Also, there will be a lot of spoilers in here for a two-year-old anime based on a game that had already shut down before the anime even aired, so... there's that.

Before the specific bits, a general overview. Kemono Friends is... you know how for the last few years we've had the Everything Is Girls thing going on in Japan? Well, Kemono Friends is part of that. It's rooted in the same general concept as things like Kantai Collection and Girls Frontline, except instead of warships or firearms, it's personified animals. Not that anthropomorphic animals are in any way a new concept, but Kemono Friends handles it a little bit differently in that they know they're personified animals. They live in a world where there are also regular animals and they're aware of the difference. Mostly. We'll come back to that.

There's also an element of Jurassic Park in the setting, since the Friends (as the aforementioned anthropomorphic animals collectively tag themselves) live in a sprawling wilderness park called Japari Park. (I assume this is a contraction of something like "Japan Safari Park", but I have no evidence to support this assumption. It's not even clear that the park is in Japan, except of course that all the signage is in, and everyone there speaks, Japanese.) Japari Park takes up the whole of a huge island and contains multiple zones simulating different wildlife habitats—savannah, jungle, desert, Arctic, temperate forest, and so forth. The zones are discrete but adjacent, like the biomes in a Minecraft world, despite this making no sense according to the laws of physics. (Again, it's an interesting detail that the characters in a position to know there are laws of physics are aware that this shouldn't be possible, or at least that it does not occur in nature.)

I don't know many details about the original Kemono Friends game; it was only available in Japan, as far as I know, and only lasted a few months. Evidently it was not a commercial success, but the makers had already commissioned a short anime series to go with it, and when the plug got pulled on the game, someone decided to go ahead and finish/air it anyway.

The series promptly became insanely popular, which must have really annoyed whoever decided to shut down the game.

With the best will in the world, Kemono Friends the anime is not an artistic masterpiece. You can tell from the animation quality that it was made on the cheap and mostly with computers. I've seen it compared with early RWBY by people who seem to have really disliked early RWBY, and, you know, I can't really argue that. I'm not a fan of the cel-shaded CG thing either, and that might've put me off the show except that it's so damn cute, and I was so damn bored that day. (Persistent leg injuries will do that.)

Then I started to notice the unexpected depth. This is where it starts to get spoilery.

The progatonist of the anime is your standard Girl Without a Past. She wakes up one fine day in the middle of what seems to be the African savannah (it is, of course, actually the Savannah Zone of Japari Park), with no idea who she is or how she got there, or, for that matter, even where "there" is. Apart from the nondescript clothes she's wearing, her only possessions are a battered pith helmet and a large, empty backpack.

A few moments later, while still coping with the intense bemusement of suddenly having come to be, she's attacked by another girl who appears to be an anthropomorphic serval. (This is because she's an anthropomorphic serval.)

Fortunately, Serval (that's really her name) is only playing "hunter and prey" and is not actually interested in killing and eating the girl with the backpack. When she introduces herself, she learns that said girl does not have a name, and so decides to call her Kaban (literally "bag") after said backpack. She can't figure out what kind of animal Kaban is, and Kaban has no idea either, so Serval hits on the idea that Kaban should go to the park library (which is in a distant zone) and consult the experts there. She originally intends only to guide Kaban to the border of the next zone over (the Jungle Zone) and then go about her business, but they Have Adventures along the way, and Serval (who is very curious) decides she can't bear to leave Kaban until she finds out what is going on. So now it's a Buddy Odyssey.

Along the way they acquire a better guide in the form of a little creature that calls itself Lucky Beast, and which will only speak to Kaban. Serval knows it—indeed, all the Friends know it—as "Boss", and it's a running gag that everyone who sees them together is shocked that Boss can talk. Lucky Beast seems to be some sort of cyborg with the ability to control the park's various systems, such as the abandoned park tour bus Kaban and Serval scrounge up so they don't have to walk everywhere. And they need that, because it becomes immediately obvious that the park is gigantic—far, far bigger than any real-life counterpart.

