The Fall Anime 2025 Preview Guide - This Monster Wants to Eat Me

"I've come to eat you." So softly utters the mermaid Shiori as she emerges from the sea and takes high school girl Hinako by the hand. Hinako lives alone in a town by the sea and possesses an unusually delicious body that is irresistible to nearby monsters. To ensure that she matures to the best condition, Shiori seeks to protect Hinako—all so that someday, she can devour every piece of her.

This Monster Wants to Eat Me is based on the manga series by Sai Naekawa. The anime series is streaming on Crunchyroll on Thursdays.

Content warning: Suicidal ideation.

Allow me to tell you the problem with this episode. Near the end, we get a fight between a mermaid and an iso-onna. Our heroine, Hinako, says the following in narration:

“It was like a scene from hell itself. I was paralyzed by the unfolding atrocity, and yet… and yet… I… I…”

But that's not what we see. We see choppy, low-framerate footage containing vision-blocking waves, extreme close-ups that show nothing, and a reaction shot of Hinako's face. The most gore we get comes in the form of two severed arms floating through the air.

I have no doubt this line comes directly from the original book—that it allows the author to sidestep spending paragraph upon paragraph describing the graphic violence Hinako is witnessing and add a bit of character insight at the same time. However, while this works for a novel, anime is a visual medium—you have to show, not tell. If a character says something “was like a scene from hell itself”, we need to see it and agree.

As for the rest of the episode, it serves its point, if nothing else. Hinako lost her parents and brother to the sea. Since then, she has been suffering from severe depression. Her only lifelines are her best friend and her aunt. However, when not directly interacting with either, she becomes disconnected and listless—and the show's visuals do a good job of conveying this through the metaphor of being underwater. She may not be actively attempting suicide, but she certainly wishes to die—to end her suffering and be with her family.

And from this is born our setup: a girl who wants to die and the mermaid that wants to eat her (you know, once she's been fattened up a bit). It's a solid enough premise for a yuri show, and there is a lot of drama to be had should one or both come to value the other so much that they change their mind. But the make-or-break challenge facing this anime is how it acts until that point—if it can keep an audience interested as it builds toward the easy drama. We'll just have to wait till next week to see if they are up to it or not.

Going into this episode, one thing became instantly clear: this anime is bound and determined to wallow in its own grief to the exclusion of everything else. And it's to the point I'm not sure I want to keep watching.

Hinako's family has died, and she has never processed this fact. At home, she barely does anything besides sleep and brood. It's only in the brief interludes where the real-life world intrudes upon her own that she momentarily escapes the fog (or, in the case of this anime, water) that surrounds her—be that a message on her phone or the ring of her doorbell. Even at school, this is much the same. Without Miko there to force interaction, Hinako is listless in the extreme.

Because Hinako has not even begun to deal with her trauma, all she can think of is trying to escape it. Death is the way out she has decided upon, but things aren't that simple. While she clearly wishes to be dead—to be with her family once more—she's not willing to do the deed herself. Part of her knows deep down that death isn't the answer. This is why she can't admit to anyone else that she wants death, not even Shiori, the literal monster here to kill her. She can't voice the lie for the subconscious fear that she'll be forced to recognize it for what it is—and at that point, all she'd be left with is the pain and no way out.

Beyond that, this episode shapes the story clearly. Shiori wants to eat Hinako when she's the most delicious—i.e., when she's healthy in both body and mind. Thus, little by little, she is attempting to improve Hinako's existence. We see this in this episode, first when she reminds Hinako to eat her lunch and later when she comes to take her to the festival, directly addressing a small part of her overall trauma.

Of course, the obvious conclusion to this is that the moment Hinako is truly happy—the moment where she no longer wants to die—is when Shiori will decide to kill her. That is the black cloud looming over this entire story—one that will only grow darker as it nears its conclusion.

There is a great deal that this first episode does well when viewed from a realistic perspective. A lot of people suffer from depression, and at least in my experience, depression can make me feel like I'm drowning. My body feels heavier; it's harder to do everyday activities that felt natural to me originally, and the worst part is, this feeling can hit you out of nowhere. I really liked the way that the show utilized water and drowning as a visual metaphor. Obviously, Hinako's family died from drowning or by some association with water, so there is a traumatic element to seeing her constantly submerged. However, on its own, it also acts as a perfect visual representation of how she feels.

There are numerous slow-burning moments throughout, with Hinako fully feeling the weight of their depression, and I appreciate that. For a good portion of this episode, you can't fully tell if she wants to end her own life or if she's going through the motions. She seems to have support in her life, but it's very clear that these relationships are distractions from the trauma that she's experienced. One of my favorite scenes is when everything looks fine when she's around her friend at school, but the minute she leaves, she's back in the water. I could watch an entire show about this girl navigating those complex emotional beats. Then the supernatural elements then take over, and suddenly everything feels a lot more predictable.

From the cinematography to the dialogue and how scenes are cut, it implies that this is supposed to be some semblance of a horror show. Hinako is sought by underwater creatures who probably had something to do with her parents' death, but it's OK because she has a protector in the form of this mysterious transfer student who also wants to kill her, but only when the time is right. Suddenly, things seem much more generic and less believable. During the big mermaid reveal scene, all I thought was that it's weird that this is taking place in the back of a school, and nobody noticed. Also, it's really convenient that our protagonist didn't get any blood on her. It would've been tough to explain what she had just witnessed if she were trying to keep a secret. Do you see what I mean? Suddenly, things feel a lot less special.

