To call Kemono Friends the ‘dark horse’ series of 2017 is to undersell it to the point of wilful misrepresentation; it’s one of the most absurd, bizarre, and triumphant success stories in the medium ever. The scale of its reception has led to a wide influence and a deep interest, and thanks to that I couldn’t pick just one ‘moment’ from this year to talk about – in the interest of giving even a moderately fair representation of its saga, I’ve had to go with three!
First, we need to start at the beginning: the collective international realisation of “wtf, Kemono Friends is actually good”. Even now the series is a hard sell, so imagine what it was like seeing that on the spring lineup. Here we had a CG anime based on a failed mobile game about animal girls (so a cheap cash-in on a cheap Kantai Collection bandwagoner), with a premise that suggested nothing of note was happening. Digging deeper revealed that the team working on it were tiny and not known for anything, and one of the two main characters would be voiced by a newbie. The only slightly promising thing about it was that the character designs were done by the same person who designed Sgt. Frog, but that wasn’t exactly widely known (or, for that matter, cared about). To be honest, most people – myself included – just skipped it as soon as we saw it was going to be CG, because rarely has that resulted in anything visually appealing. So it went ignored.
But then something strange happened. A few people in Japan watched it, and were rather taken by it. They talked it up, and so more watched it, and they talked it up, and even more watched it, until we got to the point where Kemono Friends’ first episode was the most watched on NicoNico by a WIDE margin. Fanart started emerging en masse as everyone realised the character designs were fantastic. And then the memes poured in, as sure a sign as any of a series truly taking off. But this was all consigned to Japan – it wasn’t until around episode 4 that this buzz started reaching the English speaking anime fandom, and many dismissed it as the Japanese memeing it up. A few gave it a watch to understand these jokes, not expecting much… and they liked it. So they talked it up (“no really, it’s actually good”). So others watched it. So they talked it up. And so the phenomenon reached the west, as naturally and fan-driven as its rise in Japan. I myself started at episode 7, feeling a little left out on my twitter feed and wholly expecting the acclaim to be ironic. But it was actually good! That realisation – and the realisation that I was not the first nor would I be the last to experience that exact feeling – was unforgettable, because in that moment I got to strip away my insincerity and let myself be taken in by Kemono Friends’ sheer, unadulterated joy.
Sure, the animation was janky as hell, but despite a poor first impression that doesn’t mean everything – or anything – else must be bad. What we all learned is that the director’s vision and talent was incredible: characters’ personalities were delightfully translated from their animal counterparts, providing a wide cast of distinct yet curiously familiar friends; the tone was infectiously cheerful and upbeat; and the world-building was intelligent, elegant and compelling. What we had in Kemono Friends was an anime refreshingly devoid of cynicism, full of fun and energy, and with enough hidden depth to really sink your teeth into it. Once you got over that initial aesthetic hump, it was so easy to fall in love. And thus, a surprise runaway hit was born.
Such was its out-of-nowhere success that, to the shock of everyone involved, it single-handedly revitalised – if not outright saved – Japan’s ailing zoos. After years of dwindling turnout leaving them on the precipice of financial ruin, several zoos saw unexpectedly high turnouts with, as they saw it, no explanation. They started taking surveys of these visitors, and found that they were all mentioning Kemono Friends. All the fans were coming to zoos to see their favourite friends in person! Even now this makes me smile – it’s just such a wholesome, feelgood result, and the best possible outcome for everyone and everything involved. To think that a goofy, no-budget, no-staff cartoon would have such a positive, wonderful impact in the real world!
And as great as that news was, that’s not the second moment. No, the real story was what happened next.
Eager to capitalise, many zoos engaged in some cross-promotion with Kemono Friends. This included putting cutouts of the characters in the enclosures of their animal counterparts – so Serval the serval cat could be spotted with actual serval cats! Tobu zoo was one such zoo doing this, but there was an unintended consequence…
Grape-kun, one of their resident Humboldt penguins, was lonely and isolated from his fellows. The female he had been paired with for 10 years left him for a younger male, leaving himself heartbroken. As part of the Kemono Friends promotion a cutout of Hululu – a Humboldt penguin friend – was added to the enclosure. Grape-kun was enamoured. He would spend all his time with her, constantly staring up at her, even neglecting to eat in order to be with her more (zoo staff would end up removing the standout when it was feeding time). Kemono Friends had led to a real life penguin developing a waifu.
Naturally, as soon as news about this got out anime fans across globe were instantly charmed. Are you surprised though? A story about a cute old penguin finding love in anime is simply adorable, and many easily found themselves relating to Grape-kun’s plight (albeit in a self-aware, self-effacing style). It was something you could tell to anyone and they’d find it heart-warming, giving it popular appeal, and acts as a tongue-in-cheek vindication of waifuism, hooking deeply into anime fans. That this all happened thanks to Kemono Friends defying all odds to be a huge, unlikely hit makes it all the sweeter – it’s an underdog story that coincidentally led to a lonely penguin finding love where he might have perished heartbroken, a feelgood twofer. This goofy, awkward show that you couldn’t help but love had become an unambiguous force for good in the world. I love it.
Grape-kun became a central figure in Kemono Friends fandom and a minor celebrity, with fanart and support pouring in from around the world and drawing many visitors to the zoo just to see him. Alas, this story ends on a bittersweet note – Grape-kun passed away only a few months later, old as he was. But even after the promotion ended, the zoo staff kept the cutout in his enclosure – he died with Hululu, his second shot at love, by his side. And so the world mourned – so many were touched by his story, after all. Tributes in various forms were posted from around the world, and a memorial at Tobu zoo drew huge crowds eager to leave flowers, art and, uh, grape Ganta in his memory. It even made international news, so widespread was the mourning.
Thanks to Kemono Friends, Grape-kun got to live out the rest of his life happily. If that small impact is all that the show accomplished, I still think it was worth it.
Every saga needs a villain, and Kemono Friends found it in Kadokawa – the owner of the IP. It’s stunning to think that a company would so stupidly slaughter the friend that laid the golden Japari buns, but either blind to the reasons behind its success or arrogant and hubristic in its need to exert control, Kadokawa removed TATSUKI – the director – from future Kemono Friends projects. The visionary that had to work with so very little and created something so tremendous, who poured his heart into making it the success it was, who was the reason it took off in the way it did – for him to be fired so callously was disgusting. We can only speculate why, but none of the possible answers makes Kadokawa look good – and this led to huge fan backlash. Criticism was so widespread and came from so many quarters (including from within the industry!) that it resulted in Kadokawa’s shares dropping and the CEO having to make a comment on the controversy. Such was the backlash and calls for boycott that companies only tangentially connected had to take action – Good Smile Company for example offered refunds on preorders for Kemono Friends figures, something they never do.
It’s hard to see how the franchise can come back from this – without TATSUKI at the helm, I can’t imagine any sequels will capture the same charm of the original even if they understood it, and the fan outrage potentially guarantees it will flop regardless. It’s a shame that the story of one of the best, nicest shows from this year would end on such a sour note, but such is the nature of corporate bullshit. In the space of a single, stupid decision, they destroyed something that was truly special.
Fuck Kadokawa.
Swabulous Max 
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