After nearly being eaten by a hostile being, Hinako—our self-appointed emo princess of doom—must now process that monsters (yes, plural) seem to have her on the menu. And if that wasn’t enough existential dread, her would-be devourer, Shiori, has transferred into her school. Same class. Same seat row. Because apparently Article 26 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights ensures even ancient yokai get an education. The second episode takes the quiet despair of the premiere and doubles down on it, revealing Shiori not just as a monster but as an embodiment of depression itself—a slow, seductive force that waits, patient and polite, to consume you.
There’s an almost poetic melancholy in how the show equates being eaten with being overtaken by grief. Shiori’s hunger isn’t predatory—it’s pitying. She understands Hinako’s exhaustion because she’s part of it. Yet for all its metaphorical weight, the episode is glacially paced. Hinako’s endless monologues about meaninglessness are so dreary that you start rooting for Shiori to just take a bite and end it all—for all of us. It’s artful misery, beautifully drawn, but emotionally numbing. The show wants to be profound but often lands closer to purgatorial.
Still, beneath the heavy symbolism, there’s something strangely compelling about watching two broken souls circle each other—one desperate to be devoured, the other desperate to feel. Think a car wreck between two Teslas. You don’t really care about the cars but you are curious how it got that way. This Monster Wants to Eat Me remains more mood than movement, but the metaphor is sharp: depression doesn’t strike like lightning—it lingers, whispers, and waits until you can’t tell if you’re fighting it or feeding it. Whether that makes it profound or painfully indulgent depends on how much darkness you’re willing to dine on.
Episode 2 streams on Crunchyroll on October 9 at 7:30 AM PT
