Kemono

Kemono (Japanese &#29539;, ケモノ, or &#12369;&#12418;&#12398; "beast") is a genre of Japanese art and character design that prominently features fictional anthropomorphic animal characters in human-like settings and situations. It is used widely in drawing, painting, manga, anime, and video game designs, many of which are popular in the rest of the world. Human-like animal characters are called J&#363;jin (Japanese &#29539;&#20154; or &#12376;&#12421;&#12358;&#12376;&#12435; "Beastman, or less literally, therianthrope").

The style combines popular character design with animal traits deemed cute and endearing. It can be largely agreed upon by the fandom that the kemono style lies in the face and the eyes. (Examples include smaller snouts and big anime eyes.) Kemono characters can also have varying fur textures, example (fur with a pronounced, "fluffy", texture.) The Kemono style is not just "Moe" though and it can come from a variety of anime styles.

Most kemono character designs retain a fundamentally human personality, seldom acting like the real animals after which they are designed. As such, kemono are usually shown living the way normal humans live in the same setting: speaking a normal language, wearing normal clothes, eating normal food, living in normal homes, in ways that blur their distinction from ordinary humans. Although this can vary from creator to creator. It highly depends on the creator and the character.

Currently, kemono art is often distributed through Japanese fanzine circles, "doujinshi." Fans of kemono are called kemona or kemoners (ケモナー kemonā), from kemono and English -er; this had once been controversial.

There is also kemono which depicts young animals, much like cub art: kemololi (female cub) / kemoshota (male cub).

Kemono in mainstream media
In Japanese art, some anthropomorphic characters appeared since ancient times. For example, in the most famous Emaki-mono (絵巻物, horizontal-illustrated narrative) art Choju Jinbutsu Giga (鳥獣人物戯画) drawn in the 12/13th Century, is sometimes regarded as the roots of the whole Japanese manga, the animal like rabbit and monkey is drawn as if they were human. Some people also point out some Ukiyo-e artists, especially Kuniyoshi Utagawa (歌川国芳, 1797-1861), having drawn some pictures including anthropomorphic characters in the middle of the 19th century. But it is difficult to define the cultural roots of today's kemono art. Although it is as same as the works even in modern times, However, there is a fact that, Japanese animators and manga artists used to imitate American cartoons like Disney and its animal characters. For example, in "Norakuro (のらくろ)", one of the most famous manga in pre-war Japan, almost all characters were anthropomorphic dogs and the influence of Felix the Cat was clear. Meanwhile, in the post-war era Osamu Tezuka (手塚治虫), considered the father of modern manga, and also being a fan of Disney, launched his own animation company Mushi Production and in 1965 released the animation Kimba the White Lion (the original title: Jungle Taitei, ジャングル大帝) in which main characters were zoomorphic. Apart from the influence of Disney and American cartoons, the art by an animator Yasuji Mori (森やすじ, 1925-1992) was remarkable in the terms of Japanese original "Kemono" art style. Just after the WWII, he decided to become an animator when he watched Mighty Mouse, and became one of the greatest animator at Toei Animation (東映動画) then Nippon Animation (日本アニメーション), the major animation companies in the post-war Japan, where he was the master of the numerous famous animator like Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata etc. One of the major characteristics of Mori's style is that he loved to draw animal characters, and it leads to some anime works like The Wonderful World of Puss 'n Boots (長ぐつをはいた猫) in 1969, the protagonist of which is today's mascot of Toei Animation. He was of course under the influence of American animation, however, there was a unique art style. A researcher in the later days suggests that in Mori's work animal characters are drawn as equal as human and they have their own world, i.e. he drew the world of kids (and overall human) throughout animal characters. It means that his portraying of animal characters had the social satire. One of the reasons of Mori's influence is not only his influence on the whole Japanese animation but also the fact that he had worked relatively early and the period of his activities was relatively long, from the late of the 1950s (こねこのらくがき, Koneko no rakugaki) to the beginning of the 1980s (シートン動物記 リスのバナー, Bannertail: The Story of A Gray Squirrel etc).

