This Monster Wants to Eat Me promises melancholy, voracious longing, and supernatural brutality — and so far, it’s done little to satiate my appetite. Having had this story on my radar for quite some time, I went into the anime adaptation with high hopes, assuming the relatively lackluster teasers were hiding the magic that would unfold. Maybe because of my expectation of greater tension, the first episode felt quite bland, and the second steered in a direction that only made the watch experience more confusing.
I’d hoped the first episode would embellish the synopsis, but no extra information is given in these 20 minutes. Everything plays out as sparsely as the synopsis describes it: Hinako gets attacked by a monster; Shiori saves her; Shiori vows to eat her. We get no extra information, save for the small mystery of why Shiori didn’t just eat Hinako then and there (though the answer was already spoiled in one of the trailers). Had the animation’s execution of this inciting incident been grander, the lack of additional plot might’ve gone unnoticed, but even with the vignettes of the iso-onna attacking Hinako and subsequently getting ripped to shreds, the assault feels less than monumental.
The other elements of the production unfortunately only add to this mediocrity. I didn’t realize just how important the sound composition of silence is in a show until I watched Hinako quietly waking up in her room, with no noise except for the birds outside and the ping of her phone. This silence should have felt heavy, uneasy, and numb, given Hinako’s despondency after her family’s death. Instead, it just feels a little awkward. The silence is too flat without any eerie white noise, and the chirps and text tone sounds that interrupt the quiet give the air of peacefulness rather than the intended sullenness. The bad sound design only continues as episode 1 goes on; the very literal depiction of Hinako being underwater as a symbol of her depression (which I got tired of after its second usage) is weakly compounded on by the muffled soundscape, and the iso-onna trying to consume Hinako expels the distorted shrill of a Persona 5 shadow — which is to say, it’s not all that scary.
I’m not entirely sure whether this story is meant to be shelved under the horror genre or if its supernatural elements just have some horror qualities, which could explain some of these subdued animation choices. But either way, the overall serious tone does not sell itself well, especially when the show starts implementing more cutesy animation in episode 2. Compared to episode 1, the amount of SFX asides and chibi-style sequences increases exponentially, with bright neon screentones and loud teasing from Hinako’s friend Miko that clash with the otherwise muted energy. I found it at least bearable when these contrasting styles were used in separate frames, but then I was irked when they started to overlap. Why is the sinister, foreboding soundtrack playing over chibi Shiori playfully explaining herself to Hinako?
As someone who hasn’t read the manga, I’m making the assumption that this combination of styles is done to create a faithful adaptation, or else I have no idea why they would make this choice. And even if that is the case, I have to imagine there’s a better way to make a faithful adaptation without making everything one-to-one. It’s not that you can’t combine the grim with the playful, because you definitely can, and successfully — Senpai wa Otokonoko is a memorable adaptation that adds in its manga’s chibi sequences but balances them with its serious exhibitions of trauma and identity struggles. Maybe This Monster Wants to Eat Me faces an extra challenge by being a supernatural story and not just a slice-of-life, but it hasn’t achieved that balance yet, and the oversaturation of the cutesy style in episode 2 makes it extremely unclear as to what direction this show wants to go in tonally.
The thing keeping me holding on, as I suspected, is the show’s tragic yuri premise. I like the angle that Shiori wants to cultivate Hinako into the best morsel, which means not just keeping her body healthy but also her mind. It’s keeping me sadistically anticipating the conclusion of this fate, where they are so happy in each other’s company that the idea of consumption no longer tastes so sweet. And while the romantic storyline has only been offered up in crumbs thus far, the coy brush of Shiori’s finger against Hinako’s lips, as well as Miko’s boiling jealousy at the two’s closeness, did feed me amidst my disappointment with the rest of the production. Let’s get that yuri love triangle going!
So will I continue the show? Probably yes, but that comes less from my belief that the production will get better and more from the fact that I don’t want to abandon a yuri anime so early. The overarching storyline still sounds promising, so I can only hope the rest of the season will do it some justice.
