Anime: Kemono Friends n3y3b

Kemono Friends is one of those shows that ride mostly on their meta rather on their actual content. By itself it’s a badly animated CGI monstrosity that nobody would give two dimes about. During its initial run, nobody cared about this anime, until midway when a dedicated fanbase made it stand out by ing a, what was assumed to be, dead on arrival product. Having a show that is just about cute girls is hardly enough. Moe is everywhere nowadays, and this one is ugly to boot. Why would anyone watch something that is not as pretty as Demon Slayer? Turns out there was much more. Let me list the reasons for you.

1) It’s not just about cute girls, but cute animal girls. They pander to the growing furry community, who by default have very low demands on what counts as beautiful. And it’s like one of those games that is all about gathering one dimensional girls which are defined by type rather than character. It’s pathetic, but also sells like hotcakes amongst tens of thousands of ronery gamers.

2) It has an element of mystery to it, as the setting is an empty park and the girls travel in it to find out what happened to the humans and why the animals became humanoid. There is a subtle sense of dread which attracts you to explore the area for answers and in the meantime to make up your own theories and speculations. It’s all pretentious overthinking of course, but it’s also a successful formula that is used more and more in recent anime. The exact same type can be found in titles such as Attack on Titan, Land of the Lustrous, Made in Abyss, and the Promised Neverland.

3) It’s a ion project that went against the norms. Kemono Friends is the adaptation of a mobile game that never managed to get a big enough fanbase for sustaining its run. In fact, by the time the anime was in production the game was a step away from becoming defunct. Since anime are primarily made for promoting the source, the studio told the director not to bother much with it, as they are not given much money for advertising a game nobody cares about. But the director thought otherwise and did the best with what he had available in order to create a breezy cute adventure about animal girls. The animation was still horrible, but at least the directing and the script were decent.

4) A lot of people became curious about this throwaway monstrosity that some were hyping so much, and checked it out. Turns out most of them loved what they saw and began to hype it as well. Before you know it, it became a huge deal in the anime community. And here is why it’s very important to have a clear image as to why exactly so many liked it after they initially ignored it. If you start watching it with only praise coming from others you are bound to dislike it. The truth is, you have to go in completely blind and be initially put off by the crappy CGI animation. Once your expectations are close to zero, you focus on the directing and the script. In the case you don’t drop it in a couple of episodes, you will get a decent adventure about cute girls.

5) Add to all that the setting of the series which is an actual animal park of Japan. Lots of people went to visit it and felt an even deeper connection with the show just for being based on an actual place that is not ugly. And I have to put extra emphasis on the word ugly, because that is why nobody cared about Kemurikusa, the next series that was made by the same creator. It is also about crappy CGI and cute girls, but it’s not based on a real place, and it’s also so ugly and scary. People who watch moe do it to relax after work, they don’t care about nightmare looking crappy CGI.

6) Extra bonus for a penguin in the park, who couldn’t stop looking at the carton figure of one of the anime girls and the internet memed the crap out of it as a romantic interest. Memes are also part of what makes a show feel better and boy did they go overboard with this one.

With all that out of the way, is the actual show that good? No, not really. It’s just much better than it appears to be at first, and even then it’s barely above average. The plot remains simple, and the characters are defined by a single personality gimmick. It’s a great example of how the lack of hype can vastly improve your enjoyment of a series. It’s also an example of how not letting the viewer know everything about the setting right away makes the audience to constantly think about it and to make up its own head canons which add to the appeal. That’s what I meant by the meta being far more important than the actual show.

And there is a third example. It’s also showing how corporations treat their IPs as cashgrabs and not as art. After the first season was over, the director was replaced by someone else for the second season. What so many loved as a ion project of one man, was quickly mutated into just another throw away corporate franchise. The second season tried to be one of the same, but without the special touch of the first director and with the mystery of the setting having been solved, it felt like a needless sequel that lazily tries to catch lightning in a bottle twice. It didn’t work and most hated it. Which is also an example of how much hype affects your enjoyment. The second season is not that worse than the first, but the hype and the expectations of the fanbase led to it being hated far more than it deserved. That’s why hype is bullshit, expectations are nonsense, scores are meaningless, feels are hollow, and Kemono Friends is a barely above average show that got a lot more attention than it deserved before fading back into obscurity, since it was never meant to be more than a one time thing and it’s over type of deal.

This show takes place in Japari Park, which is a sort of safari zoo showcasing a broad variety of different animals... all of them 'changed' through some mechanism to look pretty much like people wearing animal costumes. The show opens in an African Savanna setting with a young girl who has amnesia. She is soon discovered-- and terrified of-- 'Serval'-- a serval. Lo and behold, however, Serval's just playful, and like all of the animals at Japari Park, she is quite friendly. Because she has amnesia, the girl doesn't know who she is or where she came from. And no one seems to know exactly what kind of animal she is... But there's a good chance that someone at the Library in the park might know. For convenience's sake, Serval decides to name this girl 'Kaban' because she was discovered with a 'bag' (backpack) on her back. Thus Kaban-chan and Serval head out for the Library.

