DESCRIPTION

CAST

CHAPTERS

ANIME DramaBEASTARS
ANIME DramaBEASTARS 2
ONA DramaBEASTARS FINAL SEASON Part 1
MANGA DramaBeast Complex

REVIEWS

• 

  BungeeGumDimitri

  70/100
  Beastars starts off as a 10, but by the end, I wanted to shit myself in fury.

  WHAT HAPPENED PARUUUUU?!?!?

  Beastars is a series I was originally hesitant to get into because it looks like some furry nonsense. I decided to take the plunge into it because the anime opening slapped. To my surprise, it was pretty damn good. Unfortunately for me, I got into it just past the peak of the series, before the fall into garbage.

  I apologize in advance if this review is disjointed and ever-so-slightly profane, but I've not been this mad at an ending since Tokyo Ghoul:re. (If you've read Tokyo Ghoul:re, be prepared for that again.)

  While Beastars starts off amazing and is decent overall, be ready to be disappointed by a mediocre final arc and an abrupt, unsatisfying ending.

  Story - First Half - 8, Second Half - 3

  _My reaction to the second half of Beastars_

  Beastars starts off on a decent note, it's a standard slice of life and murder mystery with furries. It has a similar premise to Tokyo Ghoul in that carnivores and herbivores live together and must coexist, while the conflict of carnivores eating herbivores is the plot. It opens up with a carnivore eating an herbivore at Cherryton Academy, the school of the protagonist, Legosi. Legosi is a wolf who befriends an asshole deer named Louis, and falls in love with a rabbit named Haru.

  Overall, the story itself is average at best. There's plenty of issues, such as lack of focus, weird tonal shifts and really a lack of a proper plot until the murder mystery becomes the main focus. Despite these problems, the series progressively gets better and better. The story is very heavily driven by great character development and world-building. The murder mystery arc is fantastic (entirely due to the characters) and is easily the peak of the series. Everything up to chapter 135 is great. After 135, this is where the story begins to decay into crap.

  Without major spoilers, the lack of focus becomes a huge issue. Characters, plot points and arcs are completely dropped. The final arc is one big rehash of the murder mystery arc mixed with a Shounen tournament and the Joker movie thrown into the mix.

  One thing I noticed was the tone being far less mature by the end than it was in the beginning. For a Shounen, there's a surprising amount of sex and sexuality in the first 135 chapters that the final arc is lacking. I'm not trying to sound like a horny furry, anthropomorphic animals participating in fuck is weird, but it would be like if Game of Thrones dropped the sexual aspect of the series in the last season.

  Also, what's up with cliffhangers up the ass. Why? I can get the occasional cliffhanger when there's been a lot of boring stuff going on, but the second half of the manga is loaded with these. There's cliffhangers in almost all of the final 30 chapters of the manga.

  Spoilers below:

  Melon. This character fucking ruined the story. His character, his arc, his background, his relation to everyone. Wannabe Joker who lacks any proper depth just fucking sucks, he sucking fucks, and I hate him. He is a sociopath/psychopath who is written to be a deep character, yet lacks any depth if that makes sense. He's a hybrid of a leopard and a gazelle due to interspecies coitus, and he can't taste anything because of his genes. Very cool. He is introduced as a simple murderous doctor, but he's really a serial killer at the head of a lion Yakuza family.

  This guy brings out the stupid in everyone. Legosi tries talku-no-jutsu on Melon to no avail, and gets shot by the dude. After killing and nearly killing everyone by the end of the series, Legosi does it again. SURPRISE, IT DOESN'T WORK. Melon nearly kills himself and Yafya. Melon's locked up, and Yafya lives.

  The chimera stuff was fucking dumb and weird, and didn't end up having any importance later in the series. Imagine Nen being introduced in HxH, only to be dropped immediately after. Along with chimeras, the two characters involved with it, Kyuu and San, are completely dropped a little afterwards and immediately afterwards, respectively. San just vanishes and is never mentioned again, and Kyuu goes from helping Legosi, to betraying him, only to regret it and disappear from the series. Why? What was the point of these two?

