Kemonon!!

1980. In a world of juujin, a carefree lion opens a record shop in Kyoto, Japan, only for the local tiger yakuza to muscle in and use it as a front for illicit goods. Can he and his bandmates start a revolution of peace, love, and music before an even bigger threat tears the country apart?At the height of its economic miracle, the anthropomorphic juujin of Japan are living through a revolution of technology and global culture. After returning from college in the US, languid lion Naniwa Raion inherits his grandpa’s cherished Kyoto machiya storefront and reopens it as a record shop specializing in cutting edge “New Music.” All he wants is to live free and easy like the surfers and hippies of California’s 60’s who he’s always idolized, but before he knows it a pair of bickering roommates hit the fast forward button on his plans for a slow life: Urufu, a frosty wolfess whose keiretsu heiress pedigree haunts her, and Taiga, a hot-blooded ex-bosozoku tigress with nefarious connections and attitude to spare. Their paws are full just running the shop and playing music together to draw in customers as the Animal Tracks House Band—that’s “Kemonon” for short—but the shop’s colorful clientele and prime location soon attract the attention of Taiga’s yakuza uncle, who quickly tasks them with a role in the family business. What starts as a simple side gig begins to unravel faster than a broken cassette tape, and Raion soon finds his store at the center of a sprawling smuggling scheme! A meticulously researched light novel that queues up a jazz fusion of genres, Kemonon is a totally original fable of the urban jungle of Japan’s bubble era. No AI or LLMs were used in the writing of this story.