English Dub Review: Kemono Jihen “Kabane”

Overview (Spoilers):

Monsters live among us and sometimes they even have children with humans. Unfortunately for Kabane, his parents abandoned him. Or that is what he is led to believe by his cousin and aunt. The truth is yet to be seen, but for detective Inugami cases like that are what he is known for. Inugami is a tanuki kemono and can create objects out of thin air.

He was hired to look into the strange corpses showing up. Turns out he was hired to kill Kabane because his aunt thinks that it is him behind the killings. Will this be the shortest series ever? Let’s get to it.

Our Take:

This was a show I was hoping would eventually get a dub. I had a feeling it would get one eventually and we get two episodes at once no less! Kemono Jihen is one of the more unique, under-the-radar anime from the winter season. It really shows Funimation’s commitment to getting as many dubs out there as possible.

Kemono Jihen is a supernatural shounen anime that has interesting power sets and monsters. If the first two episodes are anything to go by. I will go into the second episode more later since the first one mostly focuses on Kabane and why he’s different.

In this world, humans and kemono (the easiest way to describe them is monsters but that feels like a simple umbrella term) have been secretly coexisting for centuries. So much so that eventually humans and kemono would inevitably have children together. Kabane is one of these offspring, being the son of a human and what is essentially a ghoul. This is the reason for his poor smell that his family complains of.

Speaking of his family, with family like that who needs enemies? I think we all feel we have family issues of some sort but at least our aunt hasn’t ever hired someone to kill us. Well… I hope not anyway. His cousin Yataro is also a spoiled brat and isn’t happy at all when Inugami, the detective hired to investigate the corpses, chooses Kanabe to be his attendant.

The story is intriguing and I can’t wait to see where it goes. Kabane’s power set is teased just enough to want to see just how powerful he really is. Wanting to see every new character’s power after their introduction is also reason enough to tune in for now.

Congrats to Madeline Morris for getting her second leading role from the winter season. She also plays the young version of Rudeus Greyrat in Mushoku Tensei. I think like Laura Stahl she is cast to play a lot of the younger boy characters. Like Stahl, after a few minutes, you forget all about that and just enjoy their performance.

I really like the casting of Patrick Seitz as Inugami. Patric Seitz has such a recognizable voice and this is a role that is perfect for him. A character that is a little calmer than he is used to playing but I think he will do amazing in the role. Now let’s go to episode two!