Beastars

I had a lot of expectations going into this from friends who had recommended it to me. Beastars delivers on the expected hype on almost every mark. It is one of my all time favorites now and I hope it keeps the momentum up.

Story: 8
Overall it is well paced and pushes you to binge all that's currently out. Itagaki is skilled in creating a world that enthralls the reading and constantly reveals more of itself while leaving intrigue. She does struggle with juggling the characters at times, as some abruptly lose attention and development. There are some filler chapter, but they had good placement to lighten the tone and ease the story back from its sometimes breakneck pace. From the shaky start, the story quickly settles and knows what it wants to do and embraces it.

Art: 9
I'll admit, initially I did not like the art especially how hands and feet were drawn on animals. This eventually grew on me and now can appreciate the rest of the art, which is truly stunning at some parts given that character designs are very distinct from each other. The style almost perfectly shifts to match the tone of what's going on, both for comedy and to show tension.

Character: 7
Legosi is truly the goodest of boys. His naive psychology may turn some away but his sensitive nature and drive are both admirable. It is engaging to watch him develop and it's hard to find a reason to root against him. Louis is a complex individual who interacts with Legosi well and provides a key foil in the story. Other than these two, most of the characters are written well but are handled poorly. This might be because of how little story is actually out, but once a character serves their purpose they are almost forgotten. I will give her credit, because when characters reemerge she writes it gracefully and it makes me feel warm seeing how the characters reconnect. Another issue created by this is side character development seems sudden and loses its value. This being said, the stunning outweighs the annoying and there is enough to love about most of the cast.

Enjoyment: 10
In case it wasn't obvious, I love this series. It has elements from enough stuff to enjoy without bogging itself down. Slice of Life and Shounen elements never (in my opinion) carried on for too long. The manga is admittedly dark at parts, but never reaches an edginess to it, and it is sad to think that many people will think that it is solely furry bait. The series is not carried by its heart alone, but also the incredible talent behind it that continues to surprise.

I will continue to read this as it comes out and I hope that you may have been convinced to give it a shot. Thank you for reading!

Now that Beastars has come to a (personally somewhat unexpected) abrupt end after its 4 year journey, I want to contribute my own review for this Manga. Beastars is Paru Itagaki's first long-lasting piece of literature, which makes it quite impressive that the series went on for its course of 196 chapters in a total of 22 volumes! There may be slight spoilers in my wording but I will try to keep it to only necessary parts.

As the synopsis suggests, the setting of Beastars is a world populated by anthropomorphic animals, a society on a comparable level as our own. Even though the characters in this story are animals, they also manage to display many human emotions and thoughts. But, unlike or rather significantly more than in other recent stories with similar background (namely Zootopia), there are problems splitting the worlds inhabitants apart, resulting in a tense society. How do carnivores and herbivores peacefully coexist in a world where predators still have their carnal desire for meat and prey still have their instincts of fear? This issue turns out to be the driving point of Beastars' narrative, as Paru tells the stories of several characters of this world over roughly 5 distinct story arcs:

Story:
Everything starts out in Cherryton Academy, an inclusive high school with mixed education, suggesting herbivores and carnivores get along. This would not be possible without strict behavioral rules and etiquette for both parties, as we are shown over the course of this first story arc - it displays the main characteristics of this world in a closed environment (the school), from where on out you are introduced to each of the characters, their personalities, mindsets and relations. The first main problem, the murder of one of Cherryton's students, the alpaca Tem, quickly kicks off plot and introduces our main character Legoshi. He is a big and menacing gray wolf, a predator, who is rather introverted and sullen and was a close friend of Tem in the Drama Club, which quickly pushes suspicions onto him. From here on out we are shown more and more of the cast, including Cherryton's seemingly perfect student represent and heir to a large conglomerate, Louis, the small but fierce dwarf rabbit, Haru, who partakes in physical relationships solely to feel as equals and face her own self-worth, and many more characters to come.

