Beastars

[ValidUsername]

Everything happenned too quickly. I know they can't give the characters episodes exclusively dedicated to them, like in the manga, but I don't like how they ignored their monologues and stories. Kai, despite being a minor character, is one of my favorites for his strong characterization. But, in the anime, he was really irrelevant and forgettable. It seems the staff is more focoused on showing the events instead of showing the personal identity of each character. This is a con for me, since Beastars is, ironically, one of the stories with the best portrayal of human complexity I've seen. I didn't hate it, though. The soundtrack was really good, and I wasn't prepared to hear Louis with such a deep voice lol

 

[Franconator]

Episode 1:

Okay, but the best things about this are the signs:

Some really cool and creative shots here, plus a unique setting that immediately gives this show a personality. I dig it.

 

[BrainBlow]

I just found out that apparently Atsumi Tanezaki will be voicing one of the main characters. Neat!
------
Episode 2
The intro is great.

Spoiler

Okay, so that beast monologue thing pretty much proves he did not do the murder.
Deer guy got hurt.
We actually got the food thing explained, though where do the eggs come from?
Why did those guys have a death battle before instantly acting like friends?

Wolfie meets the girl again and she---

 

[Gens]

02:

Spoiler

Love learning about the world of the show, it's all great. Legosi was trying so HARD to resist his meat eater urges and it was pretty mad creepy, like damn boi. Being a carnivore in this world is fucking tough ass shit. Legosi is pretty introverted but I find it pretty endearing. I also thought Louis was going to be just some stuck up jerk that was always against wolfie but I'm starting to think he's perhaps not that half-bad if a bit head strong. That ending though with the bunny stripping down, holy flipping burgers christ. Gives a whole new meaning to fucking like bunnies. You could just feel the deafening awkwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaard silence in the room. *loud coughing* This really caught me off guard, I mean I was making sexual jokes before but I didn't think this was for real. We're all going to be furries by the end of this.

Spoiler

We actually got the food thing explained, though where do the eggs come from?

*Bojack Horseman flashbacks*

 

[Rascal]

I - Of Rabbits and Wolves

Spoiler

I let out an audible "aww" when legoshi gave her that love letter. Hope I wasn't the only one. Something about big scary guys being all soft is always the best.

Oh, the show: anyone else get a kind of cognitive dissonance from the fact that they're all animals but talk and emote like basic high school anime characters? It's really interesting, I mean, maybe it's just because it's in Japanese but I couldn't stop picturing that this was a parody of a generic high school anime that got switched out for animals for no reason.

Luckily the themes run a lot deeper than that. I can't tell exactly what they're going for yet here but I like it. I knew I would too, I saw a review of this manga a bit ago and thought it looked pretty swell. I'm excited.

I do have to note about the animation, it's very good, but - and it's not the stuttering I have a problem with - it's the repeated and still frames of characters. Those times where it seems like they should be moving at least a little bit, but just look frozen in time. It takes me out of the experience. Otherwise this is definitely my second best this season. I wanna see them actually explore the herbivore vs carnivore issue on a deeper level than something like, say, zootopia did for instance. There has to be some deeper issues here than just hysteria that this story can explore, taking the form of prejudice that just pops up in day-to-day life in a world like this.

 

[ZetsubouKaiji]

Episode 2:

Spoiler

The start of the episode was creepy as fuck. The characterization of Legosi's carnivorous urges really make it seem like this society is hell for carnivores that have to constantly suppress their urges. Of course the start is also uncomfortable because there's a sexual tension to it that's only heightened by the end of the episode. The confusion of desires has to be intentional. I was going to say it humanizes Legosi, but that seems wrong in the context of this show, but he's a confused young wolf. The violent carnivore angle isn't familiar, but dealing with new powerful urges as a teenager is something that's easy enough to relate to.

The visuals were once again brilliant and the OP is the easily the best one of the year. I love the way the show is fleshing out the society. They're almost like humans, but they still have their animal instincts whether it's the two friends fighting to assert dominance before joining forces against a common enemy in the lunchroom. It's a blending of human and animal that makes this world interesting.

I know stop motion is a painstaking time consuming process, but man I wish there was more of it not just in anime, but in general.

 

[Rascal]

I know stop motion is a painstaking time consuming process, but man I wish there was more of it not just in anime, but in general.

well maybe if people went to see stop motion in theaters.

the legit only reason to do stop motion these days is a passion project, or for arthouse shit. And that applies to people like myself. In america, the highest grossing stop motion projects all come from Laika, films like Coraline, Paranorman, Boxtrolls, Kubo, and then The Missing Link all lost more and more in the box office with each successive release. There's the occasional Wes Anderson film too that uses it but that's once in a blue moon. There's no financial future for it because not enough people want it, they only want the next CGI How to train your Toy Story. It's almost as obscure than 2D animation is in America, which pretty much only has a future in anime, and the DC cartoons that get released all the time.

But that doesn't stop me. I'm still gonna do stop motion because I love it. And I hope people keep doing it til the end of time.

