Interviews with Monster Girls

The Monster-Girl-Lovin' ROSSMAN

High school series about "nothing" (what people refer to as "slice of life" shows) are all the rage nowadays. They're typically stories with no first, second, and third act structures, where there is never an over-arching plot, and each episode is just about teenagers doing stupid shit, worrying about tests that they're going to fail anyway, and talking about which boy or girl in class they like.

Most of these shows suck because there's never any real plot and they all solely depend upon how likable the leads are, and most of the time these main characters are dull, stupid, and annoying (which the creators think equals "comedy"). But every once in a while an actually funny or engaging slice-of-life series appears with characters whose antics and conversations actually ENTERTAIN the viewers. Shows like Nichijou and... well... I'm sure I can think of another... Give me time...... Ummm.....

Well anyway, Interviews with Monster Girls is a slice-o-life TV series featuring high school demi-humans and the caring teacher who wants to find out more about them and their plights. And.... it's not really all that bad. But it ain't the greatest thing since Cowboy Bebop, no matter what the fanboys are claiming online.

Interviews with Monster Girls goes a little something like this: Demi-humans exist in this world. Vampires, dullahans, succubi, "snow women".... They're all real, and they're all slowly coming out of the proverbial closet and allowing the world to know that they exist. No, this isn't True Blood. It actually has the exact opposite problem of that series: there's simply NO DRAMA or excitement going on in this universe despite the fact that magical creatures like these are real.

The government of Japan helps these demi-citizens by setting up agencies to assist them merging with the general population better (e.g. by sending weekly blood packs to vampires so that they won't get a hankering for human blood straight from the jugular), but still, they are not 100% accepted by society. Even when they're cute girls. And of course the demis are ALL cute girls in this show.

The series mostly follows Tetsuo Takahashi, a biology teacher at your typical Japanese high school. He's a gentle giant of a man who is absolutely fascinated with the idea of demis, but he's never personally met one in his life. Did I say that he's fascinated with supernatural humans? I meant to say he's strangely obsessed with them, to the point where he turns borderline "stalker" with three of the new students in his school who are a vampire, a snow girl, and a dullahan.

"Wait, what's a snow girl?" you ask. Um, a girl who can make snow and shit, and who can replace an air conditioner in a room if your AC unit breaks down.

"Oh... That's coooool... (Ha, ha! Get it! [I do, but you still suck]) But what the fuck is a dullahan then?" ....Good GOD, man! Are you not up to date on monster mythologies from around the world?! A dullahan is an Irish specter who rides around with its head in its arms (like the Headless Horseman), and, like, collects souls with its giant scythe or someshit... Only in this show dullahans are just normal humans with their heads separated from their bodies, and a weird flame shooting out of their necks where a person's melon would normally be.

Oh, and these demi-humans are all born randomly to regular people, just like Marvel Comics' mutants! Except here, the reason and explanation for a demi birth is never tackled. Instead, Takahashi-sensei is focused on if a snow girl can make ice-cubes in a pan of water if she stands barefoot in it. Personally, I'd at least want to ask how a dullahan is born. I mean, when they're in the uterus, is the head just floating around on its own? Is that neck flame burning when they're in the womb? Does the head get born first or second? Can a dullahan perform oral on itself, and if so, do they ever need to find a boyfriend or girlfriend?

Anyway, there's also a succubus in Takahashi's school, but she's a teacher and not a student. And she seems to have a warm and wet spot between her legs for the hunky, but slow, biology teacher, mostly because she sees him talking to the demi girls and appearing to care about them and their strange situations. When in fact he's just trying to get them alone in his office to have them bite him, or allow him to pick up their separated heads, or get them to take off their shoes and socks and stand in a bucket of water because he's a lolicon with a foot fetish. I swear, this man has ulterior, sick motives.

So the girls are all cute, the story goes nowhere, the vampire girl straight up tells her twin sister (who is surprisingly NOT a blood sucker too) that the teacher is doing weird shit with her, the dullahan's family is like "Oh, a government worker with a stable job? No, please, manhandle our daughter's head! You're single, right?" and the succubus chick likes to toy with Takahashi with her powers of supernatural seduction despite the fact that she's too busty for his underage-loving tastes. This show is weird, man.

