Monster Musume No Iru Nichijou Episode 12 [Final Impressions]

And here we are, the final episode of Monster Musume. Wow. Feels like I just started to review this show and we’re already at the end. Well, it’s been interesting. I’ll say that much. We’ve had centaurs, harpies, spider people and a lot more throughout these wacky 12 episodes. And for the most part, they managed to squeeze a lot of story into these episodes. But does it wrap anything up conclusively? No, not really. However, that being said, let’s head into the world of Monster Girls one more time before we call it a day. Everybody ready? All right. Let’s do this.
So the episode starts up immediately after the last one ended with the grim reaper girl telling the main character that he’s on the brink of death and she’s there to reap his soul. Every one of the girls freaks out, Rachnera ties her up and the other girls run away with him trying to get him away from her. First Papi flies away with him and nearly kills him. Then suu nearly drowns him, then cerea nearly kills him, then the mermaid girl, and then Miia. Notice a pattern here?

So eventually she catches up and Rachnera basically says that if he’s going to die soon, all the girls are doing is prolonging him by nearly killing him 10 times over. Then Miia’s all like “Then kill me with him!” (rolls eyes) No. Sorry sweetie. It’s far FAR too late in the series for you to try to get any sympathy or caring from me. You failed a LONG time ago. Too little too late.

The main character all along knew she was full of Bullshit but never got a chance to say it, and, in a scene that’s pretty funny, taunts death by walking into traffic and spouting trope death flag lines like “When I get home, i’ll get married” and “I’m not afraid anymore” to which, I have to admit, I laughed quite a bit. It looks like he’ll get hit by a truck, but it ends up being a remote controlled toy truck.

They bring her back to the house and of course, Smith lets her stay with the main character. Now, you’d THINK that would be the end, but no, this is a 2 story episoder.
Part two is a lot less epic and involves the guys needing food as with all the tenants, they’ve run out and he has no money for food. So he takes Suu, Papi, the  mermaid, and Cerea to go see what they can get cheap. The supermarket is closed so they go around town. The people, rather than being afraid of them are actually happy to see them and offer them a bunch of free B grade food.

Everyone except for the main character and Suu go back while they head to the forest that had the dryad from a few episodes back. They ask her if there’s any edible plants they can have. At first she seems a little hesistant so Suu..um… convinces her.

She shows them where the plants are and Suu’s able to tell which are poisonous and which aren’t. They bring some back and the main character makes dinner. However, Smith and the swat team show up and eat as well, leaving him with no food. Suu offhandly mentions how he has no food and Smith’s like “You know you can write off food as an expense and we’ll reimburse you right?” to which he nearly tries to drown himself for being stupid and never having asked.  And that’s where the episode and the series ends.

Like I said, this episode didn’t have any sort of definitive ending, it just kind of….ended. I’m assuming this is because the manga’s still going on and they’re hoping that the series will do well enough that they’ll be able to get a second season which i’ll only watch if i find out definitively that he won’t end up with Miia.
The first half was okay, though i was a bit annoyed at the Miia trying to do something and Rachnera being a little too okay with him dying, but I think it was a weird twisted way of mercy more than actually not caring. The second half was just a simple throw away random episode that could have been placed anywhere. The more I see Suu’s development the more i like her though, so that’s nice.

That being said, let’s get into the overall review of the series.
So this series did something interesting, it actually made me like a lot of the main girls. So in total there were 7 and I like 5. (5/7) That’s not a bad ratio. that’s still a C-. Compared to Daitoshokan’s ratio of 2/5, that’s not too bad. We all know I hate Miia, but I wasn’t too fond of the mermaid either (hence why I never learned her name). The main character was a bit bland, but had some nice moments. I’m sure he was bland just for self insert purposes, but he isn’t the worst harem show protagonist i’ve ever seen BY FAR.

Let’s dive into this more by breaking it down.
Head: The plot of the show, for a generic harem show IS very original. Bunch of other species are discovered and come to live with him. That is really the thing that puts this apart from other generic harem shows. It’s not just “This guy has special powers” or, “this is the only guy in an all girls school” it’s actually something original. And he’s thrust into this situation without his consent. So that’s an interseting twist. Not only that, but also they slightly delve into the political ramifications of such an event. Now of course, they don’t go it as deeply as a show like ‘Gate’ does, but that’s because this is a harem show. Still, they handle the reactions of the people decently well, and it’s an original idea.
Now, that being said, i’m not sure why exactly you would send over adolescent girls to be your emissaries of your specific races as…well..they all seem to be sex starved and…not…very…diplomatic. I mean, with the exception of the mermaid chick, cerea, and maybe Rachnera, they’re pretty useless at being diplomatic. Also, with as few of these people as there are, you’d THINK there’d be more publicity surrounding them. But you know, whatever.

Another thing that is bothering me is the STAGGERING lack of males that have come across. I’m certain that some of the races are a matriarchal society where the females are in charge, but i find it hard to believe that out of ALL the representatives I’ve seen so far, the ONLY males have been a bunch of ugly ass pig orcs. It’s like…really? Where’s the dudes who DON’T look like ass? None of them wanted to come? I mean…I think i saw ONE on the TV in the first episode in the flashback but…that’s…about it. I know the main dude’s supposed to be the cute guy but it’s like…I find it hard to believe that not ONE halfway decently attractive guy came over. That’s just…odd.
Also, my goodness. Was there a lot of ecchi in this show. Holy crap. This is probably the most ecchi show i’ve seen in a good long time. The stuff they do in this show puts Triage X to shame. Half the time i’m laughing going “oh jesus christ, really?”