In spite of the difficulty to prove the direct cultural relationship between Mori's art and today's kemono art, however, there is a remarkable fact that in 2012 Gallone, the founder of Kemoket published a joint-doujinshi "Mori-no-ko (もりのこ)", featuring Mori's art, to which contributed the well-known kemono artists like Ikuta Takanon (いくたたかのん) and gamma-g. Until the emergence of kemono artists at the end of the 20th century, it may be said that each anthropomorphic manga and anime works were the isolated cases and there is a hypothesis that they had not only the author's own interest toward anthropomorphism but also the certain influence of American cartoon or animation that Mori contributed to. For example, in 1973 Shinji Wada (和田慎二, 1950-2011) released a manga "Jugatsu no Kuma-san" (十月のクマさん, Bear-san in October) on a manga magazine for young girls and received the certain acclaim then finally published "Kumasan-no-Shiki (Four Seasons of Bear-san)" in 1976. This work, depicting the heart-warm and sometimes harsh story at the Ural mountain, was the rare case in that it was a commercial anthropomorphic manga at that time and under the influence of Mori. . Akira Himekawa (姫川明, consists of two artists born in the 1960s), a manga artist who also participate Kemono doujin event, lamenting his death in 2011, mentioned: "(Anthromorphic) Kemono manga, not zoomorphic, we saw for the first time."

On Japanese Anime, an animator Syuichi Seki (関修一, born 1946) was the designer of some anime works in which various "Kemono" characters appeared like Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds (ワンワン三銃士), Uchusen Sagittarius (宇宙船サジタリウス) etc. He has been a freelance animator but worked for the numerous works on Nippon Animation for a long time and it can be said that he was the pupil of Yasuji Mori. Since the second half of the 1980s, Joji Manabe (真鍋譲治, born 1963) had drawn his manga in which did appeared some anthropomorphic characters in the nearer style to today's kemono art. Although Manabe didn't commit to Kemono fanzine, he had also published some doujinshi on Eto Ranger from 1998 to 2002. and it is inevitable to say that he had the certain influence on today's kemono art. For example, Gammachaos, the designer of Horkeukamui from Tokyo Afterschool Summoners had listed up the name of Manabe at the top of the favorite authors.

In the golden age of the Japanese video games in the 1980s and 90s, many anthropomorphic characters appeared in the well-known video games like Star Fox, Sonic that must have had the great influence on the Kemono fanzine later days.

As above, "Kemono" in today's had appeared in the numerous commercial manga and animations and video games. However, until the emergence of Kemono artists at the end of the 20th century, all works today regarded as "Kemono" was those motivated by the author's own interest toward anthropomorphism or the influence of the animation or manga by Mori and other professional artists. Almost no one author above was within the Kemono fandom and the commercial work by the artists within it had for the first time in the late of the 1990s.

Since at least before 2000, kemono is easily encountered in Anime, Manga, and Video games. Below is a selected list of such works that include kemono/furry characters and were/are the most influential to kemono fanzines.

Commercial Advance of kemono artists
The pioneer who was active within Kemono fanzine and published the commercial works featuring "Kemono", appeared in the late of the 1990's. Momiji Yuga (夕雅紅葉) published "Fur Fur" and other short comics on the commercial major adult manga magazine Kairakuten (快楽天). After that Yuga published "Dendo Yugu-ten (電動遊具店, Electric-adult-toyshop)" including almost all his other resembling works. However, it was the isolated case and "kemono" works was published mainly in doujin until the middle of the 2010s (see the chapter "Offline Community").

The situation has been changing since the beginning of the 2010s. Some works by artists within the kemono fanzine on the SNS or doujin, have been scouted and published from the relatively minor publishers: Soineya-Honpo (添い寝屋本舗) and Ojo to Nanahiki no Inu (お嬢と七匹の犬, Madamoisel and Seven dogs) by Iwatobineko (岩飛猫); Bucho ha Onee (部長はオネエ), Totsukuni no Syoujo(とつくにの少女) by Nagabe (ながべ); Afrika no Salaryman (アフリカのサラリーマン) by Gum(ガム); Yoichi to Tsugumo (与一とツグモ) by Hayate Kuku (琥狗ハヤテ); Oinari JK Tamamo-chan (お稲荷JKたまもちゃん) by Rei Yuuki (ユウキレイ); Mofuka no Poppuli (もふかのポプリ), Nyan Communication (にゃんこみゅにけーしょん)　by Kako Kizuki (喜月かこ) etc.

