Anime Review: Necronomico and the Cosmic Horror Show
Miko Kurono has had a tough life. Abandoned as an infant, she grew up in an orphanage where she clashed with the adults, teachers and other orphans, except her one friend, the gentle Mayu Mayusaka. As soon as they were legally able, Miko and Mayu left the orphanage and got a tiny apartment above a bar on the seedy side of town. Miko dropped out of school and she and Mayu were attempting to make a living as streamers.
Mayu’s cuteness and pleasant personality got her a bunch of followers, and she was a rising star of the streaming world, while Miko’s rough edges and more miscellaneous streams were less of a draw. Still, they were making enough money to survive–until Mayu suddenly went into a coma.
She wasn’t alone, many top streamers across Japan were suddenly going into medically inexplicable comas. Since Japan has decent healthcare, Mayu is comfortable enough in a hospital bed, but without her Miko is struggling both emotionally and financially.
It’s at this point that Miko is invited to a special event for streamers and influencers. A blind playtest of a new virtual reality game! There’s a lot of potential players here, over a hundred, including Kanna Kagurasaka, a “cute schoolgirl” streamer who focuses on fashion and accessories. Kanna is still angry at Miko for an earlier event at which the other girl embarrassed her accidentally.
After the playtesters sign non-disclosure agreements, they’re hooked into the VR chairs and transported into the game, a platformer where their consciousness inhabits a chibified avatar. Not everyone is good at platform games with running, jumping and exact timing as requirements, and large numbers of the contestants “die.” Even though Miko doesn’t particularly like Kanna, when the other girl needs help, Miko gives it, so they are both among the survivors.
The other survivors include Eita, an e-sports bro, Hiroshi Takahiro, an occult “expert”, NAO-KICHI, a manga artist, Seishiro Sano, a math teacher, and Tsugumi Tsukasa, an actress. The game announcer Tick-Tock Man, awards them prize money, and tells them they’ve won the right to compete in the actual game being set up.
You see, the sponsors are actually the Great Old Ones of the Cthulhu Mythos, who have been brought back to Earth within the VR system known as Kadath. The stars are right for them to return to our reality and take back their world. But due to being currently bound to Kadath’s game company AI, they can’t just take over. They’ve had to “borrow” bodies from the streamers in comas (Cthulhu is in a twisted version of Mayu’s form) and they have to allow the humans to play games against them. If the gods can defeat all the contestants, they win!
Oh, and if you die in the game, you go mad in real life. Isn’t this fun?
This summer 2025 anime series is an interesting blend of cosmic horror and a survival game. The “gods” are influenced by the forms they’ve taken; Cthulhu is creepily fond of Miko, one that took over a foodie is constantly stuffing themself, and so on. The games are unfair but winnable, but each is also designed to degrade the players’ sanity and drive them into despair.
The various players have dark secrets and already have severe personality issues. Even though teamwork would be the best way to clear the games, several of them are willing to throw others under the bus for their own advancement.
Miko is a prickly sort of person, always ready to throw down, and not particularly interested in saving the world. Humanity hasn’t exactly endeared itself to her, and initially she’s only in this to save her friend and wipe the smirks off the gods’ faces. But deep down she’s not a bad person and she starts bonding with her teammates/rivals.
The story is clearly influenced by the classic Call of Cthulhu roleplaying game, with mentions of SAN points and Sanity Checks to determine if a player can go on.
The series got off to a rocky start in the U.S. with bad AI-generated subtitles for the first episode that turned off viewers, and the odd animation style switch throwing off some other viewers. (The animation style is more consistent in later episodes.) The subtitles were retroactively fixed, and once you get past the first episode the look and feel of the story become more obvious.
It’s heavily implied that Miko and Mayu are in a lesbian relationship, but it’s never said that way, they could just be really close friends who love each other platonically. The owner of the bar is obviously a trans person, but this is never directly mentioned and she’s not played for comedy as is the usual stereotype for such characters.
Content note: Murder, cartoonish video game violence, one character loses an eye. Child abuse. Some creepy relationships. mention of bullying. The depiction of insanity is…dubious. Alcohol abuse. This might be a bit more disturbing for some viewers, approach with caution.
This show isn’t all that deep, but it’s got some interesting twists and a good selection of games for our protagonists to play. Recommended for horror fans who don’t mind that the eldritch horrors are candy-coated (but still scary).
