English Dub Review: Monster Girl Doctor “The Harpy Who Couldn’t Fly”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

Doctor Glenn, Sapphee, and Tisalia have attended to everyone in the harpy village — except for one troublesome teen. Illy, the egg-laying red-headed harpy rescued from the slavers, refuses to see the doctor. That is, until the village elder tells her she can’t talk to Tisalia unless she agrees to have a checkup.

Illy agrees, and reluctantly lets herself be examined by Doctor Glenn. It doesn’t go so well when he tells her she’s molting, and she calls him a quack and escapes. Tisalia goes after her, and winds up challenging her to an arena-style battle. Afterwards, the young harpy flies into the forest. Glenn and his cohorts gather information and then search for Illy to let her know that the doctor’s initial diagnosis wasn’t quite right. Illy is becoming a full-fledged Phoenix!

Our Take:

After last week’s somewhat disappointing outing in the harpy village, I’m glad we got to stick around it for a bit longer this week. The Harpy Who Couldn’t Fly is a much more enjoyable episode, even if it’s still not quite up to the level of some previous episodes with more engaging storylines.

Illy’s plight is pretty run of the mill for the most part. She’s molting, and so can’t fly. The show explores this in terms of an adolescent becoming an adult. The harpy has always flown free, going where she wants, but with the start of molting comes the lack of flight. She’s feeling caged and unhappy. Going to watch the centaur arena fights is one of the fun things she used to do (getting in for free thanks to her ability to simply fly up and perch on the roof).

It’s kind of neat that this brings Tisalia into the conflict in a fairly organic way. It doesn’t end that well for her, thanks to Illy’s fast footwork, though. I was hoping that Tisalia would play a more major role in finishing off the finale rather than mere being a scene or two in the middle.

I did enjoy the rapport that Tisalia had with Sapphee this week. It’s a bit of a cliche to see the doctor being everyone object of affection, but it’s so fun to watch Sapphee get her dander up as she gets protective of her childhood friend that it’s still entertaining despite the stereotype.

The ending reveal about Illy having some Phoenix blood in her was interesting, especially since she’s an orphan. Where did she really come from and is she destined for greatness in the future? The show doesn’t seem like it’s all that interested in exploring far reaching questions like this, but we have gotten small tastes of the larger geopolitical situation, so I can see this coming into play down the road perhaps. For now though, it looks like we’re in for some arachnid-centric adventures next week.