I really wanted to like Kemono Friends. I really did. After all; a show that manages to create a cult following strong enough to rekindle interest in Zoos must be doing something right. Though I have failed to figure out what that is, unfortunately...
At first glance, Kemono Friends looks like a cheaply made Slice of Life show with cute animal girls and little else to its merit; and although the people who coaxed me into watching this show would argue, it's basically exactly that. Kemono Friends has little to set it apart from the run of the mill "cute girls doing cute things" shows we
...
get at least 2 of every season other then its setting, but this time i would argue that the characters aren't even particularly cute...
Aesthetics:
Put simply... The show looks bad... It's done entirely in CGI by a small team with few resources and it definitely shows... be it jankie movement or lip flaps that don't match the characters speech, the whole show is just awful to look at (somewhat of a big deal for a visual medium...) When it comes to this part of the show one of two things will happen. Either you won't be able to get past just how ugly the it looks and that feeling never goes away, or you will get use to it to the point where it doesn't bother you anymore and you only notice it when it screws up... Which it does... A lot... This is a shame as many scene could have been vastly improved had the animation been hand drawn rather then CGI.
Character Design is rather subjective so i won't dwell on it to long. Personally, I don't find them to be particularly appealing or cute. The show does its job of personifying the characters respective animals, but some (not all) seem to be a tab bit overdesigned. With weirdly long gloves and out of place bow-ties, some of the characters just seem a bit off. That isn't to say that a couple of the characters don't hit the nail on the head with their designs, just that a lot of them are a bit off the mark.
Sound:
The voice acting in this show seems rushed at best and phoned in at worst. A lot of the deliveries lack emotional depth and the voice actors don't seem particularly invested. Perhaps it's because the material given to them doesn't give them much to work with or the general air of cheapness surrounding the show makes otherwise good aspects seem much worse then they actually are, but in the end it just sound rather bland. There is no English Version as of this writing, so it's impossible to say wherever that is any better.
The music in the show is one of it's few strong suits. With a whole 2 tracks being average. Thous being the battle theme, and ending theme. With the rest being largely mediocre and forgettable. The main theme of the show is a generic "You're in Africa" track and chances are, if you've ever seen a cartoon with a scene that takes place in Africa, you've heard something rather similar. The Opening theme is passable, but i didn't end up watching it more then once as it didn't contain anything extraordinary, and the song was average at best. The ending theme, on the other hand, was rather pleasant and helped sooth the headache that the show caused me over the past 20 minutes. Although nothing special, it did its job of calming the mood and closing out the show with a relaxing tune. Lastly, the battle theme is on of the few things in this Anime i thoroughly enjoyed. Every time it started, smirked in excitement as it made every fight seem more dynamic even if what was actually happening on screen wasn't all that impressive.
Writing and Characters:
Many would argue that this is one of the show's strong suits, and although it isn't straight up bad like the rest of the show, it still barely manages to achieve average. The story revolves around Bag (a lost human) and Serval (a cute cat-girl). Roaming an island inhabited by humanized animals. Wile trying to find out what animal Bag is, they meet several characters or "friends" (hence the name) and pick up a few mysteries along the way (because in all reality no one would watch this show unless there was some sort of hook to keep interest). The show is very episodic, with each episode largely focusing on two or three characters at a time and their respective problems; with a string of clues to a mystery that lousily keeps the show together and moving along. This leads to the episodes being rather formulaic, and each plot being telegraphed far in advance. Seeing as every individual character only appears for a short time none of them get properly developed or have any sort of progression other then Bag herself. This leads to characters that are mostly 2 dimensional (beaver likes to build things but is bad at it. She later gets good at it. That's it. That's the extent of her character), or in the worst cases characters that are completely 1 dimensional, though that only happens about 2 or 3 times throughout the show. Many of them make odd decisions and unrealistic actions for the sake of plot convenience. To use specific examples without spoiling anything; one character fails to figure out that the person she is chasing and hates is the same person who she's being hearing great things about and has become a fan of... Or the PPP, a pop-idol group that was never mentioned before hand (outside of episode previews) who are supposed to be famous all around the island. As for the aforementioned mystery, there isn't much to it, and anyone paying any attention beyond "none" will probably figure out rather quickly where the show is going. Though to be perfectly fair; this is from the prospective of someone who watched it mostly in one sitting rather then on a week-to-week basis as it was intended.
The show also has these odd clips of experts talking about the given animals in each episode. Although novel, these clips feel largely forced and down-right crigy at times. They don't add much and the Anime would have probably been fine without them, but at the very least they are concise and don't overstay their welcome.
All in all the show cute, and easy to digest. Nothing overly complicated happens and if all you are looking for is a wholesome time with cute animal girls with not to much substance that you can just turn your brain off and enjoy, this show fits the bill fine (I personally found myself in a rare situation of needing to pause the episode to stop laughing at a rather well executed gag). That being said there isn't much substance here, and it doesn't hold up to critical thinking particularly well, and unlike other shows with the same issue it doesn't anything else extraordinarily well to make up for it. If you just want to watch cute anime girls doing various things there are better options out there that do it far better then this.
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Jul 7, 2017
Kemono Friends
(Anime)
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I really wanted to like Kemono Friends. I really did. After all; a show that manages to create a cult following strong enough to rekindle interest in Zoos must be doing something right. Though I have failed to figure out what that is, unfortunately...
At first glance, Kemono Friends looks like a cheaply made Slice of Life show with cute animal girls and little else to its merit; and although the people who coaxed me into watching this show would argue, it's basically exactly that. Kemono Friends has little to set it apart from the run of the mill "cute girls doing cute things" shows we ... |
