Kemono Friends 2

TL;DR: "The creators are obsessed with making mysteries and building suspense with absolutely no direction or end goal". "The "LOST" of anime". Watch it only for the cute moments. If you're a strong fan of the character relationship between the main characters of season 1, be prepared for extreme and consistent disappointment. As a extraordinarily enamored fan of season 1, i will spare you a long story about how much i enjoyed season 1 and say it's "10/10 for me!". But also keep in mind how important the characters relationships built up through S1's 12 episodes were. What and how much you might expect from season2 in terms of "Fun" or "cute" content. There were many mysteries and loose ends. It even ends on a cliff hanger involving the 2 main characters and set up a lot of expectations! "Zutto isshoni/ずっと一緒に" Together forever. Serval and Kaban. A mainline mantra of couple character songs. It's what made the story so great. You expected more of that. Them. Together. Season 2 takes so much of that away and replaces it with a typical, general anime feel and plot line. Full of emotionally dreadful plot and harrowing violent moments cranked up to 11 (something that was few and far between in season 1). Virtually every episode involves a violent encounter. Past cannon is ignored involving the enemy, leading to further confusion and inconsistency. Some "True fans" may try and discount such a review by saying "But you have to read/play X media to get it!" The anime should stand on its own. But it doesn't. Instead, it's more concerned with setting up cliff hangers and mysteries so that you'll buy the new "Season 3" game.. Scrambling around the lore so that it fits better with the future game. Season 2 story and plot fell victim to soulless corporate merchandising and profit driven ideas. As much as i hate say this. The original heart of Kemono Friends seems to lay with previous team and/or director "Tatsuki", who was removed and replaced. This anime not only left me feeling completely unfulfilled and frustrated by the end of it. But it also managed to put me into a net negative state. No mystery was solved. Only MORE questions. More confusion. More pain. As a big fan of Serval and Kaban, it absolutely disgusted me what they decided to do with that wonderful thing. The cute moments were very good though. It fails to capture season 1's special and unrepeatable tone and brand of humor and cuteness. But it was still a very wonderful part of Season 2.

Kemono Friends didn't die....it was murde- it turned into a franchise zombie. Kemono Friends was a juggernaut sleeper hit in Japan mostly done by Tatsuki, however with some executive meddling from Kadokawa, Tatsuki was unfairly fired and Kemono Friends went on with a seocnd season without Tatsuki, the visionary and lifeblood of the series itself gone. The second season to say that it felt underwhelming was an understatement but not to the point of botchery, just half assed. So Kemono Friends 2 starts off with a new character who doesn't know where she is and wants to find her home with a sketchbook, she finds many variousFriends along the way and find out more about Japari Park and the Ceruleans and Beasts that they happen to find. On the basis the new character Kyururu voiced by Yui Ishikawa is an even watered down Kaban from the first season but she is also accompanied by Serval from the first season and Caracal voiced by Riko Koike who's keeps Serval in check. Now the first season's mysteries made the anime and the audience question Japari Park and it's guests and to be more precise humans and what happened to them, why Ceruleans roam and how they even exist in the first place, it was subtle in it's mystery and utilized well with it's first season to portray something deeper than it was initially, The second season on the other hand has some lackluster and blatant mysteries thrown in without a hint of subtlety and it seemed that the second season cared more about it's slice of life comedy aspect than the mystery which was the buildup of the first season, the second season doesn't have ANY of that and yes there are small mysteries in this second season but they give out such blatant hints and questions answered as quickly the next episode that the mystery is barely there let alone what it was in the first season. YES Kemono Friends IS a slice of life comedy, but it was also a mystery, a GOOD mystery hidden away and dive bombed when it hit it's climax about the revelations, the second season just got the barebones of it, used it's nostalgic callbacks and points of interest and rarely delved into what it was trying to do and when it did, it "tried" but without the hint of solidarity to itself, it felt scattershot as if it was trying to tick off a checklist. Now as much as LA is harping on the second season and it's major flaws, the second season still has some merit to it as the second season DOES in some form like it's world building and developing it's new and old characters (no not just Serval) and what mysteries are given to us, the biggest and ONLY one being a Beast following Kyururu and co. is the ONLY point of interest as it's never told outright what and HOW Beasts were created. The animation emulates Yaoyorozu to an ok degree as it's now done by Tomason though some of the character designs did felt a bit nonchalantly done, the animation was just "ok", but felt like a downgrade weirdly enough, Yaoyorozu had a small budget and they managed to pull it off, Tomason's animation just looked like it was aping from Yaoyorozu's low animation as an excuse to keep it low quality jank (maybe as a form of consistency