A Centaur's Life & The Problem with Monster Girl Anime

One thing that tends to bother me with almost anything, but anime specifically, is wasted
potential. I long for the days where I could look at things with eyes unclouded and see
things without knowing deep down how they’re gonna play out. Today though, this feeling
encompasses a rather peculiar genre: one of Monster Girls. But perhaps that’s only because
I’m not thinking broadly enough, what shows do you think of when someone talks about Monster
Girls to you? What kind of show hrm?
But that’s not all there is, you can always find gems
in even the strangest of places. There could be a monster girl anime that ends up being
rather compelling. Instead of focusing on the bodily aspects, we could have deeper look
into their society, how characters end up functioning and living in a world where these
creatures exist. Is A Centaur’s Life that anime?
[YEP WE ARE GOING THERE]
Well, it does try to tackle a lot of subjects ranging from the feelings of its adolescent
main characters, family values, inadequacy based on discrimination, the dynamics between
different races, how young children process those difference for the first time, how the
government acknowledges those differences, whether or not the actions they take in spite
of those differences is a bad thing…it’s a big old load of clothes! Regardless it never
[Who even says that? What is a load of clothes? What does Laundry have to do with anything?]
Reguardless it never forgets to ask the important questions:
But that’s just it, it’s all about asking
questions but so far I feel like the show hasn’t even begun to give any answers…which
is exactly what makes discussing it so difficult! Let me just say that if you wanted an anime
that involved and spent time on looking at a centaur’s vagina…you’ll get that, but just not in a story that’s
particularly interesting otherwise. So instead, let’s take the opportunity to see where
A Centaur’s Life falls in regards to other monster girl shows. Hopefully we can get a
better idea of the trends that this premise is accustomed to, and where the appeal lies.
Let’s start with the subject of Diversity. The best example is a show from earlier this
year “Interviews with Monster Girls” or Demi-chan as it’s popularly referred to
as. Demi-chan has a lot on the surface that makes it fall into line with other entries
in the genre, but at the same time in certain aspects it doesn’t go far enough. It mostly
follows the lives of 4 very particular Monster Girls, who for whatever reason, don’t actually
look like monster girls. The positive side to this choice in character design is that
our heroines are much easier to relate with, they are visually human for the most part,
and all of them are certainly so from the neck down…but at the same time doesn’t
that kind of negate the point of the show? Granted we do spend a lot of time examining
the less obvious traits of these characters, from an aversion to heat, to suddenly freezing
entire rooms without realizing it. Demi-chan’s take on monster girls is like an anime equivalent
of X-Men without the fighting between mutants. They are human-looking but have powers that
they get character arcs that focus on how they blend in, how to control the things that make them unique,
and how despite some major differences biologically, they really aren’t all that different from
regular people in a lot of ways.
But of course Demi-chan is more of an exception rather than the rule, which brings us to a
series that is almost the exact opposite. Where Demi-chan has minimal fanservice and
major focus on societal forces, Monster Musume from 2015 has major fetishizing and a moral
about discrimination that feels really tacked-on. Not to mention it incorporates aspects from
the popular and fiendishly overused harem genre, resulting in a show that, I’ll be
honest was not to my taste. I have many problems with the Harem genre most of which revolve
around insulting the audience’s intelligence, either with its setup, or the various almost
impossible sexual situations that the characters find themselves in. It usually has a male
lead who might as well always be the same guy every time from the amount of personality
he’s given. And I’d much prefer if you could not always assume that every situation
would end with a female character being placed in an embarrassing situation followed by beating
the shit out of the male lead…only to then be right. But I digress, Monster Musume
does at times have a level of self-awareness, and although it likes to take the traits of
the various monster girls and use those as an excuse for ecchi situations, some of them
turn out to be rather well thought out from either a
societal or biological standpoint. If there’s one thing I can’t blame it for it’s going
all out with its shallow premise but… that doesn’t mean I have to like it.
But before charging back into a Centaur’s Life there’s one more series I want to cover,
one that’s a bit more family friendly. Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid. Now I realise that
