Lamia

Overview

Lamia is a Monster Girl type composed an human torso and the tail of a snake. Amongst fans of the monster girl genre, lamias are often considered the most popular type of monster girl and frequently used to represent the genre. Although other types of monster girls, such as Catgirls and Foxgirls, have more spread compared to lamias, fans of the Monster Girl genre often consider those exceptions to the rule. This is due to their close resemblance to humans, unlike other monster girls such as lamias. The popularity of lamias grew significantly following the releases of the Monster Girl Quest eroge and Monster Musume manga series.

History

In ancient Greek mythology, Lamia was a beautiful queen of Libya who became a child-eating demon. Aristophanes claimed her name derived from the Greek word for gullet, referring to her habit of devouring children. Some tales say that Lamia merely has snake’s skin around certain parts of here body, whereas other tales claim she has a serpent’s tail below the waist. The latter description of her is largely due to Lamia, a poem by John Keats composed in 1819.^[1]

Reception

The lamia’s entry in the Monster Girl Encyclopedia^[8] describes the species as extremely intelligent and individualistic, living stealthily with their own kind in small villages or near settlements. They often lurk alongside roads, waiting for a man to pass by to charm them with their magic.

Lamias have a significant following on various online communities. As of June 22nd, 2015, DeviantART^[2] brings up over 28,000 images when searching for ‘Lamia’. As of the same date, the image sharing boards Danbooru^[3] and Monster Girl Booru^[4] each hold over 1,100 images tagged as ‘lamia’, which in the case of Danbooru equals roughly 10% of the total images tagged as ‘Monster Girl’^[5] on the site with 11,000. The 4chan archive archive.moe also features over 42,500 results for ‘lamia’.^[6] And the r/Lamia sub-Reddit^[7] has over 1,200 subscribers.

Fanart

Related Meme: Snake Cloaca

Snake Cloaca refers to the posterior opening at the end of a snake’s tail that is used for intestinal, reproductive, and urinary tracts. As fanart of lamias often places the reproductive organ on the human part of the body, pointing out the snake’s anatomically correct opening. It has become a common form of shitposting similarly to Puffy Vulva.

Notable Characters

Miia

Miia is a nymphomaniac lamia featured in the comedy-romance manga Monster Musume no Iru Nichijou (モンスター娘のいる日常 or Daily Life with Monster Girl). In the manga, Miia is the primary and initially only heroine who lives together with the protagonist, Kimihito Kurusu, and as such is featured the most in the series.

Alice

Alice is a lamia from the popular monster girl eroge series Monster Girl Quest. In the series, Alice joins the protagonist, Luka, in his quest and as such is the primary monster girl with the most appearances. Unlike the countless other monster girls featured in the games, Alice eventually becomes a central part of the story and often helps out the protagonist.

Search Interest

Search Interest for the Lamia-type monster girl starts to grow in December 2012, which matches the release of the sequel of Monster Girl Quest on December 16th of that year.

External References