Hataage! Kemono Michi

When I first watched the trailer of Hataage: Kemono Michi, I didn’t have too many expectations of it. In fact, I thought it would continue in the vein of the loathsome isekai from previous seasons which did nothing but frustrate me. But how wrong I was?! It seemed like a very generic story of a hero summoned to a magical world to defeat the demon lord, make a harem, just with some animal love added in. To be honest, Kemono Michi is very much that. Just that it’s a ton of fun to watch. What would a hero do when he’s faced with a three-headed demon dog? What would he do when he comes across aggressive dragons? Well, in this show, Genzo would rather tickle the hell out of the demon beasts to tame them than use his fists to kill them. He loves all beasts, whether they be demi-humans, orcs, or demon beasts, equally and unconditionally. Major warning that it can get kinda gross when he’s sniffing the beasts, as well as when he does the German suplex on some of the female characters, exposing their undies to the world. Written by Natsume Akatsuki, the author or the hugely popular isekai, Konosuba, Kemono Michi follows in the footsteps of its predecessor and attempts to entertain by making fun of itself rather than attempting to have a serious tone and failing pathetically at it. I’ll admit that the gags got old after a few episodes but as a whole, the show still remained entertaining enough for me to have a positive view of it. The plot becomes interesting just at the right time before I start feeling the overuse of certain comic elements, which is what allowed me to retain my interest instead of getting bored of it. The plot is the same as a lot of isekai anime: Genzou, a pro wrestler is summoned to another world in order to defeat the Demon Lord, kill all the demon beasts and become a demon beast killer. But don’t call him by the name “demon beast killer”. The consequences are best understood by asking the princess who summoned him as well as the multiple people who call him by that name in the show. Throughout the season, Kemono Michi manages to keep the plot just about interesting enough while throwing in its bouts of comedy whether that be through the pro wrestling antics of Genzo or his unending love for all beasts. The main cast of characters apart from Genzo includes the wolf girl Shigure, who’s the first to join Genzo’s “party”, and she’s the one who takes care of most of Genzo’s financial affairs. Hanako is a dragon in the form of a girl is a food maniac who’d like to eat all the beasts she can find. Her servant, Carmilla wants to be acknowledged by Hanaka while wanting to do everything that’s best for her. That’s all there is to them. But the show makes it work such that all of them contribute to the comedy one way or another. Some of their mannerisms do wear out towards the later part of the show though, so that’s a small negative. There’s not much to say about the production aspects. Produced by a new studio named ENGI, the art, animation, and sound were unremarkable but fared reasonably enough to not become an eyesore. The opening is somewhat catchy but not something that I’d listen to over and over again, and the OST isn’t too memorable either. However, being a new studio, I’d say that they did a fairly decent job. Overall, Hataage: Kemono Michi was a great improvement over the isekai that we had last season. I think It managed to accomplish what it wanted, that was to make people laugh even if it got somewhat repetitive towards the end. I was a bit confused whether to give this a 7 or an 8. It was entertaining enough that 7 as a review score would be too low but 8 is considered really good anime category. In the end, it's in the middle ground between 7 and 8 for me.