Oh yeah, and there's the other thing that immediately becomes obvious about Japari Park: It's abandoned. And has been for many years, to judge by the condition of things like the signage, the bus, and various other bits of park equipment scattered around. This may, one gets the impression, have something to do with the Ceruleans, which are the standard Neuroi/Heterodyne/Angel-style "utterly inscrutable alien enemy that can only be killed by hitting them in one spot" of the piece: weird evidently-inorganic creatures(?) that roam around the park and are known for attacking and "eating" Friends who aren't strong or skilled enough to destroy them or swift enough to escape. Which is a surprisingly dark turn for a show as chipper as this one to take, and one of the first clues that there's something more to it.

As to Friends: with the exception of whatever Lucky is, everyone Kaban and Serval encounter is a Friend of one kind or another. They're created when Sandstar, a mysterious probably-alien material of which there is a huge deposit at the peak of the mountain in the center of the park, touches an animal. Since it's a game reserve and the mountain periodically erupts, spraying Sandstar around the area, that happens pretty regularly.

Most Friends have heard of humans, and know that they built Japari Park in ages past, but have never seen one and don't know what they were like. (Most of them don't realize they themselves are now mostly human.) Fortunately, the park's systems were evidently well-built: despite years if not decades of neglect, they mostly still work, including the food supply. One of the reasons all the Friends know Lucky (and think of it as an authority figure) is because it's responsible for distributing Japari Buns, a sort of universal foodstuff which is the reason why Serval knows "hunter and prey" as just a game, and in a more general sense, why the Friends don't spend all their time killing and eating each other.

Another intriguing detail about the Friends themselves is that there seems to be only one representative of each species that appears. Serval is the only serval, and so forth. This simplifies naming somewhat, since each is thus simply named after her species. Also, they're all female. Mostly. We'll come back to that.

Oh yes, and their clothes grow back if they get damaged. Until Kaban explains that they're clothes, the Friends think their costumes are just their natural fur/feathers/whatever. This makes the Obligatory Hot Springs Episode very amusing, since they're all sitting around in the spring fully clothed until Kaban asks them why they didn't undress and explains how to do it. "These come off?!" Yes, Kaban invented nudity in Japari Park. Possibly not the legacy she was looking for. :)

This is getting kind of long-winded, I know, but it's all background for a discussion of the thing that really hooked me into the show: its unexpected depth. On the surface it's a buddy-road-comedy cute-girls-doing-cute-things anime tied into the greater Everything Is Girls cultural phenomenon, but the people who made it were clearly thinking bigger—though they were very subtle about how they brought their bigger ideas in. It creeps up on you with a lot of little details.

For the first half of the series, the Big Mystery is what kind of Friend Kaban is. No one recognizes her, and she doesn't seem to have any kind of specialty. Most Friends have one exaggerated trait based on the stereotype of the animal they are. Japanese Crested Ibis, for example, dreams of being a singer and indeed has an amazingly powerful voice that can be heard for miles—but her voice is also harsh and grating and she's completely tone-deaf. Serval can jump many times her own height and has claws capable of killing small-to-medium-size Ceruleans if she hits them in the right place, but she would prefer to be asleep in a tree. Ezo Red Fox is clever, but uses that cleverness mainly to come up with ways to avoid having to do anything. White Rhinoceros is heavily armored (as in, she wears actual Fantasy Roleplaying-style plate armor) but has poor endurance. And so on.

Kaban... has none of that. She has no natural weapons worthy of the name, can perform no outstanding acts of physical prowess, and doesn't appear particularly brave (her standard response to any threat display is to cower and plead not to be eaten). She can't run fast, lift heavy objects, see in the dark, follow a scent, or do much of anything else that seems special. She has a hat, and a bag, and... that's about it.

Except that as the series goes on, it becomes obvious that in a way, she's far more powerful than any other Friend, because she has ideas. She can plan. She can make things. She can see things before they happen anticipate outcomes. She understands symbolic logic (to Serval, a map of the park they find is just a pretty piece of paper until Kaban explains what it is). The Friends are intelligent lifeforms, but for the most part they approach the world like their stereotypical archetypes do, without much if any forethought, or situational appraisal, or appreciation of potential consequences. Some of the predator types have a decent concept of tactics (as in Serval's "hunter and prey" game), but by and large, Friends can't strategize, and Kaban can. She can also read.

It's coming together for you now, isn't it? It's obvious when it's all laid out like that, but over the first half of the series the realization builds up more subtly. Kaban's a type of Friend nobody has seen in a very long time. She's a User human.

