Can You Believe This Former Hentai Series is a New York Times Best Seller?

There is a new series that is taking the world by storm. It routinely competes with Naruto, One Piece, Attack on Titan, Nisekoi, and Akame ga Kill for the top spots in weekly sales for manga.

No, Shonen Jump doesn’t publish the series. The author is completely unknown. And it stars monster girls.

Literally, monster girls.

Monster Musume no Iru Nichijou (Everyday Life with Monster Girls) shows no signs of slowing down. Since launching in 2012, over a 1 million copies have been sold in Japan.

In the U.S., the series has been in the New York Times Best Seller list 13 times since 2013. That’s a feat reserved for Naruto, One Piece, and Attack on Titan. Just how is a quirky, ecchi filled harem staring monster girls achieving semi-mainstream success outside of Japan?

It’s not suprising that a harem manga sells well in Japan, but the genre is often ignored and derided by Western readers. Frankly, the harem genre is overplayed and deserves to be criticized for its lack of innovation. Which makes Monster Musume‘s success kind of amazing.

We won’t judge you for not being able to tell them apart.

One the surface, Monster Musume is just your typical harem. An average, nice guy is surrounded by beautiful women that want to be with him. There is also a lot of nudity, accidental sexual situations, and “misunderstandings”.

Monster Musume started out as a series of hentai shorts on Pixiv created by Takemaru “Okayado” Inui. And you can clearly see the hentai origins, since every chapter is filled with topless shots and borderline sexual content. One might even call it a softcore hentai.

Is it really enough to change the girls into sexy versions of their mythological counterparts?

Yes and no. The monster girls provide unique and fresh designs. Sure, the human part keeps the big chest we have come to expect, but the monster designs are enough to keep your attention. Okayado is also knows his harem tropes, and frequently plays around with them to subvert our expectations.

Underneath the ecchi and low-brow humor, lies some surprisingly deep story content. Social discrimination and the concept of beauty are touched on in a mature way. The writing may not be top tier, but Monster Musume has more heart than the majority of harem and ecchi driven series.

Whether it’s the strong sense of novelty (how many series can satisfy your fantasy of being with a slime girl?), the fun characters, or quality art, Okayado has a hit on his hands.

There is even an anime adaptation that will premier this July.