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Monster Musume
Episode 12

by Paul Jensen,

How would you rate episode 12 of
Monster Musume: Everyday Life with Monster Girls ?
Community score: 4.2

Well, we made it. If you're reading this review, there's a good chance that you're part of the eclectic collection of viewers who stuck with Monster Musume all the way to the end. I'm not sure if we should all pat ourselves on the back or seek some form of counseling, but it's been a fun ride either way. Time for one last look at this charmingly unhinged piece of animation.

In the wake of LaLa's proclamation that Kimihito is close to death, the girls go completely berserk in an effort to protect their beloved host. After being dropped out of the sky, trampled, crushed, and drowned, Kimihito decides to take matters into his own hands by proving that he's perfectly safe. Naturally, the whole incident ends with LaLa moving in. With over half a dozen monster girls to feed, Kimihito's budget is stretched to the limit and the house's fridge is perpetually empty. A last-minute shopping trip yields an impressive haul of bargains, and Suu decides to help out by testing some potentially edible plants for poison. After the feast is served, Smith stops by to let Kimihito know that he could've been submitting the cost of food as an expense all along. Always get receipts, kids.

The various attempts at escaping LaLa's grim predictions are amusing, mostly because the only real danger to Kimihito is the swarm of monster girls trying to protect him. The highlight of the sequence is Kimihito's plan to prove his own safety by walking out into the street while rattling off a litany of famous last words. Somewhere between promising to get married if he ever makes it home and declaring that he's “not afraid anymore,” our long-suffering protagonist nearly made me fall out of my chair laughing. As a bonus, we even get a brief glimpse into Kimihito's chuunibyou-flavored teenage years. Considering how the rest of the cast usually carries this show, it's nice to see Kimihito show something resembling a personality for once.

The shopping trip isn't as humorous as the episode's first half, but it does at least answer the question of how normal people respond to seeing monster girls. Once the shopkeepers realize that they don't have to hide all the chicken and fish whenever Papi and Mero show up, the girls are able to have a relatively normal day out on the town. Suu's brief tour of duty as a poison detector is entertainingly odd, and the idea of poisonous plants making her dialogue more sharp-tongued is a clever one. Even in its last few minutes, this show never stops thinking of odd little quirks for its characters.

The problem with this final episode is that it doesn't feel particularly conclusive. The kerfuffle that accompanies LaLa's arrival is over too quickly to work as a climactic moment, and the grocery run causes the series to end on an incredibly mundane note. Both halves of this episode work in isolation, but they're not the sort of thing you wrap up a season with. There's no meaningful reflection on past events, no personal epiphanies for any of the characters, and no sense that anything significant has changed since the first few episodes. It feels like there should be another batch of episodes coming next season, but this is all we get for now. The audience is apparently supposed to be satisfied with a couple of generic platitudes about the characters' lives being both hectic and fun. Come on, really?

The absence of a tangible ending makes it even tougher to sum up Monster Musume. This series has been gross, hilarious, lewd, clever, and everything in between. It bolted a turbocharger onto every harem comedy cliché in the book and became more accessible through its own shameless self-indulgence. I love its willingness to do whatever the heck it wants, but I'd hesitate to recommend it to anyone I know. As is sometimes the case with willfully bizarre anime, Monster Musume will elicit a wide range of opinions depending on the individual viewer. Whether you love this series or hate it, it's nothing if not memorable.

Rating: B

Monster Musume is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Paul Jensen is a freelance writer and editor. You can follow more of his anime-related ramblings on Twitter.


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