This Horror Anime Gave Me Nightmares...

[00:00:00]I had one of those zero sugar white monster energy drinks for the first time today and I've got to say the people that have been hyping these things up lied to me. I paid like $25 for a pack of 12 just for it [music] to taste like orange juice, orange creamsicle, orange something. For $25 those oranges better have been squeezed by the most beautiful chubby women up in northern Michigan, man. In unrelated news, my hands have been trembling and my heart has been beating out of my chest since like 8:30 in the morning. It feels like I'm about to get struck by a lightning and also pass a kidney stone or maybe that feeling is a UTI, I'm not sure. But let's talk about that heart beating out of my chest thing. Not in an I just drank battery acid from someone's Honda Accord sort of way, though I very much probably just have. But in a sort of oh my god, I'm loading shopping list kind of way. Today we're talking about ghosts, ghouls, spooky apparitions of deceased from long ago. I don't really have an opinion on ghosts, just like I don't really have one on aliens. If aliens were to exist, if a saucer were to land over my house and giant green men were to go and probe my neighbor's hairy man hole back in space, what would I do? What would I do? Absolutely nothing. I'm minding my business, man.

[00:01:18]Taking myself back to bed. After of course I peek out of the blinds and be nosy. And the same thing applies to ghosts. I don't really believe in otherworldly figures and I don't think I would ever be haunted per se. Because everyone I've ever cared about ends up leaving me anyway.

[00:01:34]And I'm also not stomping around on Native American burial grounds. I wouldn't end up in a situation involving ghosts to begin with. If you've ever watched your favorite YouTubers or streamers play indie horror games, you know that spooky occurrences happen quite often in them. Why are you investigating a haunted house or going to an abandoned building in the middle of nowhere? I would be digging in my butt long before I click on that flashlight. What if for some unknown reason on a random day at a random time, seemingly by chance, you started seeing dead people? And not only that, but they can see you, too.

[00:02:17]>> [sighs] >> Miko is scared.

[00:02:28]Kid's getting chewed out. That's the second handprint since this morning.

[00:02:36]I should try and get some sleep.

[00:02:37]>> I see you.

[00:02:45]>> [screaming] [music] >> Miko is a sleep-deprived and mostly reserved horror show obsessed high schooler. And the only thing keeping her down here on Earth is Hana, her opposite in most regards. She's the light of every room she finds herself in, and for better or for worse, she doesn't have a brain.

[00:03:09]Like at all. God bless her little heart.

[00:03:11]I think if you knocked on that poor girl's big forehead, you would hear an echo. But while Hana would gladly come to her best friend with all of her problems, Miko is again really reluctant to open up. The day has been weird for many reasons known only to our brooding emo girly. She keeps seeing things out of the corners of her eyes, and it feels as though something is really watching her. And in true horror movie fashion, at the end of the day when everyone has already gone home, Miko realizes her favorite charm is missing. Mieruko-chan is a really unique anime that I didn't expect to captivate me like it did.

[00:03:44]Everything from the animation to the voice acting to the cool little references to other horror media make this series feel like a love letter to the genre. The first episode essentially plays out like a horror movie. It's all build-up and tension that [music] seems to spike once Miko enters the school at night. Shapes and shadows move behind her. She flicks the lights to her classroom on, then off, then on again.

[00:04:08]And the whole time you're expecting a jump scare. You're expecting something to happen, but nothing does. Episode 1 is my favorite of the entire series because while the other 11 take a sort of episodic approach like Goosebumps did, adapting a book for a different episode in the same vein that Mieruko-chan seems like a slice-of-life that has scary elements happen throughout. Episode 1 is focused on putting you on the edge of your seat before the big reveal. We as the audience don't know what's going to happen, just like I didn't know what was happening the first time I watched Markiplier play Five Nights at Freddy's.

[00:04:42]His first initial reaction to those jump scares are genuine. It scared him, I think. It scared me and that's all that matters. As a viewer, I'm already hooked. I'm intrigued by what's happening in the story. Long after the jump scares become more frustrating than scary, I push through to learn the truth about what's going on in this pizzeria.

[00:05:01]Miko finds herself at a bus stop when it starts to rain. Her phone starts glitching out. The selfie she sends to Hana becomes all distorted and out of sheer instinct she throws it to the ground. Maybe she's just imagining things. She barely gets enough sleep at night as is. Miko bends down to pick up her phone and >> [groaning] >> Can you see me?

[00:05:27]Hey.

[00:05:28]>> [groaning] >> Can you see me?

[00:05:31]>> I was joking at the beginning when I said I would mind my business if anything scary happened to me. If a creepy little girl started crawling through my TV, if a ghost started flickering my lights on and off, I am out of there, man. I am moving. I am running full sprint for my life. My evolutionary instincts gave me the abilities of fight and flight and I am a cowardly fish. I ain't no salmon, man.

