Consider this an unofficial “themed” month. I wasn’t necessarily planning on doing one, but considering what I’m reviewing, it looks likes it’s the case. Anyways, you’ll recall a few months ago my review of the first episode of Monster Musume: Everyday Life with Monster Girls. Overall I gave it a glowing review, with nary a blemish in sight. Now, with the full series released online, I now have a wider view of the show, but my positivity hasn’t changed one bit. With that said, lets look at a review of the entirety of Monster Musume: Everyday Life with Monster Girls. Woot!
Story/Setup
Taken from Wikipedia:
“For years, the Japanese government has kept a secret: mythical creatures such as centaurs, harpies, and lamias are real. Three years before the start of the story, the government revealed the existence of these creatures and passed a legal bill, the "Interspecies Cultural Exchange Act". Since then, these creatures, known as "liminals," have become a part of human society, living with ordinary families like foreign exchange students and au-pair visitors, but with other duties and restrictions (the primary restriction being that liminals and humans are forbidden from harming each other).
Kimihito Kurusu did not volunteer for the exchange program, but when Ms. Smith delivered the very scared and embarrassed Miia to his door by mistake, he did not have the heart to send her away and they started living together. As the story continues, Kimihito meets and gives shelter to other female liminals, each of a different species. Some arrive more or less by accident, some are forced upon him by Ms. Smith, or force themselves in, and it does not take long for him to find himself in a hectic environment where he struggles to live in harmony with his new housemates while dealing with both their constant advances and the dramas of helping them get along in the human world. The situation takes on a new twist after he is told that because of expected changes in the law dealing with human-liminal relationships, he is authorized to marry one of the girls, increasing their struggle for his attention.”
This is really the jist of Monster Musume: mythological girls/women (& boys/men) are as real as us, an ability to live among humanity is granted, and one hapless individual’s life becomes filled with said individuals, wacky hijinks insues, etc.
On the surface, Monster Musume is a typical harem anime, complete with typical harem schlock. One hapless guy, a group of girls with different quirks, plenty of moments of fan-service & other wacky moments, the works. However, Monster Musume is good harem schlock. Yes the main guy is hapless, but he has a genuine heart of gold, and looks past what the girls are. Heck, one of the girls, Rachnera, and his main turn-on prominently featured (Legs....she’s an arachne, if you didn’t figure out by her name). Yes the girls are definitely quirky, but these quirks change overtime, and mesh with everybody else’s quirks & issues quite nicely. Yes there is fan-service. A lot of fan-service, in fact. However, the fan-service works, and if you can believe it, some dirty moments actually propel the story along positively most of the time. Yeah Monster Musume is schlocky, but it’s the good kind that can be enjoyed by many.
Voice Acting
Updated Soon...
Characters
Never have I enjoyed a cast of characters quite like that of Monster Musume. You’d expect a ecchi-romance-harem series to have a weak cast, and in some cases that’s true. With that said, Everybody here is a treat to watch!
Kimihito, more commonly called Darling, Master, or some other nickname, is one of anime’s greatest nice guys. He really doesn’t care what the girls are, nor what they look like. He just care for the fact that they’re women, and does all he can to help them adjust modern human society. It’s definitely frustrating at times, and he certainly comes to blows on rare occasions, but like he says at the end of the series, it’s just everyday life with monster girls.
Ms. Smith is one of Monster Musume’s greatest trolls, whether’s it’s her manga incarnation or her anime version. On the surface, she’s a hardworking woman, and takes her role enforcing the Interspecies Cultural Exchange Act rather seriously. In truth, she’s a lazy civil servant, often pawning off jobs & work to the MON Squad (More on these ladies in a moment) and to Kimihito. In fact, some of the girls were in his house because of Smith’s mistakes. Miia herself was the first mistake that came Kimihito’s way, but at the same time Smith actually means well, and has a heart once in a while. Yeah Ms. Smith is a lazy good-for-nothing, but a good-for-nothing that has a moment to shine once in a while.
If your series is about cute mythological women, you better make them personable, and the show doesn’t point. Truthfully, the girls in the anime mirror their manga counterparts: Miia is the charming yet clumsy one, Papi is the hyperactive cute one, Centorea is the noble pretty one, Suu is the oddball, Mero is the pretty & cute character with a secret, Rachnera is the brooding & serious one that’s kinky, and Lala is the gothic tsundere. All of the girls fit their assigned role, but like in the manga their personalities & thoughts change, and they actually learns things with their time with Kimihito.
