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There are a lot, I mean, a LOT of copycat anime and games of Pokémon. The most successful of those is certainly the Digimon series. If there's a second place for a good "Pokémon type," it would be it for sure.

But...what about the one for third place? That is quite debatable since there are quite a few good ones out there! But I think a very strong candidate for that spot would be Monster Rancher, aka Monster Farm in Japan! Of the anime/games of this type that I like the most, Digimon is among my favorite copycats~

A good reason for that is because, like the best copycats out there...I would even hesitate to use that word since it's more like they use the same "idea" as Pokémon, but they do their own thing with it and do a good job. While I like the games of MR, we're only going to talk about the anime here, and since the anime exists in its own continuity,y you don't even need to play the games to enjoy it.

Well, I say that, but I don't think it was ever confirmed whether the anime is connected to the games directly or not. If they do exist in the same continuity, then the anime has to be before the first game, and we can only think that because we have Holly there as your Breeder's assistant in that game. I dunno, if it's the same Holly, it makes NO SENSE AT ALL. She would not even mention Genki and her journey with the rest of the party during the game.

So! What is the anime about? From wiki: "The story follows a boy named Genki Sakura, who is a key player of the Monster Rancher video games. After winning a tournament hosted by the game's creators, Genki wins a special CD that he can use to unlock a special monster in his game at home. However, upon using this disk in his game console, he finds himself transported to a world of monsters that, much like Genki's game, are given life by scanning special stone disks within temples.

There, he meets a girl named Holly and her monster friend Suezo, who are seeking a stone disk containing a legendary Phoenix that will save the land from the tyranny of an evil ruler named Moo. Upon attempting to use the disk Genki had won to try and release the monster, they bring forth a different monster, which Genki names Mocchi. Wanting to free the land from Moo's rule, Genki, Holly, Mocchi, and Suezo set off to find the Phoenix, using Holly's Magic Stone to guide them in the direction of the Phoenix. The Magic Stone leads them to Golem, Tiger, and Hare, each of which has their motivations to join the group on their journey to find the Phoenix."

As you can see, MR was one of those anime that was isekai before isekai was a thing! And also a good isekai, all things considered. Maybe that's another reason why the anime is good...it was a good isekai anime even back then, since we see this whole new world through Genki's eyes, learning about the lore of that new world over time and such! A bit more about this later in the spoiler section.

Let's now meet our main cast~

Genki Sakura: The MC of our anime who gets isekaid to the world of MR after winning a tournament (of MR...yes it's a game inside the anime xP) and getting a prototype game as a result. When he plays it, that's when he gets isekaid and the action starts right away!

As the typical MC of a shounen anime of that time, Genki is pretty energetic (which ironically is a translation of his name), dumb, impulsive, and enthusiastic! But he does mature more by the second/third season, and he has his heart in a good place. He's also quite brave, and despite being a young boy, he doesn't hesitate to fight by their friend's side, even if he's just a human without any powers. The anime even "explains" he's that strong because he does a lot of sports and has dumbbells in his room, so he is technically stronger than a normal ten-year-old boy.

While it's easy to make a character like that annoying, he's around as good as most Digimon MCs. Certainly better than Ask Ketchum, at least in the first seasons.

Holly: Holly is quite the special lady! I think she's the only human character that shows up in all (or most?) games of the franchise, though, as I mentioned before, I'm not sure if it's the same Holly or even the same Holly in all of them. So, let's talk only about the anime, Holly!

In a way, she's technically the MC of the anime. After all, the party is joining HER quest to find Phoenix so that Moo can be defeated. Why? Because Moo's army destroyed her village around the time she was 14 years old. With the help of the magic stone given to her by her grandfather, she can locate the monsters that have "parts" of a Phoenix within them. So she departed her village, accompanied only by Suezo, her monster partner.

While she doesn't fight, she might if the circumstances call for it. She's mature and composed and ends up becoming "the heart" of the group, the glue that keeps everyone together.

