In 2015, Seven Seas picked up the license to translate and publish the Monster Girl Encyclopedia. Monster girl fans might recognize this as the Monster Girl Encyclopedia, which is partially responsible for launching the monster girl craze of the past few years, culminating in the 2015’s Everyday Life With Monster Girls anime.
The Encyclopedia, created by artist Kenkou Cross, is written as the notes of a young scholar after studying many types of a new breed of monster: The monster girl, which arose after a succubus came to power as overlord. Overnight, the nature of monsters changed, from flesh-eating savage beasts to cute, yet fiendish girls who feed on men’s life force.
The basic premise of the book is to take common (and less common) fantasy world creatures and rework them into cute girls. The book goes much further, however. In addition, each entry in the encyclopedia includes an in-depth description of the monster girl’s behaviour, diet, and habitat. It also includes several short essays about the world these girls inhabit, from the process of monsterization and the way magic works in their world to the nature of elementals and aquatic monster girls.
The book comes hard-bound with a gilded title, an impressive presentation for a book that’s still around the length and width of a normal manga. Content-wise, monster girl fans will be happy to know that it’s fully uncensored. The translation doesn’t pull any punches either.
The text itself is highly descriptive, and the book is an excellent study in worldbuilding. It’s easy to see where these monster girls went on to inspire manga and anime like Everyday Life With Monster Girls. As noted on the cover, this is only the first volume. Volume II was released at Summer Comic Market earlier this year. Here’s hoping Seven Seas will continue on to release the second volume!
The Monster Girl encyclopedia comes highly recommended both to longtime fans of monster girls and to those just jumping into the genre. It can be found on Amazon, RightStuf, and wherever books are sold.