That's why Lucky will speak to her. It's a caretaker/guide robot, intended to shepherd guests safely through the park (and make sure they're entertained) when it's not looking after the Friends, and it thinks of her as a guest, a patron of the park, rather than one of the exhibits (which it's programmed not to interact with, nature documentary-style). That's also why it's been treating Kaban and Serval's odyssey as a tour of the park.

There's one other really clever twist they pulled with that by the end of the series, but I won't get into that right now. Right now I'd like to give you a quick rundown of some of my favorite Friends. Interestingly, they regularly appear in pairs, although not always with crypto-lesbian subtext.

But usually with crypto-lesbian subtext.

Case in point: American Beaver and Black-Tailed Prairie Dog are the class couple of the series. Beaver is a master builder, one of the few Friends other than Kaban who can actually make anything, but she's so insecure and anxious that she can never bring herself to start a project. Which is why it's lucky she met Prairie, who is hypercompetent at everything (except, oddly, digging, which she's terrible at) and raring to go, but has no idea where to start. They form a symbiotic relationship in which Beaver has the plans and what we humans would call the project management expertise, and Prairie can actually, you know, do the thing.

Despite being relentlessly upbeat and chipper, Prairie is actually kind of a tragic figure in the weirdly subtle way this show does tragic figures, in that, like all Friends, she's the only one of her kind, but she's a member of a species that's optimized to function as part of a squad. Which is why she needs Beaver to give her efforts structure. (Prairie, being the Yukari Akiyama figure of the piece, calls Beaver "Beaver-dono".) These two are absolutely adorable. Beaver is the cutest Friend. Fact.

Oh yeah, also, a hearty snog is apparently a traditional prairie dog greeting. No one else was expecting that.

At the other end of the spectrum are Siberian Moose and Lion, each of whom leads a small force of Friends in the Plains Zone who are locked in an eternal but so-far bloodless war over a small castle-like building. Moose is about what you would expect from someone who personifies a moose: huge, powerful, not real bright even by Friend standards. She thinks everything is a competition, including things that are in no way competitions. On the other hand, she's super friendly and would definitely help you hide a body. Moose is the cutest Friend. Fact.

Lion is hilarious, in that she's a triple paradox. She comes across as incredibly intimidating when she first appears, then almost immediately reveals herself to be lazier than Francesca Lucchini and just fronting for her minions (whom she inevitably calls her pride), and then demonstrates that, if actually roused, she is in fact a terrifying engine of doom. For a couple of minutes. Then she needs a nap. She wants to throw the war with Moose because she's bored of it and is worried that someone will eventually get hurt. Lion is the cutest Friend. Fact.

Lion and Moose are both completely ignorant of their own relationship's subtext, which is also hilarious. Additionally, they are both clearly archetyped on male animals—Lion's hairstyle resembles a lion's mane, and Moose has antlers, both of which are characteristics only of the males of their species.

Interestingly, one of Lion's followers is Aurochs, despite the fact that they're extinct. This provides an opportunity to note that Sandstar can create a Friend from an animal that is no longer alive, or indeed a fossil, not just a live animal.

Meanwhile, one of Moose's followers is Shoebill, whom I urge you to look up on Safebooru or wherever. Shoebill is the personification of the shoebill stork, a huge and intimidating but really rather friendly bird. She, in turn, is a sweet and quiet girl who has a severe case of Resting I WILL END YOU Face. Whenever Serval and Kaban notice her, she's standing off in the background, intently staring at them with a piercing glare of what looks like total contempt/hostility. This unnerves them immensely, but really she wants to be friends with them and can't figure out how to get the ball rolling. Shoebill is the cutest Friend. Fact.

Northern White-Faced Owl, aka The Professor, and Eurasian Eagle Owl, aka Assistant, live in the Japari Library and present themselves as the Wizard-of-Oz figures of the park. They know all and tell some. They use the phrase "because we are wise" a lot. Assistant's job appears to be simply to agree with the Professor at all times, which she does mainly by nodding when the Professor finishes a sentence and saying, "Nano desu." Like actual owls, they have no facial expressions, regarding everything with blank, wide-eyed impassivity.

