YMMV / My Monster Secret

• Base-Breaking Character: Shimada, especially after a certain revelation, which by itself garners a Broken Base. To begin with, he was flanderized from somewhat of a loser into a total Jerk with a Heart of Jerk. While some began to dislike him, most fans find his antics more hilarious than before, and that he's a Butt-Monkey who always get his comeuppance for his jerkassery. Then comes the revelation in question. His detractors start getting louder and some fans also think that this is getting too much even for him. Meanwhile, the other fans keep their stance and think both the revelation and the character are excellent, funny jokes in a comedy manga.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment:
  • Chapter 75. It was never explained what the cause of the O.O.C. Is Serious Business-weather phenomenon was.
  • Chapter 97 starts with Rin doing shopping to make hamburg steaks for dinner. It ends with she, Aizawa, Shiho and Akane defeating the Ox Demon King in a remote mountainous country. Don't ask.
  • The "glasses club" in chapter 108. Imagine a classic scene of a guy wasting himself in a hostess bar, trying to assault one of the hostesses, and getting thrown out of the bar, lamenting his own worthlessness under the rain. Now replace all the humans in this story by pairs of glasses, and you have one of the most baffling chapters in the series. When even Akane is at a loss for words, you know something's off.
• Broken Base:
  • Some people find the anime's artstyle is an improvement from the manga. Others find it way too conventional and cutesy for the series.
  • The revelation that in the future, Shiho will end up marrying Shimada. Many people find it a hilarious plot twist and an excellent follow-up to Shiho crushing on Asahi. The other side feels that the character, beloved by many, does not deserve such a fate and should have a better future. This revelation also turned Shimada into a Base-Breaking Character.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Kuromine Mei, Asahi's younger sister. She somehow placed 10th in the first popularity poll, beating Asahi himself (who placed 11th), despite being a background character and having less than 10 spoken lines by the time of the poll. She would become a proper character later, but not before 30 chapters have passed after the poll.
  • Similarly, Shirogane Karen was introduced into the series quite a bit later than the rest of the main cast (around chapter 60), yet managed to place 4th in the popularity poll, beating out characters like Mikan, Akari, and Shiho who have been around since near the beginning.
  • Touko and Genjirou's antics have also made them quite popular with time (at least in the West), especially after a… certain incident at the beginning of Part 2.
• Fan Nickname:
  • Often a combination of the character's "species" and some variant of the word "dumb".
  • "Dumpire" (Dumb + Vampire) for Youko. Also doubles as a pun for Dhampyr, since she is half-vampire.
  • "Alium" for Nagisa.
  • "Orange" for Mikan. "Mikan" is a kind of the fruit orange,
  • "Slutwolf" or "Erowolf" for Shiho.
    • With the reveal that she might only be pretending to be a pervert, she began to be called "Purewolf" instead.
  • "Dumon" (Dumb + Demon) for Akane
  • Akari was often called only "Sensei", but as she progressively lost her Straight Man status, some fans began calling her "Densei" (Dense + Sensei)
  • "Dadpire" and "Mompire" for Genjirou and Touko, respectively.
  • Genjirou is often additionally called "Tsundaddy" whenever he acts up around Youko and tries to pretend he doesn't care about her.
  • "Granddumber" (Granddaughter + Dumb) for Rin.
  • "Bakangel" (Baka + Angel) for Karen.
  • Okada, Shimada and Sakurada are sometimes called "The Three Stooges" by US fans.
  • Yuka was quickly called "Durriken" (durr + shuriken).
  • Saki, the unsexy Succubus, got the nickname of "Succushortbus" ("short-bus" is an expression to designate people of limited intellect).
  • Part 2 of the series is called Jitsu wa Darkness by some, due to the increased emphasis on plot and Character Development and the slightly more serious tone (slightly). And no, it's not because of that, thankfully.
  • Some Western fans refer to Asahi in Chapter 111 (where Akane makes him dress as a superhero) as "Heromine-kun", playing off of Youko's "Eromine-kun"
  • Ryokuenzaka Yumi is often called "best girl"; ironically since, well, she's actually a guy.
  • Western readers often refer to the policeman who keeps arresting various members of the cast as Cop-san.
• Fridge Logic: If Akane can grant her own wish of having a year's worth of snacks… then why does she need to win the sports festival in the first place? She could just do that whenever she wants.
• Growing the Beard:
  • While the early chapters are considered okay, people seem to agree that Akane's appearance in chapter 15 is where the series really takes off both in terms of insane hijinks and romantic developments.
