Are anime monster girls designs boring

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

Reading over this topic, I feel the need to make a distinction; there's this thing called kemonomimi which translates to "beast ears" and refers to your typical catgirl which only has cat ears and maybe a tail, which I don't think most would consider "monster girl/musume" but it seems like it is used interchangeably here.


I remember seeing this chart where it took you from a human to a literal normal cat and measured furrydom as it moved along but I don't think that sort of scale is what monster girls, even the typical ones we all can visualize, really are a part of.


Take for example Horo from Spice and Wolf, her real body is just a regular wolf, while her human form has ears and a tail and otherwise she's a normal girl. That's a pretty classic kemonomimi style character where you have some kind of supernatural being assume the form of a human while retaining some beast characteristics. In that form she is intending to pass for human. She isn't trying to be a beast girl, but of course she fails to completely hide her beast side despite looking cuter than most humans, which makes for interesting situations where she eats more than 10 grown men and whatnot.

There's tons of stories with that sort of premise. Now, we also have people who I guess want the monster side to be the more dominant side, but I think focusing on appearance too much is missing the point. Too many times we tend to dismiss content because of perceived pandering within it. The problem is that when we say "monstrous" we are being overly superficial. I think a more metaphorical sense of the term that can apply to various beings of various appearances is more useful.

F that.
If your premise is "a dating sim in which you date tanks", I want to date a tank and not regular girls doing tank puns, damnit.
"Tank" is not just some vague metaphor, it's a tank. Shoots missiles, blows things up. A distinct lack of "regular girl".
If your premise is "guy in a harem of monster girls", I want to see actual monster girls.
"Monster" is not just some vague metaphor, it's the aliens, the draculas, the were-whatevers. Also not including "regular girl".
Commit to the premise, damnit.

Ok so we are tackling two unsame things; I'll explain.

The tank thing is called moe-anthropomorphisation, it's the process of making a human out of a tank, it's a creative process through witch you adapt visual elements of a tank or a console (nepunepu) on a human. It's a pretty shallow but sometimes surprisingly smart design approach but there's not a whole lot to it. They're not really tank-like, they just wear the outfit of a tank.


Monster girls are actually character-wise close to whatever animal they're based on. While it may seem that the appearance is what people want, for actual fans it's more about their eccentric behaviors or odd habits that usually would make no sense for anyone to have. Being in a world where these things makes sense is...just pure fun.

Though I was not advocating for monster girls being metaphors, just that their appearance isn't all that important to the whole equation and the charm is more on the behavior.

 

[loa]

The tank thing is called moe-anthropomorphisation, it's the process of making a human out of a tank, it's a creative process through witch you adapt visual elements of a tank or a console (nepunepu) on a human. It's a pretty shallow but sometimes surprisingly smart design approach but there's not a whole lot to it. They're not really tank-like, they just wear the outfit of a tank.

I know what a gijinka is and it's lame and I am being stiffed out of the thing the premise painted in my head.

Monster girls are actually character-wise close to whatever animal they're based on. While it may seem that the appearance is what people want, for actual fans it's more about their eccentric behaviors or odd habits that usually would make no sense for anyone to have. Being in a world where these things makes sense is...just pure fun.

Though I was not advocating for monster girls being metaphors, just that their appearance isn't all that important to the whole equation and the charm is more on the behavior.

And again, I think it would just be funny to have an actual slime or ogre in a harem anime about "monster girls" but with how entrenched anime cliches are in that culture, nobody would take that risk. That's the linchpin.
If appearance is such a non-factor, surely not making them generic sexy girl isn't that important either. Yeah, thought so.

 

[balladbird]

I dunno... I think that even current designs are sometimes poorly thought-through enough to be pretty interesting, if only in the questions they raise.

for instance, I recall a spider girl... can't remember where she was from, but I know it wasn't a porn game... which is something you always have to be sure of with monster girls! Anyway, the thing about her design that always threw me off was that she had two butts. A human butt, and spider's abdomen. Additional materials claim that the human part of her handled all the standard bodily functions, whereas the spider part only housed the spinarettes and associated organs... which made me raise an eyebrow because... her spider bottom was so big... I could conceive of no way she could go to the bathroom without getting it dirty. that has to be some kind of living hell.


cheekiness aside, I do agree that the designs have gotten pretty lax and boilerplate, and the usual non-monsterous females thing, while separate from monstergirls, who are kind of their own genre, is a strange aesthetic choice.

 

[Thaluikhain]

I dunno... I think that even current designs are sometimes poorly thought-through enough to be pretty interesting, if only in the questions they raise.

Oh yeah, where are all their organs? Do centaurs have two sets of lungs and two stomachs? They eat with their human mouth, which is tiny for their overall size? Can their human hands reach all parts of their body?