There are different angles you can take with this setup. Maybe it will lean more into the horror and go for something truly unsettling, it could explore some of the psychological aspects of a character who really wants to die, or it can go for a dark comedy or even a really screwed up romance show. I like a show that presents us with options, but if those options come at the expense of elements that I already think the show excels at, then I would argue there's no point.

Remember how I said that this show can go in a variety of different directions? I'm a little worried that the direction it picked might be the most boring. The first episode was largely consistent with its tone and overall sense of theme. This episode tries to keep that dark and melancholy theme while also having moments that are loud and in your face—like a typical high school anime. I can see that contrast working, especially since that's how a lot of depressed or suicidal people could be. They could have a best friend and a loving support network, but deep down, they're secretly waiting for someone to come around and end it all. However, I don't feel like that is as properly communicated as it could be.

That's because we're not getting a lot of perspective or explanation on how Hinako sees her everyday life. We know how she generally feels and how that connects back to her trauma. However, I don't know how she feels about her best friend, I don't know how she feels about her school life—and I still don't have a full picture of what her home life is like either. I understand those suicidal thoughts being kept a secret from other people, and this mysterious mermaid girl. I actually like the twisted idea that Shiori wants to improve our main character's mental health just for the sake of killing her at her best. It's a sick twisted irony that can be really fun.

However, if the show wants me to really get into that struggle in a dark and twisted way, we need to get a little bit more about our protagonist's mental state. I would argue that's more important than what actually happened to her family. I want to see the drama, I want to see a crash out, and I want to see what Hinako's relationship with death looks like. It's a difficult balancing act, but I don't think they stuck the landing with episode two as well as they did with episode one. Here's to hoping that the balancing act is better achieved in future episodes.

This Monster Wants to Eat Me, a.k.a. WataTabe started strong. The protagonist Hinako wakes from a dream of sinking into open water with a blank, empty expression in her eyes. She receives a text from her aunt stating that she won't be able to make it to “the anniversary,” followed by a text from her friend about being late to school. She responds to both of them that she's fine, but it's clear that she's not. She stares at a picture of a smiling family, then makes her way to school, monologing about how much she hates summer as she walks past happy families. Within the first five minutes of the episode, we've learned everything we need to know about Hinako and her world, despite none of it being stated outright. We love a show that doesn't over-rely on verbal exposition or narration.

But by the end of 20 minutes, I was pretty much over it. The visual representation of Hinako's dissociation as her being underwater was potent at first, but after it came up for the third time, I felt like I was being beaten over the head with it. The animation looks brilliant at a glance. The overwhelming blues of the water imagery contrast with vivid, warm violets and oranges around Shiori, and again with the deep red of the blood splatter against her white dress. However, the impact of the color symbolism is diluted considerably by the long, meandering pans of the scenery and cheap lighting effects, such as lens flare.

But I'm not ready to give up on WataTabe just yet. With a few exceptions, I tend to like yuri best when it's mixed in other genres, such as Mayonaka Punch and The Executioner and Her Way of Life. Creeping horror is hit or miss for me, though having queer elements pushes things toward “hit,” and I have a definite weakness for mermaid stories. Hopefully, the next episode will do a bit more to set up the character relationships and give me a better idea of what the show will look like for the rest of its run.

Some time ago, while doing a project on abusive relationships in shoujo manga, I read all of Black Bird. It's a story about a young woman who is especially delicious to youkai that ends up in a relationship with a tengu who is determined to protect her until she reaches peak deliciousness. I'm not saying This Monster Wants to Eat Me is a ripoff of Black Bird, since stories about the seductive power of being devoured by a hot monster are as old as the art of narrative itself.

If anything, I much prefer This Monster Wants to Eat Me. It being yuri between two girls who at least have the appearance of being peers fixes a lot of the power dynamics that squicked me out in Black Bird—and Shiori isn't half as controlling as Kyo, who kept Misao completely under his thumb in addition to being her teacher. Shiori doesn't have any institutional control of Hinako; rather, she maintains their connection by promising Hinako the sweet release of death when her suicidal ideation is more of a passive wish for release from her grief and isolation than an active drive to die. It makes Shiori's seductive appeal more… not relatable necessarily, but something I can understand and connect to.

There's such a strong contrast between her and Miko, who is doing everything she can to try to keep Hinako tethered to life instead of just waiting to die. I can see her attempting the balancing act of treating Hinako like an alien creature and mostly succeeding—but then dealing with the awkwardness of when she accidentally steps into something that could be triggering. Once again, the story does an excellent job of emphasizing the characters' internal processes through symbolic acts—Shiori takes Miko's seat next to Hinako, just as she's pushing Miko out of her central position in Hinako's life.

But it's just sooooo sloooooooooooooooooooooooooow. It goes from contemplative to meditative to ponderous to plodding. Anything subtextual must be stated outright at least three times, preferably while Hinako stares at the sunset or the sea. I feel like I'm being beaten over the head with the plot beats, as anything I picked up on is repeated to me five to ten minutes later. It's a frustrating experience, because there are things I like about it! The character dynamics are rich and interesting! But the script seems to think I'm stupid, and that may be a dealbreaker.