This collection of supernatural horror was originally published in serialized form between 2002 and 2003. Viz Media licensed the series and released it in English on October 24, 2023.
This manga provides examples of:
- Arbitrary Skepticism: Mostly from Mimi's boyfriend Naoto, who chalks up the weirdness she experiences to mundane causes. Mimi becomes incredibly frustrated by this in the final chapter, even breaking up with him, which sets up her betrayal by Misa.
- Coat, Hat, Mask: The neighbor's disguise in "The Woman Next Door". She is only seen wearing an all-black wardrobe that completely covers her, along with a wide-brimmed black hat, a black face mask and dark glasses. When the glasses fall off, there just seems to be a black void under the hat.
- Covers Always Lie: While the English printing's slipcover art clearly depicts Mimi, the art directly on the hardcover book shows Mimi in a red silhouette and with blank, soulless eyes and monstrous hands and faces in her hair
◊, which could fool someone into thinking she's the source of the horrors rather than the oft-time victim. - Creepy Cemetery: After Mimi moves out of the apartments where "The Woman Next Door" takes place, she ends up getting a new apartment that's directly across from a cemetery. Mimi finds it rather unsettling to begin with, and it becomes even more so when she starts hearing strange noises throughout the night and discovers that some of the tombstones have been turned on their bases. The creepiness skyrockets when it's revealed to be haunted.
- Driven to Suicide:
- In "The Sound of Grass", Mimi and Naoto find a woman in a forest who has hanged herself for unknown reasons.
- "Alone with You" opens with a woman immolating herself, who is revealed to be Kei's mother; the reason for her suicide is never revealed.
- Dumb Muscle: After Mimi finally gets moved away from her first disturbing apartment, she learns that her neighbor is a bodybuilder who likes to pose facing the cemetery next to their apartment. This just seems to be eccentric behavior, but Mimi later discovers that the weird sound she hears at night is her neighbor moving gravestones around so that the spirits of the dead can watch him pose.
- Haunted Heroine: Notably averted. Mimi seems to stumble across the supernatural wherever she goes, but she's otherwise as normal as Ito protagonists get.
- He Knows Too Much: The woman in "The Woman Next Door" is certainly unnatural, but she seems relatively harmless until Mimi learns what she is. Then she goes after Mimi to try to keep her quiet, likely because she doesn't seem able to speak. Fortunately, as with the previous tenant of that apartment, the woman seems content to just frighten her.
- Humanoid Abomination:
- The titular neighbor in "The Woman Next Door" is revealed to be at least partially made of adjustable metal beams, which take the place of limbs and which she unscrews and extends at will to take different figures. Weirder still, she has fully functional and normal-looking gloved hands which can come off, her face is never seen, and she buys groceries, implying she needs to eat.
- It is heavily implied that the waitress from "At the Seashore" may be one of these, as she knows a little too much about all the deaths that have occurred at that beach and Tanaka destroys all the photos he took of her, plus the negatives.
- Incessant Music Madness: In "The Woman Next Door", Mimi gets very annoyed by the loud music coming from the apartment directly over hers, and is puzzled that the other people on that floor don't seem to be able to hear it as much as she can. It eventually becomes a non-issue as the man in that apartment becomes frightened by the woman in black and hurriedly moves away.
- Lighter and Softer: Despite still being a collection of horror stories, they are somewhat lighter fare than most of Ito's work. In the words of one reviewer, they sure do have the protagonist survive a lot more than his other works tend to, and since there isn't a buildup or devastating climax at the end of these events, all of the events are by definition less threatening to the heroes.
- Murder the Hypotenuse: Misa attempts to use the scarlet circle's ability to disappear people without a trace to kill Mimi and take her boyfriend for herself.
- Nothing Is Scarier: In "At the Seashore", all of the photographs showing the waitress who shares the area's history with the protagonists are destroyed by the man who develops them, and are never shown.
- Not-So-Imaginary Friend: The ashen woman from "Alone with You", who is actually the ghost of Kei's mother. Of course, she's only friendly from her perspective, and just disturbs Kei.
- Riddle for the Ages: Nearly ever story has some sort of unsettling non-reveal that leaves the audience (and Mimi) wondering about what really happened.
- "The Woman Next Door" involves a very mysterious and apparently inhuman neighbour that lives next door to Mimi. She's covered completely in black clothing, but her limbs are constructed of extended metal struts with screws in them. Nothing else about her appearance is discovered or what she is, but her face is apparently so horrifying that Mimi faints immediately upon seeing it.
- In "Sound of Grass", Mimi and her boyfriend come across the rotting corpse of a hanged woman in the forest. The moment they look away, the corpse has suddenly turned to face them, and some sort of incorporeal black clumps start falling out of her that immediately sink into the ground. It's never discovered why any of that happened, who the hanged woman is, or what it is that's falling out of her.
- In "Seashore", Mimi and her friends meet an enigmatic waitress at a beach cafe who tells about the grim history of the beach. The photos Tanaka took of her were apparently so utterly terrifying that he immediately discarded all of them and the negatives and refuses to answer what was on them when the others ask, saying he doesn't even want to think about them. Considering Tanaka still kept the photos of Furusawa despite how horrifying they turned out, it implies something truly disturbing must've turned up on the others.
- In "Alone with You", Kei's mother killed herself by self-immolation and returned as an ashy ghost to haunt her daughter (although apparently out of sentimental maternal attachment). The reason she killed herself in that way is never discussed.
- "The Scarlet Circle" is about a strange underground cellar room that simply has a painted red circle drawn on one of the walls. Anyone who stays in the room after the dark disappears without a trace, with the circle growing bigger and darker with each disappearance. What the circle is and what happens to the people it vanishes is never revealed. Another thing is that Naoko could somehow "sense" Mimi was in danger and knew exactly where to rescue her, and it's never revealed how or if the circle had anything to do with it.
- Urban Legends: The source of the stories related in the graphic novel. Referenced in the book's Japanese name, which translates more closely to "Mimi's Urban Legends".
- Weirdness Magnet: Mimi, who doesn't do anything to invite or deserve all of the supernatural craziness she gets put through.
- With Friends Like These...: In "The Red Circle", Mimi's friend Misa plots to kill her and shack up with Mimi's boyfriend.
