Monster girl manga series aren’t all that unexpected, and there have even been ones set in a high school before. These sorts also tend to humanize the spooky beings too. Interviews with Monster Girls and A Centaur’s Life are two like that. Now we also have The Illustrated Guide to Monster Girls manga from Yen Press. However, while the previous two examples involved peaceful, cute monster girls, manga Suzu Akeko’s series manages to be cute while still not pulling punches about their nature and being gruesome.
The Illustrated Guide to Monster Girls is set at a school for young monster women to help them grow up to properly terrify people around them. More specifically, it focuses on Class Z, a group of some of the worst students in school led by D-Sensei, a dullahan. To help ensure a sense of balance and variety, Akeko structured the story as such that each character in this his class is a different kind of fiend. Ichika is a jiangshi priest and the first student we meet. Ringo is a devil. Reika is a ghost. Saiko is described as a ghoul, though she shows werewolf tendencies. Mayoi is a cursed doll. Each one has some quirks, but at the same time some human-like tendencies you’d expect from girls their age.
While the general story does focus on Ichika in many situations, what I liked about the first volume of The Illustrated Guide to Monster Girls manga is how almost every one of the six chapters here is dedicated to introducing a different student in D-Sensei’s class of misfits. It really makes it feel like, “okay, right, this really is a guide to each of these characters” while setting up additional stories.
It also means this first volume is dedicated to a one-off stories that let you focus on individuals and their unique traits. It’s showing what different monsters in this universe are like. More importantly, by being set in what is essentially a supernatural monster high school, it means the manga gets to feel like a horror take on the slice-of-life genre. Sure, there’s a lot of violence. But that’s their normal, and sometimes they’re disturbingly cute when it happens.
This isn’t to say that The Illustrated Guide to Monster Girls manga isn’t gross or shies away from horror. There are some unsettling situations for certain. There’s also gore present, with it mostly tied to D-Sensei’s actions or Ichika. It’s just the general focus is on what daily life is like for these monster girls at school as they learn how to be terrifying, with any “scary” moments tied more to situations they encounter, rather than unnerve the reader.
I feel that means we can spend the rest of the time appreciating how fun The Illustrated Guide to Monster Girls can be and its take on a manga about otherworldly high schoolers. The art direction is cute. The characters get chances to make impressions in this first volume. Plus it all ties in to give a really strong idea of what to expect from the rest of the series.
The first volume of The Illustrated Guide to Monster Girls manga is available now, and Yen Press will release volume 2 on December 12, 2023.
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