Meanwhile, the artists outside kemono fanzine has became very prominent by the work with all anthromorphic characters. Baru Itagaki (板垣巴留), the daughter of the famous mangaka Keisuke Itagaki, has been publishing her manga BEASTARS, the subject of which is the conflict between and carnivore and herbivore animals that is common with Zootopia on the well-known magazine Weekly Shonen-Champion (週刊少年チャンピオン). This manga have had great acclaims, and won several major manga awards including Manga Grand Prix (マンガ大賞) in 2018.


 * Anime
 * Kimba the White Lion (ジャングル大帝, 1965/1989) – Originally written by Osamu Tezuka.
 * The Amazing 3 (ワンダー3, 1965~1966)
 * The Wonderful World of Puss 'n Boots (長靴をはいた猫, 1969/1972/1976) – The animation director was Yasuji Mori (森やすじ).
 * Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds (ワンワン三銃士 1981~1982)
 * Fables of the Green Forest (山ねずみロッキーチャック, 1973) – also directed by Yasuji Mori.
 * Bannertail: The Story of Gray Squirrel (シートン動物記 りすのバナー, 1979)
 * Bagi, the Monster of Mighty Nature (大自然の魔獣 バギ, 1984) – also directed by Osamu Tezuka.
 * Sherlock Hound (名探偵ホームズ, 1984~1985) – One of the directors was Hayao Miyazaki.
 * Adventures of the Little Koala (コアラボーイコッキィ, 1984~1985)
 * Maple Town (メイプルタウン物語, 1986)
 * Alfred J. Kwak (小さなアヒルの大きな愛の物語 あひるのクワック, 1989~1990)
 * Samurai Pizza Cats (キャッ党忍伝てやんでぇ, 1990~1991)
 * RPG Densetsu Hepoi (RPG伝説へポイ, 1990~1991) – Anthromorphic female cat character Miiya (ミーヤ) was popular.
 * Kouryuu Densetsu Vilgust (甲竜伝説ヴィルガスト, 1991~1992) – Original video anime.
 * Shima Shima Tora no Shimajirō (しましまとらのしまじろう 1993~2008, 2014~) - featuring the mascot of a preschool correspondence course.
 * Montana Jones (1993)
 * Tanoshii Willowtown (楽しいウイロータウン, 1993~1994) – Based on "The Wind in the Willows" by Kenneth Grehame.
 * Gene Diver (ジーンダイバー, 1994~1995)
 * Pom Poko (平成狸合戦ぽんぽこ, 1994) – Produced by Studio Ghibli
 * Eto Rangers (十二戦支爆烈エトレンジャー, 1995~1996)
 * Whisper of the Hearts (耳をすませば, 1995) – Story wtitten by Hayao Miyazaki.
 * Gulkeeva (獣戦士ガルキーバ, 1995)
 * Alice Detective (アリス探偵局, 1995~1996)
 * Pokémon (1996~ present)
 * Digimon (1999~2003, 2006, 2010~2012)
 * The Cat Returns (猫の恩返し, 2002) – Sequel of Whisper of the Hearts.
 * Legendz (レジェンズ, 2004)
 * Onmyou Taisenki (陰陽大戦記, 2004~2005) – Main character Kogenta is popular among kemono fans.
 * Summer Wars (2005)
 * One Stormy Night (あらしのよるに, 2005)
 * Jewelpet (2008~2020)
 * Smile Precure! (2012) – The evil wolf character Wolfrun was booming in kemono doujin.
 * Log Horizon (ログ・ホライズン, 2013~2014, 2014~2015, 2020) - One of main character, Nyanta (にゃん太) also popular among kemono artists.
 * Future Card Buddyfight (2014~present)
 * BNA: Brand New Animal (BNA ビー・エヌ・エー, Bī enu ē, 2020)
 * Beastars (ビースターズ, Bīsutāzu, 2019. 2020 Netflix)
 * Commercial Video Games (including handheld device)
 * Sonic (1991)
 * StarFox (1993~present)
 * FEDA (1994)
 * Pokémon (1995~present)
 * Digimon (1997~) – Originally a virtual pet toy, it quickly became a multimedia franchise.
 * Klonoa (風のクロノア,　1997~2002)
 * Little Tail Bronx series
 * Tail Concerto (テイルコンチェルト, 1998) – First game of the series
 * Solatorobo (ソラトロボ, 2010) – Sequel to Tail Concerto
 * Little Tail Story (リトルテイルストーリー, 2014) – Spiritual successor to the first of two games
 * Summon Night (サモンナイト, 2000)
 * Shining Wind (2007)
 * Paper Man (ペーパーマン) (2009~2016)
 * Social/Mobile Games
 * Pazuani (戦国パズル!!あにまる大合戦, 2012~present)
 * Wonder Crown (ワンダークラウン, 2016~2017)
 * Tokyo Afterschool Summoners (東京放課後サモナーズ, 2016~present) also known as "Housamo (放サモ)".
 * Fullbokko Heroes X (フルボッコヒーローズX, 2014~2019) - formerly known and still referred as "Fullbokko Heroes (フルボッコヒーローズ)".
 * Cat Busters (キャットバスターズ) (2016~present), now known as Cat Busters collection.
 * World Flipper (ワールドフリッパー) (2019~present)
 * 100 Sleeping Princes & the Kingdom of Dreams ** - has a little prince cat named Navi.
 * Doujin Softs (non-commercial games)
 * Ryuu no Kazeuta (竜の風詩, 1997) – see the article Garyu (Japan)
 * Tail Tale (2000) – The first Japanese adult kemono video game
 * Ryuu no Kazeuta II (2003)
 * Morenatsu (漏れなつ, 2003~2015) – unfinished
 * Koryu no Kazeuta (仔竜の風詩, 2014) – Mobile game


