English Dub Season Review: Mieruko-chan Season One

Overview (Spoilers Below):

Miko Yotsuya (Alexis Tipton) is a high school student who wakes up to see that she can see terrifying ghosts and spirits. She sees them everywhere she goes, including her school, her home, and even around her air-headed best friend Hana Yurikawa (Sarah Wiedenheft). Despite this, Miko attempts to ignore their existence with comical results and live an ordinary high school life. Later on, she encounters Yulia Niguredo (Lindsay Sheppard), a classmate who can also see ghosts, and her substitute teacher, Zen Tohno (David Matranga), with a mysterious past.

Our Take:

Mieruko-chan is based on a manga series written and illustrated by Tomoki Izumi. It is directed by Yuki Ogawa, with Takahiro Majima serving as co-director and Kenta Ihara as the writer. Kana Utatane provided the show’s music. Sora Amamiya performed the opening theme “Mienai Kara ne!?” and the ending theme “Mita na? Mita yo ne?? Miteru yo ne???”.

Many of us dream about having superpowers now and then, whether it’s heat vision, super strength, shapeshifting, or communicating with fish. We would kill to have any one of these abilities at our disposal. But the only power that we don’t want is the ability to see ghosts everywhere we go. Unfortunately, that’s what poor Miko Yotsuya got.

Whenever I hear something involving malevolent ghosts, I assume that people are referring to another action-packed supernatural series about the characters battling evil spirits. However, Mieruko-chan happens to take this element in a direction that I wasn’t expecting. While it does involve many creepy crawlies that’ll have people pee their pants for days, the show doesn’t go out of its way to portray the characters kicking some ghostly ass in every episode. Instead, it goes for a more subtle direction with the scenario by mixing it with the typical high school slice-of-life comedy formula. It also has the main character being an innocent and frightened high school student who questions her given ability and uses her brain to overcome her obstacles instead of a magical weapon.

I’m all into shows and movies that deal with the supernatural, especially from the action and horror genres. So I had no problem covering the show despite it being more comedic than violent. After watching the first two episodes of Mieruko-chan, I knew for sure that I would be in for a spooky treat, and I was right. While it’s far from perfect regarding specific elements in the arc, I had a surprisingly good time watching Miko’s failed attempts at avoiding the undead.

The storyline in the show’s first season consists of a series of events involving Miko trying to ignore the ghosts, hiding her fear towards them, and protecting her friend Hana from them. However, the arc showcases more than just Miko being constantly terrified. Some episodes like “She Totally Sees Them” and “She Sees Them, Too” represent Miko using her ability to do good deeds for other people, like helping an old woman with poor memory remember her husband in the latter episode.  

By the second half of the season, the story focuses more on an interconnected narrative centering on Miko encountering her strange substitute teacher, whom she suspects as someone who abuses stray cats. However, it also explores some heartfelt character-driven moments outside of Miko’s ghostly encounters, especially her slowly coming to terms with her ability. For example, in its fourth episode, “Yep, She Sees Them”, Miko’s younger brother Kyosuke (Suzie Yeung) seeks to protect Miko despite his stubbornness and being unaware of the ghosts haunting her. It also showcases Miko providing closure for her father (Michael Sorich), who’s dead the entire time. Another example is in the second-to-last episode, “She Looks”, where Zen is revealed to be a traumatized person haunted by his mother’s ghost.  

While it is fun to watch Miko being terrorized by the monstrous phantoms, it’s the show’s heart that makes it more endearing than it should. The narrative in the season’s second half also offers plenty of entertaining (and frightening) moments that balance well with its sincerity. Unfortunately, the formula involving people being unaware of Miko’s encounters reached its state of repetitiveness, starting with the fourth episode. There are also a couple of episodes (“She Sees Them, Too” and “The Things She Sees”) where the main plots get sidetracked by their filler sequences. Despite that, the show maintains its enjoyment thanks to Ogawa and Majima’s direction in mixing horror elements with teen comedy and suspense. The best examples of the direction are “She Totally Sees Them”, involving a jab at horror cliches and an effective jump scare, and “The Things She Sees”, where Miko encounters an axe-carrying ghost while shopping with her brother. Kana Utatane’s musical score also helped in emphasizing the show’s tension.

The English cast was also pretty tolerable in voicing their respective characters. Alexis Tipton, who’s known as the voice of Mei Hatsume in My Hero Academia and Sister Iris in Fire Force, delivered solid voice work as Miko. She flawlessly captures the shy nature of the character and her panicked state whenever she fears “getting killed” by a ghost. Sarah Wiedenheft did well in providing infectious energy and charm into her role as Hana Yurikawa, although she can be a bit too energetic for her own good. In specific episodes like “She Sees Real Crazy Ones”, Hana’s chirpiness and high-pitched voice can be a bit grating for people who have a very low tolerance towards obnoxious supporting characters. The other highlights of the cast include Lindsay Sheppard as Yulia and David Matranga (best known for voicing Shoto Todoroki from My Hero Academia) as Zen Tohno.

The animation from Studio Passione (the studio behind Rail Wars!, Citrus, and Wasteful Days of High School Girls) offers plenty of vibrancy and detail in the environments, the action sequences involving the shrine maidens, and the spirits’ designs. Makoto Uno is responsible for designing the monstrous ghosts, and they’re admittedly frightening. While most of the ghosts didn’t do much to scare me, I do appreciate the work put into making them a tad more horrifying than the monsters in recent horror movies. 

Overall, Mieruko-chan is a pleasantly fun series that effectively balances its slice-of-life humor with horror elements and a few heartwarming moments. Its derivative sequences, filler scenes, and Hana’s personality may make specific viewers want to avoid it, like how Miko avoids the spirits. However, if they put those flaws aside, they might enjoy the show’s blend of terror and comedy as much as I did. It might not be as exhilarating as someone battling the evil spirits, but it does prove that it’s also fun to ignore them. The season finale of its first season shows plenty of signs for a potential second season. If that were to happen, then I wouldn’t mind encountering the spirits with Miko once more.