Monster Musume has the added benefit of having a cast of secondary characters that’s just as charming as the primary cast. There’s the MON Squad, a group of monster girls who’s job it is to defuse situations with other liminals. There are Tio the Ogre, Doppel the Doppelganger, Zombina the Zombie (Yeah, that’s a obvious name), and Manako the Cyclops, who’s my personal favorite of the 4. While MON appears a couple times in the manga, they only show up about 3 times in the anime, but regardless it’s always fun to see them. There are other monster girls that appear during the story, like Kii the Driad & Lilith the Devil. Some of these secondary girls have more appearances on & off on the manga, but only highly limited reappearances within the anime. Still, these characters still provide some energy to the show, albeit momentary energy.
Perhaps the most bizarre secondary character in the anime’s cast is Polt the Kobold. In the manga, she’s the manager of a gym & is a big sports/exercise nut, and the girls go over to her gym to try things out. They didn’t go over this story in the anime, so instead she was reduced to 4 casuals appearances. Even more strangely, these somewhat random appearances are rather charming, and Polt is just as cute in these moments as she was in the manga.
Overall, the cast is a lot of fun. Even my least favorite character, Rachnera (Long Story), has moments of silliness & sincerity. You get attached to pretty much everybody, and all of the girls has something you can identify with. Once again, one of the best casts of a harem series ever!
Animation
When I was watching this series, I was surprised by how similar both the anime & the manga looked from one another. All of the places that the characters went to looked liked they were plucked straight out of the manga, and the characters are absolutely stunning. Some of them appear to look a little younger or older than their manga counterparts, but that’s probably got more to do with the animation style used in the show more than anything else. If there was only one gripe I had, it would be the amount of time that you see certain characters still in shots. Certain characters like Miia, Mero, and Rachnera I can understand, given their snake/fish/spider halves, but other characters baffle me. Centorea has the lower half of a horse, and they’ve been animated in full motion in plenty of shows, and Papi technically has legs, albeit bird legs. Even Suu the Slime has legs, but when we do see the girls move around, it’s only for a few seconds. This just screams a lack of effort on the animator’s part, but again, due to the radically different bodies of all the girls, I’m giving them a pass.
The one thing I don’t like about the animation is the censorship to the fan-service. If you’ve ever read the manga, you know how incredibly fan servicy it is. There’s plenty of exposed nipples, and in some scenes it can potentially get close to porn (Chapter 33 has a milking scene.....I’ll leave that up to your imagination). With some of the censorship that’s used, it makes perfect sense. Other times, the censorship is actually rather distracting, often borderline pointless. For the most part the fan service still works great, but the censoring can really be grating.
Availability & Pricing
Like I said in the voice acting section, Monster Musume hasn’t been released in the U.S. yet. The good news, the show has already been picked up by a distributer. The bad news, is that Sentai Filmworks is the one that grabbed the show. Now they’ve re-released some of ADV Films’s classic shows in recent years, and the more modern releases they picked up are great as well, but on some occasions they don’t dub their shows. On the chance that they do put in a dub, it’s not the best. It’s certainly not awful, but there typically needs some more effort put into them.
Also, is it bizarre that Funimation didn’t grab the rights to this show? Considering the stable of voice actors that the company has, it’s surprising that they didn’t try to grab it. If they did make an attempt, someone leave a note in the comments.
Overall Impression & Rating
Monster Musume the Series is an absolute treat of a series. Taking a typical anime troupe, mixing in some atypical women, and sprinkling in some atypical situations, and you have a show that’s quite fresh & original. Yes, Monster Musume is a modern harem schlock show. However, it’s good harem schlock. It actually tries to put in effort, and for the most part succeeds! Without a doubt, 2015 is the year of the monster girl!
Monster Musume the Series gets 9 a out of 10.
See you all next week, when we’ll look at another anime that’s monstrous.....ly bad. In the meantime, check out Monster Musume over on Crunchyroll. There’s a link right below so you won’t have far to search. Enjoy!
Monster Musume (Crunchyroll)
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