Seinens are my favourites

Seinen tend to be targeted towards more mature audiences than shounen. That being said, seinen tend to have more mature themes but still utilize all the well known anime tropes and plot points. In Kemono Jihen  the themes get really mature. Had me saying what the hell am i watching from start till finish. This is going to be a hard video to make but I feel like I really want to make it. Today we are talking about Kimenho Jihen and 3 of the most messed up anime plot lines and themes i have ever witnessed. Hit the like button and Let’s get into it. 

Kemono Jihen is an interesting anime to me, mostly because it has the quality that exceeds other battle shounen anime like fireforce but is not nearly as popular. This could be due to its more mature content. The material of the show itself deals with the occult. Kemono are magical beings who feed off the energy of humans and sometimes they procreate together resulting in hybrids like our main cast with the exclusion of akira who is human like in appearance but a full snow kemono based on the lore. In addition to Akira we have Kabane, an undead, half human , half ghoul kemono hybrid. We also have Shiki, a half human , half arachne hybrid. They all work together in Tokyo at the kemono detective agency run by the tanuki kemono; Inugami.

Shiki’s story is the worst in Kemono Jihen

This background sets the stage for the absolute horror that this anime’s narrative goes down. So the first of the absolutely demeanted story sequences is this one. Remember Shiki, the half arachne half human i mentioned earlier. He believes his father to be dead and that his mother abandoned him. The former ends up to be true, his father did indeed die. He learns this from his biological uncle Akio. We later discover that Akio entered a forced arrangement with Shiki’s mother to produce hybrid Kemono. He did this with the intent of selling all purpose spider silk on open markets. He impregnated her with several kemono through natural and unnatural means.

Now incase you are having problems visualizing this, don’t fret because the anime makes an effort to show as much as it can, we see exactly what this process looked like. The horror crescendos when Shiki actually gets to see all of his kemono siblings created through Akio’s experiments. The monsters have surrounded himself and Kabane, numbering in the 100s and they speak using his mother’s voice. My heart sinks at this moment because it is at this point the viewer truly gets an opportunity to grasp the implications of all the plot points covered so far in this ark. It really sinks in as much for Shiki as it does for us the viewers; This was messed up.

Kemono Jihen Reddit research

I took to reddit to see how the community received this episode only to find that people were as broken as me over it. These redditors expressed similar sentiments to how I was feeling at the time. This gets worse though. We soon discover that Shiki’s father’s death was no accident but came about directly from Akio’s actions. He perpetrated the murder inorder to gain exclusive access to Shiki’s mother. After his hundreds of failed Kemonao hybrids This guy goes in and impregnates Shiki’s mother ; his brother’s widow himself. This produces Aya, Shiki’s half sister who he then locks in a basement for  years.  This guy in the community is compared to Shou Tucker from full metal alchemist and that is awful company to be keeping. This is all summarized well by this reddit post from  Shiro_kai. He says 

Akira’s village

The second questionable story concept is about another one of our main cast members, Akira. Akira was born in the yuuki-onna village. This is a village trapped in snow that sees the birth of a male once every 100 years. Akira was born with a twin brother Yui. Being the only males in the village of 200 women. Akira’s older brother Yui was expected to service all 200 of the women with regularity to ensure that the village could survive. Akira was cast aside because the women felt that he did not have the vitality to accomplish such a task. This plot line here had me quite dsturbed as well because a 14 year old being expected to carry the reproductive burden of an entire population is definitely not a light hearted plot line. As drastic as it was in the anime, it’s even worse in the manga. I went and investigated chapter 20 in the manga and discovered that they actually show the women getting what they need from yui in graphic detail. Yue was assaulted daily by the women to carry out his duty and he continued in the effort to ensure that Akira would remain safe and unbothered.

Kabane is on fire

As bad as it is, this story also gets worse as Yui; in protest, accidentally eliminates the whole village and loses his mind in the process. This culminates in Tokyo with Yui and Kabane doing battle essentially for Akira’s freedom. Yui has strong ice powers amplified by an artifact taken from the village. So in order to fight the ice, Kabane is set on fire and fights as a burning skeleton. He is able to do this because he doesn’t feel pain and he regenerates damaged areas. Even though I am fully aware of these facts, it’s still shocking to see burning flesh animated in detail during battle. This anime has no chill. And holds no reservation about making its viewers uncomfortable.

Other horrid stories from Kemono Jihen

Honorable mention for messed up plot thread is the whole character Kon. She is a kitsune Kemono who is abandoned by her master. Kabane befriends her but leaves her to live in a tree at the public park. She is essentially homeless. One time he promised to return to her in the park but he never did until several days later having forgotten about her. Tanuki and Kitsune are natural enemies but it still seems strange to me that Inugami and his whole team knowingly leave this 14 year old to live in a tree.