 * Manga
 * The Amazing 3 (ワンダー3, 1965~1966) – Written by Osamu Tezuka.
 * Taiyo-hen from Phoenix (火の鳥 太陽編, 1986~1988) – Also written by Osamu Tezuka.
 * Dragon Quest Dai no Daibouken (ドラゴンクエスト ダイの大冒険, 1989~1996) – Anthromorphic crocodile character Crocodine (クロコダイン) is popular among kemono doujin.
 * Shima Shima Tora no Shimajirō (1988~ present)
 * Onmyou Taisenki (陰陽大戦記, 2003~2006)
 * Gingitsune (ぎんぎつね, 2008~ present)
 * Oumagadoki Zoo (逢魔ヶ刻動物園, 2010~2011) – Unfinished
 * Log Horizon (2010~ present)
 * BEASTARS (2016~ present)
 * Made In Abyss (メイドインアビス, 2016~ present) - Nanachi (ナナチ), a rabbit-like cub character, is popular.
 * High School Inari Tamamo-chan! (2018~ present)
 * Kemonogiga (ケモノギガ, 2018~ present)
 * Yo-Kai Watch (2013~ Present),Komasan and Komajiro are fairly popular. A few cat yokai like Jibanyan, while not popular within the community, are kemono


 * Others
 * Mamoru-kun (まもるクン, 2000~present?) – Mascot of the crime/disaster prevention campaign and mailing system in Fukuoka prefecture, with the assistance of the creators of Tail Concerto and Solatorobo
 * Row Kemonone (獣音ロウ, 2010~ present) – Vocaloid featuring Kemono


 * Sanrio One of, if not the only company that constantly makes kemono animals. Most notably Aggressive Retsuko and My Melody.

Kemono and furry
Though based on very different cultural ideals, kemono and furry fandom on the Internet can occasionally overlap, both geographically and in influence. Some kemono artists appeal to both at the same time. Due to the similarity in subject matter, kemono fans are also frequently interested in furry art (and vice versa.)

In early 2010, Kemonochan was created as an image board for English-speaking users who are fans of kemono artwork, but it closed in 2014, leaving VeeBooru and WildCritters as the main English-speaking boards for such work.

