Sunday, November 9, 2025
From Myth And Mystery
Nothing
in the world of visual novels leaves quite the same immediate
impression as Monster Girls with their addition anatomy and
supernatural nature. A Monster Girl is not the same as something like
a cat girl where they have direct connection to real animals and
instead are based on monsters from myth and folklore. This often
means more dramatic changes to their appearance like with the snake
lower body of a lamia or the horse of a centaur, but they can also be
merely an otherworldly bloodline which gives monstrous personality
traits as often happens with the oni. In addition despite the title
saying Monster Girls this work will consider their male equivalent
for what it shows about how gender changes their role. On their most
basic level a Monster Girl is a monster and may well act like it
through aggressive actions which they may
not have full control over. Then there are the Monster Girls for whom
their monster characteristics are just a cute accessory to make them
stand out to the player and they rarely have any negative elements to
them in order to make them likeable. Their unusual appearance gives
them room to act as stand in for humans while still allowing for some
distance from subjects like discrimination. These characters are a
wide spectrum of body types, additional limbs and personalities so
there is quite a bit of flexibility in what roles they can fill.
Let’s escape the hoards of Monster Girls and find out how these characters have shaped and been shaped by visual novels.
The Monster Within
A
Monster Girl character does not need to have need to have any
immediately identifiable physical elements so long as their non human
nature is reflected in how people treat them and in the way it
influences their lives. This style of character has their monstrous
nature act as a sort of curse which they often have no control over
yet decides much of their life with many people coveting that power.
Since they appear human on the outside they generally do their best
to blend into normal life and dream of being left alone. Their nature has a violent and uncontrollable
undertone to it and this does not have to be just for themselves as
its effects on the people the character cares about can be vastly more
destructive. From a narrative standpoint this type of Monster Girl
reflects on the ruinous nature of our darker emotions or the desire
for ever greater power. In overcoming these internal negative traits
the characters can display a virtue and struggles through which core
themes can be displayed as well as provide a reason for the player to
root for them. One of the most common kinds of Monster Girl to get
this treatment is the oni since having some oni in a bloodline as
an excuse for magical powers is a cliché in and of itself. The
customary violent nature of an oni makes this struggle against these
darker tendencies an expected part of the process of character
growth.
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| It is always a problem when they start wanting your blood |
One particularly interesting example of this use of oni is in
the Hakuoki where a number of oni characters make their appearance
including the protagonist Yukimura Chizuru. What makes the oni stand
out here is the variety and flexibility of their roles for person to
person. Chizuru is obviously the oni with the largest amount of
screen time but for the most part their powers are not something
which they have to struggle but instead it falls on those around her. She is
coveted by multiple other individuals including other oni and she
reveals their less desirable sides through their pursuit of her while
also highlighting the heroic side of those who defend her which plays
well into selling the romantic interests. When she starts using her
blood to save the people she cares about is where the darker aspects
of the oni start to creep in as the suitors she uses it on are not
always able to adjust and reveal the dangerous side of the oni.
Their struggles with their declining mental state and how the Chizuru
handles their relationship works as the backbone of their arcs in the
later parts of the game and helps support the historical drama
happening around them. As rival to the suitors and the foil to
Chizuru, Kazama Chikage’s status as an oni places him in position
where he is both the best and the worst of his kind. The arrogant
superiority where he looks down at humans as inferior mirrors that
element in humanity itself and yet it is this pride which demands he
hold himself to a higher standard than many of the people around him.
Throughout the narrative he demonstrates himself to be the one
character who will stand by his values to the very end even as he
fights in open opposition to the heroes. This muddies the picture of
what it means to be an oni and further allows them to be a direct
connection to humanity and the time of chaos the cast find themselves
in.
As A Cute Trait
By
far the most common use of a Monster Girls style of character is as a
means to add distinctive traits to the cast in order to make them
stand out. Often this is the bare minium for the character to be
considered a Monster Girl and takes the form of some extra element on
their human bodies, but even then they have the ability to
conceal it the majority of the time. Functionally they are just human
characters as far as the narrative is concerned with vague nods at
their supernatural nature so it can be done in the least invasive way
possible. For this kind of Monster Girl their role rests solely in their
appeal and exotic origins as a way to spice up what might otherwise
be a standard visual novel. Take The Ditzy Demons Are in Love With
Me, if the Monster Girls were stripped of their powers the game would
just be another standard example of the romance slice of life genre.
