Headscratchers / Monster Musume

• How can you even "hide" species from public? Government hiding humanoid species idea seems a quite absurd. It could be understood if they are incredibly rare or anything (like if they were less than 10 or maybe 20 and incredibly hostile for human knowledge, like the SCP objects). But how do you even hide something like this? This is completely impossible. How were these species even live before they were known worldwide?
  • Yeah, it's not like the series takes place in the 17th or 18th centuries when there were huge swathes of undiscovered land (i.e. Darkest Africa or Here There Be Dragons); it takes place in the present day. Alternate Universe, I guess?
    • The world isn't as explored as you think it is. There are still massive tracks of unsettled territory, like in Russia and the western united states to name a few. We haven't even mapped more than 0.05% of the ocean floor. Also, not being openly public is not the same as "no contact whatsoever". Any sightings before they were officially recognized were probably dismissed as a hoax or tabloid material.
  • Episode 9 shows that one subspecies of ogres is giantesses. How and where could you hide a race of 30 feet tall women?
    • In the redwood forests of Northern California?
  • Presumably, there was either a Weirdness Censor or The Masquerade operating until the reveal to the public. Several characters have shown explicitly magical abilities (Doppel, Yukio, and Ils), so there was probably some sort of effect keeping things hidden.
  • Another explanation is that many of the monster species live in Hidden Remote Villages much like the all-wizard towns of Harry Potter fame, or that they live in an Otherworld like The Fair Folk and cross over into "the human world".
    • I always assumed it was another world entirely and the governments where more hiding that they knew such a place existed rather then what was living in it per say, and that until recently for whatever reason it was too difficult to cross between for official relations to be possible.
• Miia, Mero and Rachnera all have human genitals just above the nonhuman portion of their body. Alas, such is not the case for Cerea, and Kimihito would have to get all the way behind her to get her pregnant. But when she imagines herself carrying his child, it is in her human belly. Er... How does a centaur deliver?
  • Given it is a fantasy sequence Cerea is having, it can be chalked up to Cerea being naive about centaur pregnancies. It could also be simply for the sake of the viewer understanding what she is thinking, as pregnancy would not be very noticeable on her horse half.
• Rachnera is specifically stated to take in air through her abdomen. So what is her human nose on her human face for?
  • My guess: olfaction and accessory breathing, the latter mainly for the purpose of speech.
  • Additionally, it could serve as more a semi-vestigial organ meant more for the purpose of attracting humans or blending in slightly.
  • In the very same scene Miia drops her into the bath, telling her to just breathe through her mouth. Rachnera has the lower part of her abdomen submerged and is irritated rather than struggling to breathe, so apparently she doesn't have to breathe through her abdomen.
• It is said that centaurs only allow their masters to ride on their back. Considering that the species were not acquainted with humans, who are the ones they allow to ride? It obviously can't be other centaurs.
  • It's implied that at least some of the human leadership were aware of the Centaurs existence before The Masquerade was revealed. Swearing fealty to a master seems to be more of a symbolic tradition than a practical one, so it wouldn't be a stretch for envoys or diplomats to maintain that tradition for ceremonial purposes.
  • Miss Smith outright says that finding a human master to serve is a tradition going back to ancient times for centaurs, and that it is becoming more popular in modern times as a way for female centaurs to avoid marrying male centaurs.
  • At one point, they reference ancient mytho-historical Greek hero Achilles, and his close friendship to Chiron, a centaur, who educated both Achilles and Asclepius in medicine. That myth is essentially Centorea's model for human/centaur relationships.
• Lala's powers are incredibly inconsistent: at times, she seems like a legitimate Psychopomp, and can actually tell when someone is on the verge of death (ie. Kimihito, which is how they met to begin with). But then during the hospital chapter she's genuinely shocked when she learns Yuuhi is dying; if she could discern if someone was in mortal danger of dying through that 'Eye of Balor' or whatever, one would think she would have realized it without Kimihito telling her. One could argue she's young for a dullahan and thus not as powerful, but she again was drawn to Kimihito without ever having met in person, and couldn't tell Yuuhi was dying while sitting on a bench right across from her. So that rules that out...bottom line, what is the deal with Lala anyway?
  • Lala has never explicitly been able to tell if someone is actually on the verge of death (Yuuhi's condition, for example, caught her by surprise). How she actually came to know about Kimihito is explained in chapter 30 to be due to how he kept coming to the Afterlife Antechamber (which she has access to and apparently spends a fair amount of time at) and then coming back to life. She saw/met him there and got curious about who he was (she obviously couldn't/wouldn't explain this when she was first introduced since Kimihito has no memory of these meetings when he is in the living world and Miss Smith doesn't believe she has any magical abilities).
