Centaur no Nayami / Final Impressions / First Impressions

「ファンタジーをRPG気分で作ってみた. / 激闘! 腕相撲! 女[ヒロイン]だらけの勝負の行方は」 (Fantasy o RPG Kibun de Tsukutte Mita. / Gekitou! Udesumou! Heroine Darake no Shoubu no Yukue wa)
“We Tried Making a Fantasy Story in RPG Style. / Fierce Fights! Arm Wrestling! How Will the Battle of the Heroines End?”

In comparison with most of the recent episodes, they made the finale one of the most lighthearted episodes they’ve put out. There isn’t any racial strife, political intrigue, or Men in Black in sight with this episode, but they make up for it by ending on a lighter note with a story that Akechi wrote about the main friend group’s RPG exploits and an arm-wrestling contest at school. It reminded me of what the earlier episodes were like when the series was centered more around the slice-of-life adventures of the three main girls and their friends. In a way, it felt more like an OVA to give viewers a digestif to follow a hefty meal, but it was quite the strong digestif with enough playfulness and meta-humor to leave you in higher spirits.

The first part was a clever send-up to classic RPG’s with the main group following a story about their dungeon crawling adventures as they play around with the genre conventions of role playing games. Kyouko was hilarious as the party’s mage who spends a majority of her time drawing summoning circles to conjure up tiny fireballs and tidal waves of salt water. Her ambivalence to do anything about a tentacle blob monster who’s only attack was putting the rest of the girls in compromising positions was a fun tongue-in-cheek approach to the show’s self-awareness of its desire to create fanservice out of nowhere. Other parts of the segment were really funny like Sassassul’s role as the party’s dancer only working for one enemy, or Manami’s appearance as a dominatrix who resides in the aptly named “Office”.

Part 2 furthers the meta-humor this episode played around with by pitting the characters in an arm-wrestling contest. While it could be mistaken for a sequel to Over the Top, it was also comical to see how they comment on character popularity through the contest. It wasn’t the most climactic way to end it, especially with all of the world-building and foreshadowing they had of Antarctican involvement in government affairs, but it was amusing to see some of the slice-of-life aspects of the show shine through in this episode. The characters having specific reasons why they have super strength like Manami carrying the Chi-chan’s or Inukai’s Ekiben Style added a funny twist to the contest.

Final Impressions
Determining what the tone of a Centaur no Nayami episode will be has been like a game of Roulette. You’re never sure whether the anime will try to hook you in with the world-building behind the authoritarian society run on absolute equality, or lighten the mood with the day-to-day activities of our main characters. It can be very jarring, especially if you’ve gotten too comfortable with one tone or another. You’ll be on the edge of your seat for some more heavy political commentary, and you’ll get a segment about pool parties and intimates. You’ll itch for some cute creature girls have fun with each other, and suddenly, the episode will bring up the societal implications and consequences of history’s most violent brutality against other races. The series in general is tonally all over the place, but this might be the case more with the anime because a lot of the segments are scattered about with only a couple two-parters matching in tone. Still, I admire what the series is going for by integrating social commentary into a slice-of-life, and using monster girls as a means of sending a message about race in society. It is quite the awkward show, but it is an interesting take on monster girls that is an admirable effort to break the mold, and create an anime that is both comfy and unsettling.

End Card

17 Comments

  3. Through to the end this show just did not know what it wanted to be. Slice of life? Social commentary? Whatever the hell the hell is going on with the Antarcticans?

    I finished binging the manga and it just gets even more mixed up than the anime ever could, especially when Show Spoiler ▼

    qwert
    Reply

    2. The anime’s flaw is how the short one-season format places a larger expectation that it can keep up with what it introduces. The manga has an easier time introducing ideas that can be used for world building like the Antarcticans’ impact on society, but the show ends before they can really explain or explore these concepts on a deeper level, so we’re left with a show that glosses over what the manga first introduces, but doesn’t have the foresight to flesh out by the time the show ends.

