The premise of Monster Musume has been done, and done, and done again. And done again, in anime dozens of not hundreds of times before. Guy lives alone and within the span of a few episodes finds himself living with 4 or 5 girls of various personality types. Shenanigans, boobs, and crotch face plants ensue. The difference here is that all our girls are not human. And I mean really not human at all, with the exception of their enormous cow udder tits.
This brings me to what I found to be the most disturbing aspect of this show. Sure we have seen plenty of non human characters in anime before, history is full of adorable cat girls, fox spirits, and intergalactic space princesses. But they always felt more human than animal. This is not the case with Monster Musume. We have half snake, horse, spiders, and mermaid girls. With the whole premise being these girls are seeking marriage with our indecisive hero, one can only shudder at the reproductive implications of a man mating with a horse...
Everything else about this show is decidedly average, at best. While there are a few amusing moments the experience suffers from a familiar problem of harem type shows. An enormously bloated cast of girls. Nearly every episode introduces a new monster girl making any character development pretty much impossible beyond basic tropes and stereotypes. The characters are likable but I failed to form any sort of emotional investment in any of them and could care less if anything happened to them. Kurusu sort of stands out when compared to other harem leads in that he isn't a complete pussy despite the fact he vigorously protects his chastity as would the most pious monk. Though perhaps we can feel relieved that he does considering the disturbing implications of it.
Artistically the show is pretty average. The girls themselves are well drawn and look (a bit too much) like their animal counterparts. Though most of the girls have ridiculously enormous breasts that frankly aren't even all that attractive. The overall quality of the BluRays was alot better than the TV release, as one would expect, but nobody is winning any awards here for animation or backgrounds either. The voice acting and OP/ED songs were good and definitely the best part of this anime.
I can't recommend this anime to anyone. Even the most ardent fans of harem shows will find little to love here. Only those with the most hardcore monster girl fetishes need apply. Instead just go check out something better like Rosario+Vampire for your monster girl fix, sans the creepy bestiality.