• In chapter 49 Ms. Smith says that the room Darling-kun stays in to lure out the vampire extra-species is used so the extra-species that consume human blood can meet someone who is okay with having their blood sucked. But if that's the case, why did he have to specify that he was okay with blood sucking? And the leech girl mentioned that she bit him because he specified that blood sucking is welcome. Shouldn't that be self-evident? Or was Darling-kun right in his initial thought about what Smith meant by "bodily fluids?"
  • Maybe the only reason he was in that room is because of the blood-sucking thing, and if he hadn't put that on there, he wouldn't have been put in the room in the first place.
  • The idea was that the hemovoric girls would approach random guests in private in order to ask if they would be ok with them sucking their blood. Kimihito bypassed all that by writing in blood sucking under accepted activities, which is why they all flocked to him. The same would likely apply to species with other special "needs".
• Why is Draco even in Japan if she hates humans and the vast majority of reptilian extraspecies live somewhere else?
  • A sketch from Okayado's twitter revealed that she was hoping to be paired up with a cute girl so it's pretty safe to say that she doesn't hate humans (even if she sees herself as superior) so much as men.
  • If she hates (human) men, why does she act like the douchiest stereotype of them imaginable?
    • Two possibilities. Either it's her way of trying to get a girl (akin to animal instincts, plus human influence ((knowing that, for whatever reason, girls tend to be drawn to "bad boys))), or she's essentially become exactly the thing she dislikes as a way to basically get them to back off.
• Harpies are stated to be a One-Gender Race. So if monsters have been hiding from humans for centuries, and now that their existence is known, they're legally unable to have sex with humans, how are harpies able to reproduce? When Papi had her egg, it was clearly stated that it didn't contain a child, since it was unfertilized, so it's not like they reproduce asexually.
  • The "no sex" rule seems to be only for homestays (Smith describes it as a diplomatic issue because a homestay is a representative of her people, and having finished her time as part of the cultural exchange Yukio refers openly to having made the man she grew to love as her fiancee), and is a recent thing. We've also seen repeatedly that the law is of little hindrance when it comes to monsters and humans having sex (the only thing that seems to be stopping the girls with Kimihito is the fact they won't let each other bed him). Harpies in particular couldn't care less about such rules, they've always taken humans as mates and they will continue to do so. Also, it doesn't seem monsters went to much effort to hide themselves from humans in the past, at most they seem to have cooperated with human authorities who wanted to keep monsters secret from the rest of humanity.
• Why is it that Manako has the biggest issue with being seen in public? She can't possibly be getting the worst stares of all the monster girls, can she? I get that she's shier than most of the other monster girls, but surely she has it easy compared to most of them when it comes to drawing unwanted "what the hell is that" looks?
  • Manako is extremely observant, as shown when she easily spotted "D" several times in the crowd during Kimihito's dates with MON. This, coupled with her social anxiety, would make her far more likely to notice stares than the rest of the girls, who probably aren't paying attention in the first place.
  • Its also not just about how bad the stares are or how many the target gets so much as how they react to or interpret them. For example Manako tends to interpret them all negatively due to her own neuroses, while Cerea considers most stares to be innocent or merely curious.
  • Perhaps it's more about "the uncanny valley" for her.
  • Another thought is that her unease stems in part from her teammates. She's partnered with Zombina (who looks mostly like a relatively attractive human girl, and can pass for one with a little work), Tionsha (Who looks like a tall, STACKED young woman with a cute little horn), and Doppel (who can look like anyone, and whose "normal" form is a human-like figure). Comparatively, her monoeye is "freaky" and "unappealing), compared to her closest friends traits.
  • It's likely that she considers looking like a normal human except for one huge exaggerated human feature to be freakier than the liminals with more fantastic features like horns or wings.
• In Chapter 25/Episode 12, Suu eats some plants to determine whether or not they're poisonous. But wouldn't different plants/fruits/vegetables be poisonous to different liminals, like how grapes, onions and cocoa are poisonous to dogs but not to humans?
  • Yes but Suu has been fed largely a human diet and perhaps learned from that. Most liminals also seem to have a fairly human diet, or at least the ones she lives with do (aside from the obvious of some being largely carnivorous and another entirely herbivorous) and presumably similar sensitivities to poisons.
  • Also, the way a slime-type monster digests food may break it down to more rudimentary components, which Suu can identify as bad for one of her family members. So if a plant broke down and contained certain components (using your example, onions containing disulfides, which are bad for most domesticated species), she could quickly file it as "bad"
• This may sound disgusting, but can zombies in the series get pregnant? From what we see with the infamous "sewing the boob back on" scene, Zombina is still able to feel sexual pleasure, which means that her ovaries must still be making progesterone. If that's the case, they must be able to ovulate as well.