  NOTE: So I just found out that the chimera stuff is a reference to Baki, a series by Paru's dad, so I guess that's why it was in here. Still sucked ass though.

  In the 3rd to last chapter, Legosi get's a very long scene saying his goodbyes... to Sagwan the seal. WHY HIM? Legosi has a long, drawn out goodbye to one of the less impactful people in his life. What about a good scene with Louis, Jack, Juno, Gouhin, Yafya, literally anyone but Sagwan. This was so bad, and it set the tone for what to expect from the ending.

  The food problem is never properly resolved. A whale whose backstory we never properly learn decides to ship fish sausage to land animal society to solve the "carnivores need to eat meat" conundrum. Then Yafya, the Beastar, says "nah, we good fam." Okay...? What was the point?

  The name of the manga is also ignored. They did the title drop "leT's BeAsTaRs lolol" the same chapter Kyuu and San were introduced, 50ish chapters before the ending. Legosi and Louis don't become Beastars, so what was the point? WHAT WAS THE FUCKING POINT PARU, WHY DID YOU CALL IT BEASTARS?!?!?

  Onto the ending...

  The ending is the worst ending out of any overall good manga or anime I've ever witnessed.

  

  Legosi and Haru give a wishy-washy proposal to each other and their relationship doesn't feel fully resolved despite the finality of a marriage proposal. They've barely interacted in the last 50 chapters, how do you expect me to believe their story is solved with just a kiss and marriage proposal, like WHAT? Sure they had plenty of scenes earlier, but there's a huge disconnect between the last time they really got development together and the ending.

  Referring to the sexual aspects mentioned earlier, this never got resolved either. We get to see Louis railing Haru near the beginning, Legosi and Haru have a lot of sexual tension in the hotel, only to have no payoff. I don't need to see the sexy time, but it's just another aspect of the story that never paid off. This relationship just ended terribly.

  Louis gets crapped on. He ends up marrying a non-character that has been in probably 2 or 3 chapters. This not only shoots down the second main romance, Juno and Louis, but it undoes all of Louis' development, excluding his bromance with Legosi. He's someone who was living up to his father's legacy by being perfect Beastar material. Then he becomes a mob boss and has a pseudo romance with a wolf girl. After his dad dies because the story needed something stupid to happen, and the main conflict is resolved, he suddenly decides to undo all his development and live as his dad wanted him to. This could have been done well, but it ended up being a bucket of ass.

  All the side characters who were important before get one or two panels in the final chapter. If I'm not mistaken, Juno, one of the more important ones, doesn't even appear. This really is Tokyo Ghoul :re all over again.

  Shit, the Shishigumi get the worst of it. They're all arrested and end up getting longer prison sentences for messing up trying to be model prisoners. All that just for the lols.

  For the people who shit on Demon Slayer's ending, behold: This is how you really ruin an ending.

  As for my fellow Hunter X Hunter and Berserk fans: Be happy that if these series never end, they can at least remain unfinished while still good. Nothing is worse then having a Game of Thrones happen for decades-long series we love.

  Visuals - 9

  

  The art starts off pretty mediocre, but it turns into some of the best art I've seen. This isn't Berserk, but the visuals are amazing for a weekly manga. Character expression, as shown above, is incredibly well done. Characters can't feel same-y because of the different races of animals.

  There isn't much to say here, there's no deeper meaning to any of the art, and there's no symbolism I've noticed.

  Characters - 9

  

  The characters are easily the best part of the series. It's because of this that the series becomes bad, because it shifts from being a character-driven story to a story that drives the characters.

  Legosi is a great protagonist. He's the shy outcast who everyone thinks is weird and creepy. He has great development without completely disregarding who he was at the beginning. He becomes self confident and strong, but is still quirky and weird. His development shows that you don't have to become a completely different person to better yourself. In Legosi's case, it's is an incredibly unique take I haven't seen done in this way before. He's easily my favorite character up until the final arc, where he becomes incredibly stupid. Sora in Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance stupid.

