Alright, lets lay some background down. Kemono Friends is an anime that very little to work with, as it initially started as a smartphone game, which lasted from March 2015 - December 2016, before the anime even aired. So what could this animation team, working on a shoestring budget, devise up? A surprisingly great anime, despite all its obvious (cough animation cough) flaws.
What I will say, before I say anything about the contents of the anime, is that yes the animation is bad. It is done entirely with 3d modelling and its painfully obvious, very quickly, that the animation is not anywhere near up to scratch as to what is expected usually. This is what heavily split people, you would either watch the first episode, find the animation really off-putting and stop, or, continue on and realise that the story is in fact really really good for what there was to work with.
Now we have this down, lets get into the anime. The scene is set in the first episode to be within a large zoo, with Serval-chan and "Bag"-chan. They go on an adventure to journey to the library, to find out what type of animal "Bag" is. This is what sparks the adventure. I'll be honest, not too much happens in the first couple episodes, and if you are on the fence, I implore you to watch until at least episode 4, as that is where it gets interesting.
You'll meet many "Friends" along the way, each personifying the animal they represent, and the voice actors do a wonderful job, from the main characters to the more supporting roles and the 3d models, as janky they may be, do enough to bring out the characters, and (well I did) become emotionally attached and very much involved into the story.
What you will notice, is behind the veneer of cute girls/"Friends" doing things is the underlying post-apocalyptic/completely abandoned theme. It starts by showing the odd thing here and there which does not fit in, using what I've seen described as many as "show, don't tell" and it does it very well. This is the main concept used through which the post-apocalyptic story is told, however there are one or two things that are said which while flowing well with the childlike playfulness of the script, are actually very important.
This contrast between child/adult themes do wonders for the anime, and these combined really drive the anime and I, amazingly thinking back to the beginning, became very much involved with the story and made me glad that I started after the majority of the episodes was released, because I always wanted to see what happens next, and this intensifies in the second half of the anime, as everything starts to be unravelled and the mysteries that begin in the first half become slowly but surely solved.
And the last couple of episodes, wow, that was an ending and a half. No spoilers, but it really was a great ending.
It really is an underdog story, of how an anime done on a shoestring budget explodes in popularity, and becomes a late bloomer in the season, and it absolutely deserves it. Despite its flaws, it focuses on its positives and really shines through with an excellent story.
Go watch it now. Give it a good old go.
