Personal attacks? Never did that.
Then I suppose I should throw back your "learn the difference" between insinuating there's something wrong with someone's argument and the person himself. In fact, I could think of several important things you should learn, I simply thought it not appropriate to go there in a meritorical discussion. Things are different if you're going to throw stones and then insist it's not your hand that was caught, though.
I'm not assuming that at all. It's simply storytelling 101 that when you add a plot element that carries a strong symbolic meaning, you do it for a reason. Of course it's not a hard rule, but usual storytelling practices suggest that might be the case, and that's enough to speculate.
If that's what you think, then how about all the other bizzare implements we've seen on just about every creature that appeared? Surely there have to narrative reasons for them that can be traced back to known themes from folklore or similar media, just like that scythe (though that is a sickle to be precise, I just don't want to get into the rabbithole that is the classical antropomorphic portrayal of death)? What's with the oil drum thing? Why does the guy on the train use an axe? I could go on, but surely you get the picture - why would your "storytelling 101" only apply in this one case?
That's not entirely true though. The monsters from the cursed shrine, for example, followed clear shinto folklore. The cat spirits that followed Gozuka were nekomata (confirmed because they had multiple tails), which also come from Japanese folklore. And this is what I remember from the top of my head. I'm sure we could find more examples of monsters and spirits inspired or outright taken from known folklore if we were actually looking for them. Going by that logic, speculating that the entity following Miko could be a reaper is not a stretch. It's a valid speculation.
Yes, I'll concede that the cats and foxlike priestesses/guardians do harkon back to shinto mythology. That is pretty much it though, unless something skipped my mind. The shrine god certainly doesn't, unless you count being called "god" by people who use whatever descriptive language that simplifies talking about the unknown and never claimed the tenants of any faith have anything to do with it.
And as for the idea that ghosts and spirits look different depending who's looking, that doesn't always happen. For example in chapter 37 we see that the monsters from the cursed shrine looked exacly the same to Rom as they did to Miko. Ghosts looking different depending who's looking are special cases. So the take away is that this isn't hard rule, and when it does happen, there is a reason for it.
Do we? The problem here is that there are several people able to see the creatures in that scene, Miko included. There is no telling who's perspective it was, but it would probably be reasonable to assume it's the story's main character's. In any case, this "rule" comes from the old guy exorcist and he was speaking broadly about any sort of "amomaly", not some special cases. It's possible that he's wrong but we've been given no clear hints that this is the case: no one expressed any doubt here and 2 other people who're supposedly knowledgable on the subject were there. You're challenging this in-world lore bit with something quite shaky, even if we forget that it's most likely just a scene that was made before the author decided this "rule" should exist.