At least in Japan they have the creator of Shitcom. What a genius.

 

[Tents]

Episode 2:

This actually gave me goddamn chills and the ending left my mouth agape. I gasped. Damn, girl, hold up.

Spoiler

I appreciate how this show isn't shy about portraying tension and urges no matter how uncomfortable it might get. It's so much more impactful that way. If Legosi wasn't interrupted there, Haru would have had a bad time. Aaaaaand that would have been bad.

Louis really grew on me in this episode. That little badass moment with him straightening his back before walking out of the backroom really made it for me.

Great stuff. OP is even greater.

 

[ZetsubouKaiji]

Spoiler

I appreciate how this show isn't shy about portraying tension and urges no matter how uncomfortable it might get. It's so much more impactful that way. If Legosi wasn't interrupted there, Haru would have had a bad time. Aaaaaand that would have been bad.

Spoiler

I like how she reacted like a real rabbit there. She froze up when she was caught and stayed frozen while Legosi was struggling with his urges, but then as soon as her chance came she bolted as fast as she could.

Kind of feel like the rodent students would get stepped on a lot though.

 

[Gens]

Spoiler

I like how she reacted like a real rabbit there. She froze up when she was caught and stayed frozen while Legosi was struggling with his urges, but then as soon as her chance came she bolted as fast as she could.

Kind of feel like the rodent students would get stepped on a lot though.

Honestly though,

Spoiler

I can't imagine how fucking challenging it is for a herbivore and carnivore to be a real romantic couple. The kind of danger that is always present in that. The cost of potentially murdering your significant other. This series has me thinking about SO many interesting implications non-stop.

 

[Rascal]

I just want to gush about how fluid and full of personality this animation is for being CGI. Just lookat that. Have you ever seen that amount of expression in CGI anime? They made the animation so much smoother for these quick, personality-driven moments, to perfectly caputre the mood. Moments like these when I forget it's CGI until after, and then I realize, "holy shit, this is CGI, and that scene I just watched was still just as solid as a normal anime! if not moreso!"

Just delightful.

 

[BrainBlow]

Honestly though,

Spoiler

I can't imagine how fucking challenging it is for a herbivore and carnivore to be a real romantic couple. The kind of danger that is always present in that. The cost of potentially murdering your significant other. This series has me thinking about SO many interesting implications non-stop.

Spoiler

Seems implied to me that what Legosi and the murderer are going through isn't common at all, though. Feeling their impulses to the degree they do seems practically deviant, and even then I suspect it's mostly an issue for larger chase-oriented predators like Legosi.

I just want to gush about how fluid and full of personality this animation is for being CGI. Just lookat that. Have you ever seen that amount of expression in CGI anime? They made the animation so much smoother for these quick, personality-driven moments, to perfectly caputre the mood. Moments like these when I forget it's CGI until after, and then I realize, "holy shit, this is CGI, and that scene I just watched was still just as solid as a normal anime! if not moreso!"

Just delightful.

It has a significant advantage of being about anthropomorphic animals, which likely gives a lot of squash-and-stretch liberty that would look weird on human characters in a series that tries to go for an overall realistic tone.
Fur and such also gives a lot of freedom with texture, similar to how Land of the Lustrous could use fairly simple textures on characters that were technically made of non-living matter, so people don't think anything looks weird since they don't expect it to look like a "real person."
This is basically the same thing the original Toy Story did. So much of the story is focused on characters that are toys, so the still primitive graphics didn't look out of place at all while the focus was one them.
By comparison, when they tried to animate a flesh and blood creature and people...

 

[ZetsubouKaiji]

Spoiler

Seems implied to me that what Legosi and the murderer are going through isn't common at all, though. Feeling their impulses to the degree they do seems practically deviant, and even then I suspect it's mostly an issue for larger chase-oriented predators like Legosi.

Spoiler

Makes me wonder if something was done to the carnivores to tame them. It makes the subtext of Legosi's struggle a bit darker too if he's the outsider wrestling with his natural impulses despite being a decent individual.

 

[Rascal]

II: Nice to meat you

I did not expect that thing at the end. The leadup to it was pretty funny though.

The rest of it was brilliant. I really like deer-san now, and the whole thing in the cafeteria... just epic. The symbolization of leggomyeggosi's internal struggle is naisu as well. It's super relatable watching him watch the bunny, strangely,

it's almost like a carnivore dealing with their urge to devour draws parallels to someone trying to deal with their lustful urges.

And that right there. That's the most furry shit I can imagine.

Though this right here though, this is what gets me through the day when orange does it:

Translucent models, misty backgrounds, reflections... reminds me of how I felt watching some of those really intense scenes of Houseki. I love stuff like this.

Spoiler

Seems implied to me that what Legosi and the murderer are going through isn't common at all, though. Feeling their impulses to the degree they do seems practically deviant, and even then I suspect it's mostly an issue for larger chase-oriented predators like Legosi.