  His romance with Haru is somewhat off-putting because neither of them really develop it. He just becomes infatuated with her, she eventually likes him because he saves her, and it doesn't go much further than there. There's more to it, but nothing of significance.

  Speaking of Haru, she's kind of an awful character. She starts off interesting. A mature rabbit who is able to stand up for herself, is very promiscuous and derives confidence from that. Very interesting, but she hardly develops past that. We see why she is the way she is, but she doesn't grow as a character. For a series written by a woman, I find it odd that Haru is basically just a goal for Legosi. She also suffers from "the dumb" by the end of the series, agreeing to let Melon eat her...What in the actual fuck. By the way, this is completely forgotten by the end, it's never brought up after Louis finds out about it.

  Louis is the second best character. The "breaking free from tradition" trope, but done exceptionally well. That is, until all his development is tossed out the window. His relationship with Legosi is interesting because they're so different, yet they get along so well. They strive to be like each other and improve themselves based off their friendship. Louis carried the second half of the manga as best he could. In return, he's got a terribly done ending. His relationship with Juno was decent, but felt like it was more to pair the spares. Louis can't get Haru or have yaoi time with Legosi, and Juno can't be with Legosi, so let's just put em together. Then they just drop that in the final chapters for drama. Rip Louis and Juno, you two deserved better.

  I would go into all the other characters and why they're good, but the series pretty much dropped the good characters by the end, so I guess I will too. Juno, Jack, Pina, Yafya and Gosha were great, but were mostly irrelevant by the end.

  In Memoriam of forgotten characters:

  • Juno
  • Jack
  • Fuck you Bill, you sucked
  • Pina
  • Gouhin
  • Kyuu
  • San
  • Azuki

  Overall Enjoyment - 7

  _Watching the opening after writing this made me depressed._

  I'm being generous with Beastars in giving it a 70, and this is only because the first ~135 chapters or so are great. Not flawless, but the characters, art and premise are enough for me to give that half of the manga a 10. Everything after 135 is extremely hit-or-miss. It can be good, but is usually fucking awful.

  I'm not sure how much of this is on the author or the editors. We all know editors can ruin even the best of series, and I would not be surprised in the least if they had something to do with this tragedy.

  The ending leaves a lot to be desired. Anyone who defends it is in denial of the immense bullshittery that we were subjected to.

  I would recommend the manga up until 135. After that, either read a summary of everything, or force yourself through the slog to get to the good bits.

  Thanks for reading.

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• 

  Nuggs

  71/100
  What starts out as a compelling character study shits the bed in the last quarter

  I honestly don't know where to begin with this.
  This will be my first review on this site and I will tag any major spoilers.

  So, I, like many people picked up the manga after studio ORANGE's phenomenal adaptation finished because I absolutely could not wait until the second season. The music, the animation, the world, the characters, all of it came together so wonderfully, I just could not stop myself. I was lucky (or unlucky depending on your point of view) enough to catch up just before the series devolves into a clusterfuck of chapters that oscillate between twenty different tones, vapid and superficial answers to the questions raised earlier in the series, and a messy attempt to elicit sympathy for an antagonist that is offensive at best.

  If I were to cut out the last 30 or so chapters, this series would still be a 9 for me. The shift in the quality of writing is so dramatic and disconcerting, especially given how amazing the beginning is that I held on to hope that it could be turned around far past the point of no return. There had been issues prior to this sudden shift, however, the introduction of a certain character marks the beginning of the end when it comes to Beastars.

  Let me start with what I enjoyed with the series before I tear into the mess that is the "conclusion".

  Art:

  The art starts out quite badly. Paru does not know how to compose her pages or how to have consistent linework. There are random thick lines running among the thin ones and characters are drawn inconsistently

  

  Image from chapter 1

  One of the most rewarding parts of reading Beastars is seeing Paru evolve and grow as an artist. Her style ends up being incredibly unique and fun to look at and it is something that never drops in quality throughout the series. It just gets stronger and stronger as it goes on as she learns how to compose dynamic shots and really gets a feel for how she wants to draw her characters.

