Review of Kemonozume (2006- )

Although rare, Masaaki Yuasa has some misses among his works, and Kemonozume is one of them. It was the only important show of his left for me to watch and I was surprised with how bad it was, considering he made it between Mind Game and Kaiba.

The premise isn’t very captivating, it’s Romeo and Juliet with human swordsmen and monsters, that’s it, and I couldn’t even buy the way it’s presented, I don’t believe in love at first sight, attraction? Sure, but love? Nah, which is why I never bought it in fiction either. It’s even harder to accept it in here because the two main characters just find the other in the beach and the next day they are already fucking, and that’s what the relationship between them is mostly about, having sex. Other than that, other forms of interaction between them are quite short or cut off by an action scene, no letting the viewer to really buy or be invested by this relationship. It’s even worse when you consider that the main character was a diligent man dedicated to his duty his whole life and left it all because of a woman he just met. It’s even worse when you consider that the main couple left their families and even betrayed their species as a whole for someone they didn’t even really know about for just a few days at most.

At least the show bothers to show some internal problems between the main couple later on, but even those are resolved in shitty ways. The dude cheats on her and when is found out we have the two women insulting each other with a harem or straight up hentai doujinshi level of dialogue.

And it’s not just them really. Almost every male character in this show is driven by sex, they become traitors because they want to have sex, and are even fooled and killed off because of their lust. Meanwhile every woman in this series is limited to a source of problems and just…a bitch, they are all bitches.

The only exception I found are the father and step mother of the protagonist, because although their relationship is a bit silly as well, there is a buildup and consequences because of it, and was thus easier to buy and more interesting to watch.

Leaving that aside, the setting doesn’t really make sense when you think about it, how can the world be almost the same as ours when monsters have been around it forever? And how can they stay mostly hidden and underground? Some of them do try to remain unnoticed but some just kill off humans constantly to feast on them whenever they want, they should be commonly known by everyone and society as a whole should be completely different as it’s presented.

And let’s not even waste much time in talking about the villain, he was so goofy and overpowered and even pretentious near the end of the show, and the way he was taken down was so stupid, he threw whatever little bit of sense and logic was left in the script out the window.

Also, as much as Kemonozume wants to present itself as a tragedy because of all the deaths in it, the tone is mostly silly, feeling more like a comedy than anything else, that monkey that would later on become a regular in Yuasa’s works and even own studio was the absolute worst aspect in the series.

The resolution was completely open and unsatisfactory, it can only counts as a conclusion for the action and main couple but it still does not mean anything for the rest of the world and not even assures what the main couple is going to be like going forward, who says they won’t have the exact same issues they had throughout the show just because they took down the big baddie?

The only saving grace I found in the script is everything revolving the character Kazuma, although also wanting to bone a girl throughout the whole show, he was the most proactive and conflicted character in the whole series. Also diligent, always in the shadow of his brother, wanting to prove himself the whole time, with an identity crisis and mental and physical deterioration as he finds out more about himself and how different he is from what he thought his whole life. He also tries to modernize the swordsmen with technology and way of functioning and funding, so Kemonozume at least follows all the issues he and the Kifuuken as a whole goes through with that, too bad he is incapable of anything at the end because the script had to have him being completely fooled by an overpowered antagonist and the main character being the one to solve everything. Except he doesn’t because as I said, he only cares about a monster pussy and once he assures that, he just sends everything else to fuck off.

Visually the series looks like what you would expect something from Yuasa to look like, except very very sloppy and low budget. Yes, it’s done deliberately to look that way, but that still doesn’t mean it’s a good job. The characters constantly look like deformed doodles, the backgrounds look mostly unfinished, the motions are usually weak, the whole artwork seems cheap, the coloring is rather unpolished and goes psychedelic at times for no reason, and sometimes traced live action footage is used for some reason. Which is a shame because thanks to the rare but powerful very few very well animated bits in the series, and the usual great directing you can expect from Yuasa, you can tell that they could have presented a visually quirky but still neat show. Other than that, there’s nothing here that wasn’t done way better both before and after in the other main series and movies from the director.

As for the sound, it’s only ok as well. The voice acting is ok, the sound effects and music are also just ok, nothing much to say here, the ending was the best part of it. I’m not very fond of the opening, you can find way better jazzy openings out there, this one is musically uninspired, the vocals suck, and half the lyrics are the title of the song being repeated over and over. It ends up being catchy if you don’t skip it while you are watching the show, but it’s still a pretty bad song all things considered.

As a whole, it was a big disappointment coming from Masaaki Yuasa, the script is stupid, almost all the characters are beasts in heat regardless of their species or gender, and visually it looks like the makers weren’t even trying most of the time. Kazuma elevates the whole show to be above Crybaby, and it’s definitely way better than JAPAN STINKS, but it’s still, like, the worst Yuasa Yuasa show, you know what I mean? He only directed Crybaby, and was only a co-director in Japan Sinks 2020, over here he had control of many aspects in the show, and practically none of all of them worked well. It feels more like a demo of what his filmography and directing for Crybaby would be like moving forward, only worthy to check out for someone who want to complete everything from the director, and nothing else.


4/10