  • The beard grows even more with part 2. From that point on, while the style of humor remains very much the same, the story construction and atmosphere change quite a bit. It's still a romcom, but no longer follows the conventional structures of the genre, and the sci-fi and fantastical elements get more prominent.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • For a lot of the series the Bad Future is treated as a joke, but revelations near the end of the series throw a lot of the old gags into this territory. Like Mikan's fervent attempts to figure out who Asahi's future wife is — this becomes a lot less funny when you find out that Youko ran off after her secret was exposed and a heartbroken Asahi never married.
  • Heartwarming in Hindsight: Conversely, some elements become this instead. Future Mikan's attempts to change history so she marries Asahi are a prime example. Originally it looked like she was just being a Sore Loser, but the big reveal shows that she does care about Asahi and wanted to avoid a future where he spent most of his life alone and heartbroken.
• Les Yay:
  • Shiho enjoys playing with Nagisa a lot, going so far as to give her a "pretty butt training" in chapter 89 (on Nagisa's request), which soon turns into a full pervert course. Said training includes intense butt fondling − which gives Shiho an indiscreet nosebleed − and naked sexy poses together.
  • A volume 12 omake has Mei telling Yuka that she should be careful to not fall for a dangerous guy, because she's "a pretty cute girl". Cue Luminescent Blush on Yuka's part.
• Memetic Molester: Shimada, due to his creepy expressions whenever he tried to show his affections to Ryou (whom he doesn't know is a guy). In later chapters, it's implied he actually sexually assaulted "her". More than once.
• Memetic Troll: Akane is known and loved for being both the main source of plot advancement and the main source of epic trolling in the series, and there are few characters who haven't been a victim of it at least once. Messing with people is like breathing to her.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • Nagisa explaining that she's a "Doppelganger" in chapter 160. Sweet dreams.
  • In general, any of the Nightmare Face moments can be incredibly creepy, even when they're used in a humorous context.
• Moment of Awesome: Akari saving the world by wearing her usual jersey after everyone's attempts failed. It's both an awesome and heartwarming way of reminding us that the series wouldn't be the same without her.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Mikan is a rather spectacular example. She was a positively hated character in her "Evil Queen" period, but her Character Development and Art Evolution have made her one of the most popular girls of the cast. The author admitted in an interview that he's quite fond of her and wanted to compensate for giving her a "bad guy" role early on.
• The Scrappy: The gods of fortune, to some degree. Their appearances are few and far between, but they and their gags are consider one of the weaker parts of the series.
• Shipping Bed Death: Generally considered an aversion. Asahi and Youko get a Relationship Upgrade about halfway through the series, and it's often seen as a Growing the Beard moment. It helps that while their Will They or Won't They? waffling was a large aspect of the series up to that point, resolving it doesn't solve all of the other issues the characters have been dealing with up to that point, leaving plenty of open plot threads to explore without torpedoing the narrative tension.
• Ship-to-Ship Combat: Stays rather limited considering there isn't much suspense about the final victor, but Asahi×Aizawa and Asahi×Mikan do have some support.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
  • The reaction of many fans to the first promotional pic of the anime, due to the drastic change in artstyle. The first promotional video was received more positively though.
  • The anime, which shuffled chapters around, and made changes to the comedic contents, is also criticized for this. Most notable are episodes 4 and 8, where the corresponding chapters include characters that are absent in the anime.
  • The official English name for the manga, My Monster Secret. Not only do fans find it silly, they also dislike that it ignores that the Japanese title Jitsu wa watashi wa ("The truth is, I am...") are the Arc Words of the series. When they use it, it's usually to be made fun of, like this edit of a manga page. It's worth noting that the US manga volumes still have Actually, I Am... as a sub-title.
• Ugly Cute: While the artstyle of the manga is not traditionally cute or attractive, many fans consider the artstyle a big part of the series' charm. Much of the comedy relies on exaggerated, over the top expressions, and the artstyle is perfect for that. This is also why the anime's more generically cute artstyle garnered much outcries from manga fans.
• The Woobie:
  • Akari. While her fear of being an Old Maid are played for laughs at first, as time goes on, it becomes clear that it's really wearing on her. Chapter 142 shows that ever since she was a child, she's suffered emotional abuse from pretty much everyone around her because she was taller and more masculine than most of the boys, and was treated as a freak for it. Her desire for a prince charming on a white horse coming to take her away stems from the desire to be treated as a woman just once in her life.
  • Karen is a more comical example. She's constantly bullied and trolled by Akane (which includes her precious halo being stolen) and has been forcefully Held Back in School for 20 years, but always remains sweet and considerate. Masuda admits he deliberately made her "pitiful", notably by making her the only member of the student council.