Overall the story is kept interesting throughout the entire course of the Manga. This paragraph will have a few minor spoilers. After a really promising start in the school setting, it shifts towards the bigger picture as the plot progresses, allowing the readers to get several perspectives into Beastars' world. This shift was really enjoyable, as it happened quite a bit into the story, where the school setting had already had its share. The slice of life pacing throughout the arcs is also well distributed, making some passages quite enjoyably wholesome to consume, while others manage to keep you tense for what is to come, especially more towards the climaxes. My main issue with the story as a whole is that it feels like it strode off its path towards the end, which can be attributed to the shounen tag, with a sort of Tournament Arc happening in the last arc. Some characters feel more and more left out and the progression is all over the place, all in all resulting in a feelingly rushed and abrupt ending, especially concerning the romantic relationship between Legoshi and Haru, which was the main driving point throughout the first two thirds of the story. Almost all characters do have their conclusion in the end, but in my opinion there could have been a few more chapters to finalize these things. Sadly, this leaves a small sour taste, as the ending (arc) could have been better.

Character:
Now, having talked enough about the story, let's move onto the characters, which are simply put really great and are essentially the main focus of the story's narrative. Everyone has a unique personality, individual beliefs and evolves throughout the story. There's Legoshi who manages to overcome and later embrace his menacing role as a gray wolf, Louis who grows past his ideallistic views and Haru who overcomes her self-worth problems. There are way too many characters to delve into here, but doing so would probably spoil some bits of the story - in conclusion, there are not many boring characters and almost all of them keep their significance throughout the story. This keeps it interesting for the reader, as you are able to experience the world from many viewpoints.

In short and without spoilers: the main characters of this story all have their individual problems, mostly concerning their role in society, which is why the anthropomorphic setting works so well. Everybody tries to find out where their place is, how they should be and who they want to be, sort of a story about self-exploration. Diving into each of these points would probably not fit here and would be boring/spoiling to read, so it's best to experience it for yourself!

Art:
The characters aren't the only aspect of the Manga that evolves! The art style starts off rather rugged looking, but has its own unique charm. There are lots of details where environment is shown and especially the character designs are really well done. Since this is Paru Itagaki's first Manga (next to Beast Complex), it's not unsurprising that the art style changes over the course of the 4 years it was worked on. In my opinion the art gets better as the chapters progress. All in all, this Manga is enjoyable to look at - it's not focused on visuals, but rather on discussions lots of times, but the art style manages to keep up.

Enjoyment/Overall:
In general this Manga is really enjoyable if you are into character-driven stories. There's drama in inter- and intrapersonal conflicts, there's romance, friendship and disagreements, there are parts full of suspension that keep you enticed and there are parts full of wholesomeness and calm that balance it out. What weighs down my enjoyment is, as mentioned earlier, the last arc, which to me feels like it derailed the story at times, shoved some characters to a point of near non-existence, introduced others which were quite blatantly not needed and seemed to obstruct the pacing, and finally ending very abruptly. I would have really liked to see more of a conclusion, after such a long and somewhat irritating arc, but overall I would still say I really enjoyed the Manga, as all parts prior were quite well done.

Do check out this work if you are interested, it's a great telling of a "what-if" society, with interesting characters, and a nice art style. The story is told by the characters. Even if the final arc isn't as rewarding as the first majority of this Manga, it was still something I gladly enjoyed reading each week. The first major arc of the story was adapted into anime-version by Studio Orange (the ones that made Houseki no Kuni, specializing on CG art), and turned out to be a great introduction into the world of Beastars. So if you're still unsure, check out those 12 episodes and decide for yourself, in my opinion it's a story worth experiencing. A second season of the anime is still in production at the time of writing this review.

Although it can be rough around the ages at times, there is something about this manga that gives me great pleasure while reading it. I cant really put it into words. I would recommend you give it a shot and I promise you it is likely you will get hooked.

Legosi is quickly becoming one of my favorite characters of all time. The character dynamics are solid and there is not a character that I go "ugh not them" while reading. Just a very solid character driven story with an author I never heard of. She is doing a great job with this series!

Thus far it has been very great show

The story takes place in an universe where all the living creatures are animals. I have always wondered about one question in these types of show, "What do they eat". This manga answers that. Carnivores have to eat herbivore food which aint the best thing for carnivores, but luckily there is a black market/ghetto where you can buy meat, but it comes with side effects.

The art is not the greatest art but it is still pretty good.

The story is kinda confusing. I have no idea what it is supposed to be. I guess it is about becoming the next beastar, but I feel like the story sidetracked and became a battle manga. The action is good. Overall its pretty great

The main characters are Legosi, Haru and Louis. Legosi is this awkward wolf who is very caring. He also has a strong sense of justice. Haru is a very sexually active rabbit who is the main love interest. Louis is very prideful and popular deer. He is respected by both carnivores and herbivores. He is probably gonna be the next beastar but who knows.