It has a significant advantage of being about anthropomorphic animals, which likely gives a lot of squash-and-stretch liberty that would look weird on human characters in a series that tries to go for an overall realistic tone.
Fur and such also gives a lot of freedom with texture, similar to how Land of the Lustrous could use fairly simple textures on characters that were technically made of non-living matter, so people don't think anything looks weird since they don't expect it to look like a "real person."
This is basically the same thing the original Toy Story did. So much of the story is focused on characters that are toys, so the still primitive graphics didn't look out of place at all while the focus was one them.
By comparison, when they tried to animate a flesh and blood creature and people...

Why did I just watch a dog break its neck seven times :)

 

[MistLiigh]

Episode 2:
I hope I never have to wait this long to see an episode of this show again...

Spoiler

There's so much to unpack with this show, I love it :o

Alright, so they've addressed the carnivore diet issue... they're all vegetarian. I feel like that would be really tough for some species whose digestive systems don't typically handle plant matter very well, but I suppose there are ways around that, in both the processing of the food and habituation...

Alright, so Louis is a more complex character than I initially pegged him for. He was still a jerk in that first episode, and I'm sure we'll see more of that, but it would seem that at least he's not a jerk just for the sake of being a jerk, and there is also apparently a fair bit of good in him too. We also got the show's name dropped around him, that was interesting... Sounds like a setup for Legosi to somehow end up becoming the Beastar at the end, which I'm sure would be unprecedented and something neither he nor the people around him can even really conceive of right now.

Man, that ant-eater just straight up ditched him. Damn dude, damn. I'm interested in why it is that bunny girl apparently doesn't even remember being attacked, let alone that it was Legosi... While it is true that rabbits have poor short-term memory, their long-term recall of bad experiences is exceptional, so she definitely should remember... And yet, now she's okay with sleeping with him, which raises so many logistical issues I'd honestly really rather not think about...

And some other, more minor details:

• Louis the deer man does not have hooves, but rather furry humanoid feet O-o Do they all then? Creepy...
• At 17, Legosi is practically ancient for a dog, so I take it as likely that all the animal people have lifespans more akin to humans, though there might still be some variance (you'd expect there would have to be at least between different size classes)
• There are some major size differences in this school... I feel like that could complicate many things, i.e. doors that have to accommodate large creatures, but also creatures small enough for them to step on...
• There were some details there on stripped-down bunny girl that you wouldn't expect to be able to make out so vividly through her fur... weird.

I really, really wish this OP weren't so rappy, because everything else about it is so awesome... dat stop-motionnnnn

 

[Rascal]

Spoiler

Sounds like a setup for Legosi to somehow end up becoming the Beastar at the end, which I'm sure would be unprecedented and something neither he nor the people around him can even really conceive of right now

.

Spoiler

But that would be pretty predictable for us, the audience, since he's the one who initially explained the beastars via internal monologue, and it's the title of the show, and he's the main character.

Since Louis is getting some actual characterization here, I'm more on the side of him progressing to the point where he becomes the one we want to see become the beastar. If you ask me, legosi's arc doesn't seem like it's pointing in that direction. This may be a red herring, or simply a setup for a parallel character arc.

But we'll see!

 

[MistLiigh]

Spoiler

But that would be pretty predictable for us, the audience, since he's the one who initially explained the beastars via internal monologue, and it's the title of the show, and he's the main character.

Since Louis is getting some actual characterization here, I'm more on the side of him progressing to the point where he becomes the one we want to see become the beastar. If you ask me, legosi's arc doesn't seem like it's pointing in that direction. This may be a red herring, or simply a setup for a parallel character arc.

But we'll see!

Spoiler

Those are very valid points, and I could definitely see it going that way too... It's still pretty early, so it's kinda hard to be sure, and the show does continue to surprise me, and has already changed some of my thoughts from the first episode... I'm interested to see how they'll go about it.

 

[Rascal]

Spoiler

Those are very valid points, and I could definitely see it going that way too... It's still pretty early, so it's kinda hard to be sure, and the show does continue to surprise me, and has already changed some of my thoughts from the first episode... I'm interested to see how they'll go about it.

One thing's for sure... ever notice how Louis is actually in the opening?

Spoiler

symbolized as the thing keeping rabbit and wolfy apart, perhaps?

my other thought is that maybe, just maybe... the beastar is actually a bad or corrupt concept.

 

[Franconator]

Episode 2:

Well, geesh, no wonder Legosi's always so stressed, if all the carnivores here can't eat meat. I'd probably go stir-crazy myself if anyone tried to deprive me of my meat.

Louis-senpai is cool. Still a shady mofo I don't trust yet, but he's cool.

Really cool tricks with the OP and ED, the first song could be told from Legosi's POV, while the last one could be told from Rabbit-chan's POV.

Honestly though,

Spoiler

I can't imagine how fucking challenging it is for a herbivore and carnivore to be a real romantic couple. The kind of danger that is always present in that. The cost of potentially murdering your significant other. This series has me thinking about SO many interesting implications non-stop.

Spoiler

You know what they say, there's nothing like a little danger to keep a relationship more, uh... interesting.

 

[Starletka]

You guys make this sound so cool. I might pick it up.