‘Kemono Friends’ Season 2 Release Date Confirmed: Serval Returns In Anime, Bushiroad Game Coming In 2017

The Kemono Friends Season 2 release date has officially been confirmed! Serval and other animal Friends in Japari Park will be coming back for a second season of the anime series based on the mobile game created by manga artist Mine Yoshizaki of Sgt. Frog fame. What’s more, the Kemono Friends game will also be relaunched in the near future.

The first season of Kemono Friends was actually a huge sleeper hit that seemingly came out of nowhere since the main source material is a failed project. The story is based on the Kemono Friends game developed by Nexon, but the service was only available from 2015 through December of 2016, shutting down a mere month before the first episode of the anime aired in January of 2017.

The smartphone game may have been a failure, but the Kemono Friends anime was a huge hit. Back in April, the official Twitter account claimed that over 120,000 units of the first two Blu-ray volumes were sold in Japan. To put that number into perspective, an anime is often considered a success if only 3,000 units are sold in the first week, which usually has the highest sales numbers.

Part of the popularity can be explained by the price. The anime volumes sold at half the average price of a normal anime Blu-ray disc volume, and they contained a guide book along with two episodes. However, that would be like saying a normal-priced anime sold over 60,000 units, which are still amazing sales numbers.

Kemono Friends Game App Is Coming Back

The unexpected popularity of the anime is also causing the Kemono Friends game to be rebooted. According to Famitsu, game developer Bushiroad announced that it will deliver a new game application based on the popular anime, and the game project is called Project G at this time.

The brand-new Kemono Friends game will debut on its Bushimo smartphone service, but an exact release date has yet to be confirmed. The only details announced about the gameplay is that the experience will be “completely new” in comparison to the previous failed game. According to Anime News Network, there may be other games being developed besides the smartphone app.

Kemono Friends Manga Provides Limited Source Material For Season 2

There is a manga called Kemono Friends: Welcome to Japari Park! that began serialization in Kadokawa Shoten’s Sh?nen Ace magazine back in 2015, but the manga ended in March of 2017. Unfortunately, this manga can’t be source material for an anime sequel since the manga is actually a prequel to the events of the anime. This also means that Kemono Friends Season 2 will be original content.

The Kemono Friends manga is a “slice of life” story that shows Japari Park before it was invaded by the alien Cerulean. In the anime, the main character Kaban is on a quest to figure out her identity as a human so it’s possible that Kemono Friends Season 2 could make references to past events from the manga. Even the first season of the anime is a direct continuation of the game because of the character Mirai’s recordings, but others like Serval are the same species but a different character.

Kemono Friends Season 2 Release Date Will Happen But The Exact Premiere Is Uncertain

As of this publishing, the anime production committee has not announced anything official about the Kemono Friends Season 2 release date, although this article will be updated as soon as the exact time frame for the anime sequel is confirmed. However, there can be reasonable speculation about when the Kemono Friends Season 2 premiere date may occur.

In Episode 12, Kaban is joined by Serval, Raccoon, and Fennec and sets off to find humans in a nearby region, but she runs out of gas for her boat. It was pretty obvious that studio Yaoyorozu hoped Kemono Friends Season 2 would be greenlit since the final scene had Serval and the other Friends wipe away the “The End” subtitle to reveal a faded “To Be Continued” sign. By February of 2017, Mine Yoshizaki promised on her blog that “the project is going to continue in the future.”

On April 4, 2017, Kemono Friends director and writer Tatsuki released an unofficial episode, titled “Episode 12.1,” for the fans. The notes on YouTube stressed that this episode is an independent production and does not represent Kemono Friends Season 2, although the concept was designed by Yoshizaki.

The only official confirmation of the Kemono Friends Season 2 release date came from the fifth volume of the guide book that released in July. Pictures of the jacket announced the second season of Kemono Friends, but admitted, “It will take some time, so please wait!”

[Featured Image by Studio Yaoyorozu]