Kemono Jihen

Kohachi Inugami, a detective with a specialty in the occult, travels to a secluded rural village after an inn hostess asks him to look into a troubling pattern: livestock turning up as rotting, mutilated corpses with no clear explanation. As he investigates, Inugami’s attention is drawn to an odd farmhand shunned by the other children and nicknamed “Dorotabou” for his smell—someone who’s long since stopped expecting kindness from anyone.

Curious, Inugami brings the boy along despite the villagers’ disdain. The case becomes a doorway into a hidden reality where mysterious, beastlike beings known as Kemono exist alongside humans, offering Dorotabou a first glimpse of purpose beyond the life he’s been forced to endure.