Is Human Girl X Monster really such a common genre? What are some other examples?

Saying it’s one of the worst is interesting since I really like it. Don’t get me wrong I also agree there are some better options.

The sacrificial princess and the king of beasts I thought was phenomenal personally and found it way better than this.

It’s a small genre sure but their are some, I feel like most are older shows by this point since their ain’t many new ones.

Fruits basket somewhat falls under that genre. It’s less direct though

@Phantom_Void737 I really like it too. I think original poster said they like it too, so that’s good. Seems people here in this thread are all polite so far :3
Sacrificial Princess was so good yeah. Great director who did the anime adaption, Chiaki Kon (not to be confused with the other Kon anime director). She worked on some great music themed anime like Cantabille and You and Idol Precure
Plus Sacrificial Princess was adapting a kickass manga

Saying it’s one of the worst is interesting since I really like it. Don’t get me wrong I also agree there are some better options.

The sacrificial princess and the king of beasts I thought was phenomenal personally and found it way better than this.

It’s a small genre sure but their are some, I feel like most are older shows by this point since their ain’t many new ones.

Fruits basket somewhat falls under that genre. It’s less direct though

@Phantom_Void737 Review owner here, and I'm glad you enjoyed it. I agree with you that I may have exaggerated in saying it "was one of the weaker entries in the genre." I genuinely like this genre and want it to grow and become bigger in anime media, so I was frustrated with the execution of the show in the first two episodes, seeing that it could have been much better if it had received the attention and pacing it deserved.

@Phantom_Void737 Review owner here, and I'm glad you enjoyed it. I agree with you that I may have exaggerated in saying it "was one of the weaker entries in the genre." I genuinely like this genre and want it to grow and become bigger in anime media, so I was frustrated with the execution of the show in the first two episodes, seeing that it could have been much better if it had received the attention and pacing it deserved.

@KuraiStars that is such a real response. I also apologize if me making this thread while like casually mentioning you, made you uncomfortable at all, I actually liked the review as well. I totally agree with your point; I want to see more human X non human/furry romance stories in anime, and I think you are totally valid to offer your criticism / the part of the episode that bothered you being the poorly executed suggestive scenes, because it’s valid to bring up these criticisms to try to make the genre as best as it can be.
Thanks for joining this thread with us, glad you said this.

Belle? (and any Beauty and the Beast inspired media, really.)

Im the owner of the review, there really is a "beast x human" genre in shoujo, but it's much larger in manga media than anime, even including "yaoi beast x human" within it. In anime, it's still a developing genre; in recent years, the anime industry seems to be much more open to anime adaptations with anthro characters, which gives me hope that we might see more "beast x human" anime or just anthro anime in general.
The reason why i called beast x human genre even though the genre is still in developing in anime media, is because i too deep in this rabbit hole of anthro japanese content, i watch so many anthro manga i lost count, meaning i already see this as an genre and know the patterns.

@phantomfandom Yeah, I'm familiar with all of those.

Belle still fits the falling for someone with an inhuman appearance *despite* their appearance trope.

Saying it’s one of the worst is interesting since I really like it. Don’t get me wrong I also agree there are some better options.

The sacrificial princess and the king of beasts I thought was phenomenal personally and found it way better than this.

It’s a small genre sure but their are some, I feel like most are older shows by this point since their ain’t many new ones.

Fruits basket somewhat falls under that genre. It’s less direct though

I find it interesting that this genre of monster loves seems pretty gender specific as a shoujo thing in terms of what gets produced. I mean, there's not much in the way of truly anthropomorphic beast gals in romance shows with human guys, are there? Not with the full on animal or fantasy monster head thing going on anyway.

It's been a bit of an online discussion on YouTube and other places lately on how, even in the West in books and such, let alone in anime and manga, gals are presumed to be much more tolerant of entirely non-human suitors in romantic fantasies than males are presumed to be.

The logic seems to be that women can be more conceptual in terms of perceiving what is attractive, while men are presumed to be more strictly visual. So, anime makers don't bother with attempting to make animal-head love interests who are female for male fans, as it's presumed that it would be a waste as male fans supposedly demand conventionally attractive humanoid women folks at all times.

Also, manga / anime artists don't seem to have a tendency to translate anthros to "cute" designs as readily, despite anime head designs having a feline influence, reportedly, especially in profile. It's not like it's not possible to make them conventionally more cute in stylization though, you see some more conventionally attractive and cutesy female anthro characters in Interspecies Reviewers, for instance, but that's a rare example.