I have enjoyed this manga a lot. I got into this after 2 episodes of the anime. I read this within 3 days. I recommend this a lot.

Beastars was really an impressive manga in the first arc, but everything after that slowly but surely went downhill. Once I got into the chapters past 100, I wasn't enjoying it much at all anymore because of how the plot kept jumping between new subjects but never fully resolving things. There were some especially unsatisfying twists and turns involving new characters and fighting mechanics in the last few dozen chapters. I was ready to see how Paru would fix it, but unfortunately, the ending turned out rushed. In fact, it's so rushed that it's close to ruining the series for me. I think the second season of the anime will cover the rest of the best content, but past that, I wouldn't be surprised if the show was dropped.

The story starts off very well for Beastars. The worldbuilding is great and the overall story is very strong. But that is only for the first 150 chapters. Over the span of the last 50 chapters, Paru tosses all of that out of the window, and the story devolves into a poorly written shonen, and many of the characters are either tossed to the side and become irrelevant or become extremely one dimensional. If this review was for the first 150 chapters, the rating would honestly be a 9, maybe even a 10. I really loved this series, so to put so much time into it and see it devolve the way it did is truly upsetting. However overall as an entire manga, beastars is good. Its art is rough but works to its advantage, the story overall is good, the characters are good, and overall I enjoyed the series. This manga is good, but it definitely was a victim of a rushed ending.

my first time writing a review. so, please forgive me for any mistake.

~story: 7/10

the story is very good and the premise too, paru itagaki really knows how to instigate the reader. i just think the "cherryton school killer arc" was too long, it should have been resolved earlier. also, i think the world of beastars could have been more explored. (notice that nothing was said in the manga about omnivorous animals)

~art: 9/10

itagaki-sensei's art style it's different and good, very unique, beautiful and full of life.the environments are well designed, the black market is the greatest example of all creativity and skill of paru itagaki. the fight scenes are great, although there are few. I also really like the art when a character goes insane.

~character: 10/10

most part of the characters are wonderful. all with a difficult backstory (gosha, louis, melon) and you can sympathize with most of them. especially melon, who is the "final boss" of the story, and we need to understand his motivations to understand his actions. and itagaki-sensei did this character very good. in short, the author develops a good part of the characters very welll, and makes them extremely charismatic.

~enjoyment: 8/10

you certainly hope that haru and legoshi will get along. it happens in the end, they start dating and it gives a great satisfaction. the melon arc proves that legoshi has the capacity to be a beastar. for me, it was good enough just that.

~overall: 8/10

it's an excellent manga to read. this universe could have been better used,
but it is still good. totally different from zootopia or any history of anthropomorphic animals that i've ever seen.

In a genre saturated with over the top action sequences and cliche plot points, Beastars is a breath of fresh air. A light-hearted romance/action/drama that effortlessly pulls you into its world and refuses to let go.

Art - 8/10

Most of the panels are breathtaking. Gorgeously detailed characters and intricately designed world bolster the story to new heights. Minute details like adding tiny doors for smaller sized animals or safety warnings around the city for herbivores; improve the world immersion exponentially. Some of the artwork might get too minimalistic or the characters are over-expressive (similar to Tezuka's artwork) which might be offputting to a few readers.

Story - 10/10

This is where Itagaki shines the most and what I feel is the most heartwarming and genuine story I've read in years. The emotions or plot points don't feel forced or cliche. Seeing the characters stumble their way through love, failure, passion, and life itself feels so natural. The slice of life/romance elements are done perfectly. It is so pure and true to its characters that it leaves a smile on my face without fail. The shounen/action elements are a bit rushed but it's a nice change of pace compared to the slow build-up. The side stories act as a world building mechanism, but it is done so well that it doesn't even feel detached from the main story.

Characters - 9/10

Itagaki really cares about her characters. The detail to their emotions, behavior, reactions, and backstory leaves me in awe. Unlike an over powering righteous shounen protagonist, these characters are beautifully flawed. Legoshi and Haru's struggling love life feels so honest. Louis's haunting past and his relationship with various father figures is heart-wrenching. Even the supporting characters and one-off characters are so unique and interesting.