[00:05:57]You won't catch me upstream with no grizzly bears up on BBC. But you expect her to run, to scream, to fight back, to do anything. Instead, Miko does probably the most realistic thing you would do when face-to-face with a paranormal entity and that is leaving brown stains on her all over sprint panties. Have you seen that video of the dog with its eyes closed and there's a song playing in the background? That is what Miko does the entire show and it is the funniest thing ever. She could stand in front of the scariest, most diabolical apparition ever conceived and [music] she will swallow that lump in her throat and pretend it isn't there. Is she scared?

[00:06:35]Oh, absolutely. She's on the verge of tears nearly every episode. But being in such a terrifying situation while also being such an introverted character that never opens up creates this interesting clash of emotions she goes through. She never tells Hana that she suddenly started seeing ghosts. Hana never finds out even accidentally. Miko can see ghosts. She can see dead people, monsters, manifestations of guilt or death or something. You tune into this show expecting the mystery to be unraveled with time. Why can Miko suddenly see ghosts? What are they? Some ghosts are serial killers and others are just family members that can't move on.

[00:07:16]But we never get those answers. I swear to you, early on in the series, Miko and Hana meet this old woman who is set up to be someone of great importance. She has some weird connection to the spirit realm and with a bracelet Miko hopes to quell the spiritual presence she has.

[00:07:31]This curse causing spirits to flock to her. She puts on the bracelet, it snaps into a million pieces and the old lady retires. We never see her again after this episode. She closes down her shop and goes back to the countryside. I better keep myself at home where I'm finished. I was just playing around selling fake bracelets. That girl actually is cursed. She is not beating the fraud allegations, dude. With no way to stop the spirits from haunting Miko's every moment, with no one else aware of the constant danger she's in, it starts to affect her. It affects her mental health and her everyday life. She sees her own deceased father waving goodbye as she heads to school. She sees her best friend getting molested by a perverted handsy demon that Hana can't see or feel. In classrooms, in the bathroom, in public, and she cannot do anything about it. The only barrier between Miko and losing her mind to insanity is one question the apparitions continue to ask her over and over again.

[00:08:33]"Can you see me?" That's where my enjoyment of Mieruko-chan came from. Not by the mystery of how or why, but more so when. When is Miko going to slip [music] up? When will she scream? When will she run away from the horror she comes across? Because these monsters are lying to her face. They aren't curious if she can see them. It's a test to see if she'll crack under the pressure. They know Miko can see them. So they get close and they scan her face for any sort of reaction and they ask her again.

[00:09:02]All to push her further to the brink of admitting it. Also, they can kill her and eat her corpse. The show quickly becomes this cat and mouse game of a sleep-deprived, mentally exhausted teenager against things she cannot fathom explaining to anyone. This is made all the more enjoyable by the voice acting performances of Alexis Tipton and Sarah Wiedenheft, respectively. Before we go on, yes, I watched the show on dub. Yeah, I know. I know. Cardinal sin I committed.

[00:09:30]Words Japanese versus words English.

[00:09:33]With Sarah as a bubbly and honestly hilarious Hana and Alexis as a gloomy, depressed Miko carry the show.

[00:09:41]>> None of my other pictures have gotten anywhere near this many likes. I'm getting the warm and fuzzy.

[00:09:46]But it made me think, maybe I've had a hidden talent for PHOTOGRAPHY THIS WHOLE TIME.

[00:09:51]>> WHAT?

[00:09:53]>> TA-DA!

[00:09:55]>> [music] >> Check it out. I got an instant camera, the kind that prints your pictures.

[00:10:00]I could be a modern-day Annie Leibovitz with this thing. Can you see it? Me and my Polaroid?

[00:10:05]Online gallery show.

[00:10:08]>> Please, no.

[00:10:08]>> I don't think I would have finished all 12 episodes if not for them. They sound like they're having fun in that recording booth, and it shines through in every episode. When the credits rolled and it was all over, I found myself wishing for a season 2. Not just so these plot points could be solved, but also so I could see these two on my screen again. Even Hana's character, which to me is the worst part of the show by far next to the fan service itself, is elevated by Sarah Weeden Napps' performance. Hana's entire personality can be summed up with her three and only three personality traits: hungry, dumb, and big boobs. That sounds ridiculous, dude. I don't want to want that. Get that off my screen. But somehow it works. What should be one of the reasons to drop a show became the reason I finished it. On paper, Hana is an annoying, one-dimensional character that was made just for the fan service. But whenever she's on screen, I find myself enjoying her presence, [music] which is something I can't say about Miko. That poor girl is suffering. Somebody help her. Throw in the towel, Ev. Do something. At least I can understand why James Sunderland was in Silent Hill. At least I can fathom being trapped in a loop of agony and self-loathing manifested. What did Miko do? She could be brushing her teeth and see the devil from the Bible standing behind her in the mirror. Why is there a businessman in her house anyway? What cruel punishment from God is this? They got a 15-year-old fighting serial killers on her day off from school. What is going on in Japan, man? Forget a season 2. I'm afraid they're going to put Miko on a train and it's straight for Shibuya station.

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