A couple weeks ago, I wrote about the new series I was reading, Mikane and the Sea Woman, and how it went from typical love/coming-of-age shenanigans to horror in almost a literal heartbeat. But since the twist came at the very end of the chapter, I was worried: Would the creators of the story chicken out and pull a “Psych!” on us? Is the not-so-little mermaid just trying to scare the poor boy? She keeps telling him that the sea is dangerous and he should stay away from it (and her), so is this just a more dramatic way of communicating the same message?

She’s hungry, yes—but this also reads like victim-blaming.

Or would the authors really go all in and double down on the horror aspect?

Well, the new chapter is out, and the answers is a definite… “Maybe.”

Oh, don’t get me wrong: so far, at least, “Nee-san” is still happily trying to devour our main character. That doesn’t mean she couldn’t mix things up in the future, of course. Chapter eight doesn’t give us give us any reason to think she’s anything other than hungry—but it doesn’t show enough to rule out the possibility that she has some other motive up her very wet sleeve, either.

Some readers, and even Mikane himself, have speculated that this is all just an act on her part. I obviously hope that’s not the case, but I also think there’s very good reason to think she’s legitimately going for the kill. Notice the sequence of events that takes place as soon as Mikane follows her to sea. First, she experiences intense mental pain:

Then something snaps in her mind. I can’t get the entire image: it’s a thin vertical panel that I’ve been forced to split in half. The part shown on the left is supposed to go above the part on the right.

That’s the point that marks her shift from elusive beauty to…hungry beauty. That’s the panel that seems to me to show that she’s no longer in control of herself. And if so, she’s not bluffing Mikane—she’s gone full-on dinner mode.

We’re in a sea vampire story, and I’m 100% here for it!

…But somehow, Mikane gets away. He shoves Onee-san way and makes for the shore—and that kid must be an Olympic swimmer, ’cause he hits the shore long before Onee-san can catch him. This was the one part of the chapter I found dissatisfying—not that he got away (I mean, the story kind of has to keep going), but that he did so relatively effortlessly.

The story redeems itself, though. Mikane does some series introspection, and realizes that, as he puts it, “I’m still too immature. I can’t live purely off my emotions anymore.” This is a far cry from his whining in earlier chapters, “I’m not a kid!” The boy has taken his first step, his first real step, toward leaving the fantasies of childhood and entering the serious world of adults.

Maturity, he now sees, is going to be a long process, not something magically attained at a certain age.

And that process is probably going to have mermaids in it, at least for him. I’m looking forward eagerly to the next installment, due out on October 6th!

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