some people might not think of this to be a monster girl anime as there’s only one
kind of monster girl, but for the sake of argument let’s look at it through that lens.
This is on the far side of the spectrum that we are looking at while not shying away from
things that have apparently become standard, not with just the genre but anime as a whole.
It’s a show that acts as a sort of microcosm for how this particular type of Monster Girl
would be able to live but under a very secretive social situation. The Dragons are not known
to exist by society at large, there are not governmental divisions dedicated to their
care or laws for their treatment, Dragon Maid, doesn’t go that far. Instead it focuses
heavily on the small place that does matter, within Kobayashi’s home. Instead of tackling
how society looks at these girls it looks at just how Kobayashi looks at them, how she
deals with them, how she learns to live and interact with them in meaningful ways. There’s
a lot of heart to Kobayashi that even anime without monster girls could learn from, but
within the genre it’s the kind of focused storytelling that I’d like to see a bit
more of. Don’t get me wrong it HAS fanservice, but it doesn’t rely on it in the same way
other shows do. I’d argue that in Dragon Maid, THE T & A helps strengthen the comedic
aspect of the show rather than distract from it.
Which brings us finally to A Centaur’s Life.
On the outset, I thought that this series
was going to take the base topics made relevant with Demi-chan and apply them to more “monster”
like monster girls. And to some extents it has. The monster Girls that exist in Centaur’s
Life are far more varied with the structure of their bodies having far bigger implications
The society of itself is also quite different, as traditional humans don’t
exist in this universe, and the shared characteristics of everyone is just kind of how different
species have evolved. It’s an interesting take because it examines how these various
species interact with one another, rather than constantly comparing them to normal humans
Like Monster Musume there’s
a lot of thought put into how norms would change in this world, like a cat-like character
who has his glasses connect at the top of his head rather than resting on the side because
his ears are in a different spot than a human's. Despite having no humans, so much of the how
the society feels and operates is eerily eerily close to our own. However the real problem is that
it’s a series that is trying to play it safe. For example in one episode they bring
up how a snake girl trying to smile might not come out the way they expected it to.
Naturally everyone’s shocked but Sheep Girl here does bring up a good point.
From then on the show goes into how various myths were built up about snake people and how that’s
harmful to perfectly meaningful interactions.
And yes, stuff like this IS important because
it IS realistic, but it’s moments like this that make me scratch my head and wonder what
the show is trying accomplish…y’know other than the whole “it’s what’s on
the inside that matters” moral which by itself is so corny that it means nothing.
It also has a reasonable amount of fan service for a more upbeat anime, with
focus on characters chests, and also some weird design choices for the merfolk. Seriously
why create an artificial thigh gap here? There’d no biological advantage for it, so why do
it? Right, for people with thigh fetishes perhaps. (EXTRA THICC) Centaur’s Life is
not trying to rock the boat, but at the same time it risks being unremarkable. Demi-chan
may not be as full to the brim but its characters are how it defines itself. Musume may alienate
many with its focus on ecchi but it can still at least be entertaining in that way. And
the heart that exists in Maid Dragon is something that sets it apart from almost any other series
that has come out in 2017 so far, so there’s much to live up to. But it hasn't yet. These
anime have their various strengths and weaknesses but you can’t call any of them unremarkable,
but as for Centaur’s Life…I’m not so sure. It needs to find a stronger footing,
give us a reason to enjoy these characters and their world, either for the comedy they
provide, the heart that they can contain, or the problems that they can face. Because
without that, you just have another show that’s nothing but a premise. And right now when
we’ve already seen various unique monster girl shows take the spotlight…it’s not
the best of time for that.
Thank you for taking the time to watch this
video, I hope you enjoyed it. As always I want to thank my patrons for supporting my
videos as without them they would not be possible. More specifically though I’d like to thank
Viktor Ekmark, Joshua Garcia, Hedrel Leon, Bing Theo, Robert Chumsae, Calhoonboy, and
Siri Yamako for being especially awesome. and until next time Stay Frosty

A Centaur's Life & The Problem with Monster Girl Anime

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