WARNING: Several of those sections contain spoilery content. A "(SPOILER SECTION)" warning will be included where needed. Keep an eye out if you're avoiding them; else, bombs away!
After just about two years, Kemono Friends, the sleeper hit, had it's second season come about. As someone whose favorite anime is Kemono Friends, I can safely say KF2 met my expectations. For every hiccup they've had, somewhere else there was an improvement from KF1.
Overall, provided you're not blinded by ultrahigh expectations and/or hatred over past drama, I believe this is an excellent ride. And if you're a newcomer to Kemono Friends, you'll find this easy enough to
...
get into regardless (why would anyone skip season 1, though, is beyond me); anyway, this review is targetted at returning - not new - fans.
For appropriate comparison, I'll tackle this review between what, qualiy-wise, was maintained, was downgraded, and was improved.
~~~
KF2 has maintained the quality in:
---Sound---
With the composers for both the OP/ED (Masayoshi Ooishi) and the old sound director (Abe Nobuyuki) returning, this was essentially a granted. While I prefer the first season's opening, Hop in! Japari Beat is an excellent song on it's own. Endings maintain the same level of "cute but feelsy" as they did before, and a lot of BGM was recycled/remastered, while new ones have been added. The musical highlight for me, however, was the new insert song - if Sky Dreamer was an excellent start for PPP back in 2017, Around Round now shows how far they've progressed musically.
---Wholesomeness---
The overarching theme of Kemono Friends has always been a constant stream of positivity even when shit is hitting the fan. Kemono Friends 2 is no exception. Season 2's characters find themselves in tragedy quite often, yet not once have the characters let sadness take over. Certainly applies a kid's show feeling, which is why the franchise manages to keep itself interesting for every age; even an adult can find enjoyment in this pertaining feeling of comfortable joy it brings. And no one should be ashamed to.
---Minor characters---
The episodic formula of "go to new place, meet small group of new Friends, solve their problems and move on" remains strong, like S1 kept this back from the original mobile game. And the Friends presented all have enough personality not to feel repetitive or static, all the while being as adorable as ever. With an ever-growing roster of 400+ Friends, the franchise is never going to be shy of those.
---Major characters---
(SPOILER SECTION STARTS)
Kyururu has taken the role of the main protagonist, while Kaban has been made into one of the episodic Friends. Many criticized this decision; but it illustrates important things about both characters. For one, that Kaban was a blank slate back in the first season - essentially no personality or background, building it rapidly as the season progressed. By it's end, she was a fully-fledged character, and the role of an "important supporting character" remains a better fit for a character whose potential is, simply put, capped.
Kyururu, on the other hand, already came out with specified traits: some attitude, likes drawing, confused about her situation but not about her location. While more static, changing very little between episode 1 and 12, her job providing us wholesome moments and a conflict through the sketchbook did nicely advance the plot.
At the end of the day, it's kind of hard to expect that Serval's companion will remain when there is a change in media in Kemono Friends. Serval is the only constant, really - Servals have already lurked around with Nana, the Nexon protagonist, Mirai, Okapi, Kaban, and now Kyururu. It's perfectly understandable if you don't like this trend, however. To each his own. I've learned to appreciate it, myself.
(SPOILER SECTION ENDS)
~~~
KF2 has seen a downgrade in:
---Pacing---
Inheriting a sleeper hit show shock-full of drama that inherited a mobile game that died before the show aired is quite the herculean task, and while Ryuichi Kimura bravely took on the challenge (and the uncalled for insults included on the package), it can't be helped that in some points, he did slip. No episode left me with bad taste, but there were situations where plenty of hype was built-up for an episode, only for it to come by and, while it ended up being nice, it didn't live up to the tremendous hype built-up. At the end of the day, the show was wrapped up nicely, but not as nicely as the episodes immediately before it made us expect.
But it's okay; different Friends are good at different things. Ryuichi Kimura is good at building up to a scenario and generating hype. That's a fairly important skill, at the end of the day.
---Threat---
(SPOILER SECTION STARTS)
If you've seen any non-manga Kemono Friends media, you're probably familiar with the Ceruleans(/Celliens). They are - and remain - the main antagonistic force in the franchise, and they've been generally threatening whenever they showed up. In the first season, most Friends would refuse to engage one in battle, save from a battle-hardened few. In the Nexon Game, for the most part, confronting a Cerulean was not a good idea, albeit the main character had an interesting mechanism to combat them (go watch the ONA shorts summing up the Nexon Game if you're curious).
Now, in Season 2, they are more bark than bite. They have menacing new designs, and now they commonly copy Friends' shapes, yet most of them were defeated in a single blow, the only ones putting up remotely a fight being the camera-drill-thing in E1, the ship one that is never actually fought, and Serval/Caracal clone in E12.
(SPOILER SECTION ENDS)
~~~
KF2 has outperformed the first season in:
---Art---
While Irodori was specially attentive to make the most out of a limited budget, experienced animators with a large bag of money ended up proving too much of an edge. The models are nice-looking and have received a massive cute factor boost when compared to their S1 counterparts, and the enemies at least look more intimidating and powerful (see Threat), and while there were some frame rate hiccups (CGI technology still has ways to go...), there were outstanding moments as well, notably in episode 8. And attention to detail was fairly well-kept; Hululu losing her attention several times without making a fuss was an entertaining little thing to watch.
However, the true star here has to be not the models, but the environment, backgrounds and lighting. Irodori's limited budget left us with cryptic and simplistic backgrounds - studio Tomason brought forth an expert in lighting whose mastery can easily be noticed, specially in the second version of the opening. Backgrounds were endearing and had me since the promotional poster came out.
---Voice Acting---
Again following the trend of employing newcomer voice actresses (or seiyuus; I'll use VAs for short from now on), Kan Madoka (Western Parotia) and Yagi Mashiro (Greater Lophorina) were added to the ever-expanding roster, while the veterans from S1 are all back, both newcomers like Kana Motomiya (Fennec) and Ozaki Yuka (Serval) and experienced VAs like Aya Uchida (Kaban/Mirai/Lucky Beasts) and Aiba Aina (Rockhopper Penguin).
The highlights, however, go to Riko Koike (Caracal), largely a newcomer to the industry, and Yui Ishikawa (Kyururu), with a large list of works, Attack on Titan being probably the most famous. And, of course, can't forget to mention how much Ozaki Yuka has to be appreciated; with a throat infection hitting her during the recordings and still providing us with our daily doses of Mya-Mya-Mya. If you liked the acting in S1, S2 will be a sure hit.
~~~
Ultimately, I was not disappointed, and a 10/10 is due from me, specially due to the ungodly amount of dedication that had to be input from pretty much everyone involved, with so much heat and drama in the community harassing them over mistakes they didn't commit.
And for those who, like me, enjoyed the ride, rejoice - Kimura has alerted us on Twitter that more is to come.
To wrap this up, I make Ironyart's blog's (in an analysis/review of KF as a franchise) words my own:
"You think KF2 is not good? Don’t worry, we already have KF3."
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Apr 1, 2019
Kemono Friends 2
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WARNING: Several of those sections contain spoilery content. A "(SPOILER SECTION)" warning will be included where needed. Keep an eye out if you're avoiding them; else, bombs away!
After just about two years, Kemono Friends, the sleeper hit, had it's second season come about. As someone whose favorite anime is Kemono Friends, I can safely say KF2 met my expectations. For every hiccup they've had, somewhere else there was an improvement from KF1. Overall, provided you're not blinded by ultrahigh expectations and/or hatred over past drama, I believe this is an excellent ride. And if you're a newcomer to Kemono Friends, you'll find this easy enough to ... |