Maybe it's because she's the only girl in this sausage party, but everyone tends to be quite "respectful" with her. Of everyone, aside from Suezo, I think Genki and Tiger are the ones who have a more unique relationship with her. I can see why some fans like to ship her with Genki, but if we judge only what we see in the anime, I think she with Tiger would make more sense. And, again, if she's the same Holly from the game, then we know nothing of that sort will go anywhere anyway...maybe the games are the reason why the writer only kiiiiiiiinda teased a bit of Genki x Holly and Tiger x Holly here, and there, but never goes all the way with either.

Suezo: https://imgbox.com/g/xMrwpJw1GP

The first monster that "joins" the party as he was there from the beginning, since he is Holly's partner.

Poor Suezo...if there is one character in the series that tends to be bullied, it's him. All because he tends to be the comic relief of the party many times, which might be because he's also quite obnoxious and loud-mouthed. But he is always there for the party, especially for Holly, always! Even if he also suffered like his partner, for sur,e since he was from the same village and lost friends and family just like she did. He lost his "big sister", Pink Eye, in that attack. No wonder that despite being a bit of a coward monster, he will still fight when needed and wants to find Phoenix as much as Holly!

Mocchi: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xh30GvgwHQo

Genki's monster partner! He was born from the game prototype that Genki was able to bring with him when he was isekaid. As the youngest of the group, since he was literally born in the first episode, he's very naive and cute, but also quite brave! While he can talk like the other monsters, he always adds "chi" at the end of his sentences, as some cute characters might do in an anime.

Probably alongside Genki himself is the character that got the most development as you see him grow through the series, especially in battle. By the end of the anime, he had become one of the strongest members of the team!

Golem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKHkyOKyPdE

Quite literally a golem, a monster that is like this big wall. Because of his past, he avoids violence despite being quite strong, and during most battles, he tends to stay behind just to protect Holly. In a way, he might be the most traumatized of the entire party, given his past, which also explains why he is disturbed by violence and hates being alone.

In a way, he's one of the best "gentle giant" characters I've ever seen in anime. Golem's issue isn't even him, but because the rest of the party is just so good! I'm not even sure if anybody can watch this anime and have Golem as their favorite monster, but hey, he's here. Even if I wish they used another monster in his place, since quite a few didn't manage to be in the anime, but I will talk more about this later.

Tiger: https://imgbox.com/g/KLkq7wunBe

Probably the most complex character in the anime. Depending on your PoV, you can argue he's also the most developed.

First, in the English dub, he's called "Tiger of the Wind". You might be wondering why a wolf is called a "tiger". Well, in Japanese, his name is Rygar. That word is brilliant since it comes from the Japanese word "raigaa," which means thunder fang. Plus, it's a reference to the Rygar franchise, another game series developed by Tecmo, who are the same guys that do the MR games! How in the heck do they translate Rygar to Tiger? It's either someone being very dumb or a mystery.

He's a wolf that grew up as a wild monster alongside his brother, Gray Wolf (Silver Rygar in Japanese). To avoid any spoilers, let's just say he hates Moo and joins the party to get his revenge on him by helping them find Phoenix!

Tiger is just...HMMM! He's proud, stubborn, short-tempered, cynical, and one of the best canines you will ever see in any anime! It's no wonder he is one of the most popular characters and also a monster in the anime!

He's so good that by himself, he's already one of the best characters. But...we can't talk about Tiger without also talking about...

Hare: https://imgbox.com/g/eD6mVK31cB

He's called "Ham" in the Japanese version, so I guess this means he and the entire "hare" species of monsters are hamsters and not hares? xP

Hare is the most cunning and smartest of the group...but also tends to be quite selfish and greedy. He loves money, which sometimes can bite him in the ass and the party, too. Plus, his nature very often can make him have fights and argue with Tiger! In part, that's because Tiger never forgot how Hare won their fight in their first meeting, and it's even more humiliating in the Japanese version.

