Hataage! Kemono Michi (Kemono Michi: Rise Up)

Professional wrestler Genzou Shibata sports the body of a mountain, but beneath his hulking appearance is a man with an extreme affection for animals. Facing off his opponents in the ring as the legendary "Animal Mask," Genzou wins the hearts of crowds everywhere with his iconic tiger persona.

During the bout for the title of World Champion against his greatest rival, the Macadamian Ogre, Genzou is suddenly summoned to a fantasy world by a princess. With her kingdom being threatened by a monster infestation, she pleads the wrestler for assistance—to which he answers by knocking her out with a German suplex! Escaping the castle and finding himself stranded in a mysterious land, Genzou decides to begin his career as a beast hunter to capture and befriend creatures far and wide. Joined by the wolf-girl Shigure, the dragon-girl Hanako, and the vampire Carmilla Vanstein, the professional wrestler pursues all kinds of dangerous requests for the sake of fulfilling his dream as a pet shop owner.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Kemono Michi

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Characters & Voice Actors

Shigure

Main

Sekine, Akira
Japanese

Shibata, Genzou

Main

Konishi, Katsuyuki
Japanese

Hiroyuki

Supporting

Suegara, Rie
Japanese

Jeeg

Supporting

Edgardo Latis, Altena

Supporting

Suegara, Rie
Japanese

Hanako

Supporting

Yagi, Yuki
Japanese

Vanstein, Carmilla

Supporting

Sakuraba, Arisa
Japanese

Misha

Supporting

Tamegai, Hana
Japanese

Joannascore Adorian Uljika, Joanna

Supporting

Amamiya, Sora
Japanese

Celes

Supporting

Koga, Aoi
Japanese

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Staff

Cook, Justin

Producer

Tokumura, Kenichi

Producer

Taniguchi, Hiroyasu

Producer

Kabashima, Manami

Producer

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Opening Theme

"Fight! Kemoner Mask (闘魂（ファイト）！ケモナーマスク)" by NoB with Kemoner Mask (Katsuyuki Konishi)

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Ending Theme

"Anegdot (アネクドット)" by Momosu Momosu (ももすももす)

Reviews

Feb 2, 2023

bliss1023

Recommended

I laughed so hard on this😆.Hataage is extremely hilarious. The action scene are awesome & funny just like KONOSUBA!

It has a good plot but not so intriguing.SO,if someone love thriller, this is not for you but if someone looking for comedy&isekai😉 Hataage is a perfect choice!
As,there are not so much comedy isekai anime!
Here,
One get to see an oversmart villain & a stupid hero who is fond of animals.
Don’t worry!There is harem too.

Let me tell you why Hataage is a bit of unique and hilarious isekai anime!

...

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Dec 22, 2022

RebelPanda

Mixed Feelings

To be honest, I don’t expect much from isekai anime. I know this isn’t a hot take considering the genre is oversaturated as hell these days, but I thought Kemono Michi could be different. A pro-wrestler being isekai’d into a fantasy world? That’s a gimmick I never would’ve expected. Think of all the possibilities this could have been original. Maybe even good.

Although it’d be unfair to say this is just another isekai, I wouldn’t say it succeeds at what it tried to do. I expected it to at least be weird, and it certainly is ridiculous. Other than weirdness, there’s not much else. It was ... funny at times, but mostly I was just bored. Between the motionless animation, repetitive comedy, and an average cast of characters, there’s not a whole lot left to enjoy.

The main problem with the cast is their lack of purpose. There’s no reason for them to be together. They have no chemistry. The show begins with Genzo, the titular wrestler known as 'Animal Mask' getting summoned to fight monsters in a fantasy world. Soon after he meets Shigure, a mischievous wolf girl. She hangs around him for no reason other than her personal gain. She steals swords and armor from people Genzo beats up, then sells them at a pawn shop. As for her relationship with Genzo? She couldn’t care less about him. If he tries to start a conversation with her, she’ll say something like “not interested,” as if she read my mind. It’s funny how blunt she is, especially because she’s so relatable. She’s practically uninvolved with the action, she just does her own thing. It’s a shame the show does absolutely nothing with her (or any of the cast for that matter) because she was my favorite of the bunch. I wish she had been the protagonist, unfortunately, the one we got… kinda sucks.

I couldn’t care less about Genzo. The guy is a box of rocks. He has one good personality trait, a nice animal lover. His dream is to open a pet shop, aww that’s cute—until you realize he likes animals a little too much. Recruited to slay monsters, he chooses to make friends with them instead. Rather than killing, he wrestles monsters, then forcibly pets them in a borderline fetishistic way. There’s even a side plot of wolfman who basically has PTSD from being molested by Genzo. He spends most of the show misunderstanding what people say, assaulting animals, missing social cues, and hitting people (usually his friends) rather than resolving things with words.

