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Kemono Friends
Original run: 2017
Native Language: JP
Genre: Adventure?
Episodes: 12
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So, this is a bit of a departure for me, because normally I only watch shows which have been previously established as "good", and give it a hard eye to see exactly where it falls. In this case, however, I ended up having to come to a show with zero preconceptions because there hasn't been enough time for this particular show to have settled and hardened into a particular mold. While it is a show that, on the face of it, has nothing going for it, apparently there is still value in trying hard, and given that it was apparently a massive surprise success up and down the chain, apparently you can make no money go pretty far if you have an unexpectedly resonant idea.
So, Kemono Friends was actually a multimedia project consisting of a mobile game, a manga, and an animated series each taking place at different times in the same setting and with only barely-connected main plots. The series ended up being the most visible part of the whole thing for not always the best reasons, due to having been palmed off to a minor studio that contained about ten employees, not-exactly a-list voice actors, and being 3D animated in the same way that got 2016's Berserk adaptation raked over the coals on its animation quality. Even more than that, the production dragged on for long enough that the mobile game crashed and burned well before the show was set to start airing (though it was being managed by Nexon, which meant it was already doomed from the start). Initial reactions ended up being tepid, but favorability skyrocketed as the series went on, and it wound up, somehow, being the big surprise success of the winter season.
So, basically, the premise is as follows. The show takes place in Japari park, an enormous safari park situated on a non-specific island where the volcano spews out a substance called Sandstar, which turns normal animals into human-like versions of themselves in appearance and intelligence collectively referred to as the Friends, presumably because they've learned how to survive without killing each other. However, one fine day, a Serval catgirl discovers an amnesiac human in the middle of the savanna. As neither of them know what she is, the Serval calls her Kaban ( literally "bag") after her backpack, and decides to go with her through the park to the library, where they can certainly find out what kind of animal the human is, assisted along the way by a robotic park guide who the Friends call "Boss" but who only speaks to Kaban. However, the Sandstar that created the Friends may well have created other things, which pose an occasional danger to the park and the people.
The first and possibly most important thing to say is that, apart from the backgrounds, the show doesn't seem to have a single production value: The wheels on the bus go 'round and 'round, except, sometimes, in this show. The framerate, while consistent and decent, might only be so thanks to being tyrannically enforced by whatever program they used to create the show. However, they did not try to work beyond their obvious limitations. The character designs and animation framing is largely the same as one might find in a more conventionally animated show, so the creators didn't try to break their computer with overly-fancy designs and camera shots. The show's animation quality does improve over the course of the series, but it is understandable how people might bounce off the show at first glance. It wasn't much of a problem for me, as I occasionally watch '70s anime, but it might be understandable why others might be initially repulsed. There are a few clever design decisions to mark certain things about the animals that the Friends are based on- for example, friends based on critically endangered or extinct species have no eye reflections.
Good production values make a good show better, but can't make a bad show good, and a good show of any sort exists on the strength of its characters, which is actually where this show manages to shine. Kaban is a rarity in that she's an interesting main protagonist- while she's almost overly aware of her physical limitations compared to the more impressively dynamic Friends, the lack of an action focus means that Kaban has enough breadth to be one of the thinkingest protagonists one might find in an animated show, and not in the "Just as Planned" way, which often seems to be more of a magic spell than an actual exercise of intelligence. Kaban is able to make leaps of abstract logic and the best use of the limited tools her surroundings offer, working hard to earn the sapiens in
H. Sapiens. Serval is an earnest and friendly (and historically interesting, as it's believed that the partnership between man and the serval cat is a long one on the scale of recorded history) companion, and while many of the Friends are one- or two- episode wonders, while they may not have deep personalities, they tend to at least have strong ones.
One of the bigger details, however, is that the show tends to emphasize that the Friends were all once animals. In some cases, it's shown that they're not entirely used to human-like bodies- Serval hasn't quite caught on to the advantages of thumbs, and is a bit hazy on fingers in general, as shown in a scene where she tries to drive a safari bus by whacking the steering wheel left and right with her curled-up hand (it ends about as well as you expect). In other places the Friends tend to display behaviors that are more actual than stereotypical, such as how Lion is strong, but would rather be a lazy catlump most of the day than do anything at all, how the first couple of times they try to interact with Otter she's using a piece of the park as a waterslide or is juggling rocks when they try to talk to her, or how Alpaca Suri spits on the counter after grousing about Kaban getting her hopes up about finally having a customer at the mountaintop café she took over. It even thinks about the physical advantages that humans do have, such as in the first episode, where after a long walk in the savanna, Serval flops over and pants in the shade for a while whereas all Kaban has to do to recover is just sit down for a little bit. Also, the time spend on the eyecatches is actually used to deliver information from animal experts about the actual animals that serve as the bases for the Featured Friends of the week- mostly Japanese people, but also people from Belize, America, and Canada. The show makes full use of tis run time- every episode has some amount of post-credits stuff.
(A small side note- the Friends are generally just called their species as their names- the only ones who take what we think of as names are the penguins, but they're a special case.)
While the story of the show generally concerns itself with the week-to-week adventures of the pair as they make their way across the park, there is a very strong implicit backstory that impacts their ability to traverse the various areas. Early on, the guide robot, Boss, actually stutters and locks down quite a bit because certain paths and bridges and machinery made for navigating the park that should be there just isn't there anymore, having been washed away or are otherwise missing. While the parts of the park that the Friends have appropriated are in generally good shape, a lot of the places that were intended mainly for use by humans are worn down, faded, rusted over, clogged with rubble, or otherwise dilapidated, so you get these cute animal adventures alongside things like a character finding a coin and geeking out, going on a tear about what
currency used to be for. this means that the real suspense isn't over what kind of animal Kaban is- the viewer can tell she's a human from the first second- but rather what they're going to find out about humans when they reach the library.
And the journey to the library actually only lasts about half of the series- the rest is about what to do with what they've learned. However, they series doesn't really lose its shine after they reach that first goal, because the show is more Kaban's story than the world's story. And the end of the story brings everything together in one last challenge, where Kaban has to use everything she learned from watching the Friends, and, in turn, the Friends used what they learned from watching Kaban. But one of the bigger takeaways is that it presents man as an animal, rather than anything special or separate- the question about Kaban is always- "What kind of animal are you?", and that's not something that really changes throughout the course of the series.
At the heart of it, though, Kemono Friends is a show that's mainly about being itself and letting anything good about it flow from that. It's not about metacommentary on a genre, or espousing an overt philosophy, succumbing to fashionable irony, or anything of that nature- and while that may sound shallow, it's not like we all don't remember shows who have tried that but have ended up being no more deep for all their half-hearted trouble. Perhaps also unusually, despite the large cast of cute animal girls, the show is indifferent at worst about imposing fanservice- when the director said he wanted a show that was okay for kids and adults, he apparently meant it.
Kemono Friends is an unusual show, in some respects- it has a lot of factors that should have made it an awful show, such as being a barely-budget series by a small studio tied to a deceased free-to-play mobile game. However, the other aspects behind it- the creative team, the soundtrack, and all that, still manage to carry what is a kind of pure adventure show that takes the adventure part the most seriously, as almost every episode is about going to new places, meeting new people, and doing different things once you're there. This show is an example of being able to make something out of almost less than nothing.