Monster Girl Doctor

Episode 7

Dr. Glenn opens the episode with a helpful lesson on the proper care and brushing of harpy feathers. This hygienic activity is clearly a deeply pleasurable, which results in Dr. Glenn being swamped by ladies - as he so often is. Their job largely done, Dr. Glenn and Sapphentite go to pack up and head back to their clinic.

...when suddenly Ily bursts into the room covered in strands of sticky white thread. But before any of you gutter-minded individuals can say a word about it, we find that it is in fact perfectly harmless and ordinary spider web. The good doctor orders 20cc of hot springs episode, stat, and off she goes to get cleaned up. Shortly thereafter four more harpies come in covered in the thick strands of web, complaining of its bitter taste, and once again Dr. Glenn sends them to the hot springs.

Dr. Glenn and Sapphentite head into the woods to find out what's going on. They discover that the culprit is none other than Arahnia, the spider woman who we saw a few episodes back. She heard of the phoenix feathers and wanted to capture them for fashion inspiration. It turns out she is a fashion designer, and in fact made Sapphentite's little sun-blocking veil.

They take Arahnia back to town to meet Ily who finds her quite terrifying. Tisalia also finds herself covered in web and arrives to have an argument with Sapphentite about her spider-friend's behavior. Sapphentite leaves to relax some and Tisalia points out that she's been working herself extra hard to impress Glenn. The ever-naive doctor goes “Bwuh? Whatever do you mean?!” and she points out how truly oblivious he is.

Glenn then tells Sapphentite to try and relax and that he'll handle things from here. Arahnia goes to see Glenn at the clinic feigning illness in order to - in a roundabout fashion - convince him to go out to the forest for a walk. They have a pleasant time, until Dr. Glenn tries to go back to town and he stumbles into one of Arahnia's webs. Turns out she was planning on this, and has decided to have her way with him. She even says she has no interest in him, but she's curious what Sapphentite sees in him, so wants to ravish him for excitement and fashion(?!). Before she can make her final move, Tisalia arrives to duel her and protect Glenn. They have a brief verbal sparring match about whether either of them are truly that different in that they both have their own designs for Glenn.

At the last moment, Sapphentite arrives to break things up. Once back in town that evening, Sapphentite confesses over wine that while Arahnia is one thing, Tisalia is the one she is truly afraid of. In Tisalia she sees someone who Glenn might truly fall for romantically, and she fears being away from him. Glenn tells her that she is the only person he can be this way around and that they have their practice together - he wouldn't want to jeopardize that.

In the final dramatic moments of the episode we hear a great commotion. It turns out there are legends of giants in the mountains that have a long-standing grudge against the harpies, and scouts have spied a large creature moving towards the village. Ruh roh Raggy. This may come as a shock, but I'm honestly sort of okay with how this episode played out. Look, the spider web innuendo… that's what I've kind of been expecting for the entire show? It's ridiculous fan service of course, but I feel like this is all very nudge nudge wink wink surface level stuff. The girls stumble into it and have to clean it off, and it even sets up a hot springs sequence that is milder than 99% of the hot springs episodes I've seen in otherwise “tame” anime, truth be told.

The stuff with Arahnia and Tisalia is actually quite interesting too. Arahnia makes the case that she and Tisalia are “basically the same” because their aims are similar. In a sense she's right - they both have an interest in Glenn, they both are trying to be with him, and they both have future-looking aims in which he could benefit their businesses. But it's actually a somewhat meaningful distinction (not one brought up in the fight mind you) that Arahnia is trying to jump Glenn without his consent, whereas Tisalia is respecting his wishes. I'm kind of on-board with these two views on approaching a potential romantic interest coming into conflict with one another. Additionally, Arahnia pointing out that Tisalia actually may not have real feelings for him and that Glenn may just be an object of her affection out of convenience is… actually an astute observation. When Monster Girl Doctor wants to do the emotional conflict and inner turmoil it's not bad at it.

Furthermore, I think we actually get to see a bit more of Glenn being kind and caring. Obviously he cares for others in a medical sense, but additionally we see him take care of Sapphentite by encouraging her to take a day off, getting her tea, and so forth. He's also trying to be more emotionally observant of her needs and feelings (such as in the moment discussing her lack of tear ducts). I think these sorts of moments help make him feel more like someone that the women in the show would actually be attracted to. It's also pretty great that Glenn's obliviousness translates into every aspect of his life since he walks into roughly fifteen different spider traps this episode.

Another side note - I have to hand it to the team handling the CG for the series. There are a number of shots which use CG to handle some of the more complex movements of the monster girls, and while they're obviously different from the other animation it isn't bad by any stretch. I think it's especially noteworthy given how busy the character designs are for the monsters, I'm impressed they look as good as they do on a weekly show like this. Kudos to the CG crew.

Rating:

Grant is the cohost on the Blade Licking Thieves podcast and Super Senpai Podcast.

Monster Girl Doctor is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.