Kemoner
Some kemono fans are called Kemoner (ケモナー). The term has been controversial over the years, sometimes for being used as a disparaging word, with some people who are regarded as Kemoner by others loathe being called so.

Since the middle of the 1990s, the term "Kemoner" had been used mainly by people outside those of equivalent to Kemono fanzine at the whole anime/manga fanzine in the quite negative context like "the sexual perverts" who have lust for animals (often confused with zoophilia) and the person concerned had used it as self-torture. In 1998, the prominent doujinshi circle (Kemono fanzine) KEMONERS which used this term as self-calling for the first time officially was launched, and it may be after this that "Kemoner" is used in the non-negative meanings.

Some definitions argue that Kemoner only stands for gay people in the fanzine, and does not include the straight people, because since the late of the 1990s they became the majority of Kemono fanzine due to the major kemono-specialized online service FANG that banished straight-adult content from the service.

And "kemoner" is sometimes labeled on fans of related genres, including fans of kemonomimi, which stand for human characters with animal ears and tails, and also zoophiles and transfur. Those who were labeled as Kemoner without identifying themselves as such, loathe being called so because of the reasons listed above.

Backward, some kemoners are very sensitive to the labeling kemonomimi as Kemono. On 13 March 2015, a weblog on Otaku culture "Omaemoka? Me too dayo (お前もか？ Me tooだよッ Are you also? Me too )" posted the article to introduce Kemono Friends (けものフレンズ), a new social game that all characters are female kemomimi, not anthropomorphic jujin. The problem was that the blogger wrote the words on the title "for Kemoner" (ケモナーのための), and moreover, at the end of the article, the blogger added; "I haven't ever recognized myself as a Kemoner, but I am a Kemoner! Say Hallo!" (ケモナーの自覚はなかったけど、俺ケモナーだわ！よろしく！). These words were severely criticized by many people, presumably kemoners, and otherwise were anticipated that kemoners got mad. And tweets informed it by kemoners were retweeted over 900 times on Twitter. Soon the blogger apologized to kemoners and deleted the word "for kemoner" from the title of the article, while analyzing the cause of the trouble was that (s)he recognized the definition of Kemoner as "those who love animal-like something (『けものっぽいものが好きならケモナー』)" Since then this weblog has never been updated (as of January 2017). This incident indicates that how some kemoners show the attitude toward the easygoing confusion between Kemono and Kemonomimi by people outside of the Kemono fandom, which ironically was exacerbated later by the runaway popularity of Kemono Friends' anime adaption.

These facts make things more complex and it makes the term "Kemoner" very controversial. Instead, the term Kemonozuki (ケモノ好き) is sometimes used to avoid these problems and troubles, though "kemoner" is still more well-known.

Offline community
Until the 2010s when the fursuit culture and events emerged, Japanese kemono community was mostly developed in the context of Japanese doujinshi (同人誌) culture, and it may be one of the important characters of Japanese kemono culture, compared with the equivalent in other countries.

Doujinshi refers to the self-published works (similar to fanzines), most of those are uncommercial but paid, and "doujin" refers to the related activities. Doujinshi vending events in Japan emerged in the middle of the 1970s. In 1975, Comiket was held for the first time, and it grew over the following decades to become the premier fan event in Japan. Until the 1980s, the main style of publication was "Joint-doujinshi" (合同誌), where various artists publish their works in a single book because self-publication demanded great expenses. Even as the cost of publishing declined, and the increase of doujinshis by a single artist ("Kojinshi", 個人誌), many kemono genre doujinshi are still produced collaboratively.

Already in the late 1980s, there were fanzines equivalent to today's kemono doujinshi, like those on Sherlock Hound (1984), and Gene Diver (1994). However, doujinshi featuring anthropomorphic characters seem to have only emerged en masse in the first half of the 1990s.

Until "kemono-only" events (vending events featuring only kemono doujinshi)" began in the early 2010s, Comiket was one of the primary places to sell kemono doujinshis. For years, kemono doujin circles sold their works mainly under the genre "original manga for boys" (創作少年, Sousaku Shounen), where original contents for all ages should be sold; though they also sell adult parody works to this day. Other than Comiket, Mimiket (launched in 2000) and Shotaket (launched in 1995) were also the places for selling kemono doujinshis. During the 2000s, many doujin circles took to selling their works online, increasing their exposure to the community and offering fans unable to attend conventions the opportunity to purchase doujinshi.