And his dynamic with Tiger is so amusing to watch! It's also very easy to just ship him with that wolf, and any fan who watched this anime will probably have done that already~

MR has 2 seasons, though the dub has 3, which makes no sense, but yeah, they did that. And that's one of the issues with the dub...but worse than that, the dub cut and censored a lot of stuff. Especially the violence and the action, plus some jokes and other stuff. A big example of this is how they removed the worst attack that Hare got and also the one he used to win his duel against Tiger...his farting. I'm not a fan of that stuff, but I dislike censoring even more. For this reason alone, I strongly recommend the subbed version even for you guys that prefer the dub, unless you really don't care about all the cuts and censorship. But you will be missing a lot of stuff, including seeing Tiger drunk and hitting on Hare~

I don't know why they did something dumb like dividing the anime into three seasons when it's just two in the Japanese version, so I will talk only about it as it has two seasons. And season 1 is by far the best one. Moo is a good villain, the party only has good characters that you can see as they all slowly develop and bond together as a group and have their adventures looking for Phoenix. The action was quite good for an anime of this kind at the time. It has a nice ost too! And while simple, the plot still has some nice twists here and there.

Those reasons alone are enough to recommend MR for any fan of those anime that are "Pokémon clones," though it's easy to argue that MR is far more than that. The games aside, I'm confident to say that the anime's first season is superior to the entire anime series, and it rivals some of the best seasons of Digimon. Heck, we have no less than seven characters as part of the main cast! They're on the screen like 80% of the time! And the anime did a damn good job with all of them. The unique dynamic that they all have with each other made MR quite fun to watch on its own, but when you add in the other stuff...again, I'm confident to put this anime as a strong option for third place.

The first season has a beginning, middle, and an ending, so I had no doubt they must not have planned for another season. This also would explain why the second season is quite inferior compared to the first one, despite the first ending being quite rushed. But it's not like the second season is bad. It's just...inferior compared to the first one, and it also has some good stuff. I will talk more about that and the endings in the spoiler section!

So I will talk about some spoiler stuff like the endings of the seasons. If you want to avoid spoilers and want to see what the anime offers for furries, which is the main point of my review, then please scroll down to the “KEMONO SCALE JUDGEMENT” section!

SPOILERS OF THE ANIME AND ENDING

-I wish they had elaborated on how Genki even came to that world in the first place. We never got an explanation for that. Was the prototype even needed? Did Phoenix do something? Who knows. And the second season somehow does an even worse job with that since Genki just happened to find a place with another MR game, and he just decided to play it, all by pure chance. That's so weird. Why not just make it be directly something that Phoenix did directly, like sending a portal to Genki or such? It would be better than this nonsense.

-IMO, there's only one bad thing about the first season 1 and it's the ending. It's kinda of crazy, right after they defeat Moo, Genki falls to his death and is somehow transported back to our world, which implies that's a thing that Phoenix can do. And then the anime just ends with him hallucinating the party saying goodbye to him in a way, lol. That's quite fucked up, especially since from the party's PoV, they shouldn't even know what happened to him. I really wonder if this messy ending was planned from the start, but I don't think so...it just doesn't match the wonderful writing the entire season had. For whatever reason, I think they realized they had fewer episodes than they would need to, so they had to scrap an epilogue and rush the ending. Shame, but it is what it is, but the ending isn't so bad that it ruins the whole experience.

-It's never explicitly told in the anime, but I think Genki was transported to Earth from either millions of years ago or millions of years in the future, given the hints that we see, like some "lost technology" that matches ours. But if Holly from the anime is supposed to be the same in the games, that means he was transported to the world of Pangaea, which is more like another dimension of Earth. So...yeah. I think it would be cool if they made it clearer on that. IMO it makes more sense if MR anime takes place in the past or future Earth because if he was isekaid there because of Phoenix, that's already crazy enough, but if he was isekaid to another dimension, that just brings even more questions like just how powerful is Phoenix lol.

