English Dub Review: Kemono Jihen “Awakening”

Overview:

Shiki freezes up but eventually fights back and defeats the mosquitoe kemono. Kabane beat the one he fought as well. This made the leader not happy and she decided to eat her sisters. Kabane tapped into his kemono strength to defeat her. Lady Inari has a new fox assistant named Nobimaru who got rid of the evidence. Shiki is ready to learn about his parents.

Our Take:

In a bit of an addendum to the last review for this show. I need to correct a minor mistake, I called them fly kemono when they are actually mosquitoes. I guess it should have been obvious with the whole blood/brain-sucking thing. Ultimately, the moral of the story is they are bad and need to be stopped.

Shiki grows up a bit in this one. He was getting really scared and even cried for Inugami to come to help him. Mihai did not think he was acting as he should. Especially with Kabane on his way to assist having already defeated one of the kemono. I think ultimately Shiki didn’t want to look bad in front of Kabane and that is what got him moving.

I was wondering when the scene from the opening would come into play. Kabane has a sort of “Super Saiyan” moment where he gains new strength and his hair even changes. At least there’s an explanation here and for the most part, it makes sense. This whole time he has just been using his human strength and finally tapped into his kemono strength. As far as new powerups go this one wasn’t bad and it didn’t come entirely out of left field.

This was your typical “resolution” episode. They had to finish the case and wrapped it up. All while introducing a new character, the kitsune Nobimaru. He is Lady Inari’s new assistant since Kon is gone. This leads me to my final point for the episode. Kon is too pure for this world. She apparently waited days for Kabane, even caught some fish for them to share that went rotten. I hope we get some more Kon and Kabane moments, they are just too adorable.