Kemono Jihen

Episode 4

After four episodes of Kemono Jihen, I have come to two conclusions: 1) there may not be an over-arching plot to this show and 2) most of the kemono are combinations of more than one mythological or folkloric creature. Neither of these things bother me that much, but I feel like sorting both of those things out gives me a better sense of what to expect going forward. Right now that appears to be Kabane's slow growth into a more complete person/kemono and some interesting combinations of creatures, both of which seem like a good time.

The latter is particularly interesting this week, because even when the show uses an established yokai, like the nekomata in the first half, it's playing with the folklore surrounding it. As you may know, a nekomata is a type of bakeneko (cat monster) created when a cat who has lived a long time grows a second tail, which may be its single tail splitting in two. Nekomata have been known to eat people, summon fireballs, speak human languages, and other similar things. What they are not known to do is transform into a beautiful woman to seduce human men and transform them into man-faced cats; those characteristics are associated with different creatures, like kitsune or tanuki. That makes Mao, the nekomata the man who showed up at the office at the end of last week is in love with, a nekomata only in the sense that she's got the twin tails and can speak. The sexy transformation angle doesn't feel totally out of place, though – rather it feels like a fairly natural way of combining traditional mythology with the more modern aesthetic of the sexy cat girl. Likewise, the frog kemono Kabane and Akira have to fight in the second half isn't, strictly speaking, a regular yokai – they've got aspects of kappa, the sharp-clawed waira, and the giant toad Takiyasha-hime rode into battle in her folktale; their transformed, or mutated, versions after eating human flesh has a lot of aspects of the Slavic vodyanoy – a frog-faced naked man who is most definitely not friendly. This sort of folkloric combination gives Kemono Jihen leave to play with what we know and expect from yokai shows and to really establish its own version of things, like Akira and his missing twin brother's kemono type being a yuki-onoko, or male version of the snow woman (yuki-onna), which again may tie into European tales about snow children.

At any rate, only the easily fooled Kon and Inugami seem to be regular old yokai so far, and that may be because kitsune and bake-danuki have a lot more flexibility with their powers than anyone else. We haven't seen Kon do much besides getting used by her master and tricked by Inugami (I can't decide if she's sheltered or maybe not that intelligent), but Inugami shows off his actual tanuki form this week in the second half of the show, and it is adorable. It also lets us know that, despite some of his past words and actions, he really does care about the kids in his charge, because he takes on his fuzzy form in order to make sure that Akira is okay when he insists on going with Kabane into the sewer-like Shibuya River. Inugami knows that Akira is unlikely to be able to handle the slugs and frogs that are the river's indigenous kemono, but he also understands Akira's need to feel useful, an issue that goes back to Akira's relationship with his twin brother, who told him that Akira was better off just doing nothing because he was “weak.” Although Akira doesn't necessarily seem to admit or understand it, that's been bothering him for a long time, and with the appearance of super-competent Kabane, he desperately wants to prove that he, too, is useful. That Inugami takes this into account and doesn't just let the two kids go off on their own gives Akira some needed reassurance after last week.

Everything is slowly beginning to fall into place for Kabane, who this week takes his first tentative steps towards understanding love (not carp; the words are homophones, which is why Kon talks about eating koi in the park), and that allows Akira and Shiki to begin processing their own issues as well. Kon will almost certainly be back, because not only did she just get tricked with a transformed orange, but anyone who would let her resort to eating fish in the park probably doesn't care too much about her well-being, and Inugami has just shown that he's a better guardian than previously assumed. Even without a major over-arching plot, this is one of the most interesting shows I'm watching this season, and I'm looking forward to what Kabane gets up to next.

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Kemono Jihen is currently streaming on FUNimation Entertainment.