Kemono Jihen is a good example of a modern shounen integrating "mature" themes while also trying to relay as little good storytelling as possible by using edgy shock value while not developing characters in any meaningful way. It tries to integrate brutality into a morally good cast of characters, and while this can work, the execution of these themes are terrible to say the least.
I'm only going to focus on Shiki, because it just highlights this absolutely horrendous edgy shock value story telling at its finest.
Spoilers ahead, but trust me, nothing much of value has to be said about the story.
At the point of the story where you reach Shiki's backstory, you already know that the main cast of characters have performed a few missions, few of which include killing anthropomorphic and intelligent beings, all of which were warranted. That being said, no humans have been harmed or killed by our main characters. You get where I'm going with this?
Shiki's uncle performed many atrocities on his mother. Forcefully jailing her, inseminating her for many years to forcefully breed offspring, and Shiki, morally scarred and scared of reality, runs away at the prospect of her mother's plight. So far so good.
Many years later, Shiki comes back to discover the truth. Guilty because he abandoned his mother and fueled with rage, he storms upon his Uncle and decides to kill him. Using shounen storytelling tropes, of course he is able to escape. Shiki has a mental breakdown after being confronted with all of his mother's offspring, and loses motivation to kill his uncle. After having Kabane kill all of his mother's offspring, Shiki decides to spare his Uncle. Using arguments such as "He'll have a fate worse than death if he lives," "Killing him won't bring back my mother," he decides to spare his Uncle.
What's wrong with this picture? First of all, I'd really like to point out the timeline of these events. They're extremely close! Shiki goes through more mental development than an adult would do in their entire life in the span of a few days. He gets over his guilt and trauma, gets over his rage, and becomes and enlightened one over the span of a day or so. It's extremely surprising to me that he would not, in a fit of rage, just immediately kill his Uncle, but I guess we have the "shounen" genre to thank for that. Sure, could you "reasonably" say that Shiki could have matured so much? Yeah, as much as Ellie could have rationally spared Abby. Again, even Ellie in TLOU2 has around 60 hours of character development while our boy Shiki has 20 minutes, so Ellie's actions make a bit more sense than Shiki's. It's so frustrating seeing how Shiki spares his Uncle without much of a solid reason; his mentality changes way too quickly. He just commanded all of his siblings to die, and yet he's going to let the perpetrator of all of his pain get away? In fact, you could say that his siblings had no sin, and yet, they took the brunt of his rage, while his actual source of grief and rage is let of scot free. Oh yeah, he's a better person after killing many innocents because he let his main source of rage go. But wait, his siblings were half monster. Wait a second, he himself is half monster. All of his allies are also half monster. What gives? Well, if you don't look human, you're just a monster still! Fire at will. Perfect reasoning. Human looking monster = good, monster looking monster =kill. But wait! They're less intelligent than humans, so they're just animals. Yeah, how about we just kill all mentally disabled while we're at it?
For people thinking that revenge is immature and that Shiki's reasoning was solid, I'd really like to see how they'd react if they had their loved ones tortured and raped for years before their eyes. There's not a shred of "well, his Uncle had some good in him," in which you could perhaps argue for someone like Abby in TLOU2. Again, this is a good example of how the show loves to frame people as "100% good, or 100% bad," and nothing in between. Or how about the argument that "him living is worse than death because I can deny any sort of future achievements he might have." Well, killing him would be the absolute fool-proof plan on eliminating any sort of achievements his uncle might have in the future. And you can see, right after the incident, his Uncle isn't disheartened and is ready to perform atrocities over again. I just hope that Shiki understands that he's letting his Uncle commit more acts of torture and allowing more victims to pile up for his own fragile ego.
Let's go over how Shiki is unable to make his Uncle provide testimony about where his mother's location is. Instead of any confrontation, Inugami gets convenient plot device in the form of information on his mother. I like how the Uncle gets spared so thoroughly, and how Shiki and his friends are at a loss. Yeah, I can't imagine just tearing his Uncle limb by limb or doing any sort of torture would unable to extract his mother's location. I like how it doesn't even cross his mind even though he should have had the resolve, reason, and drive to do so.