In the end though, it's really not that bad. The succubus teacher was probably my favorite character, but that's mostly 'cause Takahashi-sensei was pretty dense, and the demi-girls were all too teenager-ish for me. They were cute, sure, but the problems surrounding Succubi-sensei's monster mutation, and the lengths that she has to go through to avoid causing other people trouble, made me feel a bit more sympathy for her plight, but also appreciate her resolve and dedication to her job and fellow citizens.

That's pretty much it. This is a fairly light and fluffy, but overall not-to-shitty, slice-of-life series. If you like these kinds of things, you'll probably like this too. If you don't enjoy those kinds of shows, then you're not missing anything important here.

Interviews with Monster Girls is a harmless Twinkie of a show: It's small and short, very sweet, but over soon, and utterly forgettable (especially compared to Ding Dong series like Nichijou, which are chocolatey-rich, and make you want to keep on eating them until the box is empty). You probably won't look back and think "Oh man, I wish I never ate that Twinkie," mostly because you'll forget you watched it soon after.

I give it One out of Two Thumbs Up. You could do much worse, but you could also spend your time doing better things, like making a webpage for your dog, or learning to say the alphabet backwards when drunk in case you ever get pulled over for drinking and driving.*

*This website (and all its writers and editors) does not condone driving while intoxicated. Only when stoned.

The DOC of DAVE

I remember when I was a high school science teacher. This one year, I had a bunch of inattentive, whiny students who were driving me up a wall. So I got them to sign some wavers hidden in their midterms, and then experimented the shit out of them.

One of them I turned into a vampire by irradiating a vampire bat and then prodding it into biting her. The experiment was a great success, until the student died from an accelerated form of some creepy new cancer. But before then she did grow some wicked-long fangs, lost all her hair, and started craving human blood. Well, in all honesty, all her teeth just fell out except for her canines, which made them look like fangs, and I think she was really only trying to murder me for making a cancer-giving bat bite her.

Oh! But that dullahan that I made with the vampire-girl's classmate! I can't believe how well that turned out. I was able to connect an almost invisible hose from her recently decapitated head to her neck-stump, and when she held in under her arm, she was the spitting image of Ichabod Crane's nemesis! The only problem was when her oxycontin ran out and she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, she wouldn't stop screaming. Seriously, it was like 42 hours of non-stop screaming on that girl. I was both impressed by her perseverance and lung capacity, but also beyond fed-up with that high-pitched wailing. Hmmm, in hindsight, I probably should have just made her into a banshee instead. Maybe next time.

What? Oh, the animated show. Right. I enjoyed it. I liked how the main character was a super-buff biology teacher. That was a nice change of pace from the nutty professor-like caricatures that they typically use. I'll give it 4 out of 5 Stars of Science.

PROFESSOR X

Great Scott! I need to get my better looking students to start breeding so that we can start breeding mutants as cute as these demi-humans in this show! Imagine being on a battlefield and having an incredibly adorable vampire girl rushing right at you! You'd probably stop fighting and try to hug her instead of punching her, and in that split second she'd have your throat ripped out and would be drinking your blood that fountained out of your warm corpse!

I've already sterilized my more hideous students, but imagine if Peter and Kitty had a darling ghost baby, or if Bobby and Rogue had a super handsome Mummy child!... Wait, he's what now? Well, I'd just have him look at pictures of Peter while he impregnated Rogue then. Anyway, you get my point.

Eugenics? What? No! It's nothing like that, Eric. Jesus, you and your crusade against everything even slightly Nazi-esque. Sometimes you really make me sick. Leave me be with my mutant breeding programs, er, I mean my mating, er, my dating service that I'm about to create.

I truly enjoyed this show and its delightful and interesting premise. I shall put it to good use and make my own master race. Er, I mean my master.... piece....... um, theater? Anyway, go away. I have shit to plan out.