Genzo's stupidity is played for humor, but it makes him look more like an asshole. We never hear what he’s thinking. Sometimes I wondered if Carmilla’s insult was true, that he “has a muscle where his brain should be.” Speaking of which, Carmilla has no connection to Genzo either. She sticks around for the little red-haired demon girl. I struggle to find much to say about this one. She hates demon food, so she runs away from home to eat human food. That’s about it. I don’t know why she chose to stay with Genzo.

There’s not much else to add for the characters, which sucks considering they’re what the show’s about. Genzo is conceptually the glue that binds the group together. However, all he does is say/do stupid shit and the others call him an idiot. Without him, there’s nothing. They’re an awkward group of people who don’t give two shits about each other. In the first couple of episodes, the jokes are decent. Every character consistently has great overexaggerated voice acting. You can tell the actors are having fun with the script, even if the directing doesn't do them justice. Genzo’s a weird pervert, but because everyone else called him out, it was funny. This one prominent joke—and variations of it—make up the entire show. Rinse, repeat. Over time you start to wonder if there are more jokes in this show… Rinse repeat. Is there anything else? Rinse repeat. God, I’m bored.

It’s hard to not compare Kemono Michi to Kononsuba. Written by the same author, there are many similarities. The cast is comprised of one dude and three girls, slapstick humor, subversion of standard isekai plots. There’s even a token ‘masochistic girl’ character, and strangely she’s blonde too. After the main characters got tiring, there wasn’t much else I cared about, aside from a few minor reoccurring characters. One of my favorites was the bear woman that crushes on Genzo because whenever he comes by he pats her fur and flatters her. She’s married too which makes it kinda scandalous in a goofy way. Eventually, it becomes a love triangle between the bear woman, her husband, and Genzo. Yes. That is the kind of show this is. Of course, it’s only a very minor long-running-joke in the show. Nothing becomes of it, but I always was happy when the show gave bear woman some screentime.

Where the comedy fails the most isn’t the milquetoast, repetitive jokes. The comedic timing is almost non-existent. Most of the show is the main characters chatting it up, with jokes thrown in here or there. The mold for an average ‘joke’ in Kemono Michi goes as follows:

Step 1: Girl calls Genzo an animal-loving-pervert.
Step 2: Cue the default image of them arguing with some speed lines.
Step 3: Cut back to whatever was happening.
Step 4: (Repeat steps 1-3)

If a joke fails to surprise and seemingly has no reason to be there, it’s not funny. Sad to say, the person in charge of Kemono Michi’s adaptation hasn’t heard of this basic rule of comedy. Whenever a joke is cued or a character reaction pops up, you get a lame sound effect, or sometimes nothing at all. The boring elevator background music sometimes plays straight through the jokes, nothing works right. I never expected a director to completely miss what’s supposed to make a joke funny in an anime. Even the most forgettable comedies these days don’t mess up this shit, it’s just the basics. I expected a mediocre production from this studio’s first show, and that’s what I got. Rewatching a few of the episodes dubbed (which is surprisingly pretty decent) I noticed how much art gets recycled.

Watching Kemono Michi as a whole series rather than weekly is an absolute chore. They must have used the shot of the princess getting German Suplexed ten times throughout the show. If you're patient, Every two episodes there’s some nice looking sakuga. Other than that, there’s not much worth looking at. The character designs are good, but they’re simplified, and there’s not much animation at all. Even when there’s motion, it’s rarely animated with more than a series of still frames. It’s a shame because the characters would look pretty cool if they tried. They’re what you’d expect from a furry manga; the male characters are fully anthropomorphized animals, whereas the girls will just have cat ears and a tail.

At best Kemono Michi is a decent time-waster. At worst it’s a tedious chore to watch. The art is average, the characters are average, the story is average, the music is average. There were a few jokes I enjoyed, until they were repeated a dozen times. If you’re looking for an over-the-top slapstick isekai comedy in the same vein as Konosuba, you could do way better than this.

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Nov 19, 2021

Ido1234

Not Recommended

Burn Brain cells the anime
This was so terrible that I think this entire plot and concept was written by a monkey or by one year old you know what it would be insulting to the monkey and the baby because I’m sure that even they could come up with a better plot and characters then this shit show in fact the scene where the main character sniff the ass of The werewolf man describe The feeling of watching this where I begin with this one so I will say the story is practically nonexistent the art was even basic for this genre ...

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Poll: Hataage! Kemono Michi Episode 1 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 ) Stark700 - Sep 29, 2019	181 replies	by rhythmico »» Apr 12, 4:27 PM
Poll: Hataage! Kemono Michi Episode 8 Discussion Stark700 - Nov 20, 2019	39 replies	by kdushxbdbejw »» Nov 22, 2023 12:11 AM
any romance in this anime? Stoorainclaire - Dec 30, 2019	2 replies	by provat_haque »» Nov 12, 2023 10:43 AM
Poll: Hataage! Kemono Michi Episode 9 Discussion Stark700 - Nov 27, 2019	49 replies	by GooseHybrid »» Oct 18, 2023 5:51 PM
Poll: Hataage! Kemono Michi Episode 12 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Stark700 - Dec 18, 2019	80 replies	by __FK__ »» Jul 13, 2023 8:20 AM

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