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Permanent URL: https://mezzacotta.net/garfield/?comic=3807
Strip by: Joseph Staleknight
{Liz walks in to address Jon while Garfield is drinking his morning coffee}
Liz: Jon?
Jon: Yes?
{Suddenly, Liz turns into an anthropomorphic serval}
Lizerval {translated from several iterations of "ã¿ã‚ƒ"}: ãªã«ã“ã‚Œï¼ãªã«ã“ã‚Œï¼ã‚¹ãƒ¼ã‚´ã‚¤ï¼ï¼
{Garfield is stunned by this turn of events}
{Lizerval leaves}
Jon: I will never understand Kemono Friends
Garfield {mouth agape}: Uh...
The author writes:
Hello! Long time reader, first time maker!
Kemono Friends is a franchise by Mine Yoshizaki detailing the lives of animals, real and otherwise, that have been turned human through a substance called Sandstar. They all live in a place called Japari Park, which may or may not be Japan with massive geological changes. With the help of its staff, they learn all about humanity and how to integrate with society. At least, when they're not fighting off monsters born of Sandstar touching inorganic stuff.
The franchise is also notorious for having a tumultuous production history, as its fans can attest. Originally, it started out as a Japan-only mobile game published by Nexon in 2015. However, that game ceased to function at the end of 2016, and the prequel manga only lasted two volumes.
Yet a month or so later, there was a surprise hit anime adaptation which introduced many people abroad to the series. Then the producer TATSUKI got fired by the franchise owner Kadokawa (and his whole staff resigned in protest) because of said producer making a side episode for the anime against the company's wishes. Needless to say that was considered a very controversial move, so much that Kadokawa had to publicly apologize for the uproar. Nevertheless, they gave a different studio and producer the rights to make the anime's second season. Given how different it was compared to the first, though, several fans weren't exactly thrilled.
In the meantime there were other mobile and spinoff games, including a Picross game for Nintendo Switch. For those who never got to play the Nexon game, there was also a brief side anime explaining its plot. Finally, as of this writing Kadokawa and Yoshizaki are gearing up to officially release the next mobile game in the series, Kemono Friends 3, and its arcade version Planet Tours.
What does all that have to do with this strip? Well, I just thought it'd be funny to turn Liz into the franchise's mascot Serval, and what better way than to reinterpret the "Linguistics with Liz" strip? It certainly beats just translating "You are a radish" into Japanese.
Original strips: 1995-08-02, 2017-11-17.