They also have no idea what they are talking about roughly 90 percent of the time. :) Although, interestingly, they are competent enough to recognize Kaban as human, and they know that Friends are animals who have been turned mostly-human by Sandstar. The Professor is the cutest Friend. Fact.

And of course there is Tsuchinoko, who demonstrates that an animal does not in fact even have to be acknowledged as real by science to become a Friend. A tsuchinoko is a Japanese cryptid, described as being sort of a tadpole-shaped viper. The Japanese backcountry is said by old-timers to be swarming with them, but no one has ever photographed one or in any other way proved that they exist. The Friend version is simultaneously misanthropic and lonely, which makes her deeply tsundere when encountered. She doesn't want you to go away, but she also won't come out from her hiding place, but instead will very contentedly stand just behind the doorway with her tail showing and shout abuse at you. Because it's not like she doesn't want you to leave! Stupid.

Tsuchinoko is the cutest Friend. Fact.

There are a lot of others—did I mention the five-penguin aidoru troupe?—but I've rattled on about this for long enough and I do want to leave some reason for people who haven't seen the show to maybe check it out. Before I end, though, I want to go over the other thing about the way the show is plotted and timed that I think is really brilliant. This is a huge spoiler for the endgame of the first series, so even if you've come this far, if you haven't seen it and think you might want to watch it, you should probably stop reading.

OK, so, the Ceruleans. Like Friends, they are spawned from Sandstar, and they seem compelled to seek it out. They seem to be mostly mindless (again, like the Neuroi et al.), but when they encounter a Friend, they'll go to any length necessary to capture and engulf her. Serval initially descibes this as being eaten, but later it turns out that a Friend "eaten" by a Cerulean isn't killed, technically; she's expelled alive, but turned back into an animal. If that animal is later turned back into a Friend by another Sandstar exposure, she won't remember anything about having been one before.

(It is strongly implied a couple of times that this has happened to Serval at least once, which, again, is surprisingly dark for a show of this kind, but handled so deftly that the younger members of the audience probably won't have noticed it. As is the fact that the show itself is post-apocalyptic; Japari Park is abandoned, it appears, because the Ceruleans at the very least extirpated humanity from the island. It's left ambiguous as to whether they're completely extinct on Earth or just not going anywhere near the park, although the crashed B-2 bomber that very briefly appears toward the end suggests a wider conflict...)

At the climax of the series, Kaban gives herself up to a Cerulean to save Serval. Working together—something they learned from Kaban—a bunch of the Friends they met along the earlier course of the series defeat the Cerulean and recover her, but they're too late, and she reverts back to the animal she originally was.

Which is of course a human. She turns back into... herself.

Memories intact, presumably because the reason other Friends lose theirs is because their original animal forms don't have the capacity to retain human-style long-term memories. It's obvious once it happens, but the clues are buried cleverly enough that it sneaks up on you, unless it's just that I'm a bit dense and didn't cotton on soon enough. :)

(She's also still a Friend, because, like the other Friends', her clothes grow back. This is also pretty subtly done; it took me a while to figure out that her fingers are black in the last scene because it's her gloves growing back.)

So, yeah. Kemono Friends. The production is a bit janky, and the premise seems goofy at first glance, but it has a weirdly well-executed web of deeper concepts behind it. Cunningly concealed dark corners. There's a lot to get ahold of there, and unlike, say, Strike Witches, it doesn't feel like the people who made it were trying to gloss over that fact so much as to be subtle about it.

There is a second series, but owing to some kind of corporate falling-out, it was made by a different team of people and goes in a different direction with a mostly-different cast (including a Serval who may or may not be the one from the first series, and if she is, she's "died" at least once since then). I didn't dig it.

There's also a manga series, Welcome to Japari Park, which is available in English both in print and for Kindle. It's set long before the anime, during the time when the park was a going concern, with a large full-time human population and a totally different vibe, which is interesting. Has that feel like at the beginning of Jurassic World, when the park is actually working.

(If it were up to me, I would make the most boring Jurassic Park movie ever made, in which everything works fine and people have a lovely time hanging out with docile, friendly dinosaurs. It would just be a slice-of-life comedy about working in a fully, mostly-smoothly functional dino zoo. :)

--G.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
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