This is an oxymoron in itself but, they feel so human.

My initial thought on the cover was "Oh cool, the cover shows a wolf instead of a anime girl. I am craving for something new. I might as well check it."


STORY: Was a simple concept that has been done, but I was interested in what it wanted to focus on.

At first, the pacing was a bit strange where certain events suddenly happen in an unnaturally way, such as character's conflict or sudden obstacle. I did at one point found myself questioning what was the purpose of this story and why was it being told? Is this meant to a dramatic piece of our society or is suppose to be a romantic tragedy?

So I kind of understood the people's difficulty getting through the story at first. But when the pacing and consistency start to pick up, YES YES YES, the enjoyment start to snowball into this messy yet addicting tale. Events started to tie up much better and the story started to have a focus that fulfilled its purpose of showing this concept of "What would it be like if animals have these psychological and physiological conflicts that humans constantly struggle with?"

Another fun part was its world building and how we learn about what roles certain animals have to follow as they interact with their setting. You will want to learn more about what certain struggles animals have with the nurture and genetic side of their personality, making it REALLY FUN TO READ!


ART: Was one of the first that caught my attention.

Rather than a clean outline, the manga emphasizes the details of the fur and the perspective of the setting using almost like traditional pencil-like sketches. Some people might find it a bit "messy" to read over, but when you continue to read it, you notice that it's meant to reflect the artist's outlook of nature and its natural shape.

ESPECIALLY, the way the author express these characters' emotions and their subtle facial details, I FELL IN LOVE with how sympathetic I felt towards the characters and how detailed their expressions were.

There were also still moments that were beautiful and felt so animated that made certain moments so much more impactful than I could have imagined.


CHARACTER: Was strange yet endearing

I do have to admit, my impression with the characters was the most... fluctuating?

At first, sometimes the characters were following a lot of cliche tropes of their "animal" counterparts and sometimes they would make sudden uncharacteristic decisions. Even the chemistry was quite strange and sudden at the start (in my opinion) with Regoshi and a female rabbit character.

But as the story begins to have a more consistent pacing and more purposeful event.. WOO BOY!

The character's development is amazing to read (especially Regoshi and the rabbit's relationship). You start to understand and sympathize with all these characters and you want to learn more about them. The interaction and chemistry become so much more fun and interesting to read, making you more and more in love with all these characters.

While they do sometimes have certain tonal shift that feels inconsistent to the story (like how they are happy when it should be serious), I think that just made it more realistic to how much range of emotions a human can have.


ENJOYMENT:

WOW! This is a ride.

I started out with questions of this story's popularity to THIS IS SO CREATIVE, FUN TO READ, AND PHILOSOPHIC WOW WOW WOW

It was at first confusing to grasp, but when I started to approach this as more of a philosophic drama/literature (like Shakespeare plays), that was meant to tell an existential crisis through animals, you start to realize the purpose and creativity of this story.


If I had to sum up this review,

Beastars, at times, makes you feel as though the characters are more human than you are, but this just makes you appreciate your humanity that much more.

This is by far the best manga I have ever read. The characters are amazing. Legosi is best boy in all of manga. Louis starts off as a dick, but turns into an incredibly deep and amazing character. The art style looks messy, but that’s the best part about it. Every drawing, looks sketched, and it’s adds to an amazing aesthetic throughout the manga. The story isn’t the best at the beginning, but it starts getting amazing towards the later portions of the story. I have enjoyed it more than any manga I have ever read, and I finished it in a day. Just read it now!

When I got recommended this series by a friend. I had seen the name tossed around a lot and nearly every time I saw it was due to it being praised. I ended up finishing the anime in just a day and a half and started on the manga shortly after.

(I'll probably be including minor spoilers. But I'll make a conscious effort to keep major spoilers out of my review.)

Why I enjoyed this manga:
The character writing in this manga is very, very nuanced. The characters are layered and for the most part consistent. They all fit the stories theme superbly and and even as isolated characters would be intriguing. The stories premise is more than just an excuse to create characters and have a plot. Its used to its fullest potential, the premise is executed in a manner as to mesh incredibly well with the characters. The manga's art is definitely notable. Albeit that's partly due to the style but also the arts quality. Earlier on the manga definitely isn't as clean but it still conveys its story very well and on occasion panels stand out. Later on most panels are very clean with the only exceptions being particularly small panels, although that's to be expected in any manga.

