English Dub Review: Mieruko-chan “She Totally Sees Them”

Overview (Spoilers Below):
Try as she may, Miko sees monsters all around her: lurking in her locker, assaulting her best friend, even at her new favorite donut shop. Only one thing to do: Ignore them!

Our Take:
Following its impressive first episode, the show continues its terrifying concept in full force. After discovering that Miko can actually see the ghostly beings, she attempts to keep herself calm while “protecting” her best friend, Hana. The result is a series of comical and bizarre events that provide suitable humor and small development of Miko’s ability.
I’m not kidding when I say these events are bizarre regarding the ghosts themselves and their actions towards specific characters. But they also weren’t without a few decent moments that overshadow its repetitiveness. For example, the locker scene with Miko and Hana featured a clever jab at the horror movie cliches. This was followed by an effective jump scare that terrified me a bit. It’s a good thing I’m not in the same shoes as Miko.
Another example was near the end of the episode, where we see that Miko’s ability came in handy for once. While Miko and Hana search for someone to adopt a stray kitten, the former encounters two different men. One is a handsome man surrounded by evil cat spirits, and the other is a scarred man with angelic cat spirits watching over him. It showcased that people weren’t what they seemed based on their appearances. This small sequence delivered a relatable message and represented more of Miko’s gift without feeling too rushed.
A couple of scenes did tend to provide some awkwardness in its humor, mainly the ghost’s affection with groping Hana and the school nurse. However, it wasn’t portrayed in a way that’s more tasteless than funny. The balance between awkwardness and teen comedy is one of the elements that can be tricky to pull off, especially in anime. Fortunately, the team behind the show was able to pull it off reasonably well.
Overall, “She Totally Sees Them” is a humorous and creepy series of attempts to ignore the spirits that haunt or terrify the main character. While it didn’t provide anything new to its formula, it’s still a fun episode that’s both awkward and comical. With Miko knowing that she can see more types of ghosts and not just the scary ones, maybe it’ll make things easier for her to maintain her composure? Probably not, but we’ll find out next week.