W.I.P. Help welcomed.
About
Monster Girls are a special type of Gijinka (擬人化) / Humanization where the anthropomorphic character is a mix between a creature (both real and fictional) and a human. The human is usually a female, though some rare male examples exist. Fetishism of monster girls is referred to as teraphilia, and is a common form of internet paraphilia.
Definition
SInce monster girl is such a broad and vague term, creators and fans often argues about its clear definition.
The general consensus is that a monster girl is a mix between a human being and a monster or an animal.
Most of them are an human torso on the top of a monster bottom body. One of the general rule is to keep the face and torso area human, with exception of cyclops and something spider, who get either only one eye or more of them.
Also, independant and more mainstream genre like Succubus and Cat Girls are sometime excluded.
History
Majors Type of Monster Girls
Harpy
A harpy are a mix of a human and a bird. They usually have bird legs instead of humans legs and wings instead of arms. They are almost always lays eggs. They are one of the most famous and reprentative monster girls, second only to lamia.
Lamia
A lamia is composed of an human torso and the tail of a snake. It something also come with a forked tongue. It is seen as the most popular monster girls and is often used to represent the whole genre, similar to ‘Space Invaders’ to video games.
Centaur
A centaur is a human torso implanted on the neck of a horse. They are more commonly seen outside the fandom in mythology than in the fandom.
Arachne
Also know as spider girl, an arachne is an human torso on top of what would be the spider’s head or sometime the abdomen. They sometime have multiple eyes similar to the many eyes of a real spider. The mandible of a real spider are almost always absent if the torso is on the head.