is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Sai Naekawa. It has been serialized in ASCII Media Works' Dengeki Maoh magazine since August 2020, with its chapters collected in twelve volumes. The story follows Hinako, a girl who wishes to die after her family's death, and Shiori, a mermaid who promises to fulfill Hinako's desire by eating her, but only when Hinako is at her happiest moment.
An anime television series adaptation directed by Yūsuke Suzuki and produced by Studio Lings aired from October to December 2025. Suzuki became interested in the series for its themes of life and death as well as Hinako's unique personality. Together with the studio's producers, he focused on having the series carefully portray character emotions. The production involved recording four pieces of theme music and animating water in detail, along with close collaboration with Naekawa.
The story's themes of relationship dynamics and depression were widely discussed by critics, with several opining that the latter was realistically depicted. In addition, the story's treatment of LGBTQ themes was the subject of extensive and mostly positive commentary. The manga was well received, with praise for its characters, emotional atmosphere, and artwork. The anime adaptation garnered positive reviews for its narrative, while its production value received mixed-to-positive assessments.
Synopsis Ever since losing her family in an accident, Hinako has had a vague wish to die, but cannot go through with it herself. One day, she meets a mermaid named Shiori, who tells Hinako that her flesh and blood are especially delicious to , and that Shiori is one of them.
Shiori promises to protect her from other yōkai who want to eat Hinako so that Shiori can devour Hinako when she is at her most delicious point. Hinako happily accepts this fate. However, as Hinako finds out more about Shiori's past, she realizes that Shiori may actually be trying to save her.
Characters
A girl who goes to Shiomi High School. After losing her parents and older brother in a car accident, she wants to die so she can reunite with them, but cannot bring herself to end her own life. Her unique blood attracts yōkai who want to eat her. Upon meeting Shiori, who intends to eat her once she is at her peak and protect her from other yōkai until that happens, Hinako agrees to this as a way out of her painful situation. As a child, Shiori had given her mermaid blood in return for Hinako's kindness to her, allowing Hinako to survive the accident.
A powerful mermaid . She claims she wants to eat Hinako at her most tasty point and promises to protect her from other yōkai until then. However, she actually saved a young Hinako because of Hinako's kindness to her, and intends to protect her in the present day as well. She hides her true motivations from Hinako after realizing that Hinako's hope of being killed is the reason she does not end her own life. She presents herself as an ordinary human girl and only reveals her true form when fighting other yōkai or eating prey.
Hinako's classmate and childhood friend. She is very protective of Hinako, and is often jealous of Shiori's relationship with her. She is an ancient yōkai who used to hunt humans, but learned to peacefully live with them after being captured and tamed by a monk. She struggles to balance her civilized nature with her primal instincts, and only stops herself from consuming Hinako by sacrificing part of her own spirit. Her true form is a giant powerful enough to match Shiori. Ayame Chiba A woman who works at a basketball training camp. She gets along well with Hinako from the first moment they meet. She is a yōkai who was once a human, having the ability to twist her head around to reveal a second mouth with a large tongue on the back. Although she intends to eat Hinako and almost succeeds, she leaves Hinako alone after Shiori interferes. Tsubaki A who comes to cause trouble for Miko. She is jealous of how well Miko gets along with humans, and reveals Miko's past to Hinako, but Hinako forgives Miko anyway. She calms down and leaves after realizing that Miko is not responsible for her loneliness. Azami A girl who became immortal after Shiori gave her flesh to her. Though Shiori had intended to help Azami, who was cast away by her village as a sacrifice, Azami is resentful of her immortality and seeks revenge on Shiori. In the past, she tried to kill Shiori with explosives, but only ended up injuring Shiori and herself for many years. Aunt Tomori Hinako's aunt who took care of her after Hinako's parents died. After Hinako moved away, Tomori visits Hinako as frequently as she can, but is often busy with work. Daichi, Yuri, and Mutsuki Yaotose Hinako's deceased father, mother, and older brother, who were killed in a car accident.
Production Manga Conception
Sai Naekawa, the writer and illustrator of This Monster Wants to Eat Me, was inspired by the ocean. She created Shiori as a "beautiful and scary" , drawing on the association of with the sea. Unlike the idealized beauty of Western mermaids, she wanted Shiori to carry an "ominous flavor". Hinako's last name, Yaotose, is a reference to Yaobikuni, a priestess from Japanese folklore who lived for 800 years after eating mermaid flesh.
Naekawa cited Arina Tanemura, a manga artist and character designer, as an influence on her early work, and would often practice her skills by imitating Tanemura's drawings. Additionally, she took inspiration from how manga artists portrayed character emotions visually. She stated that Shigeru Mizuki's artbooks sparked her interest in yōkai, and that Rozen Maiden likely influenced her decision to address serious themes with a cute art style. Before creating This Monster Wants to Eat Me, Naekawa produced fan works for Kantai Collection and Touhou Project, both of which feature a mostly female cast. She credited these series for inspiring her work's darker elements, along with Maria Watches Over Us for her interest in the genre.
