Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: Kemono Jihen
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wolf10
 Posts: 907 |
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One blog I found mentioned that that was presently the only clue to Kabane's parents' identities, but acknowledged that there was still ample room for a twist. It's also not completely unheard of for authors to use the wrong-gendered from of a foreign language word, either because it sounds cooler or out of simple carelessness. ... Moving on from that, though, I actually came here to gush about the animation. There's not a lot of it, necessarily, but there are still little flourishes that get a reaction from me. Inari's eye twitch when Inugami called her "old" got a full three frames, but I can't help but tense up too. Also, I'm pretty sure she ate the driver, or at least "fed" off of his death. There are little details that suggest that while this episode played out like a low-stakes character introduction, there are definitely forces in play that could make everything go much, much worse at a moment's notice. Also, HanaKana is killing it (literally) as Inari. Way to act against type. She may be happily married now but she's nobody's waifu. |
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njprogfan
 Collector Extraordinaire Posts: 1170 Location: A River Named Toms |
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Going into this series I hadn't the slightest idea what it was about other then the initial character designs and description blurbs. I must say I'm enjoying the heck out of it! It's got that classic shounen vibe going and designs that remind me of the early 2000's. With all the fantasy/isekai shows practically overwhelming each season, it's a breath of fresh air; albeit, yokai air. BTW, I'm looking forward to Kon joining the gang and her future connection to Kabane, (if I'm reading that OP correctly).
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aaa1e2r3
Posts: 102 |
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I think Khoular might just be a case of the subbing team doing a romanization of Ghoul, kind of like how for Log Horizon they're romanizing Lenessia as Rayneshia.
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The Scream Man
 Posts: 156 Location: Sydney, Australia |
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Im curious about Kabanes power? i mean regeneration and stuff sure, but why did Fox Girl fall down as soon as he bit her on the shoulder? Does he have some kind of poison bite?
Oh also while i dont know the origins of his species or anything, I noticed Kabane is like the monsters in 'Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress,' which were kind of zombie/Ghoul things, so i guess its similar there. |
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11418 |
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The only reference to "khoular" I could turn up was in a fan fic (not even sure what fandom) from 2014. That suggests it does come from somewhere, and isn't just a random romanization artifact. They were described as "these majestic beings looked like a hybridization between a border collie and humans, but their fur coats were in colors one would never find in any dog or wolf in the real world. Bright blue, florescent pink, a bright but light green, light to dark purple, and neon orange, these were the colors of their furs. Now border collies are mostly medium to small dogs, but the khoular, on the other hand, are quite large, being of the same size range as the barbarian race." Somehow I don't think the author had Kabane in mind.
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wolf10
Posts: 907 |
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@Gina, I found that one too, but I'm pretty sure they were using the term "fan fic" to mean "original web fiction" because they were choosing to publish on a (former) fanfic site. I'm also pretty sure that's the nail in the coffin that it's a made-up word. (You wouldn't need to describe a race the fandom was already familiar with.)
Phonetically speaking, "khoular" could be Arabic, possibly Hindi or Sanskrit, but my only real results are names. It's not that different from people sticking random consonant-vowel combinations together and calling it Japanese because they don't know any better (you see this a lot in MMOs). It's easy for two people to land on the same combination of syllables because it sounds cool. With Kabane, I think we got Rowling'd, which is to say, he's a completely made-up fantasy beast co-existing alongside actual mythological references of varying accuracy. "Ghoul" a la "Tokyo Ghoul" is probably the origin, but I think I read somewhere that there are actual ghouls that show up later and follow different rules. I'll keep digging, though, but only because it's fun. Next step is to ignore the name entirely as a dead-end and look for creatures that follow at least some of the same basic rules. Lots of cultures have zombie lore of some kind. @Scream Man: "Kabane" is Japanese for "corpse," which is where Wit Studio got "Kabaneri" from. It's a common word, which is also why Theron avoided using his name in the preview guide, because if you knew the word, it would indeed spoil things. Incidentally, our Kabane's name is written 夏羽 (ka "summer", bane "wing"), so it's not like he's literally named "corpse." |
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Princess_Irene
ANN Reviewer
 Posts: 2617 Location: The castle beyond the Goblin City |
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That's how I ended up in Pakistani folklore - Khowar is a language from the Chitral region of Pakistan.
It is, isn't it? My semester's starting so I don't have as much time, but I'll keep digging as well. |
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The Scream Man
Posts: 156 Location: Sydney, Australia |
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Good to know! Thanks mate. 
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wolf10
Posts: 907 |
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I was honestly surprised and impressed by the resolution of the nekomata storyline. Usually, you'd expect some sort of cynical denouement along the lines of "and then the stupid bastard died, because the Other is terrible and you shouldn't be open to things that are different from you," but no. Mao-chan just wanted someone to take care of her, and Yano wanted to be that person. With those compatible wants brought together, she doesn't need to resort to coercion at all. It only got half an episode, but the moral of the story only seems to improve the more I think about it.
As for the latter half, Heaven's Design Team reminded me that some species of frog do indeed cannibalize their fellow offspring. I was not expecting that trivia to become immediately relevant to my anime viewing, but here we are. Again, it was nice to have a second story reinforcing that coexistence with the Other is not fundamentally impossible, even if it bad actors can make it difficult (looking at you, Inari). That's probably why these stories ended up paired. Honestly, as I get older, I think it's the less cynical messages that tend to skew closer to my own observed truths of the human condition. |
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Hal14
 Posts: 676 Location: Heart of africa |
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The series does eventually get an over-arching plot: spoiler[a race between the main characters and the kitsune group to obtain all the life calculi.] But that plot doesn't become apparent until a bit later on and I'm not sure whether or not the anime will reach that point. Especially since it's still ongoing.
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yuna49
 Posts: 3804 |
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I'm not sure I'm willing to wait that long just to listen to Aoi Yuuki's terrific performance. |
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Hal14
Posts: 676 Location: Heart of africa |
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I don't see an Aoi Yuuki in the cast. Who are you referring to? |
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MagicPolly
 Posts: 1589 |
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The anime is confirmed to have 12 eps now and that doesn't start until spoiler[the Shikoku arc ] and at the pace the anime is going so far we'll probably only get up to spoiler[the Akira arc]. |
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Agent355
 Posts: 5113 Location: Crackberry in hand, thumbs at the ready... |
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This is a lot of fun! I usually don’t like monster of the week type anime, but this has a good combination of humor, heart and character building. I definitely got the impression that there are longer plot threads in the works—Inari’s desire for the Life Stone is bound to come up again, Kabane wants to find his parents and we just learned Akira wants to find his brother. They also mentioned that Inugami has a mysterious former partner that will probably come up again in the future. Lots of ongoing challenges for the story to explore. But if the anime only has time for world building episodic cases, I guess I’ll just have to look out for the manga (is it licensed in English?)
I liked the details of this week’s cases—the happily ever after ending to case 1 and Inugami helping Kabane and Akira undercover in case 2 were highlights. I also laughed at loud at Kon’s declaration that koi are delicious (I think she’s just a bit emotionally stunted and naive, mirroring Kabane if a bad guy had taken him in) and was glad to get Akira’s backstory, even though it was delivered via info-dump. wolf10, thank you for the details on Kabane’s name! |
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Princess_Irene
ANN Reviewer
Posts: 2617 Location: The castle beyond the Goblin City |
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Sadly it is not. I keep hoping! |
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