Bryan Chaney
21 Nov 1998
HIST 592
Paper #2

Kemono: a study of a small fandom

Look up “kemono” in most any Japanese-English dictionary and it will tell you it means “beast.” However for a small group of Japanese otaku, it has a very different meaning. In part influenced by a similar fandom in North America and Europe, kemono draws on a variety of influences, both in popular art and commonly known lore to create an interesting reflection of contemporary life.

In short, kemono revolves around the concept of anthropomorphic animals. In the West, they are commonly known as “furries,” though, confusingly, the same term can apply to the fans of the genre. Other terms employed in English include therianthrops, “furs”, funny animals,¹ or anthrops, each with their own different connotations and baggage. Similarly, there are different terms that appear in Japanese to cover the same concepts, such as kemono, juujin,² and farii .³

The problems with naming these figures is important since while many of these concepts have been around for many centuries in both Japan and the West, there are few words to describe them as a whole. Anthropomorphism in Japan has a long history, from the various kitsune and tanuki folk tales, of foxes having parallel societies in the night, to Toba’s Choujuugiga (The Animal Scrolls) done around the 12th century, which some site as the origin of the manga art style.⁴ However, most of the time, the association of anthropomorphic creatures has often been negative, being considered part of the larger class of obakemono (ghosts, spirits). In more recent times, much like Disney in the West, anthropomorphic characters have been aimed at children and/or to be cute, as in the Sanrio line of characters (Hello Kitty, et. al.) or the popular children’s anime Doraemon (a robotic feline). It should be noted a related phenomena is the appearance of “cat-girls” or more rarely “fox-girls” in some anime and manga, such as Anapuma and Unapuma in Masume Shirow’s Dominion Tank Police. These characters are mostly human in appearance, save for animal ears and a tail, and as one Western fan humorously noted, “wear as little clothing as possible, if any.”⁵

The art that is created covers a wide range, from Sanrio-esque “superdeformed” characters through permutations on the “cat-girl” and “fox-girl” archetype⁶ and more manga-styled anthropmorphics to those approaching “realistic” stylings. As the typical kemono fan profile and it’s association with doujinshi might suggest⁷ , there is also a fair percentage of sexually explicate or at least sexually provocative art work, curiously, though, still subjected to Japanese style censorship, with certain parts blurred out.

Another interesting element of the kemono culture is its explicate international character, but yet the close interaction between various Japanese fans/artists (in this fandom, it is impossible to separate the two categories) have with each other. The most common phrase one comes across when viewing kemono page is the apologetic “Sorry, Japanese only.” There is definitely awareness that non-Japanese speaking people are going to be viewing their pages and their art. This is further bolstered by the fact that some Japanese artists have characters on FurryMUCK, a US multi-user gaming environment, in which people from all over the world come to interact and role-play anthropomorphic characters. There has also been some artists who have made it to ConFURence, an annual convention for “furry” fans held in Los Angles. One artist, Trump, even did a manga diary of his trips to ConFURence, highlighting some of the various Western “furry” artists and personalities that has been published in a men’s magazine for at least 3 years running. Others have done art work for people outside of Japan and conversely, people outside of Japan has done artwork with the Japanese artist’s characters.

Yet, there is a sense of closeness between the various Japanese artists, probably because of their limited number. It is not hard to find a particular Japanese artist, since his link is highly likely to be on any particular artist’s link page. There is also the practice of doing a “gift picture” for another person when their webpage reaches a particular counter milestone, like 1000 or 5000 hits. While not unknown among Western artists, it no where as near as common.

So, what all does this mean in the larger context? There are, I feel, two factors at work. The first is the increasing urbanization of Japan. It is my theory that people have long had an affinity with the animal world, and that has manifested itself in various ways; the centaur and the sphinx of the ancient world, the werewolf stories in Europe, the stories of fox possession in China and Japan, to name just a few. In these stories, there is both a wonder and fear of the natural world, that man is subject to its whims. Judeo-Christian tradition, however, places man firmly above and separate from the natural world. In those that feel strongly this connection of man with the animal world, it will often come out if strange ways, such as the furry fandom of the late 20th century. Japan, on the other hand, has never had a tradition like that of Judeo-Christianity, in fact, just the opposite. However, because of the rapid, almost haphazard growth in Japanese urban areas, the natural world for most Japanese is increasingly remote. Thus, again when those people that feel strongly about being part of the animal world, it comes out in a strange way, such as kemono.

The second, which goes without saying, is the influence of Western culture or, more pointedly, Western internet culture. While these feelings of disconnection may have existed before, many artists site as products that crystallized their feelings were movies like The Secret Of Nihm (a Don Bluth film about genetically enhanced mice) or Warner Brothers’ cartoons. Certainly, also a factor is the interest many Western anthropomorphic artists have had in Japanese manga and art, including the comic artist who basically started the furry fandom in the mid-80’s, Steve Gallacci.⁸ This interest and interaction continues today with, for example, the art work of Fred Perry, whose manga influenced Gold Digger comic book is being produced in Japan as an OAV (Original Animation Video). Thus, a cultural two-way street is being developed in which art styles and concepts are flowing back and forth.

While admittedly a very small and marginal group of people are interested in kemono in Japan, compared to much of Japanese mass culture in general, it is symptomatic of a larger trend that is slowly making itself felt in Japan as a whole, Japan as not only a producer of manufactured goods, but also cultural products; art, movies, music, etc. Furthermore, it is this awareness that these products are being not only consumed by those in Japan, or even by those in Asia, but in the whole world that is subtly changing how those products are being produced. How this plays out in the future, both on the large and small scale shall prove interesting.

¹ What is a furry? n.d. Available: http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~wbwolf/whatis.txt [21 Nov 1998]

² “Inokuma Kitsune” Kemono n.d. Available: http://www.fang.or.jp/~vixen/Kemono.html [21 Nov 1998]

³ Ken Singshow Official Androzon Site! (Andorozon Koushiki Saito!) 1998 Available: http://www.fang.or.jp/~skunk/andoro/index.html [21 Nov 1998]

⁴ Frederik Schodt Manga! Manga! The World Of Japanese Comics (Kodansha: Tokyo and New York 1983 [1988]) p. 30

⁵ cited by “Scratch” Furry Anime Index Page n.d. Available: http://209.31.6.180/FurryAnime [21 Nov 1998]

⁶ See Fuwareac Kiri_Gallery_1 12 Oct 1998 Available: http://www.page.sannet.ne.jp/fuwareac/htm/kr_e1.htm [21 Nov 1998] for examples

⁷ Schodt Dreamland Japan (Stonebridge Press: Berkeley 1996) p. 57-8

⁸ Steve Gallacci “Bad Rubber” Albedo No. 0 4th ed. (Thoughts & Images: Seattle 1986) p. 7, 9 There are small references to Astro Boy and Arcadia Of My Youth in the background on these pages, respectively.

Uploaded 3 December 1998