      The author can easily switch from social commentary to slice-of-life to both, but if their social commentary gives small nuggets of information about the world, it’s expected to follow up on those ideas within the 12 episodes. It’s still a good anime, but the adaptation lacks the foresight of being able to tell which ideas they are expected to at least give us a better explanation of by the end of it, so that’s why it feels weird for the show to end on a series of lighter episodes instead of tie up some of the loose ends.

      Choya
      Reply

  6. That “Human” joke kind of puzzled me. I don’t think it’s a jab at two-armed humans. Look at the creature. It has horns, so he’s considered a regular six-appendaged human like all of them.

    Well, THIS is one weird anime! It makes no effort to do a satisfying intro, or even an ending. No episode seems fit to be a beginning episode or an ending one. The political background was a welcome touch and a fresh take on the monster girl genre, but then they took it TOO far, including an entire 11 minutes to a concentration camp flashback! The animation wasn’t good at all. Not sure I would recommend this to people other than anyone wanting an anime starring a cute centaur girl, which we don’t really have.

    starss
    Reply

    2. The show is quite the anomaly. I admire it for what it tried to do by making a monster girl slice-of-life with deeper political commentary. However, as a result of its ambition, it appears disjointed, so we’ll have major tonal shifts between light school fun and exploring the world’s history of enslaving and murdering people for their race. The animation was definitely a mixed bag, but the good thing was that there weren’t long stretches of time where the animation was really bad.

      Choya
      Reply

  7. https://randomc.net/image/Centaur%20no%20Nayami/Centaur%20no%20Nayami%20-%2012%20-%20Large%2009.jpg
    https://randomc.net/image/Centaur%20no%20Nayami/Centaur%20no%20Nayami%20-%2012%20-%20Large%2011.jpg
    “Tentacles! Tentacles! … TENTACLES!
    Tentacles! Tentacles! … TENTACLES!

    Tentacles. Like I said, you cannot live in Arkham without coping with the Shoggoth on the Roof!”

    https://randomc.net/image/Centaur%20no%20Nayami/Centaur%20no%20Nayami%20-%2012%20-%20Large%2020.jpg
    I haven’t watched Akame Ga Kill yet, but man, Manami reminds me of Esdeath in that outfit. (And yeah, I did hear that Esdeath is morally reprehensible as heck[?], but you know, “Evil is Sexy”.)

    Final Impressions: If you were looking for a monster girl anime with a nice even pace, this probably wasn’t it. The show was just all over the place jumping between the SOL segments of Hime and company and the other things going on in their world. Not to mention the amount of loose ends that this finale leaves thanks to all that jumping around (Like: What’s up with that giant fish god/mecha thing? What were those Antarcticans up to?) is too damn high. (Plus I’m not too fond of sequel hooks that are likely to remain unanswered.)

    That said, the main characters are likeable enough (Manami best girl) and I did like the show being brave enough to delve into otherwise sensitive/taboo topics, although part of me felt lost at times on what the author really wanted to convey. Oh well…

    I guess I’ll just pray or hope that there’s another season of Daily Life With Monster Girls and/or Interviews With Monster Girls on the horizon.

    Incognito
    Reply

    1. I also got Esdeath vibes from how similar her intro scene was with the dominatrix throne. Akame ga Kill wasn’t the classiest material and relied too much on edge, but the guy sure knew how to draw his fanservice.

      I agree that the main characters were very likeable, but it was disjointed in its execution of the themes it wants to explore. Where there’s a more clearcut identity crisis with how far the show wants to go with slice-of-life or its more sensitive material.

      I’d be very excited if they made another Interviews with Monster Girls because I loved the anime they did for that one. Monster Musume was definitely memorable, and I am wondering where they’re going to go with the story and if the main couple is going to be what they stick with in the end.

      Choya
      Reply

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