My Experience With Meru the Succubus

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Or the time I tried to write an article about a cartoon only to find out halfway through that it was hentai porn. 

Life is full of surprises. Sometimes you open your McDonald’s bag, and you get a cheeseburger that you didn’t have to pay for. Sometimes you come home to discover that your dog took a dump on the rug. There are good surprises and bad surprises. Then there are those surprises that make you scream, “Holy shit!” and freak out because you’re sitting in the living room of your family home and thank your lucky star that your parents and sister are out at the moment. Watching Meru the Succubus was that kind of surprise.

Meru the Succubus is an internet series about, you guessed it, a succubus. Animated in the anime style, the series starts out seeming very innocent and maybe even a little funny. However, things soon take a very shocking turn that I certainly did not see coming, being that I had no idea what it was when I started watching it. All I will say for now is that it is definitely not something that should be watched around children.

Watching Episode 1 of Meru the Succubus

The cartoon begins with a sleeping girl’s skin changing to a red color, signifying that her body’s been taken over by Meru. Now inhabiting this girl’s body, Meru claims that she must go and “find a lucky boy” to get her strength back so she can get revenge on a priest. At this point, I’m less than a minute into the episode, and already we have an extremely sexualized cartoon of a demon girl who seems like she’s hellbent on getting frisky, and somehow a priest is involved. I consider bailing and going back to watching The Sopranos like a respectable 24-year-old, but I keep watching. 

Next, Meru spots a boy walking into his house and deems he’ll be her next victim. Suddenly, a screen goes dark, and a cutscene labeled “Meru Facts” comes up. This is what it says: 

“The Spirit of Merudiana is a Succubus Demon which manifested over 1,100 years ago in Northern Italy. She can possess any female virgin soul as long as the mind is corrupted with sexual desires.

In order to maintain possession, Meru must consume adequate amounts of semen daily; otherwise, the mind of the possessee will become self-aware and may attempt to cast out Meru’s spirit. 

There is a way to maintain a permanent lifelong possession, which is to consume the semen of a sexually abstinent virgin.” 

Holy fuck. This just got way creepier than I thought possible. I’m now looking over my shoulder to make absolutely sure no one can see me watching this. Out of morbid curiosity, I unpause the video and mentally prepare myself to see some really weird shit. 

Alright, Meru climbs into this unsuspecting boy’s bed. Oh my word, she just grabbed his package. Good God Almighty, she’s rubbing it now. Please make this stop at once. I had no idea I was signing on to watch hentai porn. Is that what this is? Hentai porn? I can’t write an article about hentai porn! No, yeah, it’s hentai porn. There’s fellatio going on. I can’t do this. I scroll through to see if it’s just a quick diversion from the plot. It’s not. This is a porno. They’re doing all the things. I now remember that there was an adult content warning before I clicked the play button. I should’ve seen this coming. 

I exit out of my browser before I see one more second of cartoons doing the nasty. I haven’t been to church in years, but it might be time to consider going back after that whole shitshow of an experience. 

Five Minutes Later

Alright, after giving myself five minutes or so to process what I just saw, I realize that I should have known it was a porno all along. The adult content warning. The “Meru Facts” that contained the word “semen” multiple times. The writing was on the wall. 

In my defense, though, before watching the actual cartoon, I did read an IMDb page about it (I did not know there were IMDb pages for hentai porn), and the description reads as follows: 

“A demon succubus, Meru, is thirsting for revenge towards the priest who took away her powers, and she has swore to find the perfect human host to permanently possess and enact her revenge.”

There was even a comment claiming that Meru the Succubus would probably make a “great comedic series.” In what way, shape or form does any of that suggest this is a porno? 

If you’re into hentai porn, good for you. You should watch whatever you’re into and do whatever makes you happy. Personally, it’s not my cup of tea, but that’s just me. Luckily, I was able to find a YouTube video that contained all of the nonsexual scenes from Meru the Succubus Episodes 1 and 2. Let’s give this a shot and see if we can salvage this article after all. 

Episode 2 of Meru the Succubus

Alright, alright, based on the sex-free YouTube video, it seems like Episode 2 has a whole lot more plot than Episode 1, which was essentially just Meru climbing out of one bed and into another and getting freaky. In Episode 2, she goes to school and introduces herself to the classroom. Yes, she’s still trying to identify virgins to have sex with, but she’s also forming a rivalry with a girl in the class named Erica. A narrator even comes in at one point and tells the captive audience that Erica intentionally tries to prevent Meru from talking to the boy she likes. 

Maybe this episode isn’t a porno? I click over to the full version of Episode 2 and decide to just pick a random timestamp near the end of the video. Oh, no, yeah, that’s more hentai porn. I’m out. Apparently, there’s an Episode 3 out there, but I can’t find a clean version of that on YouTube, so that was the end of my very strange Meru the Succubus journey.

What Is a Succubus?

If you’ve been in the dark thus far about what the word “succubus” means, allow me to explain. A succubus is a female demon in folklore that comes to men in their dreams and seduces them. Apparently, having sex with a succubus multiple times can lead men to have health problems or even to die. It’s a cryptid of sorts, believed to exist by some people but scientifically never proven. It’s like the chupacabra, the Not-Deer, or the myth that spicy food increases your libido.

The legend of the succubus originally comes from Jewish folklore, which depicts Adam’s first wife, Lilith, as a succubus. Yes, we’re talking about the same Adam from the Garden of Eden in Genesis. There is also a passage in the Buddhist canon that makes reference to “demons who either suck your energy or make love to you in your dreams.” Additionally, many Arabian and African myths refer to supernatural creatures that are extremely similar to the Western conception of the succubus. 

The whole idea has some seriously misogynistic overtones. That being said, there is a male counterpart to the succubus in some mythologies known as an incubus. No, not the California rock band that sang Wish You Were Here. 

Some scientists have tried to explain the myth of the succubus by attributing it to the experience of sleep paralysis combined with nocturnal emissions. If you’ve ever experienced sleep paralysis, you may have had the sense that there was something or someone in the room with you, which explains many “alien encounters.” So, you can think of a succubus experience as a hallucinated alien visitation induced by sleep paralysis combined with a wet dream. You’re welcome.