What I disliked:
Now, think about everything I mentioned in the first part of this review. Got it in your head? That all crumbles in the last arc. The characters lose their nuance and become much more surface level. The antagonist is bordering on cartoon villain with only glimpses at a deeper motivation, and those glimpses are never elaborated on. The arc starts off good enough as to not disappoint but by the halfway point the quality has dropped significantly. This would be bordering on excusable in some cases, but this is by far the longest arc in the series. It takes up 1/3rd of the manga and its just about impossible to excuse 1/3rd of the manga being mediocre.

Final thoughts: I think that overall this is definitely a series worth getting invested in. Despite it ending on an absolute low point everything before that is superb. I'd give this manga an 8/10 overall and I hope to continue to see the author flourish on their future works.

I really like Beastars. I started reading it after watching the first episode of it and read the manga after being curious after the 1st episode. That was a big mistake on my part because I binged read the whole thing in a single night. I thought Beastars was not going to amount to much and was going to be something like Zootopia but boy was I wrong. Disney would not make this into a movie with the dark themes. The manga goes through such good character development with the interactions of the main characters Legoshi and Haru. It goes more into the relationship of carnivores and herbivores as prey and hunter. Eating meat has consequences in the human like setting of the story. It delves into other complex themes such as: addiction, relationships, and racial discrimination (herbivores & carnivores and inter specie relationships). The manga goes through some twist and turns that are sometimes easy to predict while other times there are some that are hard to predict. The character interactions are also precious with its themes of friendship. The main character's relationship with a certain senpai is complex from the way it developed throughout the series. The two end up having a beautiful friendship where it looks like they have each others backs. The main character is also a sweet character with how he views those close to him. It is also endearing to how much he tries to stay with ideals with the pressure of the world trying to get him to conform to the rule soft society. Beastars is a must manga to read and you guys should also check out the anime as its still ongoing right now. As of now I have read 148 chapters of Beastars.

A Shounen at heart that's trying too hard to be a Seinen is the easy way of describing this manga.

The story just kinda happens without much natural progression and the characters, while interesting enough, just do some very odd things that don't gel for me. Those two things aside I enjoyed this story as it had great art, interesting world building, and (while not perfect) fun characters. There is just a bit too much philosophy going on with these characters for my taste as nearly every situation is analyzed to the extreme from one of the characters view points. In a way this series is the perfect Shounen for readers who want to branch out into more serious manga, it still has some Shounen cliché with it but it also goes more in depth than most Shounen.

I wish this manga did a bit more showing and not telling like some other better mature titles but I enjoyed it for what it was.

And my second manga I write a review for. Sadly beastars last arc severly drives down the score, just as it did in magi, Are last arcs cursed? well what do I know.
BEFORE YOU BOTHER WITH MY MESS OF A REVIEW, Please make sure to read this way better one as I agree on pretty much everthing said in it https://myanimelist.net/reviews.php?id=360258
Beastars was my first manga, and hell did I fanboy for it for a long time.
Story:____6 9 for the Arcs to be covered in the anime and the hidden Condo arc. 4 for Melon, you joker dumsterfire of doom.
The Main problem is that beastars increasingly went more shounen as it went on and decidely less slice of life. But that stilll could have worked if the last , and sadly very long arc actualy went anywere, but it was just a random bumbeling, indroducing and discarding ideas all over the place. From a certain point the series just plain needs a rewrite, Introduce some themes, work towards a narative goal, pick up the pace, and either use or loose the funky additions.
Art:______10 I freaking love Paru's Artstyle, although the early pages do look quite jarring looking back, first manga tho, so learning expierence, this also applies to the story btw, lets hope paru improves with her next manga^^
Character:_7 They are enjoable enough I guess, Haru is big chad, Legoshi is big dumb, Louis is big maniac. The problem is that they dont get enough develpment due to the shounen angle.
Strangly enough I found myself beeing more fond of some of the supporing cast, namely Gouhin , the badass metal gear Panda and Juno in later chapters. Incedentaly my favorite chapter was 136
And as much Sebun/Seven was a minor character, I enjoyed every panel with her in it.
Enjoyment:7 Pfew this is a hard one. Im gonna give it one point more than I personaly did, cause I think bingereading will alleviate some frustration with the spotty job towards the end.
Overall :__ 7 As You might notice on reading my other reviews this is even less organized than usual, this is intentional as I didnt as much wannna find things to critque, but to give my closing thoughts on the manga straight after the last chapter.
If youre gonna look at just one from this Manga, at least treat yourself to the beauty that is Chapter 169 Page 18

Story: 5. While many of the psychological themes presented are brilliant, it really lacks coherence. There's not much "driving motion" in the story.

