Kemono Friends is a show that is underrated in the US, but has exploded in popularity in Japan. Many people dropped the show after the first episode because of what they considered to be bad 3DCG and poor voice acting, but I did not notice these things at all (maybe watching so many Touhou MMD videos has caused me to automatically filter out various technical deficiencies to focus mainly on the actual story and characters).
At みみどしま, Kastel seems to think that the Kemono Friends phenomenon is due to the story having a "lack of content" — that is to say there is not a lot of overt exposition so the story becomes kind of open-source, resulting in the formation of a community that generated a lot of fan-wank which catapulted the show to popularity.
I'm not sure if I buy this theory, since I liked the show immediately, and did not look to see what was happening in the fandom until rather late. I'd like to think that the popularity was due to the simple and genuine nature of the show as described at ANIME NOW! and the message of kindness and acceptance described at METAculture GURASHII.
In fact, the story reminds me a lot of Planetarian, except the naive Kaban-chan starts out with the kindness that only develops over time in the hardened and jaded Kuzuya. I only hope that Kemono Friends will not end on the melancholy note that Planetarian concluded with.
Currently, there is a set of prize figures from FuRyu available for the show that I really want, but they are rather difficult to come by.
With the prices of these Chobirume Petit figures ranging from US$60 to over US$100 for a complete set, I'll probably wait until the July re-release to buy the figures.
