Story 10
Music 10
Main Characters 10
Side Characters 8.5
Visuals 10
Well, it is one of the best if not the best anime, I have ever watched so far. Right after the first episode, I felt at ease and just relaxed and enjoyed the ride. Everything about this anime is great. Story is well developped, you can connect to characters, music is amazing, very much like Cowboy Bebop by the way.
Story:
Kemonozume's story revolve around a woman and a man who loves each other passionately despite the fact that they are not meant for each other , lots of physical contact in this anime, their love is Eros type. I will not reveal any spoilers, but as the story goes further, it gets darker and darker, almost every episode has a moment of action or let's say every episode has a touch with the main plot, so you might get diverted a little in the first minutes, though I never did, but right on time it will take you back to its pace.
Music:
Mostly jazz. In action sequence there is a certain uptempo jazz they are using- very much like the first jazz song in the cowboy bebop movie, the one enters when spike fights with a girl- which is great, sometimes to create suspense they use only drums, for emotional scenes they have a song like a jazz/blues, it adds a lot to the scene. It never bores you, or it never feels like its too much, I mean the movies make that mistake a lot, for simple scene like a simple walk in the street, they put a real complex classical stuff, and you get distracted by it, well this anime doesn't do that, and that's certainly a good thing right?
Main Characters
We have two main characters. Yuka and Toshihiko. Yuka is like a source of life to Toshihiko, Yuka was living a normal girl's life with some exceptions, Toshihiko is a master swordsman at the Kifuufen dojo. Until the time when Toshihiko met Yuka, he had been living a life devoted to the path of sword. But Yuka changes everything. The two starts on a journey, which is decided in very stresfull moment. And the anime is the journey, the later developped main plot is actually a device that makes the journey more acceptable, and more fast paced, and the good thing with fast paced plot is that when it slows down, you really see the significance of the scene. Same with the characters, if a moment lasts, it is significant, if a thing is repeated, it is significant.
Side Characters
So for my only concern with the anime is the sometimes under developped side characters. At the end of the story, yes the villain has a good reason to be villain, but where does he get that good reason, and why it is a good reason, you do not see that. Or the side character Rie, an entire episode is devoted to her, that's how significant she is, yet we actually know so little about her, and after a certain point she is used as a stimulating device for the plot, which is so sad for a character which has a real potential to be deep. Toshihiko's brother is a very significant character and yet his relation to Toshihiko is really under developped. Maybe anime should have been a little longer like an episode or two. But besides that, some of the side characters, like the old couple, which is shown only in one episode is very well developped, because, we know a little about their past, and their relation to each other, it is all done in four or five minutes, yet the anime fails to do same thing for more significant characters, or should have done a little bit more, but it is great anyway. Now that I think about it, I'd go who cares, it was great.
Visuals
Well, it is different alright. I loved it, you might not like it. It has a certain attitude, which is, if I am not mistaken, they tried to give or show the meaning/emotion not by just the contents in the drawing but with the drawing style too. I mean, something like this, if the scene is smooth, and loving scene, they draw smooth and gentle, soft colors, poetic visual imagery and all that. But if the thing is rough, they draw rough, lots of visible lines, you can see every corner in the scene, the drawing style changes according to mood, which for me was an amazing experience.
Conclusion
Definitely worth your time. Any one into, visual arts, philosophy, poetry, and mythology and psychology, should watch.