More often, something in the media culture in Japan translates full anthro characters to having raw and relatively realistic animal heads in anime, for some reason. Which is OK for shoujo, but not allowed for shonen, it seems, due the different significance for aesthetics for the different genders of fans, as mentioned earlier here. So, guys get funny ears and a tail for a cat girl or whatever at the most, but gals can sometimes get a full anthro animal head on a guy character.

I notice that the big and sort of fatherly beast trope features the girls sitting in his lap or being cuddled in such poses, as if to spark some Electra complex stuff, with girl fans referring to Elias of Magus bride, for example, as "bone daddy" on forums occasionally, as he is simultaneously a sort of father figure caretaker and a love interest. All of that is conceptual rather than based around aesthetics, so it fits shoujo better, supposedly, and so on.

@Metalsludge I think the harem variant is super common in a way for the male human to female monsterkin dynamic. Monster Girl Doctor, Daily Life With Monster Girl (which I'm so behind on, I've heard they have a djinn girl introduced), Interspecies Reviewers, probably a few others.

Even stuff that's more fluffy and innocent, like Interviews With Monster Girls or an upcoming series in a similar vein where it's a teacher and demihuman girls.

@holdingnothing On that note, there was Conception, where a guy had a whole harem of girls in a fantasy world, but he was only getting together with them cause it was literally required for him to do that, to save the world from ending.
However, there was a little racoon/red panda mascot, and she was very outwardly flirtatious towards him from episode 1, with some comments such as "You're lucky, you've got a real cutie staying with you!~" and the main guy reciprocated that, and flirted back towards the racoon/panda mascot all throughout the show,
And, during the Christmas episode, he bought the mascot a gift, and spent the night together with her, and they... well you know. And they~ :3
And specifically, the show clarifies that he had no need to do that with the mascot, the mascot was not one of the required girls he needed to hook up with to save the world, and he was well aware that he didn't need to. He even says "this is to thank you" rather than doing it for any plot related reason.

Kind of sweet tbh :3

@ThePacISBack I was interested based on a misconception (hah!), given the misunderstanding and plot point that I don't think goes anywhere with the lead's cousin.

Not sure I've seen the Christmas special, but I do remember it being interesting even if, yeah, it's based on I think a roguelike game where you're basically making monster babies to raise and dungeon crawl. Did they make a special baby like with the others or was it just...something else? The episode you're talking about may have been in the series, but I've only watched it through once week to week as it was first released. And it's been 7 years, so probably has mostly left my brain, much like a more recent monster raising series, Farmagia.

@holdingnothing Yay, thanks for responding :)
So first, you are correct, for both the game and the anime of Conception, the thing the main character has to do is basically a ritual involving a bed and... cuddling, involving each of the Star Maidens, which are a variety of girls (all human looking, some of em are mages, some of em princesses, and one of which is his cousin who turns out to be a Star Maiden). And so basically the main character does this intimately-coded act (but technically it is just cuddling and a ritual) because it is necessary to save the world, and that is how each of the Star Children are created that help save the world.
Then there is Mana, she is genuinely just a normal little mascot red panda thing, that happens to be able to fly and talk (because fantasy world lol), she is not a Star Maiden, and the main character is completely aware of the fact that he won't need to do anything with Mana, he could completely ignore her and treat her like an annoyance like how many other silly mascots get treated, always shoved to the side, with sad lives (and in fact, basically everyone treats Mana that way in the show).
But, our main boy doesn't ignore her and isn't annoyed by her, he seems to genuinely like Mana even from episode one, such as during the mutually flirty interaction from episode 1 (where Mana says he is lucky that he has a cutie like her living with him, causing him to whistle and look at her with a devilish look, which causes her to make that blushing and pretend-shocked face from my first screenshot), then there are other times throughout the episodes where Mana was outwardly interested in him such as playing off of the main boy's love of swords, she suddenly starts getting very interested in seeing how excited she can make him about swords, leading them both to start getting really touchy with each other (this was around episode 3 I think?),
and basically, those two just have a really close, mutually romantic relationship which is unique from other harem anime where the mascots are treated like an annoyance (not that those series are bad though, I can think of examples of shows that still have loveable mascots even if they're often shoved to the side, like Amagi Brilliant Park for instance),
All of that builds up to the Christmas episode where Mana is staying at home getting a bit sad thinking about how eventually Itsuki will save the world and probably not need to be with her anymore. But, then he comes back to the house they stay together at, surprising her with a gift (which was candy leading her to get upset for a second thinking she's being treated like a male friend/little brother, and going "I'm a girl, you know!"), and then when she says that, our main boy then reassures her, giving her a hug from behind and saying "I know you're a girl, a very cute one", and rubbing her chin, making Mana get really blushy and then get embarrassed as she realizes what he's probably gonna ask to do with her next, so she covers herself up with her tail, then the main boy tells her he never would've made it this far without her, and they, well, y'know~
The boy, and Mana both specifically know that there's no reason for them to have to do that, there's not gonna be any magic child or anything, cause Mana is not a Star Maiden, she basically has no powers at all except for the fact that she's a sentient red panda mascot. Despite the fact that the two of them know this, they go all the way with each other purely out of love, since the two of them just wanted to. It is really a nice change of pace to see a mascot who is basically the main love interest since she is the only love interest who actually went all the way and the main boy legit wanted to, it had nothing to do with saving the world.