towards the first season, but come on), but what Tomason did...it wasn't horrible, as LA said, it's to keep with the consistency towards Yaoyorozu and to that LA wouldn't outright say the animation was the biggest flaw, ohhh no, the plot was the main culprit for that one. The voice cast is decent enough though LA didn't expect Kyururu to be voiced by Yui Ishikawa of all voice actors, not saying she's horrible for the role, just that LA didn't expect her to. LA will be here all day if LA pointed out all voice actors, so the only notable ones are Yuka Ozaki reprising her role as Serval and she did well considering the material given anyways. Either way, decent voice cast. Kemono Friends 2 for LA kinda lost itself with Tatsuki gone, but through watching the anime, it tried, especially with the director Ryuuchi Kimura trying to show a different side of Kemono Friends, that of the slice of life aspect of it and good on him for trying to show it in his own way let alone all the backlash that he really doesn't deserve (that belongs towards Kadokawa), but Kemono Friends was just ALOT more than that and it doesn't show here unfortunately. People might not have never wanted to see another Kemono Friends after the debacle with Kadokawa and Tatsuki and to the people who do, you STILL have the first season and for the people who sees Kemono Friends 2 as something new and different, that's fine to. But the one lingering thought that Kemono Friends 2 kept giving LA constantly was if the first season was ANY good to begin with and this sequel definitely gave off that vibe time and again, now LA isn't saying this sequel dirtied the franchise but "worrying" to say the least. Ultimately for all the sides that either hate or praise this second season, LA is more or less on the side of the former, but not to the degree of hate you'd expect as LA did see some potential from all this, but it just didn't have the true spirit of Kemono Friends to keep LA interested like it did the first season and felt more aimless, lackluster and clamoring onto it's nostalgia of the first season more than anything but the second season being sullened?...no...scattershot...yes.

"Definitely the worst sequel in the history of anime!!!"However, he and his team members was removed from the Kemono Friends project in late September last year for no exact reason by Kadokawa. So, the 2nd season is made by a new team with a new director. Now, did it live up to the hype of the first season? Well, see for yourself. The 1st season of KF received one of the highest rating in Japanese video streaming website NicoNico when it finished airing. A lot of new anime fans, old anime fans, and even people who have already left the anime community praised Kemono Friends like it's the next Miyazaki anime. However, after Tatsuki got kicked out from the project itself, the franchised immediately went back to the state before the 1st season was even made. The 2nd season of Kemono Friends received the lowest rating in NicoNico as opposed to the 1st season. It's so bad that it not only angered fans of the series itself but also the casual anime fans. How bad is it? Now let me explain. First of all, the story. The story of the 1st season centers around a human named Kaban who had lost her memories and forgot what species she belong to, adventuring in the Japari Park with her friend, Serval to find out the answer. Throughout the journey they met a lot of different animal friends and learnt a lot about them. It's mostly an adventure series that at the surface seemed like it was aimed at kids. However after episode three, the tone got much darker and it attracted the attention of a lot of different anime fans. It is too the dark underlying tones throughout the series that kept the audiences interested in the series and giving it a high score. However, the 2nd season is just trash with no meaning behind it whatsoever. They removed everything good and interesting about KF1 and only remained the boring parts. Then maybe you would argue that we can still enjoy it for the cute interactions between the characters. Well let me correct you, the interactions between the characters aren't cute at all. They changed the relationship between the character as friends (as stated in the freakin' title) into one that shows how superior humans are to animals. Boi, there's nothing friends about this. Well now you may say that I'm just nitpicking, but let me show you some examples of what happened in the anime, especially in episode 9. In episode 9, our main character Kyururu met with a domestic dog. One day Kyururu got attacked by some monsters and the domestic dog put all of its effort in protecting her, until she got badly wounded. However she still can't win, and at the last minute Serval appeared and defeated the monsters. Now what Kyururu do after she got saved, just guess. Well, your guess is maybe wrong. Kyururu didn't give a crap about Domestic Dog and keep on praising how great Serval was. In the end she told the Domestic Dog to go home with a smile without treating her injuries or even thanking her. The moral value of the episode itself is so twisted that it angered a lot of anime fans and started the low rating streak of KF2. Plus throughout the series the animals kept on praising how superior the humans are and how much they respect them whatsoever, boi there's nothing friends about that. The director and scripwriter must be twisted to think of something like this. Now let's talk about the final episode that angered a lot of fans, Serval straight on denied Kaban, who appeared in the anime for only a few scenes, as her friend for Kyururu