The End of All Friends

Written by Pollution#5607


Preface

With this document, I hope to detail at least some of what I think stands out about Kemono Friends as a series, in a relatively concise, easy to understand, all-in-one-place, kinda casual manner.

I first learned about Kemono Friends through this artist around the time when I used Twitter a lot between 2017 and 2018. I wasn't as much of an otaku then, having only seen some 40 anime. Kemono Friends was a show I learned about alongside a bunch of others (Girls und Panzer, Higurashi, etc.) in a cultural barrage, so it only left a faint mark within my conscious in the moment. Over time, the impression became more pronounced.

Kaizo released this TF2 map sometime around 2019. This was probably my first big introduction to how Kemono Friends enjoyers think of the show, and to what degree they care about it. The feeling of community is something I find extremely valuable about Kemono Friends, which is why I think this basis is important. Around the beginning of 2020, I started getting into anime proper after beginning my second wageslave job and having gained some momentum from various group watches of Evangelion and NHK. Soon enough, I downloaded Kemono Friends.

Kemono Friends

「セルリアンに逢ってはセルリアンを斬る。フレンズに逢ってはフレンズを斬る。ジャパリの理ここに在り!!」・名無し

Episode 1

Kemono Friends starts out with a panning view over the savanna, and 立山秋航's soft ambiance playing in the background. The music in this series is something I immensely enjoy. The vague feelings of mystery that it emits are really palpable, if that makes sense. I don't mean to contradict myself. What I mean is that the further you listen to it, the more conspicuous it gets. His music has a good feeling of silliness and adventure packed into it. It reminds me strongly of the Pokemon Channel OST in that way.

The camera cuts to a more level view, and what stands out as being weird, at least if we wanna speak normatively, are these multicolored flakes floating upwards through the air from the grass. Very little focus is given to them however, and instead the camera slowly zooms into a nearby tree. We see traces of the neck, ears, then tail of a sleeping girl we'll soon become well acquainted with.

i love her so much

The camera pans then cuts back to the grass, being much lower this time. Behind some bush and those flakes we saw before, a hat with a feather attached to it crosses the screen from right to left, then some legs. Soft panting can be heard. Suddenly the camera pans back to the girl whose ears are perked, tail excited. With a look of conviction that reminds me of the dumb face of Alien 9's Kasumi (Probably not the only time I'd make that comparison), she slowly crouches before pouncing.

A chase to the death ensues between the girl and her prey, filled with screaming and laughter. Though, she states shortly after in a response to her prey's questions and pleas that it's merely 狩りごっこ. After some more struggling and a failed attempt to hide, the girl finally pounces on her prey, pinning them down.

a prey's final moments before their innards are torn into

「食べないでください!」 the prey foolishly begs. Of course though, if they would have been properly listening, they would have realized this was just 狩りごっこ after all. The girl quickly corrects her prey, then after a short period of calming down and a bit of question asking, we learn the name of Japari Park and she finally introduces herself as Serval. A small infographic accompanies her as she stretches her arms out and gives the pose of Christ.

I find that these little infographics being included in a show aimed at kids is something I really enjoy. This habit of respecting the viewer in this way is something I can get along with. Also, I just love this pose. I haven't mentioned ether or Lily Chou-Chou yet, but this is one of those poses that emits a good feeling of ascension as well as confidence and being showy.

preparing to be hugged

The conversation moves in the direction of both the physical and characteristic differences between Serval and the kid with the hat. Serval gives the impression that it's not too abnormal to have these kinds of differences, and tries to inquire about the kid's specific traits like their 縄張り to not much avail. Suddenly, Serval poses that the kid must have been born in yesterday's Sandstar, whatever that means.

One thing you might notice about the background of this savanna is its strong resemblance to the area surrounding Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. I think that basing where the show takes place in somewhere very real or grounded is something that I really enjoy. Of course, you'll also notice that rainbow-colored gobbledygook spewing out from the top of it, in the same color as the stuff lying scattered in the grass. Having a strong basis of believability or reasons for the existence of things, besides just basing something on reality, but the rules of reality, while having comparatively smaller while still present supernatural or mysterious is one of the reasons I think I enjoy stuff like Saki and Girls' Last Tour and am not particularly into stuff like Boogiepop and Others. At the same time, not enough feelings of mystery might get a little boring, like with Non Non Biyori. I hope what I'm saying makes sense.

