Twitter is like a world to itself. There are many different things going on all at the same time. But one thing I noticed from the Japanese artists I follow is an explosion of animal looking girls but they weren’t the typical drawings. They looked like they were from a show together and then I looked and it’s one of the shows I didn’t want to touch with a 10 foot pole. Kemono Friends.
At first the pics were all cute looking girls just being friendly but for some reason it exploded in Japan after about the 4th episode. I still resisted but at least I went to find out what it was. Because there was this one character that is very eye catching. I wanted to know what she was based on because I couldn’t tell and the others were obvious. She’s based on the shoebill which has to be one of the oddest and obscure birds around. Compare her to the other girls and your curiosity would be piqued too. I saw the pics and kept ignoring them but then this odd looking character showed up in my feed and I just couldn’t figure it out and since I need to know everything I went looking.
The show is based on a zoo where the animals have become humanlike. I don’t want to call them anthropomorphized but that’s basically what it is. The reason I use humanlike is the main character is seemingly human. It seems like some big apocalyptic event happened and even the girls don’t know what it is. They just know that this is the world they now live in. But the show is on late at night which means it’s not a kids show even though it definitely looks like it with the very rough CGI animation and the cutesiness of it. Plus the show doesn’t have a strong plot or heavy intrigue. It’s just a happy happy show with some big event behind it that they are trying to figure out. Supposedly the people in Japan are watching because it’s a break from the seriousness of the world but I think it’s just the fact that Japan is on a huge moe kick.
Kemono Friends is actually based on a failed mobile game. As you know a lot of anime comes from games and this is no different but the popularity of the anime is not bringing the game back. The people in charge though did say they want the show to continue. That could mean one cour like it usually does or more like he indicated.
Supposedly the show has more people visiting the zoo to see these animals which kind of makes sense but who would have expected it to be popular with adults when this one seems to be very kid friendly and maybe even intended for kids.