Kerokko Demetan

Kerokko Demetan is one of the darkest G-rated "Family Friendly" anime I've ever seen.

After demetan survives a genocide on tree frogs from a group of salamanders, devouring the majority of his family members, leaving only him, his two parents, and two other sibilings who were both lost due to a storm shortly after the genocide, he gets separated from his parents and siblings, Demetan finds himself lost in a foreign land. A female frog named Rantan saves Demetan's life and helps him reunite with his father and mother, as a result, Demetan quickly falls in love with his saviour, but little does he know, Rantan ... happens to be the daughter of the cruel ruler of the pond in which he will be living.

The anime has a strong start (episodes 1 & 2), but I don't recommend watching it for the main plot, as most of the 39 episodes don't advance the story or develop the main characters. After episode 2, the series becomes episodic, which is both the show's core strength and weakness. Many of these episodes fail to focus on the main cast, with only one or two new characters appearing for a single episode.

Some of these episodes now actually maturely explore story themes related to the story's main theme; "the world is cruel." Parenthood, slavery, deception, capitalism, forgiveness, friendship, rebellion, racism, religion, and other themes are explored. While the majority of these episodes lack character development for the main characters, they are still worth watching because the conflict presented is ethically ambiguous or grey (not black or white).

However, there is some inconsistency with the main characters, particularly Rantan, e.g., being suddenly hostile to Demetan after a conflict was resolved in the previous episode, which may be due to the fact that the episodes are written by a variety of writers.

The anime has an English dub, a film called "The Brave Frog" in which the English studio combined the first two episode and two other random episodes from the series.

Unfortunately, some of these "episodic" episodes are bad, either because they fail to adequately explore a theme related to the context of the main story theme, or because the new characters are boring one-dimensional characters.

Just stumbled upon Kerokko Demetan by sheer luck after looking for a silly and relaxing anime, but it turned out I was quite wrong about what I first thought about it. Despite being an anime whose target audience are essentially kids, Kerokko Demetan tackles issues that are not as childish as they seem.

Kerokko Demetan depicts the story of a young eponymous frog, our hero Demetan, and his family, who after being evicted from their living place by newts (the in media res opening scene giving us a glimpse of the atrocity of the world in which we, the spectators, are almost immediately immersed) and losing ... most of the members of the family are forced to begin a new life in a pond, the Rainbow Pond. Then begins the tale of Demetan trying to change his environment, to make the Rainbow Pond a better place.

Even though the narrative is not really structured, with most of the times loosely connected episodes and the only guiding thread being the will of Demetan to integrate and change the Rainbow Pound or protecting his lover, Ranatan and his family, each episode manages to tie into our hero's ambition and spur his determination. In order to do that, Kerokko Demetan doesn't shy away from adopting a really mature or even tragic tone (often cynical too, with the exemple of the punchline of the mother turtle who dies protecting a ping-pong ball after thinking it was her egg) by having our hero and his lover meet different characters, each of them having a common goal : they long to find their places in a world which threatens and/or rejects their existence.

This contrast between a beautiful world, filled with beautiful yet surreal backgrounds with a vibrant color palette emphasizing the precious thing that is life, and the harsh reality where the characters are threatened by forces that excede them spurrs interesting questions. The characters, despite being animals, are driven by deep human feelings and, in some ways, are trying to break free from their animal conditions to attain true freedom.

Although Kerokko Demetan suffers from some elements inherent to it's target audience such as silly dialogues that undermine the impact of some scenes or characters whose tomfoolery are pushed to their paroxysm, which often leads them to make incoherent choices (typically Kiata, who suddenly decides to help Demetan in the last episodes while bearing hatred for him since the beginning of the anime and the lack of some sign showing he was reflecting on his wrongdoings), it remains faithful to it's narrative, answering to the issues it tackles in a simple yet genuine way, with great emotional power.

It may not be an amazing anime but I had a great time following the tale of Demetan fighting for the sake of his lover, family and his land. Once again, it was a great surprise.