Upon some more inquiring to the kid's identity, Serval seems to have heard my unspoken cries about having to keep calling them the kid and properly names them Kaban, which I remember being something 外人 found silly to translate when listening to one of the interviews regarding the dub some day a while ago. I actually haven't watched Kemono Friends before with an English dub yet, but maybe it'd be fun to in the distant future once I'm close to exhausting everything Kemono Friends.

Serval points out that if we wanna figure out what's up with Kaban we oughta go to the 図書館. Until this point, we haven't really gotten the impression that a society which can facilitate such an establishment exists in this world, being out in the wild and all. It gives this good feeling that there's a lot we're yet to see, or a feeling of space outside of this spot in the savanna.

Serval says that she can lead the way, and we're off! It's from this point that Kemono Friends really starts to shine and get in the groove of things. I'm really into how the backgrounds look in this show. They have a good painterly feeling to them. Maybe I'm just prone to being happy coming across anime that show nature well, considering a lot of it takes place indoors or in cities. It's a good change of pace. This specific shot is reminiscent of maybe this one from さらば箱舟, or maybe this one from 殻ノ少女. It feels like what I'm saying is that, "A tree looks like a tree," and that might be all I'm saying. It's something prone to making a good engraving in my memory, which is something I value. I always wonder if the new things I watch and enjoy I only do so merely because they play on traits I already enjoyed before in that way. I don't know if that makes sense or there's an alternative or another way of writing it.

The first friend that we meet besides Serval and Kaban is シマウマちゃん, which we can't even really call meeting, spotting her from a distance before she runs off. This is something I really like about Kemono Friends, and it's how its 擬人化 elements play into how the show is made rather than just being an element for which to make the characters stylish, which they are of course yes. Everyone's character traits are on display and they play actual roles in how things are animated and paced, from this interaction here, to Serval's various poses and gestures.

There's a real feeling of depth when you look at how everyone interacts with the world, which I think is awesome. It says more than just 立ち絵 moving around on a boring old filtered photo taken with a camera of some place in Tokyo. Digimon is another show which has been known to create this sense of space well, not just in the digital world but also in the real world. I know I just ragged on Tokyo, but I think the scale and way the environment is altered and interpreted makes it different. Though to give a more recent example, I wanna point to Akebi-chan. I'd post a screenshot but it's not on my computer and I don't feel like redownloading it. It's a short watch and really nice and pleasing. I know I gave the impression earlier that this kind of 癒し系 show doesn't really suit me, but I think there's a lot more than just being comfortable to watch. The way this show, in the same way as Kemono Friends, creates a lot of depth and shows off the unique traits, likes, and dislikes in its characters is something I get along with well. Of course, this is a Kemono Friends review. However one more recommendation I'll give is Hakumei to Mikochi, though it's been a while since I watched it. I hope this idea of bearing a sense of space is something people understand better.

So eventually, we run into our first Cerulean. Thankfully, Serval makes quick work of it. The way the music changes when we encounter these guys is pretty cool. It also helps to give the show a sense of danger like you might expect from wandering around in the wilderness, since it doesn't seem like any of the friends, at least those we've met so far, have any strong intention of trying to kill or eat us. While that is the case, I'm really into the undertone that maybe friends can eat other friends. It's certainly depicted that way in a lot of 同人 works, and is one of the serious interpretations I like.

The voice acting and character design for everyone in Kemono Friends is something I love a lot. It's so honest and playful while not being childish to the point of mundane, even having aspects of sexiness to it without being promiscuous. I generally have a hard time feeling empathy for people or anime characters, and don't find myself crying or feeling strong emotion for those kinds of reasons. It's one of the reasons I like to lean towards horror since it gives a good strong feeling that will break through the numbness. When I run into a show that's as pure and lovable as this one in that way and doesn't require anyone being tortured or crying to make me feel something, I want to grasp onto that feeling. I wonder why that is, or why I have this feeling towards animal girls such that only they have the cure to making me feel regular human emotion again.

These bits between commercials are awesome, and if what we came across already doesn't give a good representation of treating the viewer with respect, I think this does. For one, it's a really stylish way to animate the friends as though inside of an enclosure at a zoo or a nature reserve. I also think that taking the voices directly from professionals from various countries in their native language to talk about the aspects of the various friends we come across is awesome, and shows an insane level of detail that was put into the show that really didn't need to be. I'm thankful for it.

I think what I enjoy is something which can adopt childlike themes while making it something an adult could watch. Well, that's been said plenty of times. Maybe it's wrong to draw a distinction between child and adult.