  

  Image from chapter 112

  Plot:

  This will be short since Beastars has always been a character-driven story, not a plot-driven one. The only overarching plot thread that exists, at least in the beginning of the story is finding out who Tem's killer is, and that thread gets wrapped up almost 100 chapters before the end of the series (and is the best part of the series I might add).
  The Tem Killer Arc is undoubtedly an amazing piece of writing and the strongest part of the series, which makes sense since it was the arc that Paru thought about for many years before even starting the manga. I honestly felt sick to my stomach reading how Riz rationalized his murder of Tem as a way to cope with the fact that he had killed a friend. I love everything about it. It was Louis at his best in the entire series, with Legosi and Riz being good foils. It also introduces Pina who gets shafted later even though he was a fan favorite and has some amazing character work with Bill.
  I think the biggest testament to how amazing the writing in this arc is the moment with Kibi and Tao in the hospital after Tao had accidentally ripped Kibi's arm off. It is a simple, quiet moment between two minor characters but left such a profound impact on me. There are no moments like that in later arcs even though Paru tries to recreate that feeling.
  After that plot thread is wrapped up, it is very clear that Paru did no have much of a plan passed that, and for a while that works. She was able to explore her characters without being constrained to solving this huge mystery. It stops working after she abandons the slice of life aspect in order to try and one-up what she did before.

  Charaters:

  Arguably the best part of Beastars. At least, before the last 30 chapters.
  Beastars is a world that is rich with interesting morally grey characters just trying to do their best to survive. It is compelling and dynamic, and fun. Legosi is was one of the most interesting protagonists I had ever seen which makes what he becomes later so disappointing. Haru was a breath of fresh air as far as heroine's go; her whole life did not revolve around Legosi, in fact in the beginning he is hardly even a blip on her radar while he is falling so deeply in love with her he worries that it is an obsession. She had her own agency as a person and was spunky and fun. Which makes what she becomes later so disappointing. Louis was an amazing foil to Legosi, highlighting what was wrong with the world's structure and how hypocritical it all is. He, too had his own agency outside of Legosi, which, once again, makes what he becomes later so incredibly disappointing (are you seeing a pattern here?).
  The recurring problem with the characters is that when Paru does not know what to do with them, they either disappear or become a member of the Legosi cheer squad. And it gets old really fast.
  Now I cannot really delve into just how convoluted and stupid the last 30 chapters are without talking major spoilers so:
  Kyuu is a bad character. Full stop. Her introduction is when all of the issues of the Melon arc begin to compound on each other and it highlights just how lost Paru is in her own story. She lost focus on the characters that really matter when it comes to the emotional core of the story: Legosi and Haru. At the end of the day, it should be about their love and navigating that love, however, Haru doesn't appear for many chapters at a time and is separate from Legosi a lot. And no that does not mean she has a life outside of Legosi or agency as I said above. She is constantly thinking about him, which is fine, she is in love, but when that is the only thing she is thinking about when she is alone, she no longer feels like someone that exists outside of Legosi's world.
  Kyuu and her Stand are such nothing characters. I don't feel anything for her. I don't buy her supposed connection with Legosi. I don't care that she sold Legosi out. The Stands ends up not being used at all in the final fight which just makes her interactions with Legosi useless. Louis and Kyuu's history ends up meaning nothing because they only talk ONCE on screen alone in the entire series.
  I don't know if I can properly explain why I have become so disillusioned with Legosi as a character. The inner turmoil that made him so compelling is all but nonexistent in the final act of the series. He just becomes a white knight that does no wrong. So much dramatic tension hinged on Legosi's constantly inner battle with his own instincts, and that tension is not present at all in the end because Legosi is suddenly the perfect animal who loves everyone equally and wants to embrace everyone's unique traits. There was no build-up to that payoff, which is why I despise him now I guess.
  I guess it's time to talk about Melon though.
  I'll be honest. I liked Melon at first, a lot. He was interesting and chaotic and unique. However, he overstayed his welcome. He gets away with so much bullshit it is unbelievable. And the way that Paru tries to get the reader to sympathize with him after he has just been going around killing people because in his how words he's "crazy" is so uncomfortable. Finding out that his mother sexually abused him did not make me more engaged with the character. It was a cheap way to get you to want him to live that came thirty chapters too late so that there would be tension when he pulled out the gun to shoot himself since he is so "crazy". She tried too hard to one-up Riz with Melon and it failed.