1990s
The 1990s were the pioneer days for kemono doujinshi circles. Its outset is quite unknown, however, some doujinshi circles appeared in this period.

In the early 1990s, a cub doujin-artist Nyantaro (にゃん太郎) launched his doujin circle Wan-Nyan Club (ワンニャン倶楽部), and published several joint-doujinshis on some animal characters in Japanese anime, like 3 Choume no Tama (3丁目のタマ, Tama in Land Lot 3) and Yo yo no Neko Tsumami (ヨーヨーの猫つまみ) etc., until its closure in 2000. Among his joint-doujinshis, "Gomen-ne!"(ゴメンネ！ lit. "Sorry!"), published in 1993, might be the first one with sexual fetish contents, including homosexual. Nyantaro himself didn't use the term "Kemono", but "Animal Character (動物キャラ)".

Meanwhile, in 1992 professional manga artist Yuusaku Toshima (豊島ゆーさく) published "Juukan Ou"(獣姦王, Zoophilian King) with some guest artists, including professional manga artist TRUMP, who later launched a series of his doujinshis Book of the Beast (獣之書) featuring female kemono in 1994.

In the middle of the 1990s, anime and games featuring anthropomorphic characters emerged, like Eto Ranger, Wild Knight Gulkeeva, Klonoa (風のクロノア), and the most well known Pokémon and Digimon franchises, all of which make today's kemono genre flourish.

In 1998 KEMONERS was launched by amateur doujin manga artists Nyajira, Harimogu Dragon, and Mahyo Sendo. This shows that the term "kemoner" was already used for self-identification at that time.

Doujinshis featuring dragons had also appeared in this period. In 1999 Tatsuhiro Haneda (羽田龍彦) published his joint-doujinshi "DRAGONS ARK".

In January 1999, the incident so-called "Pokémon Doujinshi Incident (ポケモン同人誌事件)" occurred. A doujin artist (not active in the kemono genre) who sold a doujinshi on Pokémon that contained zoophilia content was arrested. This incident seriously influenced not only Pokémon doujin but also the whole Japanese doujin culture.

2000s
Throughout the 2000s, kemono doujin continued to be magnified. The number of kemono doujinshi circles became greater and greater throughout the 2000s. In the middle of the 2000s, multiple anime series like Legendz, Onmyou Taisenki (陰陽大戦記), and Summer Wars led to the publishing of numerous doujinshis.

In 2000, KEMONERS was reorganized into KEMONERS02 under Mahyo Sendo. It became one of the popular doujinshi circles, and published several joint-doujinshis like ZooCan and Syru-Dra, until its closure in 2003.

Meanwhile, some original works had great influence. In 2001, a doujin artist HIRO launched his doujinshi circle Project D Production Committee (プロジェクトD製作委員会, Project D seisaku iinnkai), later renaming it to Kemono Town Production Committee (けものタウン製作委員会, Kemono Town Seisaku Iinnkai). In 2003, HIRO started to publish the serial joint-doujinshi HOWL, all of which have over 100 pages, and numerous famous kemono artists made the debut there in the later days. HOWL was published until 2013, for 20 volumes. In 2004 the amateur doujin manga artist kitora launched his doujinshi VORWERTS, and also published some joint-doujinshis until 2015. Another notable artist is gamma-g, who, in 2007, released his doujinshi Build Tiger (超獣合金ビルドタイガー) at Comiket. The Build Tiger series, which lasted until 2014 with 14 volumes, featured a long overarching plot, unusual for an erotic kemono doujinshi at the time.

It was also the middle of the 2000s that the history of Japanese fursuit events began, later than the western countries.