Creation Naekawa sought to explore themes of love and obsession through the premise of "consuming" another person, interpreted in different ways. She depicted Hinako as someone who appears normal yet has a deep desire to die, and portrayed Hinako and Shiori as "enemies [...] working towards the same goal". Naekawa named mutual dialogue and change as being key themes.
Initially, Naekawa intended for the story to be more lighthearted, with Hinako and Shiori being portrayed as less mature than they ultimately became. On the advice of her editor, Takumi Kamemaru, she shifted the work in a darker direction. Kamemaru felt that lighthearted manga was already popular and that darker themes would be more appealing to readers. He also believed that Naekawa's style was well suited to conveying an emotionally heavy narrative. Several other aspects of the plot were revised before serialization; for example, Naekawa originally planned for Hinako's family to still be alive, but decided to instead have Miko represent the story's happier elements. She also considered having Shiori rescue Hinako in the first chapter, but concluded that it would be more effective to withhold plot developments until later on. Among all the characters, Shiori's personality and design remained the most consistent throughout the planning process.
The story is set in Ehime Prefecture, a region of Japan located on the island of Shikoku. Naekawa grew up there and described it as a "nice, calm, countryside place". The manga depicts several locations from the area, including the Shiomi Bridge, the Dōgo Onsen hot springs, and the Seto Inland Sea. Naekawa remarked that the Seto Inland Sea is gentle and calm, and that she wanted to capture its appeal. During the manga's serialization, she visited locations near her hometown for inspiration.
Development Naekawa had mapped out the narrative's major plot points by the time publication began, and focused on connecting those elements together and developing the story. During meetings with Kamemaru, she made small adjustments to the plot, but left the overall elements mostly unchanged. She often took inspiration from ordinary events in her own life, such as a day out with friends.
Naekawa worked on the manga by herself, with the exception of tone work. She felt that illustrating everything herself was more efficient than giving directions, despite the manga's high level of background detail. Kamemaru called the editing process "smooth", attributing this to their shared vision of the final work. He noted that Naekawa often submitted her work early and had never missed a deadline. Naekawa sometimes worked up to 15 hours a day, especially once she began serializing another manga.
Because the main characters tend not to express emotions verbally, Naekawa paid close attention to how their feelings are conveyed visually. She focused on depicting details with their expressions, such as by giving Shiori slightly warmer smiles when she is with Hinako. She described Shiori as the most beautiful character and one she put particular care into illustrating. Kamemaru was impressed by Naekawa's "wonderful" ability to draw expressions.
Release
Initially, Naekawa was reluctant to commit to serialization, as she was uncertain about pursuing a career as a manga artist. However, Kamemaru convinced her to serialize the manga since the magazine she was publishing in, Dengeki Maoh, was generally less receptive to one-shot stories.
Naekawa was anxious about the manga's reception, particularly in its early years. After attending book signings and seeing the social media response to the franchise, she grew more confident in her work's popularity, though she still often worried about it. She was surprised when she learned that the manga would receive an anime adaptation, as the announcement came suddenly, but was ecstatic at the news. Naekawa celebrated with her younger sister, who also works in the manga industry.
Anime Adaptation Hidehito Takagi, president of Studio Lings, was approached about an anime adaptation of This Monster Wants to Eat Me by Ena Hamabe, a producer at . Although the project would mark Studio Lings's first solo production, Takagi was impressed by the original work and felt that an anime adaptation would be interesting. He also observed that Studio Lings had previously co-produced two yuri anime series, Yuri Is My Job! and YuruYuri, giving its staff prior experience working with the genre.
Takagi selected Yūsuke Suzuki as the series director. While Suzuki's previous work had mostly been aimed at younger audiences, Takagi believed that his style was well suited for the material. To support Suzuki, he asked Naoyuki Kuzuya to serve as chief director, tasking him with handling pre-production duties such as script development and storyboarding. However, Kuzuya was unsure about the adaptation, expressing concern that the manga's atmosphere would be difficult to express in animation. He decided that if he were to direct the project, it would need to have Mitsutaka Hirota, whom he had previously worked with, as a screenwriter.
Hirota closely read the original manga, focusing on its atmosphere and emotions, and adapted the story up to the point where the relationships among the main characters became more firmly established. He then submitted scripts to Kuzuya, who developed storyboards based on them. After finalizing the series' episode count, Kuzuya focused on the pacing of individual episodes. He devoted particular attention to Miko's character arc, which he regarded as a central part of the work's appeal.
Collaboration