  • Probably not. Even if her body still works, the fact that she has to be preserved probably means that her cells aren't really alive, meaning that her eggs are probably dead too. Even if they did work, her uterus probably wouldn't (note that when Smith is examining the newly zombified Yuuhi, she has no pulse, breath, and basically no internal functions other than motor and cerebral). However, since we have seen Zombina eating, it could be possible ti assume that some of her organs still work. Unless her reproductive organs are on the list, doubt that she has any way of having kids.
  • Too late. I actually wrote fanfiction where it happened. I got the idea from a Reddit post. Specifically, I had Zombina get married to Ed from Ed, Edd, n Eddy, and have fraternal twin daughters with him. They're named Victoria and Annabelle Lee, after doctor Victor Von Frankenstein and Edgar Allan Poe's most famous poem, respectively.
    • Why would we need to know that?
  • Just saying that someone's already done it, and thought it to be possible.
• How come Zombina "bleeds" when she's shot but not when her body parts fall off?
  • My guess is that her "blood" is mainly located in her head and torso so as to keep her vital organs functioning. Sort of like a mountain climber's blood pulling away from their limbs and into their head and torso during hypothermia.
    • But her breasts are part of her torso.
  • Sorry, that's all I got. Anyone else?
  • Perhaps the blood was faked somehow to make it beleiveable that she died.
  • Or she just gets regular blood transfusions in order to keep her soft parts fresh, the natural way, which would require one every day before all energy runs out from the blood.
    • We're told later that her "blood" is actually embalming fluid.
• What is the dryad, mandrake and alraune version of blood? (water, phloem, chlorophyll, etc.)
• How does Papi play video games without any fingers?
  • She has thumbs and she's mostly seen playing Wii which relies more on motion controls than shoulder buttons (which is the only controller part she'd have an issue with).
    • From the short scene that this it's shown in, she seems to be playing "Wii sports" with Suu, namely the tennis minigame. From experience, you only need to push buttons on the controller to set the game up, which Suu, or someone who actually has fingers, could do for her. Once the game is set up it can run 100% on motion controls.
• Apart from an offhand mention at the start, where are Kimihitos' parents? it has been quite a while, their house has had extensive modifications, and several very strong, unusual girls are living in their house determined to marry and bang the hell out of their son, maybe we will get a chapter where they get home and give a massive scolding to their son, then as its a manga end up loving all the girls.
  • They are 'out of the country'...and apparently? They aren't coming back...
    • It's entirely possible that they hit that stage of life where they just decided to travel the world. Just pack up, and spend an interminable amount of time just... living it up.
    • It's also unclear just how much time has actually passed. No birthdays being celebrated have even been mentioned.
    • A couple of months have passed at least, the fact there have been at least 2-3 full moons (with a couple more implied at least) since the series started, so at the very, very least 3 months have passed, with it possibly being 5-6 months with the implied full moons.
• What happened to Mia's ORIGINAL homestay family. That part just got ignored...
  • Smith stated in the first chapter that what mattered was that Miia was happy staying with Kimihito. Whoever was initially assigned to be her host family clearly was okay with this as well. They evidently didn't know each other nor had they bonded (this seemed to be before interviews between prospective hosts and homestays became commonplace), and there are plenty of others who could go to that host.
• In chapter 71 Centorea spontaneously began lactating. The milk issue isn't mentioned in the two subsequent chapters so apparently it ceased just as abruptly. Presumably Centorea's brief milkiness can be attributed to the presence of Meamil and her "maternal hormones."
  • It's also a well known phenomenon that women can begin lactating and then stop for emotional/psychological reasons. Centorea is shown earlier in the chapter to have already been thinking about/studying breastfeeding rather heavily.
• Meamil squirts her milk into Kimihito's face (with extreme accuracy) after being milked...?
  • Well she isn't indicated to have been milked dry. Clearly she had some left.
• Do werewolves in the setting actually change from human to (were)wolf form, as opposed to just being a Little Bit Beastly? No other monster species seems to do anything like this, but the end card explaining about animal-type monsters shows the werewolf-woman with torn clothes, like a Hollywood werewolf might have because they've torn them in the process of "transforming into a werewolf". Of course, considering the manga's humor, I wouldn't at all be surprised to find out this is just what werewolves find fashionable. Still, was this ever clarified?
• Doylist answer of Fanservice aside, why weren't there any liminal men or human women at the onsen meet and greet? Some liminal men must be part of the cultural exchange program, and there are women willing to be hosts surely. And there's also the option for same sex housing.
  • Judging by the explanation given to a couple women who were interested in a meet and greet with male monsters at that big expedition event, if the events exist then they're held on different days or times from the monster girls ones.
• I realize the answer to this is "because Okayado didn't think of it" but if harpies hatch from eggs, why do they have navels?
  • It seems real birds do have navels, if only temporarily, according to this article: https://www.birdspot.co.uk/bird-brain/do-birds-have-belly-buttons Perhaps in harpy eggs, the cord that attaches them to the yolk sac is close enough to the umbilical cord of a human to form a human-like navel.