Monster Musume: Everyday Life with Monster Girls is pretty much exactly what it says on the tin. If you’re into a sexy polyamorous romcom involving some very nonhuman girls, this might be the anime for you.

Monster Musume: Details

"Monster Musume" Blu-ray box front art.
Definitely not an anime for kids.

Monster Musume: Everyday Life with Monster Girls (otherwise known as Monster Musume for short) is a 12-episode (plus 2 OVAs and a series of anime shorts) anime adaptation of the harem romantic comedy fantasy manga of the same name by Okayado (12 Beast). Lerche (Assassination Classroom, Scum’s Wish, Classroom of the Elite) is the animation studio behind the anime. Tatsuya Yoshihara is the director, with Kazuyuki Fudeyasu as the writer. Hiroaki Tsutsumi and manzo composed the music. Lastly, Sentai Filmworks licensed this anime for its NA release.

"Monster Musume" Blu-ray box back art.
Yeah, there’s a reason for the TV-MA rating.

Monster Musume originally aired on July 7, 2015. You used to be able to watch it on Crunchyroll. However, they removed that anime from Crunchyroll along with numerous other anime on March 31, 2022 due to Funimation buying up Crunchyroll. Nowadays, you can only watch this anime on HiDive. You can also purchase the Blu-ray version on Amazon or Sentai Filmworks webstore.

Warning: spoilers for Monster Musume below. If you want to watch the lewd monster girl shenanigans for yourself, then stop here, and come back once you’ve finished plugging the inevitable nosebleed.

Monster Musume: Plot Summary

Not a bad joke on the part of the English dub cast either.

Monster Musume initially stars Kimihito Kurusu and his monster girl homestay Miia as they live together as part of the “Interspecies Cultural Exchange Act”. He wins her affection by accepting her as a normal person in spite of her being a lamia. However, his acceptance of monster girls in general earns him more affection and homestays from various monster girls. Papi (harpy) is the first of the new homestays, followed closely by Centorea (centaur), Suu (slime), Meroune (mermaid), and Rachnera (Arachne).

All this romantic interest though eventually attracts Kimihito some negative attention in the form of a pair of death threat letters. This results in him getting protection from his government issued Coordinator Miss Smith and her MON Unit (basically a monster girl SWAT team). Fortunately, as it turns out, the first death threat letter was actually a hoax by Miss Smith and her unit to try to convince Kimihito to form a closer bond to his harem. Unfortunately, the second death threat letter turns out to be a bit more genuine. Fortunately though, the person who actually sent the death threat letter didn’t actually intend any malice. The sender turns out to be a Dullahan named Lala with a chuunibyou (middle school) complex, and is perfectly harmless. She in fact joins up with Kimihito’s growing harem as a new homestay.

Economics is the Real Enemy

"Monster Musume" OVA 1 screenshot showing Kimihito and the monster girls chowing down on a massive buffet.
All that food doesn’t come cheap, you know.

As it turns out though, the real emergency comes from Kimihito running out of funds to pay for his rent and pay the girls’ food bills. Despite his best efforts to save money, they (especially the larger monster girls), Miss Smith, and MON quickly eat him out of house and home. Not only that, but since the laws forbid the girls’ from even stepping outside without their homestay host, they can’t even work to pay off their food bills.

Salvation comes in the form of Miss Smith casually mentioning that the homestay agency (and by extension the Japanese government) will reimburse Kimihito for all the food bills so long as he submits the receipts. This is probably something she should’ve mentioned at the very beginning. Regardless, Kimihito’s money troubles are over for now, and thus they all get a happy ending. Hopefully. So ends Monster Musume.

Monster Musume: The Good

Actually a bit more polyamorous than that, surprisingly enough.

The comedy is the best part of Monster Musume. The romcom/sitcom antics Kimihito and the monster girls get into are as hilarious as they are lewd. You are just as likely to bursting into laughter at the sight of the insane shenanigans of the monster girls tailing Kimihito and Miss Smith on their “date”, as you are to be turned on by all of the accidental sexy fun times the monster girls have. There is also a surprising amount of fairly wholesome humor included in with this. It doesn’t happen very often, but the times they do pop up will be a pleasant surprise. Papi and Suu are the biggest contributors to that in that regard, so keep an eye on them for the rare wholesomeness.

Another thing I’m putting into the “Good” category is how genuinely polyamorous Monster Musume appears to be. The anime devotes just as much time to the monster girls’ relationships with each other as they do to their relationships with Kimihito. Indeed, there are very strong hints of bisexuality among the monster girls’ relationship with each other. Most notably in Centorea and Rachnera, and Papi and Suu. Lewdly in the former, and surprisingly wholesomely (though also lewd at many points) in the latter. It’s this polyamory that takes the tang off of the harem aspects of the show in a pleasing way.

Another plus for me is how deeply Okayado delves into the monster girls’ biology and culture. As a biology nerd with a love of worldbuilding, I like this aspect of Monster Musume.

Monster Musume: The Bad

"Monster Musume" screenshot showing Miss Smith coming down with a cold right after causing so much trouble for Kimihito's family.
All that karma coming back to hit Miss Smith probably looks bad on her record.

I’ll admit: I’m not a big fan of the harem genre of anime in general. They tend to be anti-feminist and have not very good plots on top of it. Monster Musume is a bit of an exception for me. Part of it is the premise of the girls all being nonhuman. Their nonhuman biology gets a lot of attention, making it much more interesting to me than if they were just normal humans. The other part of why I can tolerate the harem aspects is the aforementioned polyamory. Still though, when the harem aspects does get turned up a notch, it does get a bit annoying.

The biggest example of this is MON apparently falling for Kimihito just for treating them as normal people…despite the fact that they’ve been in Japan for a lengthy period of time, and presumably they and Miss Smith treat each other as normal people. I would’ve have minded the implication that Miss Smith and MON are in their own relationship separate from Kimihito’s just to show that there’s other positive relationships in the anime. I’m a bit irked that this didn’t happen, really. Hence the 80% score I’m giving Monster Musume.

Source: HiDive