Fluffy
The start of kemono only events already appeared in the late of the 2000s. Syota Scratch (ショタスクラッチ), the doujin book fair specialized to human boys (shota) was founded in 2006 by a doujin artist and event promoter Naoki Matsumura (松村直紀). It is notable that some kemono doujin circles like 096 by Ransho Zero (also known as rankiti (ランキチ)) and Yuu Mutsumi (睦美勇) attended. They sold doujinshis on kemoshota, or furry boy characters (male cubs), and demanded the stable appearance in addition to Comiket, since the opening in 2006. Since then even some gay kemono circles also attended.

Consequently, at the end of the 2000s, a self-appointed "kemoshota only event (ケモショタオンリーイベント)" Fluffy (ふらっふぃ) was held inside Syota Scratch 13 in October 2009 by a professional manga artist Macop, and over 60 doujin circles attended. It is remarkable that Fluffy invited not only kemono but kemonomimi doujin circles and the picture on the poster was apparently shota with kemonomimi. At Fluffy 2 held in November 2010 in which 60 doujin circles attended understandably kemono doujin circles and kemonomimi doujin circles were mixed.

This shows that kemono only events emerged in the context of Shota doujin, mixed with kemonomimi, although in the kemono only events in the next decade kemonomimi doujin circles are seldom seen, and especially after the trouble around Fur-st and the emergence of Kemoket, the influence of Naoki Matsumura and shota doujin itself was excluded from kemono doujin in the first half of the 2010s.

2010s
The 2010s for Japanese kemono offline community is the era of "kemono only events" (ケモノオンリーイベント), vending event featuring only kemono doujinshi.

In February 2011, Juujin Matsuri, the first book fair featuring the only kemono, was held in Nagoya (despite the name, Fur-st was not the first; it was held in 20 March 2011 by Naoki Matsumura in Tokyo).

In 2012, Kemoket was held for the first time by doujin artist Gallone. However, Fur-st was the largest kemono book fair, until the trouble in 2013 at Fur-st 5, where Fur-st showed sample past publications by all attending circles without permission. It was critical to Fur-st to have lost its reputation, due to the lack of preparations for attendees in Fur-st 8 in 2014. The number of Fur-st attendees continues to decrease until now (2017). On the other hand, the number of circles and attendees of Kemoket has grown for years. Kemoket recruited over 500 circles for Kemoket 7, to be held in 2017. In addition to starting Kemoket, Gallone launched the new kemono book fair "Ishu Love" in 2016, featuring love between kemono and human characters.

The number and scale of fursuit events also increased. Events such as Fullmoff, JMoF, and more were established during this decade.

Online Community
The beginning of the Japanese online community comparable to today's kemono fanzine is quite unknown, however, it can be imagined that forums on animals, or on anime and manga, etc., in which kemono character appeared, would have emerged with the development of the computer network from 1980s to 1990s. Apart from the commercial BBS system, in Japan the small private BBS system called "Kusanone-BBS (草の根BBS)" was prominent (maybe similar to FidoNet?). Gallone (がろーね), the future founder of Kemoket, was one of the users of BBS.

Since the middle of the 1990s, individual websites had appeared featuring today's kemono fanzine, and in 1997, FANG (online community), the website hosting service specializing in kemono was launched.

Kemono online community also developed in anonymous online communities, like 2ch (anonymous BBS service since 1999) and Futaba Channel (the prominent imageboard service in the early 2000s). Moreover, since circa 2000, 2ch Juu (2ch獣), anonymous Oekaki BBS was launched, where kemono artists submitted pictures and communicate with each other. 2ch Juu was separated into various paint BBSes for each genre, for example, male, female, dragon, kemoshota (cub), and non-kemono (獣にも属さない系), and they linked to each other. Such paint BBS declined after the emergence of Pixiv in 2007, the largest Japanese general online community for artists as of 2017.

Some individual websites were also prominent in the first half of the 2000's. For example, Eevee Studio was launched in 2003, and became the largest website of adult Pokémon pictures in the middle of the 2000s until its closure in December 2008; Kemono Server (けものサーバ), the new web hosting service for kemono fanzine, launched in 2004 to provide for members the server and domain "kemono.cc"; and Kemo-search (けもサーチ), the website search engine that was founded in the same year.

After 2006, the kemono online community has been developing within major Japanese general online communities like mixi, Pixiv and Twitter. On the other hand, individual websites and the neighboring services like Kemosearch, FANG, and Kemono Server declined (they still nominally continue to operate). In 2016, the Japanese social network Kemoner was launched.

