beastars manga review (edited)
the anime for beastars is still in production right now - so i decided to give it a go and ended up binge reading the whole manga (as always). here's a review indispersed with recaps.
so how is it? (spoilers ahead)
well the opening of the show is centered around the death of tem the alpaca and while YOU'D THINK that the concept of the show was supposed to be like some sort of noir, mystery show, YOU WOULD BE SO WRONG.
opening premise after that murder, we meet Legosi/Legoshi, who's basically the grey wolf MC star of the show, and his foil, Louis (pronounced the french way, so Lui...Rui) and the drama club, where they all interact. the world is all made up of humanized animals and is basically divided up into herbivores and carnivores ... basically very good show for furries.
for example, the main love interest of both Louis and Legoshi is a white dwarf rabbit called Haru, and she's tiny, fluffy with a tail but also wears a bra and panties, which is honestly a kind of jarring disturbing aesthetic (i am many things, a furry is not one.)
the manga/storyline itself is sort of a strange one, it deviates between a slice of life, mystery (because you don't really know what's happening ever), coming of age, romance??, psychological??. it's sort of like k season 1, dipping one chip into many dip, and the resulting flavor could at certain points be considered almost nice, except all together, it's not quite as successful as the theoretical idea of 'all flavors at one time'. it's officially labelled "DRAMA" but i'm not sure i've really ever come across a plot quite as haphazard as this one.
if i really had to define beastars as any genre, i'd probably place it in a coming of age story - the first chunk of legosi's character growth is where you have legosi really struggling with his feelings for haru, between wanting to potentially eat her, but also being in love with her, and early on, gouhin the panda says, you're confusing your desire to eat her, with your romantic feelings - and then this thread never really gets brought up again by gouhin in any meaningful and engaging way, as much as he eventually becomes impressed with legosi's overall refusal to eat meat in general.
but the point of this story, is that it's interesting because the mangaka has said that they've tried to use the whole world as a metaphor for engaging with different ideas about our world - but its really odd because it's not an easy distillation of those ideas.
it's almost freudian in a way, an obsession with fully possessing, or even ingesting someone until they fully become part of you, and while it promises a discussion about the limits or dangers of sexuality and sex in general, never quite gives you that and falls a little bit short of really giving a hard hitting conclusion on the topics they've raised.
I'll give you an example of the main story thread surrounding Haru and her as a person and her character growth (or lack thereof...)
haru comes from a pure breed family, but she's small so she uses sex as a tool, like leverage to boost her self esteem because of the way people typically pity her, but its self empowering, but after nearly being eaten, never sleeps around casually again and eventually falls in love with Legosi because of his genuine, caring nature.
At first, she's stuck between sleeping/being in love with Louis, until Louis fucks off to join the yakuza, and then she falls in love with legosi. in passing, she finishes school, graduates, gets into university and then at some point she sees her friend, who's dating a lion boyfriend, and she makes a snide remark out of jealousy about how they're just playing around, and then she feels bad because she realizes she feels jealous... until she sees her friend in an accident because her boyfriend eats her, but this has literally no change on her relationship with legosi or her as a character. then, she sees him, gets jealous that he's with another herbivore without waiting for his explanation, and then comes back and visits him and says that she loves him and he starts visiting her house more often but we never see how she feels about that, because why is that relevant? he's her boyfriend, but they have no physical interaction despite her wanting a kiss, and that's all we know about her.
what is her function as a plot device?
haru is basically the sole incentive for all of legosi's actions, everything he does for her, while thinking of her. it's so stupid to me that she is such a huge fixation on legosi's life, but all we really know about her is that she's nice, but we never see what happens to her outside of legosi's frame of reference - and he really doesn't know anything about her either, fixating more on the aspect of "interspecial" or just the big herbivore/carnivore divide. it just feels incomplete, and considering the occasional fillers that show us an insight into other characters lives, it would be a welcome change to see one of these focused on haru and who she really is, rather than what she means to legosi.