The idea behind it is nice, and the plots follow that of any harem show. They have “serious” plots, but most of the time just run around doing Ecchi stuff. In a lot of ways it’s by the numbers, the monster thing being the only real difference to speak of. That in itself saves the series from getting a straight 5 for averageness, but the sheer attempt to make Miia seem important pisses me off as she’s the worst character by far.
With everything as it is…. 6/10
Eye
The series does look good i’ll give it that. It has a very smooth nice look and they avoid the shine pimples which is good as those things are painful to say the least. They managed to make these monster girls look cute and even manage to make a spider girl look adorable. The ecchi is..well….ecchi-ish and not gross like Vanadis or Triage X. However I have to say, they must have had a LOT of fun with this as they PRETTY far with this. It stops JUST short of soft core porn.
The dude has the generic expression on his face most of the time which suits the style. The girls all look good, still though, they really could have worked on throwing in some dudes. I honestly would have liked to see what a monster dude looked like. You know, other than pig monsters.
7.5/10

Heart
Okay. Well, this is the core of all harem shows isn’t it? Did you actually feel for the characters and did you go on an emotional journey with them? For a lot of them, i’d say yes. For some of them…no.
Several of the characters didn’t have that much screen time but I learned to love them very quickly. This being the case with Lulu and Rachnera. Some of the characters we had a lot of time to spend with them and grew with you like Papi or Cerea. You also had characters where you knew them for a long time and you initially didn’t like them, but eventually you got to like them a lot as is the case with Suu.
THEN there’s Miia. Or dear sweet jesus there’s Miia. I’m going to make a sign that says “This is how not to design a harem character” and staple it to her forehead. She is by far one of the worst harem girls I have really EVER come across. In fact, she’s definitely in the top 5 of the worst anime girls. She starts out not too too bad but then as soon as there’s other people in the picture, she becomes a jealous, violent ass. In the first episode you only see her love for the main character being her only character trait. However, as it’s the first episode you assume that she’ll evolve over time. Unfortunately, SHE DOESN’T. That continues to be her only character trait throughout the entire series. She loves the main character. That’s it. Cerea realizes her own flaws and comes to terms with them. Rachnera learns that people can change her perception on an entire race. Miia…keeps wanting this guy’s dick.
She is by the absolute worst thing about this show. And the issue is, she’s so prevalent because she’s the “first” girl. Which for some reason in anime means that since you got there first, you must be the main love interest. To this day I don’t understand that. Is it like..a thing that the first girl you meet you have to date? Like if a girl says hi to you on your first day of high school you’re like “welp, i guess i have to marry that girl”. Anime needs to realize this. Just because someone is met first doesn’t mean SHE has to be the main love interest. I can’t believe I even have to say this. This is writing 101.

That being said, I really do love a lot of these characters. Cerea, Papi, Rachnera, Suu, and even Lulu really grew on me, and honestly, I wish the show could have just starred them. the sweet moments with them were really nice and I would like to see more of them. Just…you know, without Miia.
Heart 6
Total score 6.5
So yeah, all in all, a lot of parts of the show were average, but the one thing that kept it above water was the fact that the novelty of the monster girl aspect never wore off. They kept having fun and new inventive ways to keep it fresh. Which was nice. I don’t know where the manga’s going but i’ll be happy if he picks ANYONE but Miia. Like…anyone.
Do I recommend it? Well…if you can stomach Miia, yeah, i’d say if you’re tired of the everyday harem show and you want something different, give it a shot.

And now, for the averaged in final count of the 7 girls score for who deserves to be with the main character.

7th place, Miia.
Do..do you really have to ask? She is such a bad fit with him it actually hurts. She needs to get a personality and fast.

6th place Mermaid girl
This girl…I don’t know I just never got along with her. Her personality and his don’t mesh well especially because she has a boner for tragedy.

5th place: Papi
This was hard for me because i actually LIKE Papi, but i always got less of a romance vibe between these two.

4th place: Lulu
I wish Lulu had been in more episodes because I think she could have been higher on this list but the bits she DID have with him were very nice and i would love to see her develop with him more.

3rd place: Suu
I actually didn’t really expect this, because I was not a fan of Suu when she first came into the fray but after the episodes with her I do realize that they would make an adorable couple and she really does care for him. So good on you show.

2nd place: Rachnera
It was SO hard to not put her in first place, but that’s because of my bias to how much I like her. She is definitely the most mature and deepest character and seeing her off guard around him in some scenes is great and they could really build off each other and I would love to see them as a pairing.

1st Place: Cerea
(Sigh) I wanted to place Rachnera here, but I can’t deny that Cerea really deserves the main character the most. She’s had the most development, done the most, has the most depth, and cares about him to a ridiculous degree, loving him, but that not being her only character trait. See, I can be unbiased when I want to. I REALLY can’t deny that Cerea’s the best option out of all of them for him. So there you go Cerea fans. She’s my top pick for who’s best for the main character.

All right everybody, that wraps up Monster Musume. Will there be another season? Maybe. Am I covering it? Only if the main character doesn’t end up with Miia. Until then, Peace out.

-Hideki