© Kemono Friends Project A

Southeast Asian anime channel ANIPLUS Asia has announced in a television advertisement on Monday that the highly-popular adventure comedy anime Kemono Friends will premiere on the channel next month.

The anime will premiere on July 20, airing Every Monday to Thursday nights at 06:30pm (05:30pm JKT/BKK), replacing Trickster.

 

© Kemono Friends Project A

The story takes place in Japari Park, an enormous integrated zoo built somewhere in this world. A mysterious substance found there, called “Sand Star,” causes the animals to turn into humanoid beings called “Animal Girls”! These new creatures spend every day peacefully with the zoo’s visitors… but after some time, a lost child turns up in the park. The child’s attempt to find the way home turns into a great adventure with the Animal Girls! (Synopsis from ANIPLUS Asia)

Kemono Friends is a Japanese media franchise created by Mine Yoshizaki, who also created the popular comedy manga Sgt. Keroro.

The project began as a now-defunct mobile game developed by Nexon, which ran from March 2015 to December 2016. The game, ironically, closed down before the anime series premiered in January 2017.

Aside from the anime series, the project also has a manga series, which ran from July 2015 to March 2017, a stage play last June, and another game project developed by Bushiroad, which is set to be released in Summer 2017.

 

The anime adaptation was directed by TATSUKI, who also directed Tesagure! Bukatsu-mono, while Danchi Tomoo scriptwriter Shigenori Tanabe also worked the scripts of the anime series. The anime was produced by Yaoyorozu.

Aya Uchida, who was known for portraying “Kotori Minami” in the hugely-popular Love Live! School idol project franchise, portayed “Kaban”, while Yuka Ozaki, who voiced “Asuka Toyama” in the popular BanG! Dream project, portrayed “Serval”.

 

The anime series received mixed reception, particularly its visual aspects, but earned praise on social media because of its story.

The first episode, which was uploaded on the streaming service Nico Nico Douga, currently now has almost nine million views with over a million comments, beating Attack on Titan.

The anime’s opening theme song, “Yokoso Japari Park e”, had reached the 3rd place in the iTunes Japan music chart, which eventually awarded gold certification by the Recording Industry Association of Japan last May for more than 100,000 downloads.

 

Kemono Friends will be ANIPLUS Asia’s fifth anime offering this month, which will also feature four (4) simulcast titles, including Katsugeki TOUKEN RANBU, Restaurant to Another World, Aho-Girl, and Tsuredure Children.