It also suffers heavily from characters making obviously terrible life decisions that they're fully aware of because of some sort of superficial ideal of empathy that isn't fleshed out enough to be believable. While it helps bring out some of the psychological themes, it feels extremely unrealistic and makes it hard for a reader to get invested in the story.

In essence, it feels like a story created mostly for the sake of social commentary.

Art: 10. Nothing to complain about. Very expressive. Anthropomorphic animals look weird, but that's nothing to complain about.

Character: 6. The characters are not particularly likeable, but they are fairly unique and interesting. There are many points where they don't feel particularly emotionally realistic, as mentioned above; they sometimes appear to be insane when they're being portrayed as idealistic and heroic and that dissonance hurts.

Enjoyment: 8. It's a lot more dark than it needs to be so it can be uncomfortable and frustrating at times. But overall, it's quite enjoyable due to its novelty and charm.

Overall: 7. Don't read this with a full stomach at night.

When I started reading manga, it seemed to me that this is a story about how "Zootopia" existed in the real world, without utopias. <Legoshi - a wolf that is forced to bear a heavy burden, its outstanding genetic capabilities, he is a PREDATOR. "Progressive" "justice" society makes all animals equal, encouraging the weak and oppressing the strong. forced predators agree and eat soy and tofu or go to the ghetto. Society oppresses not physically but psychologically. Uses public morality, public estrangement. Everything is like Nietzsche. Antagonist is the Louis deer, who also understands that no matter how hard he tries to be better in the eyes of others, he cannot become stronger than a predator.> Interesting? Problem is that I came up with this. I put this sense in manga. Manga is fundamentally not about it, it is about us so different, <we cannot be together, but we love each other.>

Story. story moves ... they either do not lead to anything or lead to blyat circus of stupidity. Its hard for me to talk about plot, he is disappointment. Manga author simply can not storytail. Manga is not about the story. Manga is about characters. The characters are interesting, ambiguous, with gray morality. You can love them or not, but they will not leave you indifferent.

I don’t know if you noticed or not, but they are furry. I love furry. I love furry, if they are inscribed in history ... I think that if you replace furries with human, then manga will not lose much, this is my opinion. let's talk about good. Design. If you are a furry lover like me, and I am the main lover of furry on Earth. Then you should know that it is very difficult to create an expressive and original furry character there is some mainstream design. Itagaki did something new; his characters are special, they are simple, but
face muzzle incredibly expressive. You can read their faces, they have something human. This is amazing.

You will love this manga if you don’t expect anything special from her.
Personally, I will continue to read it.
If something is written incorrectly let me know.

p.s. volk slabee l'va i tigra no v cirke ne vystupaet

To the credit of this manga’s art and worldbuilding, it takes a while for the thought to settle – but it’s actually just immature and dumb. This is my second attempt at a review of Beastars, because the first one was a detailed analysis it didn’t deserve. After my nerves had calmed down, after the dust had settled, I understood that I was essentially arguing philosophy with a loud tween, just dressed in a fancy suit and with a list of hot twitter hashtags of the year on a crumpled paper in the sweaty palm.

I am pretty sure that the author uses the protagonist of Beastars, Legoshi, for erotic daydreaming and/or fiction. According to an interview, he has been her roleplay character for long and she likes to put him into different contexts. The setting has also been her playground for a while – it was first introduced to readers in her debut work, a collection of short stories Beast Complex. Nothing wrong with this, by the way, it’s a privilege to see someone’s favorite toy persona – their designs tend to be good, backstories extensively developed. But their author needs either to commit and stick to honest erotica or to detach enough to write their beloved in a consistent setting without destroying the balance, which is hard – and hasn’t happened in Beastars.

