Monster Girl Doctor

Episode 6

Our plucky trio of Dr. Glenn, Sapphentite, and Tisalia are still in the harpy village. Having taken care of Lorna, they go to help Illy the harpy. When they enter her home they see there are feathers everywhere. Illy is clearly in pain and can no longer fly. Dr. Glenn provides a quick checkup, tugging on feathers and taking her temperature. Everything appears normal other than general sensitivity and, well, the dozens upon dozens of feathers. Dr. Glenn informs her that everything is normal and that she is simply molting.

Illy leaves visibly upset and Tisalia steps out to speak with her. They have a brief discussion about being a gladiator. Illy wants to be a fighter too, but Tisalia tells her it is about more than simply clobbering people. They disagree and decide to have a sparring match. We smash cut to the post fight where Tisalia is being patched up after having given Illy a sound knockaround with a wooden staff. Eventually Dr. Glenn and Tisalia are outside having a discussion about Illy's constant search for a place to fit in while Sapphentite gathers feathers. Sapphentite manages to gather a metric ton of them, which vary in color considerably. This gives Dr. Glenn another piece of the puzzle.

Later that night, Illy is running away and while the trio try to talk to her about what's happening. There is some verbal sparring as she tries to stay hidden. Sapphentite has thermal vision however and they eventually locate her. We see a brief interlude where Dr. Cthulhy is back at her office saying that she knew Illy wasn't sick, and that this was a “pop quiz” of sorts. Illy is hiding up in a tree, refusing to come down, and Dr. Glenn reveals what he has finally discovered. It turns out that Illy is not sick at all, but is instead becoming an adult. It turns out she has phoenix blood and is becoming a phoenix. Soon she has a full plumage of beautiful feathers and is soaring once again, free to go wherever she wishes but finally fitting in right where she is. In the final moments of the episode, a single one of Illy's feathers falls into Dr. Glenn's hands. He drops it immediately as it is hot to the touch, and ponders what that could mean for her as she flies off into the sky.

Finally, an episode where I truly enjoyed myself. In many respects this episode is simply “okay” compared to the others we have seen thus far. Yet by avoiding the tonal whiplash of the awooga awooga scenes that have been in prior episodes, episode 6 is tonally consistent throughout the runtime and is much better for it. Illy is not the most emotionally complex of the cast, there is very little world-building to speak of, and we learn little about harpy physiology that we couldn't glean from the fact that they have feathers. There is not much in the way of sexual tension or bantering in this episode either, except for a short back and forth between Sapphentite and Tisalia during the feather collection scene.

However, I have to give points for consistency of tone. This episode was… normal. Shockingly normal. The point was to try and develop Illy as a character and I think the episode largely succeeds even though it did not necessarily wow me. Even Lorna's development in last week's episode felt more textured. But without any sudden gear shifts into outrageous territory, I was able to just enjoy the show for what it was doing: character development.

In the interest of full disclosure, I'm also giving this episode a bit more credit than I might otherwise because Tisalia did the fufufufu laugh. I'm a sucker for it.

Rating:

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

Monster Girl Doctor is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.