Beastars

In a civilized society of anthropomorphic animals, an uneasy tension exists between carnivores and herbivores. At Cherryton Academy, this mutual distrust peaks after a predation incident results in the death of Tem, an alpaca in the school's drama club. Tem's friend Legoshi, a grey wolf in the stage crew, has been an object of fear and suspicion for his whole life. In the immediate aftermath of the tragedy, he continues to lay low and hide his menacing traits, much to the disapproval of Louis, a red deer and the domineering star actor of the drama club.

When Louis sneaks into the auditorium to train Tem's replacement for an upcoming play, he assigns Legoshi to lookout duty. That very night, Legoshi has a fateful encounter with Haru, a white dwarf rabbit scorned by her peers. His growing feelings for Haru, complicated by his predatory instincts, force him to confront his own true nature, the circumstances surrounding the death of his friend, and the undercurrent of violence plaguing the world around him.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Legoshi Main

Kobayashi, Chikahiro Japanese

Louis Main

Ono, Yuuki Japanese

Haru Main

Senbongi, Sayaka Japanese

Gouhin Supporting

Ootsuka, Akio Japanese

Jack Supporting

Enoki, Junya Japanese

Juno Supporting

Tanezaki, Atsumi Japanese

Bill Supporting

Torashima, Takaaki Japanese

Legom Supporting

Ando, Sakura Japanese

Ibuki Supporting

Kusunoki, Taiten Japanese

Collot Supporting

Ootsuka, Takeo Japanese

Takeeda, Yoshinori Producer

Hosoi, Shunsuke Producer

Tanaka, Kouta Assistant Producer

Matsumi, Shinichi Director, Episode Director, Storyboard

Reviews

Dec 25, 2019

Karhu

Recommended

Beastars is an anime about prejudices, self-discovery and life under idealistic totalitarian rule where carnivores and herbivores supposedly dwell in harmony, and all of this takes place in a certain school's drama club. Everyone is already acting and then they try and act some more.

**Before we continue, in case you lean to the right side and consider yourself red-pilled, you most likely are at least on some level avoiding this anime like plague. I had my fair share of skepticism before going in, but I conclude this series is not driven by any pre-set political agenda. Social commentary exists, you can take it as ... political satire, call its world building neo nazi enigma, see the similarities to Stalin styled communism, laugh at how it practically labels food chain fascist, acknowledge the furry-relations, or entirely watch the series as an independent, stand-alone work that may have real life influence to back it up, but rather than preaching already discovered answers, it raises questions. It creates thought-provoking situations and presents them from multiple different perspectives, leaving room for the viewer to make their own interpretation. More than anything, it is what you make of it. What do we call this? Showing respect towards the audience.

There are three main cast members who all are vastly different from each others. They each have their own complex and shallow sides, inner and outer personalities; the one they are inside and the one they show to others, there is a clear portray of each individuals' self-image, fair bit of awareness of what their self looks like to the outside eye, even inner monologue filled with reflecting exist, and the list goes on. The character-centric focus is highly psychological while the presentation itself is partially toned with philosophical questions. This level of detail and accuracy is highly uncommon for anime characters even in psychological anime series. There is more depth, detail, planning and polish that one would expect or let alone see at first glance. The cast members all come with self-awareness and ideas that come from within the person. There are no moments in the narrative where a thought or piece of behavior seems out of place or controlled by the author behind the 4th wall. While some of the supporting cast members (such as mixed breed rabbits) clearly appear as devices in the narrative instead of being sincere individuals, the main cast members do not come with any type of compromises.

Our trio consists of Legoshi, Louis and Haru. Legoshi is the main main character, a cautious and sensitive wolf who faces prejudices that are about his supposed wolf-like nature. He aims to counter this by censoring himself and acting almost like the polar opposite of what is expected of him. This causes some inner psychological struggle and visible bounce in forms of his nature overwriting his supposed raw personality. Louis is a deer whom seems to have not only overly egotistic behavior but narcissism, superiority complex and manipulative skills. His ego is no less than enormous, but what makes him vastly different from common student who is narcistic is that his near flawless self-image carries thru making wide masses around him actually genuinely believe he is the greatest person alive, which is due to his skill to manipulate people on individual level and in masses but still not entirely limited to this. On a side note: I'd love to see how he puts on a buttonless t-shirt considering those massive antlers. They never explain that.