About 60% of its writing is dedicated to showing Legoshi off. He’s a wolf, but stronger than lions, he’s an inexperienced school student, but with an in-built fighting talent, he’s somehow a werewolf with his constantly growing 6 cm claws and attunement to moon and he’s a vampire, because his name is a reference to Bella Lugosi and carnivores get strength by consuming the flesh of others. He wakes up and we see his fluffy morning fur, long muscles and a happy trail between a raised T-shirt hem and two elastic bands of pajamas and briefs. He’s hot. All men and women want him. Dozens of characters constantly comment about how powerful, heroic and pure our supposedly awkward misunderstood schoolwolf is.

Beastars doesn’t actually have a plot, the narrative is just a string of cool situations for Legoshi to explore in the chosen setting. A subplot usually takes about 20 chapters, the tone and the genre jump around wildly: romcom to battle shounen, mafia wars to comedy, slice of life to superhero, family drama to martial arts, ecchi to thriller. In later chapters the author may switch to other characters, but Legoshi will still save the day somehow in the end.

Whatever commentary about the real world you expected to salvage from the herbivore-carnivore opposition, it would necessary fail because of the constant need for sexualization. The joke about “eating for nourishment - eating sexually”, extremely insensitive in the context, is not only repeated each 10 pages or so, it’s the principle of writing. Eating herbivores, sex and gender roles get uncomfortably intertwined in a manner which is fun for porn, but utterly destroys any hope for social study. To be fair, sexual topics, like preferences clashing, coming out, sexual awakening, acceptance, fetishes, healthy and unhealthy practices, are the stronger side of the writing, probably because they’re more organic to the initial concept of the world. The female lead suffers from equating her self-esteem to sex appeal, secondary male lead is heavily coded as closeted, the male lead thinks he has a fetish – all try to live with what they got, self-search, suffer and explore. It's interesting and truthful.

Real life zoological connections also fail. Omnivores are a non-entity, for example. Hyenas are called canines in the beginning. Hippos are carnivores now (they are opportunistic carnivores irl, but c'mon). Sizes make no sense, with birds and reptiles as big as mammals, an adult red deer smaller than a wolf, yet mice being correctly tiny.

Sure, since this manga happily dives in everything – whatever goes: from a martial artist back alley psychologist panda to an infiltration of a queer masquerade orgy, from a voluntary organ selling castration auction to a milk factory with sentient cows – occasionally Beastars hits the mark, touches an interesting theme or develops the world believably. The author understands gender discrimination, can comment of racism properly sometimes. The main antagonist is imposing and deliciously unusual.

It never lasts though. The rule of cool and the partisan porn sentiment destroy all. Beastars has a very serious immersion-breaking problem with cheapening violence and whitewashing crime. Characters are way too hands-on between themselves, physically restraining, attacking or even hurting others is seen as barely a misstep. Later the black alley market with its butchery becomes the main location, evidently because it’s “mature” and “gritty”. One of the major characters gets involved with a criminal group in meat business (essentially killing, organ harvesting, likely slavery), but he’s still sympathetic and an ally, the mafia is used for comedy, they’re such lovely loyal guys. There’re uncomfortable generalizations about gender (“women are scary”, “wow, women are capable of such things”, “she’s a slut, so she’s scarier than a predator”). I am not sure about the constant toying with biological determinism and indulging in instincts (this manga gyrates between saving friends, “living as best as you can in whatever way” and “being born to be eaten/you wanting to eat me makes me feel alive”). And for all the good points about racial prejudice, the herbivore-carnivore hybrids are well, uh, complicated. Some things are purely silly too, like real fighting on a stage of a school theater during a play, an ex spec ops shirt-ripping grandpa defending a kindergarten from evil bat invaders, accidentally tearing someone’s arms off, or a schoolgirl who “also has special circumstances, she was a dominatrix”. The flow of the story is poor – it’s just way too slow, cloggy and masturbatory theatrical.

Another selling point of the manga, the unusual art, mostly holds up. The distinct lack of moe makes it stand out, the rough dirty linework gives it endearing charm. It has its doze of ugly: the author can’t draw footwear at all, so shoes look like loafs of bread on sticks, attempts at eroticism often have the opposite effect - this drawing style just isn't conductive to sexy bunny girls. But animal faces are expressive, appearances varied, there’s a couple of very nice designs we’ll see for a while as avatars (Legoshi, the deer, Beastar, the antagonist). The author tries to insert pleasant worldbuilding details in backgrounds, like toilets of different size or stylish haircuts for lion manes, even though,to be honest, it’s not enough to make their world believably accommodating to its many creatures. The art develops alongside the story too.