-The second season is...okaish if compared to season one. It is nice that now they do stuff that is more similar to the games, like the training and fighting in the tournaments, but that is just not as fun and cool as the journey they went through in the first season, for the most part. Plus, it brings to question some stuff like where the fuck were those strong monsters like Most that didn't become baddies when Moo was around? They were just hiding or something lol?

What I do think it's the worst part of the second season, and also makes me believe they were not planning for it to even be a thing from the start, is who the main villain is this time. General Durahan...eh? Really? A guy they already defeated in the first season? And now it's just a fucking head? This feels like the party having to clean up their own mess from the first season, kinda like the season 2 of Digimon with Davis and the others having to defeat Myotismon because apparently the guys in season 1 fucked up and didn't kill him "enough". And even if Durahan being alive made sense, why is he a baddie. Actually, why are there still baddies in that world since Phoenix is supposed to have resurrected and "cured" every monster of that now that Moo isn't a thing anymore?

This just doesn't make sense, and I think this is the second season wanting to have the cake and eat it too. In other words, they want to do a plot that is more similar to the games with the training and tournaments and stuff, but also are afraid to commit to that, so they make up stuff to "continue" the plot of season one, which was already concluded. And obviously, this just hurts both plots as they get in the way of each other, which is part of why this season kinda sucked compared to season one.

-That's a big shame since there is some cool stuff there, they should have fully committed to making it more of a fan service season or something at least. Things like Tiger meeting Gray Wolf again, now that he was back and not as a baddie, were nice. Seeing Hare's past, which was the only monster whose past we knew nothing about, was good too, even if it was obvious they didn't plan that at all before, given it's quite a filler episode, unfortunately. If they had fully committed to the tournament/training thing or made it all be about the fanservice, like say Buddyfight X: All-Star Fight did, that would also be good. Sadly, it's not what we got.

-The ending of the second season makes me wonder if they wanted to make up for the rushed ending of the first season, since we did get an epilogue, as small as it was. It was nice, but it also brings questions like, why can Genki just travel to that work, because it's a thing he can do now? In the end, we switched the rushed and bittersweet ending of season one with this open as fuck ending of season two.

-Regardless of that, I like this anime a lot. Really hope we will get a reboot or something one day so they can use the good stuff from the second season in a more meaningful way and maybe give us the ending they originally must have planned.

END OF SPOILERS

KEMONO SCALE JUDGEMENT

Now that we put that out of the way...it's KAMIKAZETIME!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pK5r1126dnk

There is at least one thing that an anime of a so-called Pokémon clone needs to get right. And that's the monsters! Their designs need to be good. And the games of MR absolutely get that right, there are many good monsters of many types for each one, which gives a big variety. That's another reason why I hope the anime will get a reboot or sequel one day, since there are too many good monsters from the game, such as Beata, for example, that never showed up in the anime.

Still, the anime does show up a lot of them. Let's take a look at some examples, though most of those are baddies, haha:

Evil Hares: https://imgbox.com/g/BRYWQXDlPL

Daton and Datonare: https://imgbox.com/g/TvcEpWMo5R

Zuum: https://imgbox.com/g/0JG4fdOdQq

Eared Mew: https://imgbox.com/g/7Max8VZpm9 and yes, Eared Mew pulled a Captain Pikachu MANY years before him~

Gray Wolf: https://imgbox.com/g/JR71R9tg4K

Shell Saurian: https://imgbox.com/g/usUaLPeEE0

Dino and Black Dino: https://imgbox.com/g/nstzGetKtn

Dragon: https://imgbox.com/g/3ybglgx45N

Blue Hare: https://imgbox.com/g/vPqLGXfSiC

Cabalos: https://imgbox.com/g/gbkFGGcPt6

And there are still many more of those in the anime, not even counting the ones from the games that can show up in a reboot or sequel one day. For a full list, you can check out those links, but you gotta watch out for spoilers:

https://monster-rancher.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Baddies

https://monster-rancher.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Anime_Characters

