Readers of this blog may know that I am not wild about the new Monster Girl genre, with one or two exceptions, such as My Monster Secret. That said, I do try to read Vol. 1 of most everything these days, and then try to have something to say about it. But sometimes it’s not a lot. So here we have four books mostly involving monsters, which are mostly monster girls. None of them are horrible, so I wanted to talk about them, but none of them are great either.

Interviews with Monster Girls. By Petos. Released in Japan as “Demi-chan wa Kataritai” by Kodansha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Young Magazine the 3rd. Released in North America by Kodansha Comics. Translated by Kevin Steinbach.

At its heart, this is essentially a less ecchi version of Nurse Hitomi’s Monster Informary. The difference is that the teacher and counselor here is a normal human, and he’s in a school that is also normal, but with a few “demihumans”, which is the term preferred here for Monster Girls. There’s a vampire, a snow woman, a dullahan who carries her head around, etc. Oh, and one of the teachers is a succubus. While this may sound like the start of a harem, it doesn’t read that way, really. The girls deal with the difficulties of who they are, and the teacher supports and helps them. Its main issue is that originality is really off the table – the dullahan in particular has a lot of Durarara!! in her. As long as it avoids everyone falling for the teacher, it should be OK for monster girl fans.

Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid. By Coolkyousinnjya. Released in Japan as “Kobayashi-san Chi no Maid Dragon” by Futabasha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Monthly Action. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Jenny McKeon. Adapted by Shanti Whitesides.

Here we have a yuri take on the genre, though how yuri it actually is depends on your rose-colored glasses. Miss Kobayashi is a introverted young office worker who has, through various circumstances, a dragon living in her apartment. Luckily, said dragon can also turn into a cute girl. Things proceed from there, as we see coworkers, and of course other supernatural girls showing up. It’s played very much for comedy – I was amused at Kobayashi’s behavior when drunk, as she releases her inner otaku – though there are moments of sweetness when you realize that things might progress if the author was interested in any romantic progression. I doubt they are, though, so it’s mostly just OK. the author has also done I Can’t Understand What My Husband Is Saying and Miss Komori Can’t Decline!, whose anime has come out here but whose manga are unlicensed.

My Girlfriend Is a T-Rex. By Sanzo. Released in Japan as “T-REX na Kanojo” by Media Factory, serialization ongoing in the magazine Gene Pixiv. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Wesley Bridges. Adapted by David Lumsdon.

The title is basically the plot – dinosaurs evolved rather than dying off, and now we have a girl who’s top half is human, whose bottom half is a dinosaur, but whose personality is basically ‘well-meaning clumsy strong girl’. She’s probably the least interesting part of this title, which gets far more mileage out of its hero and side characters. Despite the title, however, Churio (the dino girl) and Yuuma aren’t officially dating. Yuuma is the reason I enjoyed this – he starts off looking like a bland romance manga hero, and then we discover that’s by design – he’s an ex-gang leader and troublemaker who’s trying to straighten up after graduation. This turns out to be more difficult than you’d think. We also get Churio’s best friend, Torika, also a dinosaur girl, but also a vamp who loves using men to get presents. She’s hilarious. I enjoyed this probably more than it deserved.

Re:Monster. By Kogitsune Kanekiru and Haruyoshi Kobayakawa. Released in Japan by Alpha Polis, serialization ongoing in the magazine Alpha Polis. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Lu Huan. Adapted by Rebecca Schneidereit.

I’m cheating a bit here – this is not a Monster Girl manga, but another in a long line of “I was transported to a fantasy world” titles. That said, all the main characters, including the girls, are goblins of some sort or other, so let’s let it slide. This has the most intriguing premise of the four – the surprise being that the guy who’s now a goblin had superpowers in his previous world, which was filled with espers who could do cool things. After getting killed by a jealous childhood friend, he’s now a lowly goblin, in a world where stats, levels and powerups are real. Sadly, the premise is the best thing about this manga, which means well but is incredibly tedious. There’s not much dialogue – it’s almost all narrative voice, which makes sense given this was adapted from a novel, but the narrator is so dry and boring that everything drags. The other issue is that we have a standard male power fantasy here. Gob-Rou never loses a fight, wins the respect of the goblins, becomes their leader, and by the end of the first book has started to amass a harem. Some self-doubt or failure would help.