Beastars, from my first impression, a pure satisfaction

 

Beastars follows our two main protagonists Legoshi and Haru.

Legoshi is a tall and massive wolf, who despite preconceived notions, is an actually calm, gentle, and relatively shy person. Haru, a white Dwarf Rabbit is less than half the size of Legoshi and is constantly bullied and ridiculed by the other animals. 

One night, Legoshi can't help himself and hunts down the nearest animal, which is Haru. But after he can come to his senses Haru escapes with a deep wound on her arm. In Cherryton academy animals of all sizes and races comes together. And while there is distrust and unease between them all, Legoshi's life changes in unexpected ways - This is Beastars.

On the internet, upon being released, it received general hate for being a 'furries' anime-

After the surprising release of the show, it got a great amount of stupid criticism for being a furries' anime. People started to categorize it and provoked the viewers as someone with a disgusting taste of choice. So for them, I have to say, you shouldn't be criticizing people for enjoying any kind of show, and if anything we should strive to be as open-minded to art as we can. Because lest we forget, anime is indeed an art, and just because the trend is to hate furries doesn't mean the show is made for such an incredibly small demographic anyways. Just because a show has anthropomorphic characters doesn't mean it is immediately bad or stupid. If we went by that logic, anime or any kind of art shouldn't exist.

Now let's talk about the most important part, that is the show itself-

Upon my first viewing of this series, I was immediately captivated by so many things. Of course, it was my first time, seeing a CGI anime, but after watching it I can say, you wouldn't even consider it as a drawback to the show. The primordial thing that surprised me was the presentation and the story.

Personal Thought - In many ways, this felt so much like an anime noir at times. It was of course hints and bits, and never anything that hit you on the head, it was very subtle. But with the music and atmosphere, the first episode did have those subtle noir vibes to them. 

With how they set up the episode with Legoshi and at the end Haru it was captivating. The first time I came face to face with the protagonist I was enchanted by his character representation.

Legoshi is a wolf, and in this world, wolves are often looked at as prideful animals who are at the top in terms of how they're viewed. But with Legoshi he's rather shy and timid. It's a subversion of what we should expect of Legoshi and because of that, we can view this character from a different and more interesting point. It seems what they're trying to do is simply break down this character and dives into each aspect of what makes him tick. It's fascinating because we look at Legoshi and we have these expectations but in reality, he's different than most other characters. he's seemingly rejecting his nature so that he does not stand out or do something that goes against his morals. This is evident at the end of the first episode when Legoshi attacks Haru, he simply can't help himself and no matter how hard he tries, he just can't stop it.

'I think here they penned this by the inspiration of drug addicts. Because they could tackle this aspect from the perspective of a drug addict. In that way, it reminds me of Sam Witwer's character in Being Human who was a vampire that didn't want to drink blood.'

I also wonder how he'll be able to cope with that side of him now that he's getting closer to the animal he tried to eat. Which is something they briefly touched on too, as Legoshi comments such a thing. I think a bit part of Legoshi's character is accepting who he is deep down and not trying to hide it, but embrace it and thus in turn being able to keep that side of him in control. And Legoshi always walking a fine line between a person who could snap and not is right now an interesting and compelling character. It makes him someone who could flip on a dime and shake up the story quite a bit with something as simple as losing control and just trying to hurt an animal. 

But speaking of hurting an animal, Haru is our other protagonist in this anime and she is probably my 2nd favorite character out of everyone.

She has this sort of underdog vibe to her, something straight out of the '80s that makes her the natural babyface in this anime. Which… in many ways, she has the literal face to prove that. She's a White Dwarf Rabbit, and she seems very innocent and peaceful, but as we see on the inside she's a powder keg of emotion. This is what I love about Haru the most, it's the complexity of the way she looks and who she is. In many ways, I feel like her story isn't that uncommon to those who are bullied. In one episode she gives her reason for taking care of the plants and being the only one in her club. She believes that the plants need her but most importantly that she needs the plants. Besides being an obvious cry for help and attention, this is something that makes Haru a person you want to get behind. We the audience see who she is, and we can relate and understand the position she's in. She has a very real struggle she's dealing with, being bullied is no fun and through those struggles, we want to see Haru get strong.

So that eventually she'll be able to stand up to her bullies and not let them get to her.

This also goes into her first real interaction with Legoshi which is a massive misunderstanding but an important scene for both of our characters. On one hand, it re-affirms that Legoshi isn't the kind of guy to do anything quite like this and not only that. This scene is rather comical in many ways for the way Legoshi reacts to Haru's advances. Instead of worrying about the situation and Haru in general he's so caught in just trying to say that he wants to talk to her more. And that's hilarious to me because he's so nervous that he's overthinking and trying to figure out a way to just say he wants to talk with her more. He isn't trying to ask her out or anything, he's just trying to start a friendship with her.

He's so innocent in that way compared to Haru, her side in this interaction is somewhat on the darker side. Haru's first reaction is to just go along with it, based on Legishi's perceived reaction she thinks he just wants to have sex with her. And since she's known around the school as this "man-eater", a girl who just has sex with the other animals just because she can eat em up and spit them back out, she thinks that Legoshi maybe heard those rumors and went to her for some action. In reality, it's not anything like that at all and he hasn't heard any of those rumors. So she gets as far as unbuttoning his pants and from there Legoshi stops her advances.

I love this part, as Haru is surprised, she asks why he's not helping her set the mood, Legoshi explains his intentions, and from there Haru realizes what just happened. Legoshi then puts a towel around her and says to cover up as she may get bitten by bugs and leaves but not before slamming the door on his tail, leaving Haru in an extremely confused state. And I'm sorry, but this scene was comedic gold, hilarious but also went into an aspect for both Legoshi and Haru's personalities. 

I feel like this was one of the most human scenes in this whole series so far. To tackle such an adult topic as sex, but also as well to have the innocence and charm to pull off comedy in the same scene; that's great. I thought: Beastars has been a highlight today and it has ample potential to be a great series. And when I finished the second season early this week, I smile at my previous remark. Of course, it turned out to be a great specimen of anthropomorphic presentation and also an exciting series to look forward to. 

If you haven't given Beastars a shot yet, please go and finish it now. Cause I am diving deep into it as I am going to explain some psychological forums of the character's representation soon. So until then stay tuned.

Beastars, inside a Character-World -
Preview of the Next Blog
(Riz & Legoshi's Character Analysis)