Life continues as abnormal for Miko, Yuria, and an oblivious Hana. Cooking class turns into an abject lesson in shame, Hana nearly gets in over her head, and a cold turns into a feeding frenzy of epic proportions. Meanwhile, the very shady Rom lurks in the background with motives of his own and some unusual suspects make a return visit.
After some stellar volumes of supernatural creepiness and general comedy, things have room to breathe for a minute (both living and non-living), which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but definitely feels like a bit of a letdown after the rather excellent horror outings of the last couple installments.
Part of the problem is that I don't like Rom very much as a character. He definitely has the slimy sheen that you want from this sort of slippery charlatan (or not), but we just went through this sort of 'how evil are they' with Miko's teacher a couple volumes back and this feels like we're headed down the same pathway yet again. It's also dragged out a bit longer than I'd like - a single volume would probably have been plenty.
The usual stuff is fine. The first story is actually the best as it blends the series’ penchant for horror and comedy really well for a ludicrous and imaginative one-shot about cooking class. Hana's ungodly creations being so horrific that they functionally act as a ward against the terrors that Miko can see is a great punchline to some truly horrific visions.
Despite my dislike of Rom, the rest of the book does move along at a good clip and successfully brings him further into the thick of things as we follow along with the fallout of Hana visiting the shrine. Hana’s bubbly personality is always fun and she was the perfect choice to see imperilled because she’s the most vulnerable of the trio.
After Hana saves a young man’s life (and precious treasure), nearly at the cost of her own, she picks up a ghastly hitchhiker that Miko notices just in the nick of time after Hana winds up sick (and conveniently allows for Miko’s imagination to provide some tentacle flavoured fanservice for the author to draw *cough*). Hana’s faith in the power of melon bread leads to a good laugh during that story with the young man.
This, in turn, leads to Miko and Yuria teaming up to save her in an absurd bit of business that sees the return of the once helpful shrine maiden fox demon things. It also winds up sending poor Yuria off on her own solo adventure that nearly kills her, as she can’t stop feeling like a third wheel and her wonky self-esteem means she can’t take Miko’s genuine praise literally. Consequently, she wants to gain power but might want to be a little pickier about where she finds it.
The end of the volume turns back to Miko going off on her own to save Hana from whatever has sunk its claws into her. Not that Miko has any power of her own beyond her sight, but that just gives Rom a chance to manipulate things once more, setting up a potential three way throwdown at the start of our next volume.
It’s a good step forward for Miko as a character, going from somebody who passively avoids these creatures to confronting them directly when somebody she cares about is affected by them. Taking responsibility for your actions is strong hero stuff, both from her and our resident fortune teller, who gets some of the volume’s standout moments.
This is definitely more of a connecting volume between major stories, even with the through line of Hana’s affliction by a malevolent spirit. Hopefully next time out we’ll get a bit more information on the shrine plus some resolution to all this, as I do think this particular arc has been stretched about as far as it can go.
3.5 stars - misgivings about Rom aside, he does make for a decent antagonist, this is a good volume and the stories hang together well. It’s not the best the series has been, more of the trio being a trio would have been nice, but it’s worthwhile enough to round it up.