After my world got rocked by Kaiba, I did something I never ever do: I looked up the director and tried to track down other series he made. Two rules I try to follow for anime are going into a series blind and never trying to look for more of the same; I figured anything else by the guy would be sufficiently different that I wouldn’t be breaking either of those rules too much. I consider it more following the spirit of the law rather than the letter of it. Anyway, Kemonozume was made two years prior to Kaiba, and much to my surprise, was actually rated adults only by Anime Encyclopedia. Make no mistake: Kemonozume is no hentai. There’s lots of violence, nudity, and R-rated sex, but there’s nothing pornographic about it. Supposing that Gantz has an immature fascination with blood and tits, Kemonozume is actually an adult contemplation of those topics with some (good) social commentary thrown in for good measure. I suppose I should just come out with it now: Kemonozume is one of the most hardcore displays of badassery I’ve ever seen.

I could start breaking the series down following my usual pattern of music-animation-story-deathblow, but I did that once and it was over six pages. So I’ll try to keep it simple this time around.

Thousands of years ago, the gods cursed a pair of lovers such that they turned into monsters and ate other humans. However, being a pair of lovers they naturally had little cannibal children of their own and to this day a secret race of monsters has lived alongside humanity, well, more like lived on humanity. Not long after the demon children started to propagate, a secret order of martial artists was formed to fight the human eating menace. Fast forward to modern day Japan, where the soon to be leader of the martial artists falls in love with a woman who is more than she seems and we get a thrill ride covered in blood and sex with the fate of the world resting on one man in a suit and tie…and a sword.

What I love about Kemonozume is that it takes so many established conventions and turns them completely on their heads. What starts as a Romeo and Juliet styled romantic tragedy slowly turns to trip across the abandoned remnants of the country with a van ride across the sky before ending with a super stylized showdown atop a giant bowling ball rolling towards Tokyo. Nothing in this show is predictable and most things aren’t what they seem. The series doesn’t pussyfoot around, either: for an entire episode the main character is stripped naked and tied to chair after having his mind toyed with by someone much stronger and cleverer than he is. Kemonozume is hardcore for the fact that it is raw: the animation is rough (and eerily reminiscent of the old Bugs Bunny cartoons), the characters are straightforward, and nothing is watered down. There are so many fun things to talk about from this series, but the most amazing thing is that if you don’t want to pay attention to any of the subtle symbolism and social commentary, it’s still a great show and lots of fun.

The most notable thing about this series, for me at least, is not the animation style that will induce migraines in some of you, but the characters. For a series to be as badass as Kemonozume, the characters have to be equally awesome. Just to rattle off a few of the more awesome moments: a guy slices his own arms off by sticking his sword into the ground and ramming against it; a villain gets mutated and screams “now I’m even more awesome!”; the main characters try to have sex, but since one of them mutates into a ravenous beast when aroused she has to be handcuffed to bed, but she breaks free and the next morning finds the guy outside a blast chamber with her locked inside, both of them smiling; and the topper is probably the rogue samurai facing down the world in a suit and tie. These are characters I love for their flaws: they screw up, they panic, etc. Amidst all of the death and violence, the main character can’t kill anything; he always gets stomach cramps just as he’s about to deliver the killing blow. I was expecting him to overcome this flaw at some point, but then I realized just how nasty it is to want the main character to become a murderous bastard. His weakness turns out to be a really endearing driving factor right to the fantastically absurd ending.

Kemonozume comes out swinging with its rocking soundtrack and style; it’s a show with a direction to go and it doesn’t care who it has to kick to the curb along the way. If Kemonozume were a person, it’d be that badass biker that will discuss the misleading aspects of the current class structure as he rearranges your face simply because you wandered down the wrong alley. While Kaiba was philosophical and took the time to be thoughtful, Kemonozume only pauses while it reaches for another weapon. Oddly enough, my favorite part of the entire show is the lead in shorts used for some of the episodes (inconsistently used so that they are never predictable, I might add), where they take combine standard animation, a common place situation, and then twist it with the shape-shifting human-eating demons: the old monster trying to gum someone to death, the high school student’s first kiss gone horribly horribly wrong, and so on. These brief moments of reality bending insanity really crystallize the overall feeling of the show. The only criticism I have for the series is a sharp drop in animation quality for most of episode eight, but that quickly pales next to the fact that the series is so mind-bogglingly awesome that it reaches the point where if you have to nitpick the thing you have totally missed the point. A mistake the series will gladly correct with large claws. Much like Kaiba, Kemonozume is a series you simply have to experience; once you do you’ll find the idea of reviewing it a little redundant.

~Whim

PS – I watched this series as a fansub from Shinsen-subs; I am so glad they actually subbed this because it was hard enough to even track down the fact that this series even existed. If you are having trouble finding it try looking for Kemonodzume; the d is weird.
PS2 – Yeah, no review last week because of the holiday. Well, that’s the official excuse: I actually wrote a Kemonozume review but it was six pages long and clung to the notion that you needed something other than a firm command to go watch this series.
PS3 – Kemonozume is not a beginners’ series; do not try to introduce someone to the world of anime with this show.
PS4 – Hooray for the first review originally posted on flyingwhimsy.com!