with the theme song of the 1st season playing in the background. Seriously!? Why!? This is so twisted that I can't even describe it anymore. Now let's talk about the person in charge of this project, especially the most famous two, Nobuyuki Hosoya, the producer of the 2nd season and Ryuichi Kimura, the director for this season. Now normally I don't discuss this sort of stuff but for this series I need to, because these two people are the ones destroying the franchise on purpose! Now let's start with the director. The main reason he took on this project, as stated on his twitter, is that he thinks that anybody can handle Kemono Friends because it's just an easy project, completely looking down on Tatsuki who's responsible for nearly everything season 1 is. This had a lot of the KF fans angered. Now when the series was airing, he kept on going on a war with the fans of the first season on Twitter, stating that listening to what the fans wants isn't what he wanted for the project and that people can't come to a mutual understanding which even angered the fans of KF1. At the end of the first season he even stated that the opinions of the fans of the first season don't matter because they are just blind followers of Tatsuki, completely denying the faults he made in the 2nd season. He also blacklist the people who told him what's wrong with the 2nd season. Next, let's talk about Nobuyuki Hosoya, the producer behind this season. Now he didn't do anything too bad, he just stated that episode 9 is the best episode in the 2nd season, you know the episode which started the low rating streak of KF2. In the end, the entire project is just to make fun at the fans of the 1st season and the fact that it got the worst rating on NicoNico is expected because of how disgusting it was. This also completely showed the dark side of the anime industry. Although I don't recommend you to watch this second season, but I do recommend you to check our what happened behind the scenes. You'll definitely be shocked. That's it for my review. Thanks for reading and I wish you a good day.

Just personal scratch. Advised, possible spoilers. Opinion & Informal Art: 7/10 The cgi was a serious upgrade from the first season. Character models were a lot cleaner and there wasn't any clipping that was seen in the first season. Proportions and anatomy checked out too, but it was interesting that they made Serval's face a bit more rounder. I don't know which Serval I prefer, eh, all Servals are great. Anyways, the backgrounds and supporting details looked just as good as the first season. The one thing that this sequel did right was the nice-looking nature showcases and picturesque expanses that the first season was so good at. Overall,I'm fairly happy with the art for this season. Regardless of whether or not the "quality" of the first season was a charm point or not, objectively, this second season of Kemono Friends (KF) did a great job in improving the overall art quality or retaining what the first season did well at. Animation: 6/10 The animation was fine. Much of the animation looked like it was at 5-frames a second lol. That was fine with me. The animation style emulated the first season well enough to make it feel like it was KF. I don't think the low frames per second detracted from the animation, it helped keep the KF atmosphere in case the art quality upgrade detracted from it; a balance of sorts. Motions, gestures, and natural movements looked beleivable. Unlike the first season, the wheels of the tram and Japari bus were actually animated first time around. There was a very noticeable art and animation quality upgrade during the PPP performance which was the right decision in my opinion. Overall, the animation was fine. Characters, Plot & Development: 4/10 Because of the nature of both seasons and how the characters played an instrumental role in the atmosphere, plot and development, I'm going to talk about everything in one section here instead of separately like I normally do: I think this is where this successor to KF1 started to fall short. To get the main issue out of the way right away, I feel that this season of KF failed to capture what the first season was able to build and present. The character interactions at the surface level felt fine, but the deeper vibes didn't feel right at all. I'm just going to start going off with examples and gripes as to why I felt that KF2 characters didn't exemplify the KF vibe: Early on, it felt fine. Kyururu felt a bit like Kaban early on. She was able to meet new Friends with a smile on her face and ultimately help those Friends out with her superior human brain. The meeting with the guide-duck-Friend was fine. The meeting with the dolphin and California-seal (or whatever) Friends was okay to me, but I felt a bit off-put when they refused to take Kyururu & co. back to shore because they didn't get a reward. This could just be me, but I would have expected them to take them back to shore anyways, feel a bit down that they didn't get a reward, and THEN Kyururu does something about it. The PPP episode was fine. It played out pretty similar to the first season where a member of PPP (the manager this time) felt like they weren't contributing to the cause but then by the end everyone is thankful for their irreplaceable-ness. Things started to go downhill when the episode with the fighting sisters (crocodiles and leopards) was introduced. The fact that the episode's plot included Friends actively arguing in an aggressive manner was a blunder. One could argue that it's the same as the first season's Lion and Moose, but it's not. The nature of the arguing was