Kemono Friends

Kemono Friends is a Japanese anime that aired on January 10, 2017 based on the mobile phone game of the same name.

Initially, the anime was made in an attempt to promote the game it was based on made published by Nexon. However, Kemono Friends the game was closed down a week before the anime was aired due to financial failures. As such, the show was heavily restricted on budget.

Plot
An abandoned wildlife park, Japari Park, lives dozens of anthropomorphised animals known as "friends(フレンズ)". Kaban,a new born "friend" that didn't know what her species is, set out a journey heading for the library with the accompany of the enthusiastic Serval and a guidance robot called Lucky Beast, as they would encounter a variety of "friends" ,work out with problems together and befriend them.

Why It Rocks

 * 1) Like other Tatsuki's works, the story is full of metaphors and fore shadings,while the plot is not hard to understand.
 * 2) The idea of "humanity had gone extinct" is brilliant.
 * 3) Not only kind-hearted and cute,  "friends" also adapted their animal form habits as well.
 * 4) Both the opening and ending song are nice.
 * 5) Introduction clips of the animals, including the UMA Tsuchinoko, are interesting.
 * 6) It spawned Internet memes like "Do not eat me!","Tanoshii!(So fun!)","Su~goi!(Excellent!)".
 * 7) The scene Toki(Japanese Crested Ibis) singing an off-key song is entertaining, while the lyrics resembled the tragedy that the species once extincted in Japan.
 * 8) Kaban, Serval and Lucky Beast's friendship is heart-touching,as they received their characteristic growth.
 * 9) The sub-plot of Arai-San(Raccoon) and Fennec finding the "hat thief" ,showing the influence of the trio is also nice to watch.
 * 10) Shocking and tearful ending in episode 11, as Serval and Kaban sacrificed for each other in the ending.
 * 11) It is happy to see Mirai-San, the protagonist of the Nexon game to be introduced in the story.
 * 12) * Serval and Caracal, the two supporting characters in the Game, also made their appearances as well.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) Restricted to the budget, some images weren't drawn well. The most infamous case is the "Savanna striped Giant Slug" scene in the first episode, while it drawn Savanna Zebra's back so vague.
 * 2) The first episode might keep some audience from watching the following story, for its pacing wasn't so well.
 * 3) In September 25,2017 ,the director Tatsuki was kicked out of the production team due to an internal struggle occurred in the company, making the ending became a cliffhanger as the real second season stopped its production.
 * 4) * As a result, the guys who kicked Tatsuki out of the team made a terrible rip-off, Kemono Friends 2 by themselves, which was considered the worst anime of all time.

Reception
At first, only 41% of the audience that watched Kemono Friends on NicoNico Douga, Japan's biggest video sharing platform by livestream, answered that they liked the show (mainly due to the poor animation quality). However, the like percentage went skyrocket after then, and it didn't went below 90% except episode 11 - due to network problems(for there are too many audiences at once) and the shocking end scene, making NicoNico replayed the episode by the next day.

According to database, over 7 million people watched the livestream playing the 12 series altogether in May 26, along with a record-breaking like percentage of 98.5.

The show was honored as the Anime of the year 2017 by NHK.

Due to massive unexpected success, the show miraculously revived the dying Kemono Friends franchises, which later spawned several games and a rip-off, Kemono Friends 2, though it killed the franchise once again.