also gouhin, who trains legosi up and provides him all this support, never shows up again until absolutely necessary? if legosi goes to the black markets so much, why would he not visit gouhin? where is he? why does he only show up when the plot needs him to??
let's build back on the coming of age story - there's a wolf called juno who falls in love with legosi at some point, but nobody cares about her, and after legosi realizes his feelings for haru, she gets abducted at one point by the yakuza, who try to eat her, and legosi rescues her, louis follows, and then legosi runs off and louis threatens and kills the head of the clan and eventually becomes the head of that gang, and drops out of school to run an underground market, because he has a huge chip on his shoulder about previously being raised and sold as illegal meat for carnivores. while louis gives in to his weird kink about being stronger and more threatening than a carnivore with his.... i guess arrogance and confidence and above average marks (though at no point, are we ever shown how smart or cunning he ACTUALLY is, as much as we see a teenage boy smoking and throwing his phone off a building, and bluffing his way through life.) and legosi has this batman complex where he won't turn Tem's murderer - Riz - into the proper authorities, as much as he wants to become a special little vigilante with his own little training montage with gouhin so he can take Riz down himself - also featuring Pina the hot Dall sheep who accidentally overhears their secret conversation, and Legosi who's full willing to die taking Riz down.
What genre is that? Action? I guess? But these kids are still growing in between, and legosi spends an awful long time having a little contemplative think.
louis quits the yakuza, and lets legosi eat his foot as a way of doping up against riz, because their friendship is obviously stronger, but then pina calls the police and legosi gets a criminal record for eating meat/a friend/predation offense, louis goes back to school, and the riz gets put into juvie and haru is nowhere to be seen, and juno somewhere along the line of louis working in the yakuza falls in love with him. when louis graduates, juno falls in love with him instead and kisses him, and somewhere along the line of louis' post high school life he realizes he's fallen for her despite the existence of his fiancee azuki.
legosi also now has a solid, but really weirdly distant relationship with haru, he lives in a shady apartment complex with a merino sheep, a cool seal, some other dodgy characters and works at an udon shop because he has no future in the outside world due to his criminal record....
then we find out his grandpa is a komodo dragon (like a human sized one?) who used to be mates with Fafya the Horse who is also the current beastar, and there's some weird friction there - and that being a vigilante runs in the blood of the family, that and interspecial fetishes, which is almost uncomfortably close to nature over nurture arguments.
also as we enter the current chapters, there's some shit about a secret history that's been hidden from the rest of society, a magical whale, jack being genetically unable to rebel or cry, secrets of the sea, a crazy masochistic/sadist gazelle leopard hybrid terrorizing the city, and ... the rest we'll find out later
Conclusion:
man this manga fully reads like a fanfic. without any real overarching plot, written off the cuff and done for the popularity, characters made as plot devices rather than real people and no depth of exploration of the world until these more current chapters. it doesn't quite feel like its building on previous aspects, it doesn't feel well planned, and all the more notable aspects of the adolescent emotions and struggle are overshadowed by the more sinister, darker, adult themes that don't really get enough of a consideration to really have any significant impact.
i just wonder, what exactly has the author planned to do? where is the engagement with contemporary topics? are we all bound by our genetic code? is this a story about morality? what does eating and consuming mean? who are the carnivores and herbivores of this world? is the interspecial aspect a reflection of japanese xenophobia or about racial tensions in general?
it's drawn as an allusion to something larger than itself, yet it never touches on any meaningful conclusion for readers to be drawn to - and the characters through this process never get to develop in the peripheries of our vision, rather given one large sign that says --> THIS CHARACTER HAS EVOLVED!!, and despite a manga technically being a show not tell, it's done an absurd amount of telling.
overall, the manga is a decent read and the art is genuinely gorgeous and considered. i think people who appreciate a darker and more sophisticated exploration of the shounen genre will enjoy this, with twist on the typical tropes.