Their personalities form the expected spectrum of moe traits from shy
to clumsy to teasing and can easily be summed up in a single sentence
which is a part of the romantic fantasy this style of story is aiming
for. However, being too similar to its peers risks it not standing
out enough to make a player consider picking it up among the sea of
other titles. So each girl was made into a different Monster Girl in
order to provide them a visual identity different from other such
characters. To its credit the game does allow some aspects of their
monstrous nature to show themselves, such as the succubi being
seductive, but it is still restrained to only positive or humours
traits that will not scare off players. The story does not reflect
this choice in any meaningful way with the conflicts and arcs being
ones where the monsters could easily have just be swapped out for
humans and nothing would change. It should be said this strategy for
using Monster Girls has broadly been successful as can be seen in the
way it has formed a subset of players who like the aesthetic changes.
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| Definitely a normal girl.... |
This subject comfortable brings us to the other reason the surface level
existence of a Monster Girl is used, to appeal to a fetish. Obviously
this is something far more common in eroge where it feeds into the
erotic elements of the game, but it can act as an undertone in any title
where the characters have noticeable non-human physical additions.
Unlike the use of these as a tool for cuteness, here the Monster Girl
is more tightly bound to the expectations of their race and it
closely defines the outline of their personalities. The easiest way
to see this in action is to look at the developer Eushully’s output
in its entirety and note their obsession with angels. All the angels in
their games fall under the same racial archetype, this being purity
with a layer of vaguely religious background. Each individual
character does have their own spin on it to try and not make this
cliché too obvious such as with Melodiana from Kamidori Alchemy
Meister being a kind and refined individual while Forzasleyn from
Kami no Rhapsody is serious and stubborn, yet at their core this
commonality remains. Since an angel is such a potent symbol of purity, the associated white wings and golden halo become a part of a
framework to appeal immediately to those who find such traits to be
desirable and it insures a consistent stream of predictably
attractive characters. Eushully’s consistent fixation of
angels can be applied to a lot of other titles using Monster Girls
since racial archetypes makes for an excellent shorthand for a narrative and recognisable aesthetic all in one.
Just Like You And I
Using
Monster Girls as a direct metaphor for the struggles and treatment of
people in our own world is a fairly common practice. Their mix of
human and monstrous features make them a perfect blend of being close
to the player while still having the necessary distance to allow for the player to more objectively view their
treatment and avoid any unwanted connections to real world
equivalents. Being so fantastical provides room for the edges to taken
off the darker elements that might be addressed during the game by
slotting in another lighter kind of content such as over the top
fights featuring their powers. Ayakashibito’s
monster of choice is the yokai of which Kisaragi Suzu gets the
largest amount of screen time and her treatment forms the backbone of
a lot of the title’s themes. Immediately striking is the fact she
is lacking in any physical identifies of her origin for most of the
game and looks just like a normal human girl which is a deliberate
choice made to draw a line between the her suffering and the player’s
own experiences. It also helps form a similar bond with the player as
they have with the rest of the cast and blurs the lines they define themselves
along. As such humanity’s treatment of her is reflected back onto
them as they justify their actions based on her monstrous nature and
ignore the things they have in common. Despite this undertone
Ayakashibito is not interested in making any meaningful comments on
their actions beyond a simple moral evil. Instead the story uses it
as a justification for the interpersonal conflicts and the battles
with it just acting as additional texture to their character arcs.
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| So begins a quest into a gentle world |
It
would not be proper to discuss about Monster Girls without bring up
Monster Girl Quest and its influential choices in character design.
It uses the non human appearances of its Monster Girls as the basis
for a narrative about discrimination and prejudice based on physical
attributes and misunderstandings making for a very simple analogy for
the real world. The complexity of the issue is not something Monster
Girl Quest is interested in tackling and so the result is a parable
about the need to not judge a person without first understanding them which is perfect from the kind of heart-warming space
the game want to provide. Sitting next to this is one of the widest
pools of different Monster Girl designs all clearly leaning into one
fetish or another to a frankly impressive degree. Neither of these
two side even acknowledge the other’s existence and it does make
the game’s messaging feel a bit confused as if two entirely
different titles were smashed together yet there is no doubt its
brand of Monster Girls has left its mark on how future visual novels
presented their versions of it even if they never reached the same level of
success.
Conclusion
Nothing
quite speaks to human nature like a Monster Girl character as they straddle the line between their twin natures and the clichés which
come with their appearances. They can function as a way to examine
the dark and uncontrollable sides of human nature through their
supernatural powers and those who covert them. How people treat them
and how the Monster Girls attempts to deal with that allow for an
exploration of discrimination and reconciliation. However, they do
not need to embody complex themes at all and can simply exist as cute
accessories to someone who is otherwise just a human or as a means of
appealing to a fetish. Being both alien and familiar gives Monster
Girls a lot of range on where they can be included and what roles
they can be given so they are worth considering when making any kind
of fantasy narrative.
