>>38629147KF isn't trying to 'distance itself' from the first anime at all. KF3, a mobile game, has been most of the franchise since the disaster that was the second anime and they have plenty of callbacks to it. I'd say they're trying much harder to distance themselves from KF2 since they've largely returned to the original mobage's world. Serval and Arai-san are still heavily involved in KF3.
Keep in mind most of those designs were made specifically for the KemoV, Cape Penguin/Island Fox/more or less the entire second generation didn't exist before, or if they did then they had different designs. I'm actually kind of confused they included a character like Caracal, especially since she's not the original VA apparently, but I'm guessing they wanted to bring her back since she's taken a pretty huge backseat since the original mobage.
Whatever the case it hardly has anything to do with "stepping on the toes of KF1", if anything they'd probably want to appeal to that audience as much as possible but sadly they can't just admit KF2 was a mistake and I can't imagine Irodori would ever go back to work with Kadokawa after the abhorrent treatment they were given and the creative freedom Aniplex offers them.