Kikaku
"Kikaku" (企画, Project) occupies a significant position on kemono fanzine online. Kikaku is the artistic project between users mostly on pixiv and twitter, participants of which at first post their own character (if the kikaku is a fanfiction, their design is mostly based on its original) on the format called "Chara-shi (キャラシ, character sheet)" created by Kikakunushi (企画主, promoter of the Kikaku) who is usually also a user. And then they interactively post illustrations and manga and communicate with other participants. Participants are determined to act under rules by Kikaku-nushi. Kikaku-nushi's decision include the manner of enrollment and posting, whether the kikaku is NFSW or not, etc. The most well-known and major kikaku, in general, is the series of Pixiv Fantasia, the project of drawing fantastic works on pixiv, and within it, kemono artists organize Gild (ギルド), a small community featuring kemono characters.

The first kikaku featuring the only kemono was Kabupa (株パ, Pandemium Co., Ltd.) by Himasora (ひまそら), held from 2009 to 2010 on pixiv. Meanwhile, in the 2010s, kikaku became to be held also on twitter.

One of the characteristics of kikaku at Kemono fanzine is that they are held mostly within the community of Osukemo (Male anthropomorphic Kemono) artists, while Mesukemo (Female) artists seldom.


 * Kikaku on Pixiv
 * Kabupa (株パ, Pandemium, 2009~2010)
 * Bi-Mafi (び～マフィ, Beast Mafia, 2014?)
 * Kikaku on twitter
 * Drink Dragon (2012)
 * Inuzoribu (Dogsled_Club) (犬ぞり部, 2015~2017?)
 * Fundoshi Gakuransai (褌学乱祭, 2016, 2017)
 * Osukemo Underwear Cafe (オスケモパンツ喫茶, 2017)
 * Fancolo (ファンコロ, Abbreviation of ファンタズマコロッセウム Fantasma Colosseum, 2018)

Kemono events
There are small scale, local furmeets and large-scale, regular conventions catering to kemono fans.

Kemono events can be generally categorized into two types: fursuit events, and doujin/fanzine vending events. (However, this is not absolute: Fullmoff (a fursuiting event) also has booths for creators, and Kemoket (a fanzine market) has spaces for fursuiting, so it is not possible to simply divide the two types.)

The latter type, kemono doujin events, originated from Japanese doujinshi fair like Comiket that began in the middle of the 1970s. Doujinshis featuring kemono had been published since the 1990s in Comiket etc., however, it was not until 2011 that doujinshi fairs featuring only kemono (called "kemono-only events" ケモノオンリーイベント ) appeared.


 * Doujinshi fair (fanzine events) specializing in kemono
 * Fluffy (ふらっふぃ, 2009, 2010)– an event for doujinshi on Kemoshota, Held with Syota Scratch
 * Jujin Matsuri (獣人祭, 2011/2013) – The first doujinshi-vending event focusing only on kemono
 * Fur~st (ふぁ～すと, 2011~2017)
 * Kemoket (けもケット, 2012~present)
 * Mofuket (もふけっと, 2013~2016) – always held with Mimiket, an event for doujinshi on human characters with animal ears (kemonomimi) since the early 2000s
 * Ishu Love (異種ラブ, 2016~present) – The first doujinshi-vending event featuring love between human and kemono etc
 * Fursuiting events
 * TransFur (2005~2007)
 * Kemocon (2008~present)
 * METAMOR GENERATION (2009~2013)
 * Mofukai (2010~2015)
 * Fullmoff (2011~2015)
 * Kigukemo Tube (2011~present) – Held in Nagoya
 * Kemono Yanen! (2011~2013) – Held in Osaka
 * Dragon Kai / Dragon Meet (2011~2013)
 * JMoF (2012~present) – The largest fursuiting event/convention in Japan in 2015
 * Hokkaido Kemono Kigurumi Off (2012~present) – Held in Sapporo
 * Kemono Square (2013~present) – Held in Shizuoka
 * Okikemo (2014~present) – Held in Okinawa