 

[infohippie]

Don't you realise that judging women on their appearance is shallow and immature, not to mention objectifying? Isn't it more interesting to consider the social issues facing monster women due to their monster natures? For example, Sakie Satou from Interviews With Monster Girls:

She is a succubus and therefore has to face many potential problems simply due to her species. She projects an erotic influence onto those around her which is made especially strong by physical contact of any sort. To combat this effect, she tries to dress as un-sexy as she can, must take the first train in the early morning and one of the last trains home at night just so she can avoid accidentally touching a male human in a crowded train. She cannot even enter a relationship like those around her since she can never be sure a potential partner actually cares for her, or is merely under the spell of her erotic influence. She leads a lonely life, unable to participate in society like everyone else. But no, she is "not monstery enough" just because she looks human.

Well, if you must judge entirely on appearance, how about this lady from a well known game:

Spoiler

 

[loa]

Don't you realise that judging women on their appearance is shallow and immature, not to mention objectifying?

I think everybody here knows that there's a story behind the drawings and that comics aren't some incoherent torrent of pretty illustrations and I hope everybody here knows that a drawing is not a "woman".

 

[infohippie]

Don't you realise that judging women on their appearance is shallow and immature, not to mention objectifying?

I think everybody here knows that there's a story behind the drawings and that comics aren't some incoherent torrent of pretty illustrations and I hope everybody here knows that a drawing is not a "woman".

I think you missed that I was being facetious.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

Don't you realise that judging women on their appearance is shallow and immature, not to mention objectifying?

I think everybody here knows that there's a story behind the drawings and that comics aren't some incoherent torrent of pretty illustrations and I hope everybody here knows that a drawing is not a "woman".

I think you missed that I was being facetious.

I think a monster that looks human but really is an actual monster is scarier than a gruesome-looking abomination because of just that gap between looks and reality. Of course, not all monsters are the scary kind, and the jaded can look at this and see an excuse to pander and kinda stop analyzing further, but I would unironically nod along with your facetiousness and be happy doing it.

I haven't watched Demi-chan yet but it was on my radar and your description made it sound quite awesome, I'm sure an interesting story can be told with that premise. Even if it doesn't satisfy the more actual-cat-leaning furry spectrum folks out there.

 

[infohippie]

Don't you realise that judging women on their appearance is shallow and immature, not to mention objectifying?

I think everybody here knows that there's a story behind the drawings and that comics aren't some incoherent torrent of pretty illustrations and I hope everybody here knows that a drawing is not a "woman".

I think you missed that I was being facetious.

I think a monster that looks human but really is an actual monster is scarier than a gruesome-looking abomination because of just that gap between looks and reality. Of course, not all monsters are the scary kind, and the jaded can look at this and see an excuse to pander and kinda stop analyzing further, but I would unironically nod along with your facetiousness and be happy doing it.

I haven't watched Demi-chan yet but it was on my radar and your description made it sound quite awesome, I'm sure an interesting story can be told with that premise. Even if it doesn't satisfy the more actual-cat-leaning furry spectrum folks out there.

It's a pretty entertaining show, I recommend it. And everything I said about the succubus character is true, though they play it a little more for laughs. Best monster girl on the show is Hikari, the vampire. She's so genki and fun.

 

[runic knight]

Isn't that in part due to various legends and myths about half-female creatures using their human halves to lure in prey and the like? Sirens, Lamia, Mermaids, etc. are used often and their human halves being attractive is sort of important for their ability to eat people. Others like Harpies, Sphinxes, Arachni, Kitsune and so forth use their human parts as disguise, representing aspects of humanity, as a result of confusion about bones that explained where the myth came from, mockery from the gods themselves, or various other reasons.

The trope definitely draws from historical myths, religious legends, or tall tales, so it being repeated, very often using the same creatures from those tales such as anime like Monster Masune is not surprising in the least.

Also worth adding into the mix is I guess what I would call the silhouette effect. Maintaining the humanoid look overall seems to always be sought when making characters people are suppose to appeal to. This generally comes in the flavor of having a portion of the silhouette be humanoid. Balanced amount of limps on the upper body, a single head, eye/mouth/face proportions, general body shapes consistent with human biology (larger, muscular males, smaller, less muscular females, even if the opposite in nature is more the case for some species). The overall result is avoiding the point of uncanny valley creepiness. I wonder if the balance of that is part of why people find the spider girl from monster masune far more creepy than the bird girl, the snake girl or the horse girl, despite all of them being roughly the same percent monster to human, as the eyes, the size of the spider body, and the hard shelled limbs might be the stretch too far to bridge the gap over uncanniness.

 

[Paragon Fury]

No, anime monster girl designs are great.

I have no bias in this opinion.

 

[Secondhand Revenant]

Need more monster, less stark transition to outright human torso attached. Make even the more human parts inhuman

 

[peabuddie]

Think of it this way: the female in thier normal form is terrifying enough. There's really not much to add.

 

[Secondhand Revenant]

Think of it this way: the female in thier normal form is terrifying enough. There's really not much to add.

Perhaps so for the really big fans of the genre...