English Dub Review: Mieruko-chan “Can You See Them?”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

Miko Yotsuya, an ordinary high school student, begins to experience strange sightings without any known reason. It is later revealed that her encounters are more real than she realized.

Our Take:

Funimation has another anime appearing in the West, and it’s just as strange as it sounds. If you think Haley Joel Osment seeing dead people in Sixth Sense was disturbing, you haven’t seen anything quite like this. The show is currently on its first season in Japan, but today, it’s taking its spookiness to the United States thanks to Funimation.

Following a chilling opening scene, the first episode kicked off reasonably well with a well-executed buildup that follows Miko’s gradual discovery of her unusual “gift”. This was one of the things that I recently enjoyed from watching horror films. They offer a buildup that adequately introduces the characters and provides a few creepy teasers that lead to something far more terrifying. But, of course, they also have to keep track of the pacing, so they don’t put their audiences to sleep. Fortunately, Mieruko-chan managed to provide a pace that’s not too swift but also not too slow either.

The show also did well in introducing its main character, Miko, who’s subtle with her personality and can be internally fearful whenever she encounters a ghost. While Miko can be a bit too quiet at times, she did provide enough intrigue and humor to make this personality work for me, mainly due to Alexis Tipton’s effective vocal performance. After watching the first episode, I’m interested in seeing what direction they’ll go with her character development in future episodes. The episode also introduced Miko’s friend Hana Yurikawa, who’s the exact opposite of the main character. My first impression of her was pretty good. However, it might be hard for Hana to impress every viewer, especially those who are easily annoyed with hyperactive characters in movies and shows.

Mieruko-chan marks the latest anime to be animated by Passione, the same studio behind Rail Wars, Citrus, and High School DxD Hero. As someone who hasn’t watched any of its previous works, I have to admit that the style looks stellar so far regarding the direction and ghostly designs. Even though the latter isn’t enough to scare me entirely, the designs for the spirits are nicely-detailed to provide a sense of creepiness.

Overall, “Can You See Them?” marks a surprisingly solid debut of Passione’s adaptation of Tomoki Izumi’s manga series. There were only a few minor flaws that could easily be improved in the upcoming episodes. Other than that, it’s an engagingly creepy buildup that’s assisted by its animation, direction, and pacing. She sees dead people, and she’s not happy about it one bit.