The lights of an office building keep shining well into the night. Horror movie angles here and there lead us to an, ahem, “differently horrific” scene. Fushihara Shachiku is, yet again, trying to meet an impossible deadline by pulling an all-nighter. You know the type. She is young, she has perpetual dark circles under her eyes, she eats supermarket food, and she does the alien impersonation in the company’s celebrations. Her superior sees no problem in casually saying: “Hey! These all need to be redone, and I want them by tomorrow!” So here we are, at two in the morning. Suddenly, a strange voice urges her to leave. It turns out that it’s a kid ghost (spirit?) of perhaps four or five, with perpetually teary eyes, convinced that Miss Shachiku is going to overwork herself to death. The ghost wants her to leave, and was planning on scaring her into doing so. Instead, she is overblown by, well, another aspect of this spiritual creature.

Well, I’m no psychoanalyst, but I think we can safely assume there’s somewhere else Fushihara Shachiku would rather be right now, and it has to do with this little phantom. That’s…compelling, actually, and gives some pathos to this show that it wouldn’t otherwise have. I’m not really interested in “cute” stories, and the kid is firmly in the wish-fufillment character camp, nowhere near as alive (heh!) as Momo of March Comes in Like a Lion or Rin from Usagi Drop. That said, what is being fulfilled here is a very human and earnest wish, and I wonder where this show will take its overworked protagonist. A mid-episode flashback that shows us the same events from the ghost’s perspective was probably a little too much, and I feel like I’m missing something about Japanese ghost lore—our spirit is clearly tangible, eating and sleeping, and Miss Shachiku knows it’s a “ghost” at once because of the white clothing, but doesn’t wonder about a death. Well, whatever. In sum, this seems to be a peaceful “resting” or “healing” run-of-the-mill wish-fulfillment show I wouldn’t normally care for. It could end up saying something interesting, though.

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Miss Shachiku and the Little Baby Ghost can be streamed on Crunchyroll.