This Monster Wants to Eat Me, volume 1
By Sai Naekawa
5 Nov, 2025
0 comments
2021’s This Monster Wants to Eat Me, Vol. 1 is the first tankōbon of Sai Naekawa’s contemporary fantasy yuri manga. Monster has been serialized in ASCII Media Works’ Dengeki Maoh magazine since August 2020. Caleb Cook’s English translation is 2024.
Sixteen-year-old Hinako Yaotose endures endless days of relentless depression. Her melancholic torpor is interrupted by the sudden appearance of a schoolgirl-eating ocean-dwelling yokai intent on eating Hinako.
Enter Shiori Oumi.
…
This Monster Wants to Eat Me, volume 1
By Sai Naekawa
5 Nov, 2025
0 comments
2021’s This Monster Wants to Eat Me, Vol. 1 is the first tankōbon of Sai Naekawa’s contemporary fantasy yuri manga. Monster has been serialized in ASCII Media Works’ Dengeki Maoh magazine since August 2020. Caleb Cook’s English translation is 2024.
Sixteen-year-old Hinako Yaotose endures endless days of relentless depression. Her melancholic torpor is interrupted by the sudden appearance of a schoolgirl-eating ocean-dwelling yokai intent on eating Hinako.
Enter Shiori Oumi.
The ease with which Shiori dispatches the ravenous yokai suggests that Shiori is more than the young woman she appears to be. In fact, Shiori is a mermaid. Like many yokai, she can if she so chooses, appear to be a human woman.
Shiori did not intervene because she is benevolent. Shiori is simply the sort of yokai who can defer gratification. Hinako is particularly delectable and would be a tasty meal. However, with time, the miserable teen will become even more delicious. Until Hinako is ripe, Shiori will protect Hinako from impatient yokai.
And then Shiori will kill and eat Hinako.
As anthropophagous monsters out of nightmares go, Shiori is charming and delightful. While it is true that her primary interest in Hinako is culinary, that does not prevent the mermaid from befriending Hinako, to the extent that this is possible with the withdrawn teen. After all, a farmer can be pleasant to their cattle before sending them to the slaughterhouse.
Shiori does have one question. She cannot help but notice the prospect of dying does not upset Hinako. Why is the teen so eager to die?
oOo
Just how many manga about yokai protecting tasty humans are there?
Whereas Western kids1 are crushed beneath the weight of relentless nanny states, teens in Japan (or at least the ones in manga) enjoy comparative freedom2. Thus, having survived the horrific car accident that killed her family, Hinako is free to work through her crippling survivor’s guilt, crushing grief, and suicidal depression on her own. It helps that her aunt has moved away.
I feel like the title may be open to misinterpretation, this being a yuri manga. Thus far, Shiori’s interest in Hinako appears to be purely culinary in nature. No doubt there will be no surprising twists in which it turns out that the characters care for each other on a deeper level, thus facilitating the 11+ volumes in the series. If there’s one thing manga are known for, it’s being exactly what they appear to be and not springing surprises on the audience.
I do hope there are some surprises because Volume 1, while perfectly competent, is fairly straightforward. I’ve seen similar set-ups before and while I understand that first volumes are constrained by the need to establish characters and setting, I am hard pressed to give reasons why this example stands out. Don’t get me wrong: if you’re looking for a manga in which pretty teens want to eat each other, this is definitely one of that genre. I am just not sure I will follow this manga past the second volume.
This Monster Wants to Eat Me, Vol. 1 is available here (Yen Press), here (Barnes & Noble), here (Bookshop US), here (Bookshop UK), here (Chapters-Indigo), and here (Words Worth Books).
1: USA delenda est.
2: Except for the kids in Insomnia After School, whose decorous behavior is matched only by their parents’ intense paranoia about what the kids might be doing when sleeping next to each other in the school observatory.