Hope that answers some questions, and maybe even gets some other people in the thread interested, since honestly, while Conception is not very well reviewed, I think that Mana and her relationship to the protagonist was genuinely cute and the best part of the show. You go you flirty red panda / raccoon~
It is really cool to discuss this with someone, there is a lot of interesting history with human x furry / mascot girl, it even goes back pretty far into the beginnings of anime, and Tezuka: he wrote kids anime with actual human boy x mascot girl couples (Such as, and some stuff for older audiences like Bagi, which Tezuka also created,

Because of how engrained this stuff is into anime, it is super fun for me to talk about so I am glad to have this conversation with someone who is earnestly interested like yourself.

@ThePacISBack I do know of Bagi through I think it was a crossover of Media Hunter and Hardcore Kid, though it feels like half my free time is spent just watching other people's content when I so want to do my own

Honestly, I can feel much more enthusiasm from you on this than myself, I watched it, but the romcom stuff is rarely as interesting to me or at the very least, not something I remain engaged with as much. I never properly finished the Fruits Basket manga beyond a few volumes past where the 2001 anime ended, but I did enjoy the remake

@thepacisback oh no! im glad you figured it out, but im sorry for the temporary confusion, lol. i very, very much enjoy this series so far myself!

@holdingnothing Haha no problem, I was glad to write so much in reply to you. You were a rare example of a person who didn't respond entirely negatively even if it is not for you.
There are a lot of other people online who are like, blatantly anti-furry or anti-mascot character, which is a bummer to see, a lot of them are not even open to consider that a fluffy sidekick character is able to be one of the best parts of a show, or if they do ever enjoy one, it has to be the antagonistic or villainous one (like a certain white cat from a certain very popular magical girl show). I just find these kind of people boring, if they aren't able to relate to or like a character unless they're human. They must not know much about anime history.

I got positive vibes from your replies and it made me feel like it was worth it to kind of put the effort in for a detailed post.

@Metalsludge I think the harem variant is super common in a way for the male human to female monsterkin dynamic. Monster Girl Doctor, Daily Life With Monster Girl (which I'm so behind on, I've heard they have a djinn girl introduced), Interspecies Reviewers, probably a few others.

Even stuff that's more fluffy and innocent, like Interviews With Monster Girls or an upcoming series in a similar vein where it's a teacher and demihuman girls.

@holdingnothing

But part of my point here is that those harem variants aimed at guys are still different from the ones aimed at female viewer's though, in that they assume the male viewers will only want characters that have basically humanoid forms as waifus, such as cat girls who merely have funny ears and a tail but are otherwise entirely human, and "monster" girls with animal-like lower bodies but otherwise human torsos and heads. The assumption seems to be that guys are too visually focused to not have essentially more humanoid love objects, and that feminine beauty depends on such particulars.

By contrast, the shows aimed at girls can have more fully anthro beings as love objects, such as beast people with actual beast heads, and weird creatures like the magus and the beast king in another series. The show runners seem to assume that girls are more OK with the conceptual aspects of male attractiveness, like strength, perhaps mixed with vulnerability, and sometimes daddy qualities, and a generally large and imposing form. While the guys are presumed to be more into visual beauty traits, and are therefore supposedly stuck on creatures that have strictly human heads and faces as the idea of feminine beauty in anime generally relies on such details.

Interspecies reviewers is an admittedly interesting exception though, in that it includes at least some arguably cutely designed but fully anthro female characters that have sexual relationships with humans or demi-humans. I can't think of many other shows that have that though.

With You, Our Love Will Make It Through is a anime that is currently airing that has a human girl x monster relationship if you’re looking for anime in this genre.

Does Crimvael x Elza from Interspecies Reviewers count? Lmao

Does Crimvael x Elza from Interspecies Reviewers count? Lmao

Ha has no one mentioned Grimoire of Zero yet

Fun fact, the lady who wrote the Grimoire Light Novels, also worked on the furry gacha Tokyo Afterschool Summoners :3