At first, this show looks, feels, and smells like a cutesy children's show, complete with brief voiced-over clips describing some aspects of whatever animal-types each particular episode's 'Friends' are. And indeed, that is what this show is... An adventure, with Kaban-chan and Serval, with new Friends in every episode and new unique challenges that take a human's ingenuity to solve. But what makes this show 'something more' than just a children's show is Japari Park itself, the mysterious mythos surrounding it, and the run-down nature of the park. It seems pretty clear that there are no 'humans' maintaining the park for some reason. Perhaps it has something to do with the 'Ceruleans'-- something like aliens or beings from an alternae dimension in appearance-- that pop up now and then and harass the Friends at the park.

As this show was airing, I really didn't give it much thought. I continued to watch the first three episodes thinking I'd at least see it through and offer a review at the end. But as every new episode ed, I found myself looking forward to the next week's episode just a little bit, and then a little bit more... By the time the show ended, I was pretty much a convert. Unraveling the mysteries of Japari Park and meeting new, well-conceived Friends every episode really became a fun and relaxing venture. All while maintaining the container of a perfectly children-appropriate show.

Although nothing spectacular, don't let the low rating here on AniDB put you off. This show is actually surprisingly good. From what I understand, it wound up being a pretty big hit in Japan and a second season is already in the initial stages because of the show's success. I'm looking forward to it because there's still a lot of adventuring to go even though the first season definitely concludes a major arc.

Level of Taboo/Ecchi/Fanservice: None. At least not really. Fetishists with a 'thing' for humanoid animals may get a little extra kick out of this show, but everything is frankly quite appropriate for elementary (or early middle-school) children. Good, clean family fun.
Intended Audience: I'm told the producers planned to make a show acceptable to all ages and I agree with that notion. Like I just said, this show's pretty clean. PG at most, for all you Americans. Easily acceptable to both a male and female audience as well. ...The last few episodes do get a little emotionally intense, perhaps a little bit scary for the youngest of folk, but... Well, it's safe.

Art & Animation - 6 - This was the hardest part of the show for me to get used to. The animation is clearly CG... 3D rendered as flat. And the characters' motion, though smooth, feels a little plastic or even robotic at times. But once I got used to that, I could appreciate the background art and the excellent character design without too many 'ugh' moments. Only a 6 instead of a 7 because CG could be made to look much smoother than it was. In a sense, I think haste was prioritized over rock-solid quality.
Sound - 7 - Although nothing really stood out to me, I'm giving this a 7 because there were a lot of different things to add sound to. And the OP/ED songs are both pretty catchy tunes. The sound meshed well to create a good overall package. I can at least say that much.
Story - 8 - I almost gave it a 9, but experience got the better of me. The scripting and plot are simplistic enough to be tracked easily by wee ones, so the story isn't particularly involved. The reason why I gave it an 8 is because the writers did an excellent job of slowly peeling back the lid with this show, revealing little tidbits of information about Japari Park as each episode ed. This definitely wasn't an "explain everything at once at some point" sort of show. Very well done.
Character(s) - 9 - Solidly so. Not only was the acting fun and the voice cast surprisingly large, but it is clear everyone had fun doing this show. Every Friend (of which there are many) had a unique personality and specific character traits. Some were more template than others, but most of them were quite well conceived. Not every actress was stellar. Let's be fair. And the emotional intensity was kept pretty low-key to fit the genre of the story, but I am quite satisfied with the overall quality.
Value - 8 - A unique style of show produced by a relatively new studio that, surprisingly, produced the most popular show of the season (in Japan), and did so without relying on the 'tried and true' formulas most studios stick to these days. Yes, this show had its weaknesses, particularly in the animation department, but it was a breath of fresh air, well-conceived, and deserving of its success.
Enjoyment - 8 - Again, although it took me a while to warm up to this show, once I did, I was pretty well hooked. By episode 11, I was grinning like an idiot.

Conclusion - 8 - It's a 7.6, and I'm having a hard time deciding whether I want to round up or down. I'm going to go with rounding up. I think credit is deserved where it is due. This show is very underrated on AniDB at the time I'm writing this interview, but I suspect its rating will creep up. Basically, people watched one or two episodes before the real underlying plot kicked in and their response, like mine, was "WTF is this?" Having seen every episode, I can safely say that even if it isn't 'Must See', this show is definitely 'Highly Recommended'.