Forum › A Monster Wants to Eat Me discussion

joined Apr 19, 2020

I feel like this is gonna play out like a scene in attack on titan s2 where ymir "ate" historia but was really just running off with her

I hope so, this entire time I've been expecting Miko to die so I hope my expectations get subverted...

President%20and%20new%20hire%20profile%20pic%202
joined Sep 27, 2017

Yeah fox girl is dead next chapter most likely, I'd love to be proven wrong, but her going to eat the MC at the end of this chapter feels like an intentional random set up just to have her killed in response. I think the manga would be boring without the fox girl, and her death would likely make the MC even more depressed...bleh.

I honestly find the writing frustrating right now, and like it's taking a long time to get to a seemingly predictable conclusion. I again hope I'm wrong, and I'm still reading to find out how it goes.

Anyhow, thanks as always for the translation.

last edited at Dec 13, 2021 8:26PM

joined Apr 19, 2020

Miko literally says she used to eat people, and has had to restrain herself from eating Hinako, so this doesn't contradict anything. It's not a twist at all.

Besides, Hinako can't die yet. Even if we assume volume 3 is the last, Hinako spending over half of it dead seems unlikely.

There's no reason for miko to have an internal monologue about her desire to keep hinako safe if she just wanted to eat her now

My bet is she runs off with Hinako, then shiori tracks them down and miko gets merced after having decided Hinako is ok without her or something.

last edited at Dec 13, 2021 8:32PM

Avatar
joined Aug 29, 2019

Inb4 Shiori jumped in to save Hinako and gets eaten instead.

Honestly, any character besides Miko dying at this point would feel off to me. Either they all live or Miko dies right now. Can't have four chapters without Hinako, can't have four chapters without Shiori. Four chapters without Miko seems more realistic to me, but there's probably a better way.

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joined Aug 18, 2021

I was all moved by Miko for this whole chapter and at the end all I could think was "give me back the tear I shed".
Still, I truly doubt she'll eat Hinako now, they'll probably run off in a last attempt to lose Shiori and then she'll die in a very emotional way either helping Hinako move forward or making her more depressed

joined May 29, 2021

CHOMP

joined Mar 14, 2021

B*** WHAT THE F***
No but I love this manga and can't wait for the next chapter with that cliffhanger Dx
I don't think Miko is actually trying to eat Hinako. Would be crazy tho.

Edit: k so I read some comments now and ppl make great points. I think Miko is either baiting Shiori to kill her as a way of protecting Hinako because she doesn't trust herself not to eat her. Or it's just a way of baiting Shiori to attack her again so that she can kill Shiori. Though I guess that's less likely cause she already lost when they fought right now and Miko is still tired.

Sidenote: what if Shiori is part of the reason Hinakos family died o.o

last edited at Dec 13, 2021 9:44PM

Soralaylaff
joined Oct 16, 2013

i cant get enough of Miko's fox form. It's so damn cool. I love the design and that double spread was stunning

Bleach_chan
joined Jul 14, 2021

Sidenote: what if Shiori is part of the reason Hinakos family died o.o

I've had that same thought. Why is she specifically a mermaid? Random choice, or something to do with the accident involving the ocean?

Gay%20panic
joined Sep 11, 2020

I... was not expecting that final bit

jfc

Rena_home_1
joined Aug 8, 2012

@knight Heron why are you not updating mangadex?
It's 3 chapters behind

last edited at Dec 13, 2021 11:16PM

20210429_051959
joined May 18, 2021

fuuuck off~ biiiitch~

20210429_051959
joined May 18, 2021

punching the air rn

The_argent_god_100px_avatar
joined Jul 28, 2019

oh COME ON! THAT FUCKING CLIFFHANGER! Gah! Author really knows how to string us along.

Sans%20titre-1
joined Dec 19, 2020

Sidenote: what if Shiori is part of the reason Hinakos family died o.o

I've had that same thought. Why is she specifically a mermaid? Random choice, or something to do with the accident involving the ocean?

Definitively will have some tie with the accident. Well she could also be the one that saved her

Fb_img_1636852439556
joined Oct 30, 2021

I know this looks bad, but she had an internal monologue and that means se TRULY CARES about her in a non nutritional way... SO MY HOPE WILL NEVER DIE!!!

joined Jan 13, 2021

Man, how nice of a random tiny mob monster to sneak up behind Hinako while Shiori is busy grappling with Emotions (do NOT give your fish Emotions! They interfere with the feeding process!) so Miko can pretend she's going to kill her buddy whilst actually chomping down on it.

Anyway, the whole 'Miko was captured by a monk and forced to serve as a pseudo-guardian-spirit' is pretty interesting because of the implications (I am obsessed with the worldbuilding of this series but also think it would be fine if Naekawa Sae never did anything to flesh it out and let us use our imaginations, following the honoured ZUN fashion of youkai-based storytelling). Like, I'm assuming this isn't the case for every guardian spirit in Japan and the monk was simply trying to benefit off a similarity between Miko and the present deity, but it does serve as one of those details that blurs the already-shaky line this series has between the human and inhuman even further. Humans venerate things more powerful and mysterious than ourselves, but in that very veneration, what we're worshipping, especially in case of faiths with a specific embodied deity, is something we've given form, a god in our image of the world who we believe has the power to affect the world in turn, a cycle of internalizing-and-externalizing meaning. Accordingly, the monk subordinates Miko and imposes their interpretation of faith and goodness over her natural instincts, forcing her to suppress who she really is. Because she's been rendered practically powerless by the monk, she's endowed by the people with a spiritual, symbolic power, made special in a faith created by humans precisely because of her impotence to truly show them how chaotic the world of the monsters really is.

