Kemono Friends

Japari Park is an untamed paradise where many humanoid animals, known as "Friends," live their everyday lives in all corners of the natural environmental park.

One lazy afternoon in the savannah area, the energetic Serval encounters a peculiar new Friend. Curious, she swiftly takes down the Friend, named Kaban, to try and discover what species she is. To Serval's disappointment, not even Kaban herself knows the answer.

The two become friends and set out on a grand adventure through the many habitats, landmarks, and attractions of Japari Park. Their destination is the park library, where they hope to shed some light on Kaban’s identity. Along the way, they meet many other Friends, looking into their lives and helping them out. However, they soon begin to uncover the sinister reality behind the park and their own existence.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Background

Kemono Friends won the Animation of the Year award in the Television category at the Tokyo Anime Award Festival in 2018 and the 50th Seiun Award for Best Dramatic Presentation in 2019.

Episode Videos

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Related Anime

Adaptation:	Kemono Friends: Youkoso Japari Park e!
Sequel:	Kemono Friends 2, Kemono Friends: Bus-teki
Other:	Uma no Friends, Anisama, Nissin no Donbei x Kemono Friends, Youkoso Japari Park, Chokotto Anime Kemono Friends 3

More characters

Characters & Voice Actors

Serval

Main

Ozaki, Yuka
Japanese

Kaban

Main

Uchida, Aya
Japanese

Lucky Beast

Main

Uchida, Aya
Japanese

Hashibirokou

Supporting

Komori, Misae
Japanese

Araiguma

Supporting

Ono, Saki
Japanese

Tsuchinoko

Supporting

Kobayashi, Yuu
Japanese

Toki

Supporting

Kaneda, Tomoko
Japanese

Tairikuookami

Supporting

Itou, Kanae
Japanese

Fennec

Supporting

Motomiya, Kana
Japanese

Kitakitsune

Supporting

Mimori, Suzuko
Japanese

More staff

Staff

Hosoya, Nobuyuki

Producer

Ishigaki, Yoshihiko

Producer

Fukuda, Jun

Producer

Kudou, Daijou

Producer

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Opening Theme

	"Youkoso Japari Park e (ようこそジャパリパークへ)" by Doubutsu Biscuits [Common Raccoon (Saki Ono), Serval (Yuka Ozaki), Fennec (Kana Monomiya)] x
	PPP [Rockhopper Penguin (Aina Aiba), Humboldt Penguin (Ikuko Chikuta), Royal Penguin (Mikoi Sasaki), Emperor Penguin (Ruka Nemoto), Gentoo Penguin (Kyouka Tamura)]

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Ending Theme

"Boku no Friend (ぼくのフレンド)" by Mewhan (みゆはん)

Reviews

Dec 10, 2023

princegi888

Recommended

Kemono Friends is an anime that stands out in the children's genre due to its unique storyline. It takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where humans no longer exist and humanoid animals are the dominant species. These animals are fascinated by human creations such as robots, guided cars, and artificial systems.

The anime gained significant popularity due to the story of Grape Kun, a penguin who was intrigued by human creations, particularly the Lulu penguin billboard. Despite being a children's anime, Kemono Friends has a distinctive quality that incorporates elements of Steins Gate, making it an excellent choice for adults.

In summary, Kemono Friends is a ...

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Sep 20, 2019

Chapterhouse

Mixed Feelings

Kemono Friends is an idea with a lot of potential and not a lot of payoff. At first I went in expecting an edutainment show about animals, and while KF has that, there's not nearly as much of it as I had hoped for. So next, I turned to the plot about Ceruleans. Maybe it would reveal detailed lore about the world and characters and the origin of the friends and Ceruleans? Well there's some - but not nearly enough. Kemono Friends ends up, unfortunately, being about 10% cool animal facts, 10% story and character driven narrative, and 80% 'moe girls doing directionless moe things'.

Out ... of all the decisions in this show, the one I disagree with most is making all the animals into moe girls. Maybe they could've gone 50/50 and had characters that behave in equal parts human and feral, or, even better, just taken normal animals and made them talk, but instead they took the most pandering route possible. If someone who had never seen this show got a glimpse of these characters, who do you honestly think would believe it you when you said: "These characters used to be real animals before they got transformed"? Not only does every character look like a 100% human wearing costume parts, but their behavior linking back to the original animals are vague at best. It's like a bunch of girls roleplaying as animals they read a wikipedia article about once. That being said, I loved the animal facts when they happened, especially the inbetween voice-overs from real zoo workers.

What I also liked was the later episodes. This is when we finally got the plot and tension promised by the Ceruleans and Kaban's mysterious origins early on. Episode 10 has my favorite moment in the entire show, when (minor spoiler), Serval starts crying over the projection and she isn't sure why. It hints that an important character was lost from the park, and gives both lore and characterization to Serval and the other animals that's missing from most of the show. If I were to rate individual episodes, the first 9 would be 3-4/10s at best, but for the last few episodes I'm willing to bump it up to a 5 overall for a solid ending.

If this show had been more like a documentary full of animal facts, or a character and lore-driven unique world, I could see why people love it. As it stands, this show was too much moe-meandering for me and not enough meaningful messages and moments. It had its good parts, and I don't hate it, but overall the characters are bland and don't do much other than 'act cute/silly', with good themes on friendship and using your strengths overwhelmed by moe antics. None of this is helped by the jarring CGI and decent but forgettable music. The English dub (which I didn't watch, I watched sub), has some pretty funny bloopers/outtakes though, and I could also imagine this show going the route of Ghost Stories and becoming a stupid but hilarious comedy too.

For better kid-friendly recommendations, I would personally suggest You Are Umasou or Chirin's Bell, or, looking past anime and at way more dark/depressing movies, the Plague Dogs. And for straight up animal facts, there's always real nature documentaries. God-bless Sir David Attenborough for everything he's done!

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Jul 11, 2017

HDTurtle

Not Recommended

Kemono Friends, Dora the Explorer of Japan is an easy-going show that the viewer can watch without putting a lot of effort into understanding the story. Just sit back, relax and unwind from all the scary stuff you might had watched from earlier shows.

This show doesn't have a story going for it, you can figure what is going on from the synopsis here on MAL and just watching the first 2-3 episodes, and even then the story isn't anything too ground-breaking. As I said before it is a show that is meant to be relaxing and easy-going.

The background art isn't too bad but the animation ...

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Poll: Kemono Friends Episode 1 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Aversa - Jan 10, 2017	82 replies	by BlueCrowned »» Dec 8, 2023 8:14 PM
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Kemono Friends

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Serval

Kaban

Lucky Beast

Hashibirokou

Araiguma

Tsuchinoko

Toki

Tairikuookami

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Kitakitsune

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Information

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Synopsis

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Episode Videos

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