The big variety of good monsters with great design that MR provides is among the biggest ones I've seen in anime like this. There's something for everyone. MR isn't "specialized" in one unique type, lacking a large variety for one kind of monster in particular (like, for example, how Buddyfight is 80% about the dragons), but you still have a lot of variety here for many monsters. The main thing of MR in this aspect is how they already have a wide variety of different kinds of monsters to begin with, but each one has many variations that can be quite different from each other. So, for example, if you like Suezo, then you will probably like many, if not all, of the "variations" of the Suezo-type monsters, such as Captain Horn.

I would say the only issue, if I can use that word, is that it's not like we see all of those variations or even all the base monsters of the games in the anime, as I mentioned before. But also, those monsters only show up in one or two episodes at most, with some exceptions, especially in the second season, like Most. That's a shame, since if you like one monster in particular, you know that you probably won't see them again, but that's just how it is. All things considered, the anime did a great job of using so many different monsters, even if most of them are baddies, so almost like the enemy/monster of the week.

That might suck if you became a fan of, for example, the Black Dino squad that shows up in the very first episode, since they only showed up there and never again. But don't forget we got the main cast there, and most of them are kemono! And even if we ignore Tiger and Hare, the rest of the cast is solid enough to carry the entire show on their backs, so you can appreciate them and the other monsters as they show up in the anime. Heck, Tiger or Hare, even if they were ALONE, they would be able to carry the entire anime on their backs!

But...TOGETHER? Holy fucking shit! You can tell the animators had the most fun working on those two. They had the best expressions and maybe animation in the entire anime, it's so fun to watch their fights x3! Even if there were no other kemono at all in this anime, we only had the main cast, especially those two...it would be enough to easily recommend this anime for kemono fans.

And yes, it's based on the games, but you do not need to play the games at all to enjoy the anime since it follows its own plot. You will just enjoy the anime even more if you play the games, as you will see how the anime used one monster in particular.

Honestly, even if the entire main cast had only humans but kept the monsters, that too would be enough to recommend the anime to kemono fans. But since you have both elements, good monsters that are well written and developed as part of the main cast, and also monsters that show up in all episodes...it's no wonder that to this day, MR is one of my favorite kemono animes. Still in my top ten list for sure~

So, for those reasons, I believe that Monster Rancher (anime) deserves a...*turns around and points dramatically at the cartoon* A FOUR OUT OF FIVE OF LOF IN THE KAMIKAZE SCALE!!! I really, REALLY want to give this one a five on the scale! And it is quite close! But I can't do that...and it's not because of the humans in the anime. Genki and Holly are good characters, and most of the time, the anime deals with other monsters, not humans. If it were only for this reason, plus what I already mentioned, the anime deserved a five for sure. But...I can't ignore that the second season exists and how it brings the whole thing down a bit, unfortunately. You might still enjoy the second season, of course, but when you watch it, you will see what I mean.

It’s an anime that is easy to find on any anime site, but you can watch seasons 1 and 2 of the dub on YouTube since someone uploaded those versions there with the English and Spanish dubs, but I don’t recommend it at all due to the cuts and censorship. For the anime of MR, the best way to go is the sub version!

The best furry character this time is...I would love to say it's a tie between Tiger and Hare, but given that Hare might have a thing for farts, which I'm not into, I'm putting Tiger as the choice here. Such a sexy wolf~

The "kemono in the refrigerator" this time is...soooo many! Mainly the ones that never got an episode for them to show up, like Beata. And some that only showed up once in the entire anime. But I will give the first place here to Wild Hare for spoiler reasons.

Aaaand that’s it for this one! Hope you guys enjoyed reading this review. Please don't hesitate to leave your comments and opinions about it, and also about Monster Rancher (anime) if you happen to have watched it or maybe wanna check it out thanks to this review xD. I want to leave those journals as a place where people can discuss the respective things being reviewed here!