This Monster Wants to Eat Me Volume 4 Review
Hinako is a girl who lost her whole family due to a car accident, and has been emotionally drowning ever since, wanting to reunite with her family but feeling forced to continue living. Shiori is a mermaid, a demon who poses as a human and offers Hinako a chance to die by becoming her next meal, but only when she’s reached her peak deliciousness. The timing for that is unclear, but the offer is too temping to resist, so Hinako accepts. However as the pair begin to spend more time together, Hinako starts to feel differently towards Shiori, and begins to accept offers to spend time with her friends and classmates, including a basketball training camp with Miko. But with darkness always lurking around the corner for Hinako, is her wish for death the same it was before?
We’re now four volumes into this dark yuri series, with the anime adaptation just around the corner, and we’ve officially entered the second arc of this series. As noted in my previous review, the first arc set up the premise, the characters and the stakes, whereas this arc seems to be, so far, focusing more on the mystery of why Hinako is considered ‘delicious’ for the demons and also Hinako’s emotional state. Unlike the previous volume, which was very thin and even had a chapter wasted as a recap, therefore making the volume feel very light on content, Volume 4 has a lot more to chew on.
The first chapter is a conclusion to the last chapter of Volume 3. Shiori takes Hinako out to the beach, but sadly the trip is ruined by the weather. But it allows the pair to have a quiet moment and reveal the extent of Hinako’s injuries, as well as the mark she bears since the accident. It reveals why Hinako keeps herself covered up, even in the summer, with long sleeves. It’s through the acceptance of her injuries, and not being turned away, that we see a small change in Hinako, and the hint of developing feelings for Shiori. This continues throughout the book, with even a heart-to-heart that upsets Hinako, when she asks Shiori if they can ever be friends. For a monster like Shiori, she seems to see no need for friends; monsters are known to be selfish creatures, only saying what the humans want to hear in order for the monster to get their next snack. But Shiori often does things that contradict this; for example she says she’s keeping Hinako for her peak deliciousness but surely if Hinako smells divine now, there’s no need to wait? Also Shiori’s efforts to bring Hinako out multiple times to get her back into the world (from the festival in Volume 1, to the beach in this book) certainly gives mixed messages to poor Hinako, who’s been drowning in her own depression for years.
This builds up to the monster of the volume (so to speak) where the basketball camp hides in plain sight a new demon that wants to feast on Hinako…only this time Hinako actually runs away from it. Previously, we’ve seen many examples of her standing still, despite being surrounded by danger, acting ready to be a meal for whatever demon wanted to take a bite. She previously sought death, no matter what form it took, but now her instinct isn’t to stay still, but to run from the danger. This thought troubles her, but is enough to save her life and fight off the demon, just in time for Shiori to save the day, only for a big reveal to happen with Hinako suddenly remembering something important from her past that may link to Shiori. It’s a really nice, slow but believable change for Hinako; she’s still clearly depressed and struggles with her emotions and outlook on life, but the instinct to run from the danger, even just this once for a little while, is enough to show a relatable change in our heroine and show that recovering from mental illnesses isn’t an overnight thing, it’s an endeavour that takes time and is not always a linear progress.
We also get a bigger look into the mythology of this world. We’ve seen a few recognisable demons and the like in this series, from mermaids to kitsune, but this book expands on the other world in two ways. At the beach at the beginning of the book, when the rain hits, we see hundreds of human hands reaching out to the surface, and according to Shiori they’re not ghosts or demons, but the collective regrets of drowned victims taking form. It’s a simple idea, that is easy to grasp and allows us to see something creepy without it all being centred on the deliciousness of the heroine. Then we have a new type of monster who provides the conflict for the climax of this book; a monster who used to be a human, someone who died very violently and tragically, only to become a monster themselves. I won’t spoil who it is (although the hair pin they wear being a kanji symbol as a hint is very clever) but it again expands the world of horrors in This Monster Wants to Eat Me. It’s not just mythical creatures from the legends that Hinako has to worry about, but regular humans turned into monsters that could be lurking around the corner.
The art continues to be very good in this volume, especially the aforementioned hundreds of hands on the beach. Sai Naekawa says in the chapter notes that they’re based on photos of her own hand, which I thought was a really neat detail. However I do have one minor criticism, and that’s the very dark pictures towards the end of the book, and I don’t mean ‘dark’ as in content, I mean as in I can hardly see it. I think the very minor two-panel flashback of the monster at the end of the book is meant to show how they were treated in their human life, but it’s so dark and the second panel is just a closeup of the first, so I can barely tell what happened. Also in the battle at the very end, Hinako’s emotional revelation is centred on seeing Shiori’s true mermaid form. Previously, we’ve only seen small glimpses of Shiori’s form to build horror and tension. But in this book, we’re suppose to see enough of her true nature, and Hinako to be shocked by it, but again, we can barely see it as it’s so dark. It doesn’t help that the big reveal is over a two-page spread, with the mermaid herself in the middle dip of the book, therefore losing some detail. Plus with some text boxes over the top of it, I’m not sure what I’m looking at. It’s a shame that a big reveal is hindered by these errors, but I hope we get a proper look at her demonic form in a future volume, or at least in the upcoming anime adaptation.
The volume also contains a bonus comic, plus a chapter concept of an earlier version of this story, with details on the changes made. Then there’s translation notes by Caleb Cook, not many but still it’s appreciated, and the book is an easy read as well, although I did have to look up what ‘moxie’ meant.
This Monster Wants to Eat Me picks up the pace in the new arc and expands the horrors of this dark yuri tale. I look forward to the next volume in November, and seeing how it translates into anime later this year.
Our review copy was supplied by Yen Press.