It ties very nicely into Shiori's biting (haha) comment about the pointlessness of divine intervention, because she feels like religion is just another one of the pretensions humanity makes up to cope with the madness and cruelty of nature, praying to beings above them in the food chain for protection. To Shiori, it's merely another brand of foolery she can exploit to net herself dinner, but Miko actually seems to have believed in it, and thus represents a practical form of religion rather than an inherent one- divinity does not actually, materially exist, but good acts in the name of god shall bolster people's faith, until they conflate the benefits they receive in the name of faith with the benefits of the faith itself. While there's very definitely some monsters (and people, and religious institutions, and yeah, Everything is A Metaphor, actually) in Japan who exploited this by posing as gods and demanding sacrifices from desperate villagers anxious to dispel a threat that was in fact the monster itself, Miko is far more honest, and seems to genuinely derive a sense of purpose from her role as a spirit.

This might be either because she (as Miko herself would assert) has come to see the inherent value of human life and doesn't want to destroy it for her sustenance or because she (as Shiori would point out) needs to believe that her humiliation and captivity served some grander purpose, and fell into the same delusions that unfortunate people resort to in order to justify their sufferings as the work of a higher purpose rather than simply admitting they were forced into a shitty life, as the monk did to Miko. It's honestly a difficult argument to resolve, and emblematic of the moral ambiguity that runs through this series, but I definitely love how the perspectives of both 'monsters' are eminently human- Miko's assertion of a duty she must perform based on ideals nobler than the jungle (ocean?) law that Shiori runs on to elevate herself above the beasts, and Shiori's own scepticism in divinity and emphasis on living not merely as per your needs (unless Miko has been secretly snacking on outsiders for centuries or lying all along, she seems to prove that monsters don't actually need to eat people to survive and can either just endure or subsist on animals, other monsters, etc provided they accept the lack of flavour) but your desires.

Hinako actively moving to protect Miko is also remarkable in that it's one of the few actions she's taken since the start of the series that's truly assertive, the other especially significant one being her vow to carry through her contract with Shiori. Both of these are linked to her childhood, and I like how she symbolically ties Miko to the reason she's alive despite her family's death, similar to the way she ties her current reason to live to Shiori, because it drives in how Hinako sees life and death not as a strict binary, but intimately united, flowering in each other, best experienced in proximity- a near-death-experience makes you appreciate the value of life, being sole survivor of an accident saddles you with survivor's guilt and makes you wish you were dead, teetering on the brink of death makes you wonder if life was really all that bad, and, in accordance with Shiori's contract, living the ideal, most joyous possible life guarantees you a beautiful death. It's all a wonderful web of paradoxes.

At any rate, I hope I'm right about the cliffhanger being a fake-out and Miko being a character Naekawa actually intends to explore moving forward rather than unceremoniously butchering or transforming into a stock heartless villain, because she's too excellent as an individual and as part of the cryptid trio to erase or dead-end at such an early stage of her growth (also, her internal monologue midway through the chapter is consistent with her ideals rather than being absent, which does suggest that she's not lying her bushy tail off). Like, Miko and Shiori might end up murdering each other at the end or teaming up against a third, even crueller monster (imagine if Hinako ended up transforming into a demon due to the darkness in her heart and became the titular 'monster'), but at any rate, I need Shiori to unironically call Miko 'bingus' before either of them die. It can happen. It will happen.

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joined Jan 29, 2015

I really like Miko's character. I don't like Shiori tho, idk, she doesnt really have any good character development, or story, and she looks evil all throughout, only thinking about Hinako as food. And I guess the romance doesnt click too, idk, maybe if its Hinako and Miko then I'll understand cause they have a fix backstory.

As for the cliffhanger tho, I think its a bait and when Miko said "evil monsters" she's talking about Shiori, who literally is an evil monster who want to eat Hinako. Maybe Miko was just looking for a chance to get close to Hinako and run off with her. So yeah, that's my take. If ever that Miko really ate her or her dying, well idk, the story just sucks if its only like that, the author just wasted a good character or actually the best character in the entire series.

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joined May 6, 2017

i cant get enough of Miko's fox form. It's so damn cool. I love the design and that double spread was stunning

Agreed. Looks sick af

joined Mar 14, 2021

Sidenote: what if Shiori is part of the reason Hinakos family died o.o

I've had that same thought. Why is she specifically a mermaid? Random choice, or something to do with the accident involving the ocean?

Definitively will have some tie with the accident. Well she could also be the one that saved her

OH THAT WOULD BE SO GOOD
She saved her cause she knew she would taste good later.

Untitled
joined Dec 16, 2014

These cliffhangers are killing me.

joined Apr 8, 2018

CHOMP

Why...?
Fk, I hate you.

joined May 29, 2021

Why...?
Fk, I hate you.

Because it’s the only thing I ever think of when I see the word chomp.

(y)
joined Jan 9, 2017

Prediction: she is just gonna Carry her away, like a catfish or cat or something

That or she is chomping something else

last edited at Dec 14, 2021 6:03AM

Ykn1
joined Dec 20, 2018

Well, I guess she just chomped another monster that sneaked in to take a bite.

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