The Wandering Witch Examines the Monster Girl Doctor

Posted on Oct 07 2020

Welcome, all, again. This last was a slow viewing season for me, with my favorite genre (slice-of-life) severely underrepresented. Only three new shows managed to catch my interest, and one of those was quickly jettisoned. So today we’ll look at Monster Girl Doctor, an homage to the throwback idea that anime exists solely for awkwardly needy, nerdy otaku who spend all day fantasizing about girls–that mysterious other half of humanity with whom they shall never interact. Wow, Moonhawk, isn’t that kinda harsh? Yes. Yes, it is, but with good reason. You see–and as the title indicates–this show caters to those souls (presumably) so lost in their mothers’ basements that they’ve completely given up on even fantasizing about normal, everyday girls, instead moving on to the imagined embrace of some inhuman lover. . .yes, this show is directed at that kid you knew in junior high who drew a face onto one of his stained pillows and named it Yyygrudll, his “goblin bride.” That kid who went home one weekend like everybody else but never came back–whom all the teachers pretended had never existed, let alone attended their classes–whom you finally passed one rainy day years later digging up earthworms in the park and eating them, both he and they still slathered in mud. Yep, this show was written with his school-age, still-living-indoors self as the target audience. Yet it can double as a fun guilty pleasure for the rest of us, too!

Some shows have engaging, intriguing plots. Some have rich, rewarding character exploration and development. Still others rely upon multi-layered humor or even their lush artwork or music. And some few rarities combine all these aspects. This show has bosom. Centaur bosom; harpy bosom; giantess bosom. . .you get the idea. Our protagonist is the young human doctor Glenn Litbeit who, along with his childhood friend and fellow doctor Saphentite “Sapphee” Neikes, operates a medical clinic in the city of Lindworm. Now, Lindworm is a rather unique city, with humans and monsters living alongside each other and interacting freely–just the environment that this city was established to nurture after the close of the long war between the two groups. Glenn and Sapphee’s collaboration exemplifies Lindworm’s inclusiveness: while Glenn is human, Sapphee is a lamia (a woman with a serpentine lower half). Both the Litbeit and Neikes families own large trading companies, and as the war wound down young Sapphee was sent to the Litbeit household as a political hostage while the families entered into a business arrangement. She also carried sinister instructions from her family should negotiations fail. But the negotiations succeeded, and Sapphee was returned to her family despite having become close with the Litbeit children (and smitten with Glenn). Years later, she and Glenn reunited at medical school and have been basically inseparable since–a fact which she stresses quite strongly to their female patients.

And she probably needs to do so. You see, while he attempts to hide it from individual patients by calling it part of their examination, viewers will quickly surmise that Dr. Glenn has a clear and persistent fetish: breasts. Specifically, he likes to cup and massage them, often rather aggressively. Most patients quickly see the lie of this portion of the examination, leading many of these groped girls to [mis]interpret his fetish as him having a more serious personal interest in them as possible mates. Glenn, however, pretty much tries to cop a feel whenever he notices cleavage nearby while Sapphee’s not. Meanwhile, quite aware of this wayward tendency in her intended spouse, Sapphee tries to limit Glenn’s time alone with his female patients. What’s a horndog–I mean, a dedicated medical professional–to do under such adverse working conditions? Distract his colleague by having her mix the medicines, of course! Still, I believe in Sapphee. She’s sharp enough that sooner or later she’ll cut to the root of her problem by insisting on conducting the girls’ physical examinations herself–maybe even doing so topless if she really wants to yank Glenn’s chain!

I could try to dress this show up as a study of friendly rivalry, tolerance triumphing over bigotry, etc., but I’d only be putting lipstick on a pig. (Hey, I do like bacon!) What we actually have here is a nostalgic fluff piece that hearkens back to when anime was considered the provenance of lonely, socially awkward, sex-deprived loser nerds–and that being so, some gratuitous lewdness was required (after all, even Dragon Ball had Bulma to tease and titillate its audience). This show was created for every 12-year-old boy who’s still too self-conscious or too intimidated to pull up internet porn. And that’s OK. The real world reeks of political correctness, so why not enjoy this as the harmless fantasy it purports to be?

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