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NEWS: Kemono Friends Game App Will Not Return Despite Anime's Popularity


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Blanchimont



Joined: 25 Feb 2012
Posts: 3426
Location: Finland
PostPosted: Sat Feb 11, 2017 2:27 am Reply with quote
It is a charming anime. It may be simple and no idea where it is headed, but charming nonetheless in its graceful execution.

No idea about the game though, anyone played it?
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Sheleigha



Joined: 09 May 2008
Posts: 1671
PostPosted: Sat Feb 11, 2017 2:51 am Reply with quote
If that's the case, I wonder what the purpose of the anime was? Imean, unless it ended sooner than expected and they had the anime almost done, this isn't promoting anything. Bad case of timing I guess, and maybe they thought they might as well still release it.

(The recorded phone calls with zoo keeper segments are still weird, though...)
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WANNFH



Joined: 13 Mar 2011
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 11, 2017 4:06 am Reply with quote
Sheleigha wrote:
If that's the case, I wonder what the purpose of the anime was? Imean, unless it ended sooner than expected and they had the anime almost done, this isn't promoting anything. Bad case of timing I guess, and maybe they thought they might as well still release it.

(The recorded phone calls with zoo keeper segments are still weird, though...)
They just can't simply pay the penalty price for the occupied anime timeslots (it surely will be high with the timing, and the episodes isn't short!), so production committee decided to run it. Yes, that simple.

But the unexpected popularity of the series is other thing, of course.
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shadowmaksim



Joined: 01 Feb 2017
Posts: 32
PostPosted: Sat Feb 11, 2017 4:47 am Reply with quote
I'm kind of surprised that the anime adaptation is apparently decently popular according to the article. I mean, it's definitely got quite the number of rough spots to say the least.

Anyway, regardless of my own opinion of the show itself, it's nice to see that it is getting some sort of appreciation. Most series don't even get that fortunate.
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WANNFH



Joined: 13 Mar 2011
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 11, 2017 5:01 am Reply with quote
shadowmaksim wrote:
I'm kind of surprised that the anime adaptation is apparently decently popular according to the article.


Well, it's not really extremely popular, but it's surely have the kind of memetic status on the japanese Twitter, especially after the last episode. spoiler[But why after that - this is mystery... it's not just because of yuri, isn't it?]
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leafy sea dragon



Joined: 27 Oct 2009
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 11, 2017 5:20 am Reply with quote
I'm kind of confused as to what's going on here--do I have it straight?

The game itself is not as popular as the developers would like it to be and so they're discontinuing the service. But when they decided on that, plans for the anime had already been finalized and they couldn't recall the anime. The anime wound up being more popular than they expected, and while it rejuvenated interest in the game, they couldn't un-cancel the game. Is this correct?
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Blanchimont



Joined: 25 Feb 2012
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 11, 2017 5:24 am Reply with quote
@leafy sea dragon

At least as much as I got out of this article, basically yes...
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samuelp
Industry Insider


Joined: 25 Nov 2007
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Location: San Antonio, USA
PostPosted: Sat Feb 11, 2017 5:44 am Reply with quote
When these smaller mobile game companies decide to make an anime to promote their game, they usually fund it and provide some basic creative direction and then just let it go on its own once the production committee is formed: It becomes its own thing.

For something like this that clearly doesn't have much budget, for all we know the primary funding might have come from like, good smile instead of the game developer (I see lots of profit in nendroids here!), i.e. the purpose of the anime might be to develop some other offshoot of the IP instead of the game itself.

If they were smart, they should be making plans right now to come out with a manga and maybe some kind of new app to take advantage of the popularity of the anime, but I can imagine why the original game company might have decided to drop the game support even with an anime in the works.
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WANNFH



Joined: 13 Mar 2011
Posts: 1681
PostPosted: Sat Feb 11, 2017 5:49 am Reply with quote
leafy sea dragon wrote:
I'm kind of confused as to what's going on here--do I have it straight?

The game itself is not as popular as the developers would like it to be and so they're discontinuing the service. But when they decided on that, plans for the anime had already been finalized and they couldn't recall the anime. The anime wound up being more popular than they expected, and while it rejuvenated interest in the game, they couldn't un-cancel the game. Is this correct?
You're right - except they're already discounted the game services before the anime release, so there's now nothing to promote.
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Blanchimont



Joined: 25 Feb 2012
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 11, 2017 6:16 am Reply with quote
WANNFH wrote:
You're right - except they're already discounted the game services before the anime release, so there's now nothing to promote.

We don't know how far back in time the planning and production of the anime commenced, but it definitely wasn't just before the launch...
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WANNFH



Joined: 13 Mar 2011
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 11, 2017 7:39 am Reply with quote
Blanchimont wrote:
WANNFH wrote:
You're right - except they're already discounted the game services before the anime release, so there's now nothing to promote.
We don't know how far back in time the planning and production of the anime commenced, but it definitely wasn't just before the launch...
No, that's simple things - the game was turn off in December, the anime running from January. So there is really nothing to promote when anime start its running.
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Blanchimont



Joined: 25 Feb 2012
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 11, 2017 7:52 am Reply with quote
WANNFH wrote:
No, that's simple things - the game was turn off in December, the anime running from January. So there is really nothing to promote when anime start its running.

Have you really no idea of simple concepts, like lead times for productions? They don't just magically puff out of thin air you know...

An average anime would perhaps be in the ballpark of, let's say, one year, so the project may have been launched already at the time it went free-to-play in March, perhaps even with the initial launch of the game itself.
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vonPeterhof



Joined: 10 Nov 2014
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 11, 2017 11:44 am Reply with quote
And I've been wondering why, for the past week or so, my Twitter feed's been full of Japanese accounts saying seemingly nonsensical phrases containing the word フレンズ (Friends). Apparently this show has reached memetic status. Too little too late for the game, I guess..
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WANNFH



Joined: 13 Mar 2011
Posts: 1681
PostPosted: Sat Feb 11, 2017 12:39 pm Reply with quote
Blanchimont wrote:
Have you really no idea of simple concepts, like lead times for productions? They don't just magically puff out of thin air you know...

An average anime would perhaps be in the ballpark of, let's say, one year, so the project may have been launched already at the time it went free-to-play in March, perhaps even with the initial launch of the game itself.


It seems like we completely misunterstand each other, you know. I'm not talking about the anime production (like I said before, it was too late for them to not run the anime series because if they do it, they're need to pay the serious penalty to the TV channels for the occupation of late night timeslots), but the closure of the game. Nexon tell about the servers closure in November, when anime was already in post-production level, and turned off the game pretty fast in December - but anime is running in current season.

So basically for them there is nothing to promote (the manga is also already ended), and for more ridiculousness - anime don't get the simple disc releases, but episodes discs is provided as bonus to artbooks. spoiler[And for more ridiculousness - their preorders is already run out of stock and gets the first places on the Amazon top of the books chart, beating the titans like new volumes of SAO and Mahouka. Yep, the popularity is THAT seriously.]
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leafy sea dragon



Joined: 27 Oct 2009
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 11, 2017 1:53 pm Reply with quote
Wow, after all of this discussion, I'll bet they're really regretting shutting down the game now. I wonder if this will affect how they handle future projects.
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