Written by Okayado English publisher Seven Seas Directed by Tatsuya Yoshihara Publisher Tokuma Shoten Genres Fantasy, Harem, Comedy | Published by Tokuma Shoten Demographic Seinen Magazine Monthly Comic Ryū | |
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Original run 19 March 2012 – present Similar Sekirei, Highschool of the Dead, To Love Ru | ||
Monster Musume (Japanese: モンスター娘のいる日常, Hepburn: Monsutā Musume no Iru Nichijō, "Everyday Life with Monster Girls") is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Okayado. The series is published in Japan by Tokuma Shoten in their Monthly Comic Ryū magazine and by Seven Seas Entertainment in the United States, with the chapters collected and reprinted into ten tankōbon volumes to date. An anime adaptation aired between July and September 2015, and was licensed by Sentai Filmworks under the title Monster Musume: Everyday Life with Monster Girls. A PC game based on the series was released in December 2015.
Contents
The story of Monster Musume revolves around Kimihito Kurusu, a Japanese student whose life is thrown into turmoil after accidentally becoming involved with the "Interspecies Cultural Exchange" program.
Plot
For years, the Japanese government has kept a secret: mythical creatures such as centaurs, harpies, and lamias are real. Three years before the start of the story, the government revealed the existence of these creatures and passed a legal bill, the "Interspecies Cultural Exchange Act". Since then, these creatures, known as "liminals," have become a part of human society, living with ordinary families like foreign exchange students and au-pair visitors, but with other duties and restrictions (the primary restriction being that liminals and humans are forbidden from harming each other).
Kimihito Kurusu did not volunteer for the exchange program, but when Ms. Smith delivered the very scared and embarrassed Miia to his door by mistake, he did not have the heart to send her away and they started living together. As the story continues, Kimihito meets and gives shelter to other female liminals, each of a different species. Some arrive more or less by accident, some are forced upon him by Ms. Smith, or force themselves in, and it does not take long for him to find himself in a hectic environment where he struggles to live in harmony with his new housemates while dealing with both their constant advances and the dramas of helping them get along in the human world. The situation takes on a new twist after he is told that because of expected changes in the law dealing with human-liminal relationships, he is expected, as a test case, to marry one of the girls, thus increasing their competition for his attention.
Manga
Okayado (a pen name of Takemaru Inui) published the prototype for Monster Musume in Comic Ryu's Anthology Comic Kemomo 02, published by Tokuma Shoten, in 2011. He then reworked the story into a serialized publication, and the first chapter was published in Tokuma Shoten's seinen manga magazine Monthly Comic Ryū on 19 March 2012. The first collected tankōbon volume was released on 13 September 2012. The series has been licensed in English by Seven Seas Entertainment and in German by Kazé.
A four volume anthology of four-panel spin-offs with stories by Shake-O (Nurse Hitomi's Monster Infirmary), SaQ Tottori (Kyōkai Senjō no Limbo), and Cool-Kyou-Sinnjya (I Can't Understand What My Husband Is Saying, Komori-san Can't Decline), titled Monster Musume: I ♥ Monster Girls (モンスター娘のいる日常 4コマアンソロジー, Monsutā Musume no Iru Nichijō 4 Koma Ansorojī, lit. Everyday Life with Monster Girls 4-Koma Anthology) was published by Tokuma Shoten between August 2015 and February 2016. Seven Seas Entertainment also licensed the spinoff.
Volume list
The series has been collected into twelve volumes, eleven of which have been republished in English.
Anime
In September 2014, the Monster Musume website ran a series of polls asking what readers would want to see in an anime adaptation. This was followed in March by the announcement that a television series would begin airing in July 2015. The series, directed by Tatsuya Yoshihara and scripted by Kazuyuki Fudeyasu, is animated by the animation studios Lerche and Seva. It stars Junji Majima as the voice of Kurusu Kimihito, Sora Amamiya as Miia, Ari Ozawa as Papi, Natsuki Aikawa as Centorea, Mayuka Nomura as Suu, Haruka Yamazaki as Mero, Sakura Nakamura as Rachnera, Ai Kakuma as Lala, Yū Kobayashi as Ms. Smith, Momo Asakura as Manako, Rei Mochizuki as Zombina, Yurika Kubo as Tionisia, and Saori Ōnishi as Doppel. The opening theme song, titled "Saikōsoku Fall in Love" (最高速 Fall in Love, lit. "Highest Speed Fall in Love"), is performed by the voice actresses for Miia, Papi, Centorea, Suu, Mero, and Rachnera; and the closing song, "Hey! Smith!!" (Hey!スミス!!, Hey! Sumisu!!), is performed by the voice actresses for Ms. Smith, Manako, Tionishia, Zombina, and Doppel.
The series aired in Japan on Tokyo MX, SUN, KBS, BS11, and AT-X. It is accompanied by a series of anime shorts, titled Hobo Mainichi OO! Namappoi Dōga (Almost Daily __! Sort of Live Video), which are streamed semi-daily on the Japanese video sharing site Niconico, which will also stream the series regular. The shorts are available for a period of 24 hours, with compilation episodes being streamed on the weekends. The series is streamed by Daisuki in Central and Latin America, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, and the Philippines. The series is also streamed by Crunchyroll in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Latin America, the Netherlands, Scandinavia, and Turkey. The series has been licensed by Sentai Filmworks in North America.
An original anime DVD was released with the manga's eleventh volume on 11 November 2016. It was directed by Tatsuya Yoshihara and written by Kazuyuki Fudeyasu, with animation by Lerche. The OAD will adapt chapter 17 of the manga, which was included in the fourth tankōbon volume. A second original anime DVD will be released with the manga's twelfth volume on 13 April 2017.
Video game
Coinciding with the release of the first anime episode, it was announced that an online PC game adapted from the series would be released by DMM Games in 2015. The game was released on 21 December 2015. At the height of its popularity it had around 200,000 players. The game was shut down on 22 November 2016.
Reception
As of 1 September 2014, over a million copies of the tankōbon volumes had been sold. The series reached 2.3 million copies in print on 13 February 2016.
All nine volumes of the English translation have appeared on the New York Times Manga Best Sellers list:
Two volumes of the English translation of Monster Musume: I Heart Monster Girls have appeared on the New York Times Manga Best Sellers list: