Monster Musume / Daily Life with Monster Girl

About

Monster Musume no Iru Nichijou (モンスター娘のいる日常 or Daily Life with Monster Girl) is an ongoing comedy-romance manga written and penned by Takemaru "Okayado" Inui. The story centers around Kimihito Kurusu and his harem of "extraspecies" girls, including the lamia Miia and the harpy Papi.^[1] The series' frequent use of fanservice and comedic nods to the Otaku culture have made it one of the most popular ecchi mangas of its time, selling over 1,000,000 copies by October of 2014.^[13]

Premise

Kimihito Kurusu is a virginal Japanese otaku who is volunteered against his will to take part in the "Cultural Exchange Between Species" program, a movement to integrate the recently declassified non-human sapient species into human society. He is paired with Miia, a nymphomaniac lamia who quickly falls for him. As part of the Cultural Exchange bill, he is forbidden from having sex with her, under threat of Interpol intervention. Over time, he comes to meet several other extraspecies girls, which his irresponsible case manager, Ms. Smith, assigns to live with him. This leads to an escalating war for his affections, exacerbated with a new addendum to the Cultural Exchange Bill allowing interspecies marriage.^[1]

History

Monster Musume serves as a softcore successor to Okayado's previous work, Living with Monster Girls, a pornographic web-comic centering around the sexual hijinks of half-human girls and their boyfriends. The comics were originally hosted on Pivix, the Japanese equivalent to deviantART, where they accumulated tens of thousands of views.^[1] The first issue of Monster Musume was released on April 8th, 2012, and has since sold upwards of 100,000 copies.^[2][3]

Reception

Since its release, Monster Musume has been met with financial success in the East and West. It has topped the New York Times bestsellers list of manga several times, beating out the extremely popular Attack on Titan on at least one occasion.^[4][5] The series has also proven a critical success, rating a 4.94 out of 5 on Mangahere and a 4.83 out of 5 on Manga Fox, making it the 25th and 38th most popular manga hosted on the sites, respectively.^[2][3]

Online Relevance

Fandom

In spite of, or perhaps because of, Monster Musume's niche demographic, it has gained a cult following on the internet. The girls have become unofficial mascots of monster-girl enthusiast sites such as r/MonsterGirl^[6], /a/^[7] and Monster-Girl-Luv.^[8] Miia in particular has spawned the most fan art, followed closely by the newcomer Rachnera.^[6]

Comic Pornography and the Mainstream

The series' rapid spike in popularity since its English release in November of 2013 has sparked debate over the market viability of eroge in the English-speaking world and beyond.^[9] After topping Naruto, Bleach and Yu-Gi-Oh during the comic's first sales run, manga critics have suggested the West is making a return to printed porn, previously thought obsolete thanks to online pornography. These predictions proved true over the following year, with Volumes 3 and 4 holding the number 1 spot upon their release.^[12][13]

On April 21st, 2014, Monster Musume became the focus of an article in the Japanese version of the pornographic magazine Playboy. While Japanese Playboy magazines tend not to sell as well as their American counterparts, the issue sold out within a day of its pre-release.^[10]

Related Memes

Everyday Life With Bicycle Cop

Everyday Life With Bicycle Cop is a fanmade spin-off of the series featuring the recurring secondary character Bicycle Cop paired with the most dangerous subspecies of monster girls. The series started on 4chan and inspired several pieces of fan art.

Kevin-Kun

During Monster Musume's peak popularity on /a/, a uniquely persistent shitposter would post the message ">you will never see Miia tenderly loved" accompanied by a picture of a 3D-modeled Kevin from Ed, Edd n Eddy at the beginning of every Monster Girl thread, a la Daily Dose and Every Day Until You Like It. It is unknown to what extent the original troll was responsible for the post's spread, but it is believed he is no longer involved in its spam. Since the post's genesis, Kevin has become a symbol for mocking weaboos, and has been spotted in-context on /vg/, /vp/ and FunnyJunk.^[11]

Search Interest

External References