I had no issue with it personally, though I would’ve preferred the traditional anime aesthetic. Somewhat clunky, somewhat off, and to some extent, doused in uncanny valley. Overall execution is… much like one would expect.
#Myanimelist ff do not excuse me i think love and lies series
While this isn’t the first time this has ever happened in a series, it is still something of a rarity, as I can only recall two or three other series doing it to so large a project. It is not hand-drawn! The characters are all 3D models, animated in a moe aesthetic. The other is its style of art and presentation. One drastic difference about Kemono Friends is the simplistic, unoffensive approach to its series. This is further accentuated by the final few episodes, in which the tone turns far darker due to a sudden (though not totally uncalled for) dramatic event, which I couldn’t take seriously (and found hard to care about) after the happy-go-lucky, innocent series that preceded it.
![myanimelist ff do not excuse me i think love and lies myanimelist ff do not excuse me i think love and lies](https://cdn.myanimelist.net/images/anime/3/52133.jpg)
Again, if one doesn’t expect the series to wow them with riveting drama or strong characters, Kemono Friends is a perfectly enjoyable series. Even so, it is almost boringly simple and each episode tends to blend together in a mesh of obvious solutions to easy problems provided cute animal girls. It’s charming because it’s different and because it feels pure of heart. Still, from someone who’s trying to look at this from an objective viewpoint, there really isn’t much here. They both also really enjoy interacting with other animals. That’s all they are, from beginning to end. Bag is kind of wimpy and Serval is cheery and playful. The only two recurring characters that share the bulk of screentime are “Bag-chan” and Serval. It’s incredibly simple with not much of anything along the lines of development or plot twists, only interested in character enthusiasm and animal facts. One can appreciate how the series tries a somewhat different approach from the crowded variety of mainstream anime. Despite the kid show mentality, there’s something charming in its one-track mentality of showcasing the strengths of the human race through means of interacting with animals… that are also capable of talking and comprehending various aspects. Should a viewer not have the ego to look down on a series that doesn’t challenge their intelligence, it’s entirely possible to have a good time with Kemono Friends. Does the comparison to The Magic School Bus make sense now? Problems that are presented in each episode are along the same cusp of intellectual difficulty as the real conflict I noted above. Almost like her idea is splendid, the plan works better than the previous 51 times. So, the central character, not being an idiot, suggests that the tribe members take advantage of their strengths to come up with a better means of overthrowing the other tribe. The issue is that one side is so blindly ignorant of their own inadequacy that they resort to the same method of attack 51 times in a row. Two tribes are at war and one side continuously dominates the other. Harmless not in the sense that it doesn’t have any ulterior motives, but harmless in that it’s so unoffensive that it’s hard to even take seriously at times. Here, the term can be applied just as well, except twisted to mean something else. Sometimes I use the term “harmless” when addressing a certain series.
![myanimelist ff do not excuse me i think love and lies myanimelist ff do not excuse me i think love and lies](https://cdn.myanimelist.net/images/userimages/5341090.jpg)
Kemono Friends doesn’t set the stage for a lone male character to be fought over by a bunch of cute, otherworldly, naked women like Dog Days does instead, its atmosphere is more akin to something like Dora the Explorer or The Magic School Bus. Where Dog Days is innocently sexual in nature, Kemono Friends is just innocent. Both feature a laid back atmosphere that almost spontaneously becomes darker as time goes on, both have a lot of characters that are featured for specific lengths of time, and both feature a central character whose position within the world around them is like a fish out of water. Speaking of Dog Days, Kemono Friends shares a lot of similarities with the former, and not just on the surface level. It may also explain why Dog Days has gotten three whole seasons. After all, Love Live! is just the animal traits shy of being within similar territory. It almost doesn’t matter what the context is or what kind of series surrounds these furry friends, chances are, if they’re cute and they exhibit moe qualities, the show’s going to garner a lot of attention. If this recent anime’s popularity is any indication, Japanese people are really into one thing: animal girls.