The way in which Serval herself doesn't baby Kaban while going along their adventure together is another aspect from which this theme is shown. Being able to acknowledge the strong points and weak points of friends and finding ways to work together is something that going forward this show will demonstrate a lot, allowing for more than just the individual character traits of friends to shine, but their relationships as well.

カバ is the first friend besides us we meet proper besides those two from earlier who ran off. Besides being a friend who loves to bathe, she has something of a big sister or maybe motherly attitude to her. There are some friends which lean into these kinds of character traits independent of those extrapolated from their respective animals. I think this does well to increase the depth of the 擬人化 more than just being that.

So eventually we run into another Cerulean, and a pretty big one too. Scary! This sequence is pretty pumped up as far as animation and music and whatnot goes. It has a good gamey feeling to it while not being an overbearing fight. Kaban finds a way to make herself useful, and along with カバ the three of them clean house.

With that though, Serval and Kaban have to make their separate ways... It's a sad ending, isn't it? Will Kaban be able to make it alone in the world with no one to help? It's a scary thought. Well, it seems Serval changed her mind in the end. It wouldn't make sense why she's on the front of the box art otherwise.

These small signs, lamps, and manmade-seeming landmarks are something that seem to be leading to something bigger, don't they? It gives this post-apocalyptic or abandoned feeling somehow, especially with that sequence on the bridge just now. Is this world only inhabited by friends? Are their towns or larger structures?

From the brush comes out some creature, or maybe robot, that Serval recognizes as Boss. When it speaks though and introduces itself as Lucky Beast, it catches Serval off-guard. I think that all of these mysteries that we've gathered together have made for a lot to chew on!

Then the opening rolls. Ahh! I'm getting pretty hungry at this point. I hope that wasn't overbearing. We actually meet a couple more characters after they roll, which I think is really charming. We'll get to know them a little better as we go なのだ.

Episode 2-10

From here, I just want to point out some aspects of the next 9 episodes rather than going through any of them in too much depth, pointing out what I think stands out most distinctly about about them rather than just giving a play by play.

The second episode does a good example of showing off lots of new friends, as well as incorporating a lot of elements that I mentioned throughout the first episode that I thought made it fun, such as working together, interacting with your environment, and showing off the strengths and weaknesses of everyone. A lot of the friends we meet don't even make a particularly extended stay or appearance, which is crazy given how great the character designs on a lot of them are, being relegated to just a couple shots. The character designer for this show, 吉崎観音, is pretty based. Oh, I've neglected to mention him because I assume you know how great he is already, but Tatsuki is a large reason this show was able to become the way it was being the director and all. I've watched all of his other works, but that would have been a few years ago so I've kind of forgot much about them. When I run into a director a really enjoy such as 吉浦康裕, I usually find it pretty obvious what traits I think this person excels at because they have a lot of things they've worked on, despite being a smaller director. When I think about Tatsuki, I can only really think about Kemono Friends. I do wonder what he's gonna be up to in the future.

We're able to see the ending animation for the first time, which depicts a lot of black and white panning photos of various kinds of locations at an amusement park. It becomes more obvious how this plays into the show later on, but I think that it brings Kemono Friends into the real world in a way that makes me really happy. I feel really good that I can think of the real world through the eyes of Kemono Friends.

With the third episode we're introduced to a few of my favorite characters throughout the series, Toki and Alpaca. When I first watched Kemono Friends, I actually hated Toki. Her voice was so grating to my ears, and since for a period I treated this as a show I could leave on loop throughout the day in the background, it was particularly noticeable. Over time though I came to like her and feel closer to her. I think I found that a large reason I hated her is because she was just like me somehow, so I ended up using her a lot as my avatar in VRChat until it just stuck. I wonder if I've drawn more of her than I have of Serval.

Alpaca's cafe is super adorable, and the first real building we've come up to. We're still not really clued into the origins of how this place came to be, but the way the show is progressing creates a good feeling.

The mystery is surmounted a lot further in the fourth episode. One thing I haven't mentioned yet that increased my joy for this show a lot is spending hours and hours running around this and various other worlds in VRChat. The maze as well as the oasis sort of area we reach at the end are some of the more memorable locations in Kemono Friends for me for that reason.