Our last main character is Haru and she is perhaps the most disliked character. She is a rabbit and literally a slut. She sleeps with everyone and is widely hated by girls for supposedly stealing their men. She is the most controversial character in the series and many seem to despise her. Despite her getting bullied, assaulted and violeted, it seems to be rare for viewers to feel any sympathy towards her. I think that's her true genius, because most people - at least in my generalization - love attention from the opposite sex (or their sex of interest) and are more than willing to make love with sexually attractive people, but we do not appreciate this feature in others. This is the viewer's moment to reflect. Haru is a bit pushy self-victimizer, and her ideas seem to be some type of double edged sword where she'd want to see someone see her inner personality, but her outer behavior tends to ratiate only the slutty features she has. She is practically a self-caused illness, but this is still fascinating thing to follow, because she is nowhere near a weak person. By weak, I mean both: not weakly-writter nor the opposite of strong. Without her the series would definitely not be the same, and she is essential because what makes the cast so incredibly strong is not really their stand-alone personas, but how they interract with each others and develope relations. In these moments, when you have high understanding of these characters, even their smallest actions come with profound slow-burn effect.

As far as the writing goes, the premise and world building are basically wit wonderlands. The psychological side is accurate and clever, the animal prejudices -which are used as metaphoras- along the societal structure and way the world works, do not only have their real life relevance and political satire factors in them, but do hell of an impressive job creating the anime's very own universe. One of its main ideas seems to be that healthy ideals do not necessarily create a healthy, functioning world. When a wide portion of society doesn't feel well, it tends to backlash, leaving room for extremist, anti-government activity, havoc and, more specifically in this case, create downunder societies and black markets for the products that are banned. Where's the funny in this, then? Because the herbivores blame those who cannot digest this; not the nu-food nor the bureaucratic bs and paints them the "bad guys."

The actual plot could be said to come with its fair share of simplicity, and certain events play out with some level of convinience, which shows that not every bit has been thoroughly planned to hold water (this is the series' sole biggest weakness), but as a whole, its writing has "attention to detail" type of approach, and when considering this, it's quite hard to give justified criticism of its shortcomings when they come out as attributes rather than flaws. However, it should be noted that some of the story events are heavily slice of life oriented, and during these fractions, the series can side track from its actual main content quite a bit. In case you cannot accept more baseline vanilla plot events that are simply beautified with detail, it may be hard to find Beastars' story significant and it may not appeal to you. If you can look past this rather niche and superficial issue, I promise what you see is a brave attempt succeeding and living up to its potential. I can only try and imagine the moment when the author wrote this and realized it's actually good. I am sure not even she planned this all to work so well in her favor. It all just kinda happened, fitted together like compounds of a vaccine. For this reason, it may be easy to overanalyze the series: give its intellectual side more credibility than it deserves. But on the other hand, the lack of strong inprint from the author makes the series seem far less pseudo-intellectual than majority of series that are supposedly aimed for smart people. More than being a tool thru to which the author tries to prove her own genius, Beastars does what was already once said: leave room for viewer's own judgement.

Some of the questions this raised in me were: Is equality the first step towards inequity? Are societal norms and values the very roots of human double standards? Can a person truly escape the mold that shaped him? Was Mufasa from Lion King actually wrong (you must take your place in the circle of life)? And most importantly, why do we so rarely get anime series that not only show us multidimensional characters, but tell a meaningful story? My final judgement: AOTY.

Reviewer’s Rating: 10

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Dec 26, 2019

-Alucard420

Mixed Feelings

Spoiler warning: I will speak on certain spoilers about the story, so therefore I would recommend you to watch the show before you read this review. I also would like to encourage the reader to not blindly follow my or anyone else their opinions. I believe that my opinion is neither correct nor incorrect. I apologise in advance for any grammar or vocabulary mistakes as English is not my native language.

After reading some other reviews on MAL, the overall conclusion seems to be that Beastars is one of the best anime’s this season has offered. I dare to disagree with this as Beastars turned out ... to be a show with a lot of potential that got wasted on a very cliché story. My biggest critique with this show is that it tries way too much in a series that only has 12 episodes, therefore a lot of subjects and characters turn out to be quite useless in the end.

The main goal of Beastars in my opinion is that it tries to tell you that stereotypes exist and that one can either break free from this or be stuck in it forever. Legoshi the main character is a wolf that prefers being quiet and peaceful instead of showing dominance as one would expect from a wolf. As he grows up, he discovers his true nature as a carnivore in the first episode. The problem I have with this part of the story is that it does not progresses throughout the series expect for a couple minor scenes. It just does not show enough moments where Legoshi seems to suffer from a thirst for blood as a normal wolf would do. I believe the main focus should have been on this subject as it would have shown an instinctual conflict of a beast.
The story instead decides to put its main focus on Legoshi and his feelings for a rabbit. This again touches upon a stereotype, ‘a big bad guy can not be with a small cute girl’. Instead of developing a cute romance story, it feels to me like a forced relationship. The conversations are awkward and Legoshi barely had any contact with Haru the rabbit before he decides he is in ‘love’. Love does not just happen because you saw a girl naked or because you saw her once or twice. Love takes time to develop and in this case it’s just a simple crush that seemed way too forced. Nonetheless Legoshi has the correct mindset and he is not bad character at all, he admits he is not perfect and for this I praise the show.