  Summary:

  If it seems like I am being too harsh on Beastars, I honestly don't think I am. I have left out many other complaints about characters that are not even mentioned in this review as it would make this review far longer than it already is, I even have more complaints about the characters I DID mention, but as I said, it would make this way longer than it already is. The only reason the series is not rated lower is that the first 160 or so chapters are still amazing for me. That part is still a 9/10. The ending though is a 5 when I am feeling generous which averages out to a 7.

  I think the easiest way to put how I feel about the series is like this:

  Legosi was once one of my favorite characters of all time; now I feel nothing when I see him.

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• 

  Chizuo

  78/100
  Beastars had potential. The unique premise that raises intriguing issues is sadly underperformed by the poor final act.

  Beastars is an interesting case. With an unique premise, the author Paru Itagaki manages to direct the story in intriguing paths, exploring many of the various conflicts that exist in the animal world. However, at the end of this beautiful trail are several holes, which leads us to question whether the trip was worth it.

  The main appeal of Beastars, in addition to its world full of dichotomies between carnivores and herbivores, is its characters. The author introduces a quite interesting cast, with dilemmas that, although not very original, present developments worthy of attention. Impossible love, the heir who follows a path contrary to what was imposed on him from the cradle, to even the protagonist's own personality, who follows the line of introspection, in which everyone finds him intimidating, until his good-willed true nature is revealed.

  This is not, however, a detriment to Beastars. No way. It is incredibly satisfying to watch the protagonist, Legosi, facing situations in which he questions his own morality, or when he must leave his comfort zone. Feeling angry when he acts stupid is also essential to the complete Beastars experience.

  In this sense, in order not to become just another school-themed drama, Beastars makes a point of reminding the reader at all times of its setting and inhabitants. Paru shows a living world, which really connects with the creatures that inhabit it. From the small details, such as smaller doors in the school for small animals, to complex problems, which, in a way, are credible to those in the real world, such as prejudice, conflict of interest between classes, and how society ignores latent problems in its structure.

  Moreover, the biggest annoyance I had with Beastars is when it tries to adapt to the famous "battles" that permeate the demography in which it is inserted. It seems that the author remembers that she is writing for a Shounen magazine, and therefore tries to write conflicts where there is a physical struggle between the characters. And these are the worst parts of the manga. This is not necessarily because of the motivations behind the conflicts, but because of a certain ignorance of the tone and consistency that had been created in the previous chapters. Although it is not just about that, the situations in which a punch exchange solves the problem in a drama manga, in which the characters' psyche is constantly being exposed, are extremely anticlimactic.

  This worsens as Beastars draws to a close, but it spreads like a sore on other aspects of the manga. The author seems to want to solve all the plot threads that she left open with the simplicity and speed of the exchange of punches that were once occasional. To avoid spoilers, let's say that decades-old problems are solved in minutes, like the whole situation involving the historical conflict between carnivores and herbivores.

  This happens not only with the social issues relevant to the plot, but also with the characters' own arcs. Some simply solve their problems as if they were nothing, even with the constant hardships encountered earlier in the story. Worse than that: Louis, one of the most well-developed characters in Beastars (yes, he is the one who wants to escape the responsibilities established since his birth) follows a totally opposite path to the entire evolution of his character during the chapters.

  Beastars has solid qualities, which no criticism can take away from the series. It is daring in its setting, bringing interesting conflicts within the fictional society created by the author, and, in addition, her characters are inserted in this context with mastery. However, the author fails to bring satisfactory conclusions to the various interesting characters that she introduced in the work, giving an air of haste and lack of planning for the outcome of the plot.

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