Monster Girl Doctor, Episode 6: Bird of a Different Feather

Illy, the harpy Glenn helped save from the slavers, can’t fly because she’s lost too many feathers.

Case 6 – “The Harpy Who Couldn’t Fly”

Meh.

Monster Girl Doctor promised me hot springs in this harpy village, and we saw no hot springs scenes! Kay claimed the steamy mineral water helped her sprain, but where’s the evidence? This was a missed opportunity in an episode sorely lacking in Dr. Glenn’s accidental sexy time.

Hmm.

It feels like Monster Girl Doctor toned down the sexual themes this week. Last week’s exploration of many things BDSM met the quota for a couple episodes’ worth of fanservice, especially since Kay and Lorna were not being accidentally sexy at all. Monster Girl Doctor returned to its formula of medical examinations causing squeals and moans so the dialogue sounds like an out-of-context sex scene. I was disappointed in the brief encounter, but I enjoyed how Sapphee made it clear that Monster Girl Doctor is self-aware of its own premise. She keeps telling Glenn not to be so rough with the patients, especially the monster girls, but he doesn’t listen. Don’t ever listen to that advice, Dr. Glenn.

As for the medical exam scene of Dr. Glenn pulling on a monster girl’s feathers, I came away confused again by chimera anatomy and physiological development. Birds mature similarly to other animals, where all the adult characteristics show up in puberty. Birds can’t fly until they’ve molted their fledgling wing feathers, and their adult feathers appear at the same time as their sex organs develop. When Monster Girl Doctor claims that Illy could fly and lay eggs before completing her fledgling molt, I need to shut down that part of my brain. Perhaps Illy’s adult feathers are a secondary molt like humans have wisdom teeth? Are harpies merely different? Do their children start flying around when well-formed feathers come in like when humans lose their baby teeth? Monster Girl Doctor’s premise hole would have never appeared if it weren’t Illy that needed help laying an egg in that previous episode. But since the narrative requires a prior emotional connection, details become less important. A leopard never changes its spots, but a harpy in this world can change its plumage.

Heh.

Kay is all better, but Glenn has one more thing to do in the harpy village. They still haven’t seen Illy, the harpy who needed help laying an egg. Illy doesn’t want to see Glenn, though. Well, she’ll see the doctor if she also sees fellow monster girl Tisalia. Does she want a job? Illy’s place is dark, and feathers are all over the place. This is setting us up for a mental health intervention but there’s going to be a surprising twist.

Illy looks like a sullen teenager. Squealing and squirming already. Illy has sensitive feather roots. Wiggling ahoge for headpats! And now, straight for the monster girl armpits! What? That’s his thermometer? “Reliable,” he says. Any excuse to put his hands on a monster girl body. Sapphee scolds Glenn to be “gentler” with “young girls.” Sounds like she’s nagged him about this behavior before.

Illy is fine. She’s just molting. See above for why I blurted out, “But she’s already laying eggs!” Okay, seasonal molting doesn’t look like this. Now Monster Girl Doctor has a proper plot for the episode. Illy is hot-headed. That’s foreshadowing, kids.

Ah. Illy wants to be a gladiator like Tisalia. Illy also didn’t pay to watch because she perched on the roof of the coliseum. Illy claims to have grown up scrapping in the slums, but Tisalia warns her that the arena is about putting on a show, not winning a street fight. Tisalia will give her a lesson. Monster girl fight, go! Illy has sharp talons.

Much later, the monster girl fight club ends with Tisalia nursing a lucky scratch from Illy. How did she take her thrashing from the much more experienced arena fighter? A quick reminder that Tisalia is indeed your ohohoho ojousama. Sapphee looked for a poison opportunity, er, recommending anesthetic for stress relief. Aw. Illy has wanderlust. There’s a lot of emigration in postwar years as people from different countries feel the need to start fresh in another land. Tisalia noticed that spirit in Illy. Becoming a gladiator was an excuse to move away from the village, which she doesn’t even hate. She simply feels she would be herself someplace else. Ooh. Glenn noticed something about Illy’s shed flight feather.

Glenn asked Tisalia and Sapphee to find more of Illy’s dropped feathers around the village, and Sapphee was not happy about the task. Ha. Horse ears are so expressive. Uma Musume – Pretty Derby was good about showing that too. Eep. Here’s the minor dramatic arc to force a catharsis. Illy has gone missing! The monster girl can’t fly, so she’s hiding somewhere. Her flashback to happier days shows dizziness happening to her. We know Glenn already figured it out.

Illy feels like she doesn’t belong in the harpy village. This is more than a monster girl adolescent transition to adulthood, but it’s related. Snakes seeing infrared comes in handy at night. Sapphee already picked out where Illy perched. Hoho. Collecting shed feathers from a harpy must be like creepily gathering hair from a stalking victim. Glenn noticed her feathers have slightly different colors.

Uh, back to Dr. Cthulhy. Why do school president types have so much paperwork? Cthulhy’s office has ramps instead of stairs. She sent Glenn to the harpy village so she could test if he could accurately diagnose Illy’s condition. What a bait-and-switch. The preview made it seem like the monster girl still suffered trauma from kidnapping, but that whole ordeal didn’t affect her at all. Cthulhy must have noticed something about Illy because she’s the head of the central hospital. Pop quiz, hotshot.

Adult feathers? When she’s already been laying eggs… I’ll actively suspend my disbelief now about monster girl anatomy. Oh. Harpies have a relation to phoenixes because of their bird nature. Illy is extra fiery, that hothead. Does this come with superpowers, or what? Why does Skadi need to talk about a random phoenix harpy with Dr. Cthulhy? Bookmark that for later.

Whoa! Illy has a totally different plumage now. Oh. She was also shy around Glenn because of the egg-laying incident. I’ll need to accept harpies are different than birds in Monster Girl Doctor. Harpies can fly and lay eggs before they become adults. Sapphee says something about teenage girls told they’re becoming adults is important, but that has so many connotations. Ah. Illy’s wanderlust was a symptom of identity transition to adulthood.

Next time, we spend time with Sapphee’s drinking buddy Arahnia.

Monster Girl Doctor streams on Crunchyroll.