Despite the subpar animation, this is definitely one of the most interesting anime I've seen. I would be spoiling if I talked about what the story actually is since it isn't apparent from the beginning, but the whole way it plays out is very well written. It's hard to tell what direction it's going in based on the first episode. The story is clearly the most important part of the series. It's one of those kinds of anime where "as long as you can put up with the animation you'll be able to enjoy a great story". It's a genre that you see a lot of in American film and television and not much in anime, which is part of what makes it so great. It also adds a great bit of spice to the genre that I haven't seen before. It also tries to be cute, which may turn some people off but also lulls you into a false sense of security, which really works for its whole concept. Once you realize what where it's going it's interesting to see the story unravel and you'll be glad it didn't look dark at the beginning.

The art really gives that "poor quality computer graphics animation" feel. It's like it was animated in the early 2000s. For a typical anime this might seem like a deal breaker or might make you think about dropping your score a few points as studios who can't even afford decent animation generally don't have a good writing team either, but I don't think this is the case here. In fact, although at first the animation may strike you as being awfully produced, after some time you might not mind it or may even begin to like it. When all of the animation looks bad it also has the benefit of minor animation errors not looking out of place, which I consider to be a good thing. If you're watching for enjoyment it can be better for animation to be uniformly awful than to be mostly good with random spikes of bad animation. Nonetheless, although the animation itself looks eccentric, the characters are all well designed and are fairly representative of the animals they're meant to be, with a few exceptions. The machinery, the park, and the antagonists are also well designed. Even if it isn't a world you would want to live in if you could it's still an interesting place and enough attractions to keep you engaged for its 12 episodes. Some adventure anime have repetetive set designs, so it's a good thing they did their best to keep the world fresh so there was always more to look forward to.

In addition to all looking cute and different, the characters' personalities were all different and well written. Even if with the handful of characters introduced every episode you don't find yourself a new favourite character I doubt any of them will disappoint you. Each of them is based on a different animal species and they have characteristics of that species along with their own characteristics. There are many different species of cat and penguin which all look and act distinct. They act exactly how you expect an animal human hybrid to act in real life, which is rare for anime. In most anime kemonomimi just do some gestures and add a word related to their animal at the end of their sentences, but in Kemono Friends all of the characters actually feel like they're meant to be the animal they're meant to be, but this doesn't mean they don't have any personality outside of their "spirit animal". Most of what we're shown to know what animal they are is their clothing, which isn't the best way as the giraffe character is actually below average height, but it works to introduce them and tell them apart easily and isn't hard to get used to. All of the characters, even the robot who might not want to have a personality, are easy to get attached to even though most of them have minimal screen time.
Along with the theme, the characters’ voices are also meant to reflect the anime they are, which I think is well done. The alpaca character sounds very soft and cute, just like real alpaca are. The opening theme song sounds beautiful yet simplistic, which perfectly represents what the show is. It gives the sense that the show is just a childish cartoon, which is a perfect light to show it in. The ending theme is fairly boring, but no anime can be perfect. The background music is surprisingly well done. There’s dubstep during some of the fights against the cerubelum, which makes them feel a bit more epic and is just a good song in general. You don’t hear much dubstep in anime, so I appreciate hearing it here. Even if it was just what the sound guy happened to be able to mix up I think it adds a nice touch to the series. Some of the other background tunes are also stick out rather than just being there to fill in the silence.

This received some very mixed reviews when it was airing, but when watching it after it aired and hearing it was a masterpiece I did enjoy it a lot. I’m not sure if I would have enjoyed it any less if I had watched it more slowly, but as one whole story it is a very enjoyable anime. I know some people get a lot of their enjoyment from how an anime is animated and although this does have cute girls and fights they aren’t animated as well as most anime are, but this doesn’t actually matter that much to me. After all, most cuteness comes from personality and most of the impact from a fight comes from how the characters react to it so I feel the need to put much weight on the animation itself. Being one of the best stories I’ve seen in any anime I can’t help but enjoy it. Unlike other short anime with large casts like The iDOLM@STER that gives each main cast member an episode to themselves and them leaves in the background for the rest of it and Girlfriend (Kari) that has an even larger cast and doesn’t bother expending the energy to develop any of them, Kemono Friends works like a cast building anime such as Love Live or Nanatsu no Taizai, but characters don’t stick around any longer than they need to. In a way you could call this style an “introductory anime”, although some of the characters they meet along the way do show up later or are at least talked about. There are also some multiple episode arcs, which are interesting. The whole way the anime is set up makes the show very enjoyable for me. At no point did I find myself bored, which is something not too many anime are able to pull off.

Overall the entire experience was very postive for me. Although on the surface it might not seem like it would be anything special or might even appear to be below average, but the longer you watch for the more you get attached to the characters and the world the live in. It’s a very unique anime and should not be looked down on just because of the CGI. I highly recommend it to anyone who likes cute anime, adventure anime, or anime about animal girls. It has an odd combination of elements and like Gakkougurashi it does a really good job at combining them and makes it feel very natural.