For me, I give this manga a 6/10, I enjoyed the art and love the character designs, and the general pacing of the story, but the story and plot itself could have done with some improvement. it's definitely an interesting and compelling read, but i don't think I'll recommend this.
anime wise: the CG rendition of the characters are super cute, I really genuinely love the VA's they used because their voices are spot on and really really lovely, the darker color schemes and animation all work really well for the show - surprisingly so - and the OP is a banger. the music isn't bad either, but definitely if you are a fan of the manga, the anime really brings the show to life in a lovely way with some interesting use of shapes and framing - with some slightly confusing additions, like animating legosi's sense of smell.
(as of this post, the most current chapter was 155, and anime was on episode 8)
so how is it? (spoilers ahead)
well the opening of the show is centered around the death of tem the alpaca and while YOU'D THINK that the concept of the show was supposed to be like some sort of noir, mystery show, YOU WOULD BE SO WRONG.
opening premise after that murder, we meet Legosi/Legoshi, who's basically the grey wolf MC star of the show, and his foil, Louis (pronounced the french way, so Lui...Rui) and the drama club, where they all interact. the world is all made up of humanized animals and is basically divided up into herbivores and carnivores ... basically very good show for furries.
for example, the main love interest of both Louis and Legoshi is a white dwarf rabbit called Haru, and she's tiny, fluffy with a tail but also wears a bra and panties, which is honestly a kind of jarring disturbing aesthetic (i am many things, a furry is not one.)
the manga/storyline itself is sort of a strange one, it deviates between a slice of life, mystery (because you don't really know what's happening ever), coming of age, romance??, psychological??. it's sort of like k season 1, dipping one chip into many dip, and the resulting flavor could at certain points be considered almost nice, except all together, it's not quite as successful as the theoretical idea of 'all flavors at one time'. it's officially labelled "DRAMA" but i'm not sure i've really ever come across a plot quite as haphazard as this one.
if i really had to define beastars as any genre, i'd probably place it in a coming of age story - the first chunk of legosi's character growth is where you have legosi really struggling with his feelings for haru, between wanting to potentially eat her, but also being in love with her, and early on, gouhin the panda says, you're confusing your desire to eat her, with your romantic feelings - and then this thread never really gets brought up again by gouhin in any meaningful and engaging way, as much as he eventually becomes impressed with legosi's overall refusal to eat meat in general.
but the point of this story, is that it's interesting because the mangaka has said that they've tried to use the whole world as a metaphor for engaging with different ideas about our world - but its really odd because it's not an easy distillation of those ideas.
it's almost freudian in a way, an obsession with fully possessing, or even ingesting someone until they fully become part of you, and while it promises a discussion about the limits or dangers of sexuality and sex in general, never quite gives you that and falls a little bit short of really giving a hard hitting conclusion on the topics they've raised.
I'll give you an example of the main story thread surrounding Haru and her as a person and her character growth (or lack thereof...)
haru comes from a pure breed family, but she's small so she uses sex as a tool, like leverage to boost her self esteem because of the way people typically pity her, but its self empowering, but after nearly being eaten, never sleeps around casually again and eventually falls in love with Legosi because of his genuine, caring nature.
At first, she's stuck between sleeping/being in love with Louis, until Louis fucks off to join the yakuza, and then she falls in love with legosi. in passing, she finishes school, graduates, gets into university and then at some point she sees her friend, who's dating a lion boyfriend, and she makes a snide remark out of jealousy about how they're just playing around, and then she feels bad because she realizes she feels jealous... until she sees her friend in an accident because her boyfriend eats her, but this has literally no change on her relationship with legosi or her as a character. then, she sees him, gets jealous that he's with another herbivore without waiting for his explanation, and then comes back and visits him and says that she loves him and he starts visiting her house more often but we never see how she feels about that, because why is that relevant? he's her boyfriend, but they have no physical interaction despite her wanting a kiss, and that's all we know about her.
what is her function as a plot device?
