How to Keep a Mummy Review: The Tiniest Mummy and the Biggest Feelings

Sora Kashiwagi's father is a globe-trotting adventurer with a talent for terrible timing and an inability to predict what qualifies as an appropriate gift. This time he sends an enormous Egyptian sarcophagus. From it emerges a mummy. A tiny, palm-sized, incredibly cute mummy, so small it fits in a tea cup, with enormous eyes and a personality hovering between shy and absolutely desperate for affection.

I'm Yu. I read this manga on a hard day and it helped in ways I cannot entirely explain. That is what it is designed to do and it does it well.

Quick Take

• Kakeru Utsugi's How to Keep a Mummy (ミイラの飼い方) ran on Kadokawa's ComicWalker — collected in 14 tankōbon volumes.
• Seven Seas Entertainment published the complete 14-volume English edition.
• Rated All Ages — pure comfort reading, no content warnings.

Story Overview

Sora names the mummy Mii-kun. Despite his initial reluctance (he is a high school student living alone, and a mummy was not on his agenda), he finds himself completely devoted to his new tiny roommate.

As the series progresses, Sora's friends acquire their own mythical creature companions — an oni, a dragon, a tengu — and the group navigates the particular joys and challenges of caring for creatures who are small, easily startled, and deeply loving in their helpless way. The iyashi-kei (healing) genre is specifically Japanese: stories designed to provide comfort and emotional relief through gentle content. How to Keep a Mummy is a textbook example, and the low-stakes plotting is a feature rather than a bug.

Characters

Sora Kashiwagi — Responsible, a little tired, genuinely kind. His growing affection for Mii-kun is drawn with real warmth — the kind that builds through accumulated small moments rather than dramatic revelation.

Mii-kun — I cannot overstate how precisely Utsugi has drawn this creature's emotional expressiveness. Mii-kun communicates enormous feeling with minimal features — mostly just eyes and bandages — and every expression is readable and complete. When Mii-kun is happy, you feel it. When Mii-kun is scared or lonely, it is devastating in a way completely disproportionate to how small he is.

Kamoda and Connie — Sora's friends, each with their own mythical companion. Their dynamics provide variety and contrast to the central Sora-Mii-kun relationship.

What I Love About It

There is a chapter early in the series where Mii-kun has a bad dream. He wakes up frightened, and Sora — half-asleep, barely awake — reaches out and pats him back to sleep without fully realizing what he is doing. Just automatic, instinctive comfort for a small creature he has been responsible for long enough that it has become reflex.

I read that chapter on a hard day. I am not sure I can explain exactly what it was about watching a teenager comfort a tiny mummy in the middle of the night, but it helped.

How to Keep a Mummy does not pretend problems do not exist. The characters have difficult moments — loneliness, failure, worry. But it insists that small good things — warmth, presence, something small that trusts you — are real and worth having. That is not naive. That is true.

Memorable Scene ⚠️ Spoiler Warning

Late in the series, Mii-kun becomes temporarily separated from Sora and must navigate on his own. The chapters are surprisingly tense — not because anything terrible happens, but because Mii-kun is small and frightened and determined. Watching a creature that tiny decide to be brave is disproportionately moving. When he finds his way back, the reunion is one of the series' emotional peaks.

Pros & Cons

Pros:

• Mii-kun is one of manga's great creature designs — the proportion of features is precisely calibrated for emotional expressiveness.
• Reliably comforting without being vapid; the series is honest about difficulty even as it insists on warmth.
• All-ages without talking down to adult readers.
• Complete at 14 volumes — satisfying and finite.

Cons:

• Low plot stakes by design — not for readers who need narrative tension.
• Secondary characters are less developed than Mii-kun; the formula becomes familiar after a few volumes.

Is How to Keep a Mummy Worth Reading?

Yes — if you want something gentle. This is what the iyashi-kei genre is for, and How to Keep a Mummy is an excellent example of it. If you need plot stakes to stay engaged, this is not the manga.

Who Is This Manga For?

• Anyone who needs something gentle after reading heavy or intense manga.
• Fans of Chi's Sweet Home or Yotsuba&! who want more in the small-creature-enormous-feelings register.
• Readers of any age — this is genuinely all-ages without being childish.
• Anyone who wants complete comfort manga with a payoff.

Official English Translation Status

Seven Seas Entertainment published all 14 volumes in English. Complete and available in print and digital.

Where to Buy

Seven Seas's complete 14-volume English edition.

Browse How to Keep a Mummy on Amazon →

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