Haru is by far the worst character in this show. I can understand that one must feel frustrated if they always get looked down upon and people pity her but the way she deals with it just is god awful. A girl selling her body to be more on an equal foot with male is honestly a disgusting thing. The show could have focused more on Haru being a smart and helpful girl that tells u: “no matter how small u are, u can have a meaning in life”. It is also weird to me how she ends with feelings for Legoshi while Louis disappearing seems to not bother her at all. For context: in episode 10 she admits to being in love with Louis.

Louis is your typical perfect deer (guy) with a strong sense of justice. This makes him most of the time very boring and predictable. He has a troubled past that still haunts him but tries to overcome this with his pride and his outstanding acting performances on and off stage. The most interesting part about him is that he does in fact put herbivores as a species over a single rabbit. This does strengthen his image of a strong leader but goes against the idea of him being an actual good guy. His ending scene confuses me, but I guess his troubled past got to him in the end and he cracked under the pressure.

Apart from these 3 characters the others were mostly useless. The tiger had a fight with Legoshi but after that nothing happened. The female wolf tried to make Legoshi get feelings for him but not at a single point did the male grey wolf show interest towards her. The dog friend just heard Legoshi out about his problems. The list goes on, but I hope you understand my point. I do have to give credits to ‘panda Gouhin’ as his individual story sounded very interesting.

The whole herbivore versus carnivore subject felt like it never got the attention it deserved. Apart from some bullying scenes, this subject never mattered.

Overall the sound was enjoyable but nothing special. The art was pretty bad most of the time as I felt it looked ‘laggy’ and their movements did not seem natural. There were some aesthetical scenes for which I have to credit them.

The ending was quite interesting. It went from a useless ‘knight saving a princess from a dragon’ to a rabbit and a wolf almost having sexual intercourse, to a very awkward love situation. Since there is season 2 coming it is quite easy to finish with this kind of ending. The show does not need to explain because it can just explain it next season.

Overall Beastars is not a bad show. It just tried too much with too little time and ended with a lot of holes and uselessness making it me therefore give it a 6. I still recommend it because overall it was an enjoyable show, I just wish they kept it simpler and gave the series an actual direction.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Dec 31, 2019

Injenss

Not Recommended

I hate this anime. It was doing so good, and then in the final few episodes it just got so stupid and illogical. I do not know why such a logically broken anime has such a high score. Is it because of cute animals? I don't know, but the ending was just frickin' dumb.

WARNING: MAJOR STORY SPOILERS AHEAD.

The anime started off well and was a bit surprising. I went into this thinking it was a comedy, but it's a drama. There's a little humor, but mostly it's a serious anime that imagines what the relationship between carnivores and herbivores would be if ... they had a human society. In the midst of this, the likable MC, Legoshi, falls for a rabbit, Haru, basically because she talked to him once in a greenhouse. Even though he tried to eat her the first time they met. This is the first logic break, because he's apparently attracted to her forward and outgoing nature, when everyone around him seems to be outgoing and he's the only introvert in the show.

But, you can ignore this logic flaw and still get into a pretty bizarre, but definitely good story. Legosi struggles to define his feelings for Haru, while struggling to contain his own predatory nature. There's a bit of a love triangle going on with Legoshi, Haru and Louis. Louis is a very irritating and overconfident deer, who is tapped to be the Beastar, which, I'm still not quite sure what it is, but it has some kind of power over society or something. Because Haru is a rabbit who feels like she's weak, she sleeps with everything that moves. (Screw like rabbits. hardy har har, I guess.) She slept with Louis because of this and tried to sleep with Legoshi, because she'll sleep with anyone who wants it. This triangle with Louis, Legoshi and Haru provides some intrigue. Through this situation, you wonder if the anime might take a dark turn due to jealousy. I watched every episode wondering how this was going to go south, especially once the second grey wolf, Juno enters the anime, who has a thing for Legoshi. It really seemed like it might go the "School Days" route, because Legoshi could just eat Louis and Haru if he wants to and he seems psycho enough to do it. Or, Juno could eat Haru, or something. The wolves were kinda nuts.

But, just as this love square seems to hit a crescendo, between predators and prey, BOOM, they throw a completely stupid curve ball at you that destroys the story. Haru the Rabbit, is suddenly kidnapped by a group of lions who plan to feed her to their boss. (Which, BTW, the lions should've been females, they're the hunters. Males don't hunt for other males.) But, this is when it gets incredibly stupid.

