorant ball of effervescence. Yulia thinks she's worldlier than she actually is, but she can see both the good and bad in things. And Miko is a doomer who feels emotionally exhausted by the glut of awfulness she perceives each day (same). Together, however, they can make up for each other's blind spots and paint a richer portrait of the world than any of them could perceive alone. If only Miko and Yulia could clear up their whole accidental death threat misunderstanding. I think that joke has pretty much run its course by now anyway. They should be comparing ghost notes over mushroom tea, not scurrying away from each other.

With Hana's health at risk and only one more divine summons at her disposal, Miko is feeling the turn of the screw now more than ever. I like her idea of asking last week's axe bro for help in exorcising Toono, but it seems like we're headed towards a confrontation between the shrine spirits and whatever unholy abomination has taken up residence in her homeroom teacher's black heart. While it can be difficult to judge these transitional episodes, the polished presentation and solid internal drama keep Mieruko-chan's head well above water. If it can intertwine Miko's character arc into a stunning supernatural clash, then its finale in two weeks should tie a neat, slightly grotesque bow on a solid entry in the horror anime canon.

Rating:

Mieruko-chan is currently streaming on Funimation.

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