The first watch I made of Kemono Friends, I'd probably consider American Beaver my favorite character because of the fifth episode. I think that their relationship with Prairie Dog is something that I was able to think of similarly to how I played Terraria and Starbound with my friends, treating them like dogs, getting materials for me to build awesome structures for everyone. I was really into strategy and simulation games at the time and hadn't been learning Japanese kind of at all in 2020 until I joined DJT that December, so most of my day was spent pouring over games like Cities Skylines and Banished while wasting my life away.

Going to the plains in episode six is a pretty fun change of pace. We get to meet a lot of friends that already have cleanly established relationships with one another, in this case being antagonistic to each other, I guess if you wanna look at it that. way. I've already mentioned it, but the backgrounds and locations in this show are just so much fun. Don't think I can express it enough.

Eventually we make it to the library in episode seven. It's been a long way coming, huh? I've been kind of skimming over the story since I know you can watch for yourself and you don't need me to baby you, but from this point it starts to become a bit clearer, while at the same time creating more mysteries. This is a pretty important episode in that way.

Actually, since writing this review is kind of just somewhat of an excuse to shill things adjacent to Kemono Friends that I love, I'll suggest this artist who's pretty into drawing this owl girl. I don't wanna overload you with great artists, but there are a lot in the Kemono Friends community just since all the friends are just so fun to draw. It's one of the great things about enjoying a show like this, just like Touhou I think.

This artist has been doing an awful lot of art for this show as of late, going through some of the lesser known characters and drawing them in a simple pen style. This guy's art has a pretty comfy atmosphere to it I think. I'd have to imagine most people are familiar with this guy's art. Really appealing way of drawing things. The coloring and way tones are drawn is a lot like how 細田守 used to direct his TV anime episodes. This is another guy I've been following as of recently, who has this kind of blobby feeling to their art. Anyways, you get the point.

The eighth episode is another great one, since we're introduced to PPP who we've known only through the opening animation as well as the ending 次回 slide until . Kemono Friends really has something for everyone, idol, 漢文, mystery, 癒やし系, ケモ耳. That's just the feeling I get. I think Margay is a great character too and one of my favorites. As for my favorite PPP member... I guess it is Hururu, huh. Not a particularly out there choice with the entire Grape-kun story.

I'd consider the ninth episode somewhat uneventful, acting as a relaxing break at the bathhouse to hangout with some new friends moreso than messing with too much adventure or solving much mystery. Though, we do get to see friends get naked for the first time, which is awesome. Gotta love nakedness.

The tenth episode at the lodge is really fun. タイリクオオカミ is a character I really like a lot for being more than just another kinda lame wolf or cat girl, being into writing as well as having a cool attitude to her. The horror aspects in this episode are also something I'm into. In a way, how Kemono Friends goes through its episodes is kind of how Key vinnies or maybe Haruhi tend to go through it, in a way trying to hit all the important marks? I wonder if that comparison makes sense, with comparing this episode to the arc at the island, that one in the plains as the baseball episode.

There's a lot to unpack in this scene with its regard to the secret of the world. It's one of the few times where Serval visibly cries. Even now, I find it a bit too much for me to put together in my head and understand, and the more I watch the supporting material for Kemono Friends the more fuzzy it gets. I guess that's where a lot of the sexiness from Kemono Friends comes from, huh. The truth is, we can understand that Kemono Friends really is a post-apocalyptic horror mystery kids anime! Ahahahahahahahaha! This is the best. Kemono Friends is the best. I love Kemono Friends so much.

Episode 11-12

ヒグマ is one of the MVPs throughout the last two episodes, acting as a pretty confident and capable friend alongside Kaban. We also get to meet アライ and フェネック directly, which has been a long time coming.

I don't know if there's much I can say other than, watch it! Words won't do the last two episodes justice. I've given you all that I have.

Once you're finished, this is mandatory viewing.

End

I'm gonna refrain from talking much about the drama surrounding this series, the second season, or much of the supporting material, since I think Kemono Friends stands well on its own. I'll say though that the ONA is worth the watch if you're looking for an おかず, and the manga has some pretty nice art even if it's not the same style of writing as the show or carries over really at all.

I can only hope that I communicated to you what I think is great about Kemono Friends, and you consider watching it, or partaking in any of the links I wanted to share. In this world, there's a lot of good anime, you know. I'd hate for someone to overlook a show like this for a silly reason like its artstyle. I've gotten plenty from this show over the years, and if I can share that, it'd feel really good. There's a lot to love about Kemono Friends.

Pollution

Edit Report
Pub: 20 Oct 2022 17:29 UTC
Edit: 20 Oct 2022 23:58 UTC
Views: 175