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Interviews with Monster Girls
Episodes 1-3

by Paul Jensen,

How would you rate episode 1 of
Interviews with Monster Girls ?
Community score: 4.2

How would you rate episode 2 of
Interviews with Monster Girls ?
Community score: 4.4

How would you rate episode 3 of
Interviews with Monster Girls ?
Community score: 4.4

You'd be hard-pressed to accuse Interviews with Monster Girls of having a misleading title. That's more or less the initial premise of the show; high school biology teacher Tetsuo Takahashi wants to interview demi-humans to learn more about them, but he's never gotten the chance to do so. That changes when four of them all show up at his school at the same time. The new math teacher is a succubus, and the first-year class includes a snow woman, a dullahan, and a vampire. It looks like Tetsuo will finally see his wish come true, assuming he can get any of these new arrivals to talk to him.

One of the most important things in a series like this is to make the non-human characters both interesting and convincing, and Interviews with Monster Girls displays a good eye for detail in its first three episodes. Tetsuo's frank conversation with vampire girl Hikari Takanashi in the first episode largely sets the tone for the show's treatment of these characters; their quirks are unusual enough to be interesting, but they're presented in a relatively natural way. It's perhaps easiest to see this approach in action by looking at the way dullahan girl Kyouko Machi manages her detached head. She constantly has to point her head toward the person she's talking to, and she has all kinds of clever tricks and accessories to deal with the inconvenience of having to carry her cranium around all the time. It makes for unique and sometimes funny visuals, and it also endears her to the audience by letting us see the work she has to put into everyday activities.

That leads into the other big point in this show's favor: even if you ignore the supernatural stuff, this is still a compelling cast of characters. Tetsuo is thoughtful and responsible enough to be charismatic, but he stops short of being an impossibly perfect teacher. The monster girls (or “demis,” as they call themselves) also seem to have personalities that aren't entirely dependent on their physical characteristics. This plays nicely into the recurring theme of wanting to fit in and be “normal” even when you're noticeably different from the people around you. While each story arc has been largely episodic so far, that ongoing struggle provides at least some sense of a connected narrative.

One area where Interviews with Monster Girls appears to differ from similar shows is in its relatively low level of fanservice. The monster girl gimmick has most often been used in connection with harem comedies, but there's very little of that style to be found here. We get the occasional raunchy joke (usually from Hikari), and the succubus teacher Sakie has a brief shower scene in episode three, but that's been about it for sexual content. Even the potentially uncomfortable storyline of a headless schoolgirl developing a crush on her teacher has been handled reasonably well thus far. Assuming it doesn't go too far overboard later in the season, Interviews with Monster Girls could be the right series to win over viewers who were put off by the rampant fanservice and slapstick humor of Monster Musume.

The biggest knock I have against this series is that it doesn't do much to overcome the usual issues with slice-of-life shows. The plot is extremely lightweight at the moment, even taking into account the possibility that we might see a little drama next week. The pacing is slow and relaxed, for better or worse, and it looks like that easygoing atmosphere will take priority over any deep social insights. That being said, as long as you don't mind that laid-back attitude, this looks like a very promising series. It's built a nice little niche for itself, with all the elements it needs to be successful.

Rating: B+

Interviews with Monster Girls is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.


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