clearly different and felt different. The first season's Lion/Moose scenario was more rooted in lighthearted rivalry, but the second season's crocodile/leopard sisters' scenario felt like they had a genuine "hate" for each other at times. That is not right, not right at all. At least, it's very wrong to what I personally felt the first season was all about. I felt like, this whole episode was an attempt at emulating the first season's Lion/Moose bit: Gorilla putting on airs, distressed at how to resolve the fighting. I felt her way of trying to resolve it was wrong too. Lion aimed to resolve the rivalry in a roundabout way where no one was hurt. However, Gorilla sought to control the sisters through fear, more or less. Yeah, no thanks. My next complaint was the whole thing with domestic dog Friend. That was terrible. Seriously. For everything that the first season tried to hard to stand for, this specific part of the sequel did the exact opposite. Let me explain: I'm totally fine with how domestic dog was introduced as a conflict of interest for Caracal and Serval. Having Caracal become jealous and at odds with her feelings was good development for Caracal to me. However, the sour mood that ensued when Kyururu was faced with the ultimate decision of either staying with or leaving domestic dog was abhorrent. The narrative direction here was the biggest mistake of this second season. It was already unconventional to show domestic dog getting beat up to the point of actually showing scratches and wounds, but the decision to let domestic dog berate herself for being unable to protect Kyururu was heartbreaking. To make it even worse, Kyururu just leaves domestic dog to her fate by allowing domestic dog to go back to the human housing complex alone to regret her failure alone for who knows could be until the day she dies. What the hell. What SHOULD have happened is that Kyururu mediates domestic dogs failure by expressing how worried she was for domestic dog, call out domestic dog for even talking about failing Kyururu, thank domestic dog and offer a KF-like solution by offering domestic dog to join them or telling her about Kaban. I don't know why that solution was never considered. Domestic dog was looking for the warmth of human company, why not give her just that? Kaban's totally available. It would not have hurt the narrative at all if domestic dog just joined the group. Seriously, in who's right mind thought it was a good idea to let domestic dog go back alone and wounded. tldr for domestic dog: domestic dog had been alone and seeking human company, finally meets Kyururu and is ecstatic saying it's the happiest she's ever been, ends up defending Kyururu from the Beast-Friend to the point of being visually beat to a pulp, realizes she couldn't protect Kyururu and decides she's not fit to be by Kyururu's side, domestic dog goes back to the human housing complex alone to live the rest of her life in regret. KYURURU JUST LETS THIS HAPPEN WITH A SMILE AND GOODBYE. Damn. During the final episode, all the friends come to help and at some point Kyururu is faced with a moment of resolve where she states that she loves all the Friends she's met so far. Hmph. Doesn't feel like it. Why was the Beast-Friend never resolved? Why did it imply she just died? What the. This season tried to emulate the mystery aspects of the first season by introducing certain plot points that raised similar questions to the first season: What happened? Where did all the humans go? What about Beast-Friend? Yeah, none of those were ever touched upon, answered, and all just dropped by the last episode. Overall, the character dynamics were emulated decently enough at the surface level, but the actual meat of the character interactions was rotten. This successor to the first season failed to capture the essence of what KF1 was: regardless if it's cheesy, Friends are friends and thus Friends will always end up being happy; not trying to mitigate fighting through fear, not arguing for territory, and definitely not letting a Friend live their life in regret and alone. Music: 5/10 Mostly same music as the previous season with some slight changes. Soundboard was mostly the same as the previous season. No sound design to note. OP and ED were fine, but I didn't find them hooking me like the previous season's. Conclusion: 4/10 The conclusion bugged me. The decision to retrograde the miracle-to-this-world friendship that was Kaban-Serval was nothing short of the devil's work. Why have Serval forget everything that happened in the first season? Why ruin what was so great about the first season? I was holding my breath for this to get resolved somehow. It never happened. Anyways, I was disappointed with the conclusion because none of the questions that were brought up regarding the deeper plot were ever answered. This show sort of just left everything off at a standstill. The Beast-Friend was never resolved and it was implied that she died? What the hell? The questions from the first season where Kaban went to look for more humans was also never touched upon. Also, why play the happy-go-lucky main theme during the moment where Kaban resolves herself to knowing that Serval remembers nothing about her? Lots of questionable direction decisions and even more questions that were left unanswered. Overall: 5/10 As a standalone, objectively and without any consideration of the previous season, this was simply an average show and for that reason I gave this a 5. As a successor to the first Kemono Friends and everything it stood for, this was the definition of a disaster. Not worth watching if you're a fan of the first season.