haru is basically the sole incentive for all of legosi's actions, everything he does for her, while thinking of her. it's so stupid to me that she is such a huge fixation on legosi's life, but all we really know about her is that she's nice, but we never see what happens to her outside of legosi's frame of reference - and he really doesn't know anything about her either, fixating more on the aspect of "interspecial" or just the big herbivore/carnivore divide. it just feels incomplete, and considering the occasional fillers that show us an insight into other characters lives, it would be a welcome change to see one of these focused on haru and who she really is, rather than what she means to legosi.
also gouhin, who trains legosi up and provides him all this support, never shows up again until absolutely necessary? if legosi goes to the black markets so much, why would he not visit gouhin? where is he? why does he only show up when the plot needs him to??
let's build back on the coming of age story - there's a wolf called juno who falls in love with legosi at some point, but nobody cares about her, and after legosi realizes his feelings for haru, she gets abducted at one point by the yakuza, who try to eat her, and legosi rescues her, louis follows, and then legosi runs off and louis threatens and kills the head of the clan and eventually becomes the head of that gang, and drops out of school to run an underground market, because he has a huge chip on his shoulder about previously being raised and sold as illegal meat for carnivores. while louis gives in to his weird kink about being stronger and more threatening than a carnivore with his.... i guess arrogance and confidence and above average marks (though at no point, are we ever shown how smart or cunning he ACTUALLY is, as much as we see a teenage boy smoking and throwing his phone off a building, and bluffing his way through life.) and legosi has this batman complex where he won't turn Tem's murderer - Riz - into the proper authorities, as much as he wants to become a special little vigilante with his own little training montage with gouhin so he can take Riz down himself - also featuring Pina the hot Dall sheep who accidentally overhears their secret conversation, and Legosi who's full willing to die taking Riz down.
What genre is that? Action? I guess? But these kids are still growing in between, and legosi spends an awful long time having a little contemplative think.
louis quits the yakuza, and lets legosi eat his foot as a way of doping up against riz, because their friendship is obviously stronger, but then pina calls the police and legosi gets a criminal record for eating meat/a friend/predation offense, louis goes back to school, and the riz gets put into juvie and haru is nowhere to be seen, and juno somewhere along the line of louis working in the yakuza falls in love with him. when louis graduates, juno falls in love with him instead and kisses him, and somewhere along the line of louis' post high school life he realizes he's fallen for her despite the existence of his fiancee azuki.
legosi also now has a solid, but really weirdly distant relationship with haru, he lives in a shady apartment complex with a merino sheep, a cool seal, some other dodgy characters and works at an udon shop because he has no future in the outside world due to his criminal record....
then we find out his grandpa is a komodo dragon (like a human sized one?) who used to be mates with Fafya the Horse who is also the current beastar, and there's some weird friction there - and that being a vigilante runs in the blood of the family, that and interspecial fetishes, which is almost uncomfortably close to nature over nurture arguments.
also as we enter the current chapters, there's some shit about a secret history that's been hidden from the rest of society, a magical whale, jack being genetically unable to rebel or cry, secrets of the sea, a crazy masochistic/sadist gazelle leopard hybrid terrorizing the city, and ... the rest we'll find out later
Conclusion:
man this manga fully reads like a fanfic. without any real overarching plot, written off the cuff and done for the popularity, characters made as plot devices rather than real people and no depth of exploration of the world until these more current chapters. it doesn't quite feel like its building on previous aspects, it doesn't feel well planned, and all the more notable aspects of the adolescent emotions and struggle are overshadowed by the more sinister, darker, adult themes that don't really get enough of a consideration to really have any significant impact.
i just wonder, what exactly has the author planned to do? where is the engagement with contemporary topics? are we all bound by our genetic code? is this a story about morality? what does eating and consuming mean? who are the carnivores and herbivores of this world? is the interspecial aspect a reflection of japanese xenophobia or about racial tensions in general?
it's drawn as an allusion to something larger than itself, yet it never touches on any meaningful conclusion for readers to be drawn to - and the characters through this process never get to develop in the peripheries of our vision, rather given one large sign that says --> THIS CHARACTER HAS EVOLVED!!, and despite a manga technically being a show not tell, it's done an absurd amount of telling.
overall, the manga is a decent read and the art is genuinely gorgeous and considered. i think people who appreciate a darker and more sophisticated exploration of the shounen genre will enjoy this, with twist on the typical tropes.