Beastars is memorable and not without high points, especially in art, but its writing is raging trash fire: the characters aren’t relatable, the world falls apart, the narrative grates and flows poorly. If readable at all, it's by treating it as an entertaining tranwreck in uncommon style to flip through in any quantity and any order that doesn't make your brain hurt.
Failures are proportionate to ambitions tho. Beastars didn’t stay at the territory of lighthearted action. When it engaged in conclusions about the nature of discrimination and the role of biology in social behavior, it stepped into the arena of psychological writing, one with higher expectations and higher responsibilities. There it took sensitive topics, hammered them into submission to a self-insert character with heavy edgy yiff pulp – and tried to sell the result as a statement, wrapped, misguidingly, in homely whimsical art. It tried to have its commentary about inequality and turn it into hot furry action too. I really don’t like how misleading its narrative is and how it pushes bad takes on readers through emotions. Together with weak characterization, poor believability and lack of narrative integrity – meaning: extremely poor writing overall – this makes it hard for me to recommend Beastars.

I wasn't expecting much of this manga at first, but it got really good pretty fast, and it keeps getting better with each chapter, so I can currently say that it is very much underrated.

The characters, specially the main ones, are very deep and interesting, so it's always exciting to get to know more about them, their personalities and their secrets, as the story progresses.
It's a bit ironic how they all feel much more human than the average character from any other high school story, even though they're all animals... but I really mean it, it's very easy to relate to them and their struggles, one way or another.

The world in this manga is very interesting as well, it has many layers to it and many aspects of it contribute to a feeling of dread, while it addressees the topic of discrimination and "cultural differences" in very interesting (and sometimes gruesome) ways. To put it very, very simply, it's like the dark and gritty version of Zootopia we never got to watch, but with differences that add to its complexity and originality.

My only complaint would have to be the art, or at least it was at first, but I've grown to like it quite a bit so it's not really that much of a problem, it's charming and very distinct, and it doesn't fail to send the message across, specially when it comes to its visual cues, which might be my one of my favorite parts of this manga, they're really well executed and make me feel like they'd be great in anime form because of how dramatic and meaningful they are, and there's plenty of them, since the story keeps jumping from one dramatic scene to another almost constantly, specially during the latest chapters.

My point with that is, do not dismiss this manga right away, because it's definitely worth a read.

Ps: Protect Legosi.

Beastars is one of the most unique and memorable manga I've ever read. The vast majority of this series is literal gold, but it unfortunately has a really bad ending. However, I don't think that the ending tarnishes what came before it, although it definitely affects the overall feel.

The first two story arcs for this series are both 10/10's for me. The characters felt extremely fleshed out, and they received incredible character development. This is especially the case for Louis, who goes through one of the best arcs I've read recently. The story for these two arcs will literally keep you reading for hours on end until you're done with them. Unfortunately, the series starts to derail from it's greatness after the second half of the third and final arc. Character motivations, and appearances, are not the same as they used to be, and it felt extremely rushed. The villain, Melon, had an interesting backstory and buildup, but the final fight was anticlimactic and pointless after a reveal made right before it.

Now, the ending. If Beastars gets a sequel, which I hope it does, it would probably fix the issues I have with it. The main one I have is that Louis' arc is extremely betrayed. The way his story ended was unsatisfactory and went against everything his character was built up to be. Other than that, my second main issue with it is that it is rushed beyond belief.

All that being said, this series had such a strong 150 chapters that the final 50 don't really dent my love for the series. Had this series not faltered in its 3rd act, Beastars would've been a 10/10 for me. So I will unfortunately have to give it an 8/10. Even with a bad/meh ending, I think that Beastars is still worth reading.

This manga started off so well. I seriously could not put it down, like I pulled all nighters to read this. There is a host of likeable characters and fantastic world building. I'd say this persists for about 70% of the story, barring a few moments that felt out of place. But for that remaining 30% or so, the storytelling becomes shaky. The final arc drags for too long and is just not of the same quality of the previous arcs, and then the story comes to an abrupt close with many loose ends left untied. It's hard to say that I would recommend this manga, as the bulk of it was amazing, and then it nosedived HARD. For myself, I don't regret reading it as I enjoyed most of it, but the ending was not satisfactory at all. Keep this information in mind if you wish to read.