What was a weird, animal, high-school, romance drama, suddenly turns into Die Hard, as Legoshi goes all Bruce Willis (Complete with the wife beater and broken glass) to rescue the rabbit. And with only a crossbow wielding Panda by his side, he somehow defeats THIRTY-FIVE LIONS. A wolf beating one lion is stupid. A wolf beating 35 lions? Come on, man.

The entire world's lore broke with these ridiculous episodes. The chief world breaking issue is the fact that suddenly, the lions have guns and the panda has a crossbow. Now, this entire world is based upon that idea that strong carnivores are a massive threat to helpless herbivores. But, if there are GUNS then why the hell are the herbivores so scary and helpless? SHOOT people who try to eat you. The playing field is level with guns, so the whole concept of the society falls apart and becomes senseless.

So many logic breaks happen after this. Just, so many. The Leo Group (The lions) are supposed to be terrifyingly powerful, but are easily beaten by two people. The Leo Group goes through all the trouble of kidnapping a tiny rabbit for the boss to eat, and they let her live like ALL NIGHT LONG. I mean, I get felines play with their food, but, seriously... The kicker, is after Legoshi is done doing his Bruce Willis thing, Louis shows up and kills the boss and then gives himself up to be eaten to two other armed lions while laughing like a nutcase. And it is barely mentioned. Louis was not a minor character, and his role in the anime was supposed to be extremely important, like a MLK bridging the gap between carnivores and herbivores. (Still not sure how). He disappears, and it might be mentioned 3-4 times by others. You'd think the whole city would freak out, but, nah...they're good.

But, the biggest plot hole in no one seeming to care? Is that of everyone who doesn't really care, it is Haru herself who seems to care the least. As she does not mention Louis again even once after he disappears. Rabbit thot is all about Legoshi now, like she never knew a deer named Louis. She was supposed to love him. That was established many times in the anime. But, I guess Legoshi was so manly in his Bruce Willis tee, she just completely forgot all about Louis.

I can't even explain all of the logic gaps this anime contained. Why is it unnatural for a rabbit to bang a wolf, but it's natural for it to bang deer, foxes, dogs and whatever the hell else Haru slept with? And why the hell do animals with keen senses of smell not know how to find people unless its convenient to the plot? What the hell happened to the Panda after the miracle fight? Did he just leave Legoshi to fight the boss? Is he dead in a pool of his own blood? Why the hell would he even follow a guy he had one conversation with to fight the most feared Mafia in the city? Why is a student from a love-story suddenly fighting a mafia anyway? Why does smelling scents make Legoshi stronger than frickin' lions? I don't know...

Then we get to the ending. The non-ending. The no reason at all for it to be a non-ending, ending, but is a non-ending ending, anyway.

After rescuing her, Haru is prepared to slut out for Legoshi a second time, but then her "instincts" make her jump into his mouth to try and be eaten by him, instead. I'd like to know what kind of animal instinct this is, that causes prey to jump into the mouth of their predators? I've never seen it in the wild, and I love nature documentaries. I was completely unaware that animals developed instincts to jump into predator's mouths, when they get horny. Just a completely dumb reason for them to not have sex. Especially dumb when you consider this rabbit has slept with dogs and foxes, who also hunt rabbits. No mouth jumping there?

After the awkward "I want to make love to you but my body told me to commit suicide, instead" scene, we flash forward to the festival, where Legoshi tells Haru he loves her again and she runs away (Even though she just tried to screw him less than 24 hours ago) which causes Legoshi to chase her to the mandatory "hill overlooking the city" scene, where he tells her AGAIN that he loves her, like it's the first time. And then, even though she tried to bone him TWICE, even though she said she can't live without him now, they DON'T get together. Instead, Legoshi says he'll become stronger for Haru so he can overcome his instincts and society that says they shouldn't be together. And what a specifically racist society. Only wolves and rabbits can't hook up. Rabbits and deer are fine. We can even have inter-species love hotels. But, no rabbits and wolves! Bigots.

Her response to Legoshi's declaration of becoming strong enough to apparently not have the instincts of a wolf, is "I'll wait." (Although she had no interest in waiting yesterday.) Why? Why are we waiting? Is he NOT going to be a wolf at some point? Hasn't he already NOT eaten her many times? And seeing how she jumped into his mouth and he still didn't eat her, shouldn't he be waiting for her not to be the world's dumbest rabbit?

This anime teaches us all an important lesson: If you're going to get drunk, do it after you finish episode 12, not episode 9.

Reviewer’s Rating: 1

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