For me, I give this manga a 6/10, I enjoyed the art and love the character designs, and the general pacing of the story, but the story and plot itself could have done with some improvement. it's definitely an interesting and compelling read, but i don't think I'll recommend this.
anime wise: the CG rendition of the characters are super cute, I really genuinely love the VA's they used because their voices are spot on and really really lovely, the darker color schemes and animation all work really well for the show - surprisingly so - and the OP is a banger. the music isn't bad either, but definitely if you are a fan of the manga, the anime really brings the show to life in a lovely way with some interesting use of shapes and framing - with some slightly confusing additions, like animating legosi's sense of smell.
(as of this post, the most current chapter was 155, and anime was on episode 8)
edit: As of the 16th of October 2020, the Beastars manga is officially finished!
Unfortunately - I'm going to build on the points that I've previously mentioned and also some stuff that I didn't really like about the way it wrapped up.
So after 155 - the Melon arc is established and there's an issue of how exactly they want to take Melon down. In the end, there's a vague and irrelevant song and dance with everyone involved so far in the series which leads up to Louis and Legoshi reuniting at the back alley market - then they accidentally bump into Louis' old cell mates who were in fact, not sold as food and one of them became a great fighter who does this discount training arc with Legoshi, and then sells him out to Melon for money. Then there's a turf war (that randomly gets introduced afaik) and Melon is basically strutting around briefly threatening the lions and doing whatever he wants, and becomes a social phenomenon for some reason. They finally give us his back story, he believes that he was raised by a leopard mother who was so in love with a gazelle father that she ate him, and that's why he's awful and depressed, but in the last two chapters we find out that its actually the gazelle father being a deadbeat dad who ran away because he wasn't prepared for the responsibilities of parenthood. The final few chapters just end up with Legoshi and Louis using their blood together as a way of symbolically taking over the back alley way, and then Louis's dad dies and he becomes the CEO, does like this significant special speech talking about how carnivores need meat while Legoshi battles it out with a few people in the back alley way, gets his teeth back, and then he finally fights Melon, Melon's dad who shows up but doesn't ever meet Melon, and then as a result of Louis' speech, everyone has a change of heart and the back alley way is destroyed even though Legoshi tried to take over it and therefore no more fighting. Melon wants to kill himself/die trying but Yafya rescues him and tries to take him to jail but then Melon bites Yafya but then he still gets put in jail.
The resolution for the meat/carnivore thing is that sea animals are happy to be eaten so they do trade with the giant whale who brought peace 400 years ago.
So, nothing ever comes of the whole Haru romance subplot, Jack's intense depression at knowing the truth about this world never becomes important, Juno gets virtually no mention ever, neither of them ever become the Beastar even after Yafya retires, nothing is talked about with the changes that have happened to their society, Juno goes on a date with Louis but he still ends up going through with his arranged marriage, and Haru and Legoshi just continue to dance around each other.
The end.
idk this ending left me really high and dry - for a show that seemed to bring so many interesting new twists and concepts to the table, none of them really delivered and I really don't know if it was worth it.
I previously rated the manga as a 6/10 and while I am fully tempted to slip it down to a 5.5 for the rushed ending, I think out of respect for its originality, I will stick to a 6/10 despite how nothing was really resolves. I still believe it has a really innovative and interesting take on certain concepts, the art is still great and the characters are wonderfully intriguing, but I really can't say I'd recommend this as something that was executed quite as well as it could have been.
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