"Interview with Monster Girls" is an SoL Anime taking place in a futuristic world where "Demis", beings that are slightly different from your usual human like Vampire, Dullahan, Succubus etc. also exists among the general crowd. The story centers around a biology teacher named "Tetsuo Takahashi" who have a keen interest for these demis and wants to study & understand them, while also helping these demis to overcome whatever troubles they have.
What I found to be incredible about this show are the pacing and the visual direction. For an SoL show, pacing is always preferred to be slow, as these shows tries to portray a mundane life in rather relaxing manner. But this Anime took a different approach and sped it up with it's fast paced transitions and cuts, while still maintaining the same energy as your regular SoL show. Calm yet Energetic. The characters were likeable and extremely charming. No character really felt out of place or unnecessary. Another thing I like about the show is how self aware it is. It kept it's balance between fun & drama without overdoing it, but was a little underwhelming at some crucial moments. The social commentary about discrimination is kept subtle and not in some grandiose rebellion way that are often filled with characters throwing tantrums. And it treats it's characters as they are, and not some objects that needs to be flashed. What I mean here is that, it never mistreated it's characters, and perfectly flashed them out depending on the traits given to them. It rises interesting questions about the setting and gives a satisfying answer to each of these questions that often surprised me, for how well thought and simple they are. The character chemistry is something that's worth mentioning. Tetsuo gets along really well with the students, both normal humans & demis. He's a very simple middle aged man who understood what's his profession is and doesn't act all cool & arrogant. Hikari helps maintaining the cute & fun factor of the show with her vampire fang & silly attitude; Yuki & Machi had some interesting character studies and Satou is probably the fan favorite teacher because, well who doesn't love a sexy teacher in a full covered tracksuit? The rest of the side cast does their job well, by not being forgettable. The backgrounds are really good as well. Character animation is pretty smooth too.
Though, I wish the series continued a bit longer and expanded it's scale cause while the ideas it introduced are very interesting, it would've been even more interesting if explored on a much larger scale. The Anime confines itself to a high school setting so it didn't have much to explore outside that. Only 4 demis were explored, while that's a appreciable thing for a 1 cour Anime, it still could've went a little longer.
25.5 out of 26 users liked this review