I have so many problems with this story, but I'll focus on the masking of any moral indictment that this show tries to do with it's framing of the story.
Kemono Jihen is a story that features killing and murder. Our main characters experience it for good reason. They kill monsters that harm other humans and society as a whole. So what exactly is the morality of our main characters for killing monsters that killed humans, but sparing humans that kill other innocent people?
Monster bad, human good? That's basically the story Kemono Jihen wants to present. God forbid these kids go killing humans even if they're monsters inside, but they can go kill monsters for sins that are doing crimes less severe than humans they spare. It also aggravates me in the process of making the story so black and white in determining what is good or bad, it eliminates any sort of mental gymnastics by the viewer. You're merely being fed "human good, this monster bad, revenge bad." Everything can be labelled as good or bad without any distinction.
Killing and murder are featured in the story, but the brutality and nastiness of anything macabre is merely glossed over. It's the same idea where many people are dying, but you don't get a good sense of how brutal everything is merely because you barely see the killing happen. They just die, and you move on. Just the fact that the brutal act of imprisoning and having his mother being raped continuously to produce over 100 offspring is limited to a few seconds is a tactic that this show employs in order to undermine the "evil acts' that Shiki's uncle makes, and this sort of masking of violent undertones is always present in this story. Even Kabane's bullying and frensy backstory are flimsy. These trauma inducing events are extremely short and are barely a blip in the radar for what they are. You'd think that these events would be essential to the story, but they're glossed because it's a shounen, and everyone is happy and can move on, apparently. You're given a narrative that shoves the idea that our main characters are of quite a high moral standing without much thought put into it because again, it's a shounen. MC good. OK? Even other chilling acts of someone like Kon immediately decapitating Kanabe are just "kids being kids," "Kanabe didn't die, so Kon's all good." In the end, Kon just becomes good friends and gets invited over to eat. "Well, as long as there are no repercussions, I'll forgive you." Cringe. There's so much atrocities that happen in the show, but it's just not focused upon and people just get over it. Whether it be on the receiving side or the side giving it out, cruel acts are not questioned or emphasized in the least bit. Instead, it maintains a "lighthearted" tone. Thanks a lot.
I'll give a shoutout to the other flaws. So in Shiki's backstory, her mother just complies with his Uncle? She is a monster, a strong one at that, and she just willingly, day by day, gets inseminated and raped by random monsters because Shiki's uncle tells her to? She doesn't get any warning signs when she's being locked in a room and unable to see her son? Oh, what about her barely intelligent offspring. Surely they would be loyal to her, and not the Uncle. Inugami, basically aware of this situation, allows Shiki's uncle to do whatever he wants for over a year. Inugami's kind of scummy in that regard. This plot is as secure as swiss cheese, and should not be taken seriously, as once you start combing through the details, you start to realize that this story is only there to serve as character development for Shiki. It not only does not characterize Shiki very well, but it also is just an extremely poorly built backstory and plot that clearly points fingers and the situation is allowed to stay the status quo until Shiki needs character development.
As for other characters, we have our classic vanilla OP MC that doesn't have a shred of personality. He's the type character in which "he's unfeeling," but also has a "good sense of morality" built into him due to the teachings of his master. Akira is just a flamboyant trap character for comic relief. Shiki, he's ok, but again, the backstory makes him terrible as well.
Let's not even talk about how power progression happens. Everything about how powerful people are is a whim that the author decides. Hey, character too weak? Slap a random power up arc so that they're powerful. In the case of our MC? What do you expect? He's OP as hell in the very beginning and gets even more OP. It's not even like Jujutsu Kaisen, where at least our MC has limitations.
Overall, a story that tries to incorporate edgy themes without much thought put into it and tries to maintain the "shounen" more lighthearted tone, and as a result, you get a insincere narrative in which the bad guys and good guys are clearly defined in which their actions don't quite match their supposed morality.
