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SavannahPanda3

  • Joined Nov 15, 2014
  • 26 / F

Beastars

May 21, 2020

NON SPOILERS

The character development is poop, the plotlines are messy. Characters are made and dropped like yesterday's news. It's a fun read if you don't take it seriously though.

SPOILERS AND RANTS

This manga is challenging to rate because it gets worse as it goes. The author, Itagaki Paru, can't even keep the motivations of the main character straight. It can't even decide what genre it wants to be. Honestly, it's like three different people wrote this manga, and none of them could agree on what the plot should be. 

Plot: Mystery -> Romance -> Thriller -> Slice of life *rinse and repeat*

CHAPTERS 1-50

It starts with a thrilling murder. Cool, it's an excellent mystery, and the manga even makes you think that maybe it was our main character, Legosi, that did it for a second. But then emo Legosi tried to eat a cute little rabbit named Haru, but then realized that he didn't want to eat ger after all. He feels guilty for eating her and starts obsessing about her. Eventually, he meets her in a garden and falls in love with her, but before their romance can ever begin to blossom, she gets kidnapped, and then the genre changes from "slice of life, romance" to "action/shonen." It has this hilarious side story where Legosi hunts down the mob to get his girlfriend back, and then one of his classmates, Louis, becomes "king of the mob." Then it switches back to the romance genre after he gets her back. I thought we were finally going to see this relationship progress now that they're openly together. Nope, they completely drop her character because he made a vow to get stronger to protect her. But he completely forgets about her, and the manga completely switches to "mystery thriller" for like the following 50 chapters.

CHAPTERS 50-100

Louis goes from being a snob to a murderer and then to the leader of a gang. Lol. So the author tripped acid with their character's personalities. And Legosi completely ignores Haru, and the authors force him to become a criminal, a decision that doesn't make sense to the point that the author admits in the manga that this doesn't make sense! So finally, the showdown happens with the murderer from chapter one. We're on chapter 50, and the murder plotline hasn't even been investigated, but suddenly months later, Legosi cares about it. So what does he do? He analyzes it, he found out who it was, and then held onto that knowledge for at least three months and doesn't report it; instead, they forced Legosi to fight him because Tem (the victim) was a good friend? Anyways it ruined his life, and he became a criminal because he decided to eat Louis's (the current mob boss) leg to gain the power of eating meat. Here's the craziest part, Louis wanted Legosi to eat his leg. When did they become such good friends? Lol. 

But now he's a predator and legally can't marry Haru, so any romantic reason you were reading this manga disappears forever. *cries*  

After that, it goes back to a "slice of life," introduces many random characters by shoving the old cast to the side and making Legosi drop out of school and move to the ghetto. It's also around this time that Legosi's attitude and mindset completely change, to the point where he becomes very similar to a thug who is well-mannered at his part-time job. Lol.

Additionally, the author annoyed me when it used a moth to give Legosi more strength during the murder mystery showdown. It was stupid.

Art

It's okay. Sometimes it's exceptionally well-drawn other times, it's sketchy and looks like the author did it in a rush.

Characters

The author is wishy-washy about what drives his characters forwards, self sabotages them, and all-around fucks up as many characters as they can to be "edgy." Many characters were introduced only never to appear again or are permanently put to the side even though they were significant characters that still have an ongoing plotline. 

They should have kept it simple.

Legosi is a shy nerd boy in love with a rabbit and wants to protect her.

NOT Legoshi is a shy nerd boy in love with a rabbit and wants to protect her, but then forgets about her when he goes and works out with a panda for a week after promising he'd get stronger for her. Then he gets hired by the school security guard snake to find out who killed Tem, so he does, but then Legosi keeps it a secret for months so that he can secretly fight him for no other reason because he can. But during the fight, he's beaten so badly that he needs to eat his friend's leg to get enough energy to kill this murderer. But then, because he ate his friend's leg and admitted it to a cop, he becomes a criminal. Then drops school. Then moves into a ghetto neighborhood. Then he starts a crappy part-time job and forgets about old friends and Haru. 

Haru is a whore, who should have realized her self-worth from her friend Legosi and as she worked to get over Louis fallen in love with Legosi.

NOT dropped as a character after they almost have the sex. 

Louis is a preppy rich kid with a tragic back story but is grateful for his new life and aims to be the Beastar. 

NOT a gang leader who even starts eating meat, smoking cigarettes, and actively helps the black market become more protected. He completely ignores Legosi until about 1 chapter before he lets Legosi eat his leg and then decides to go back to school and not become Beastar.

The author's writing doesn't make any sense, like introducing a snake security guard that wants to help him catch the bad guy who never shows up ever again. 

Overall

This manga can't even get one genre right, let alone the 5ish it tries to push down your throat. The author tends to put new plot lines in the middle of old plot lines but then forget about the old plotline, like the murder from chapter one. The author is constantly changing the motivations and drives of their main characters. It isn't enjoyable to read.

Complicating characters and plot can be good if the author has the skills to keep their goals and their personality in check. But unfortunately, this author doesn't have this skill.

I'm only one chapter 130, but every chapter gets harder to read, but I'm so far along that I want to finish it. But as far as I can tell, everything that happens after chapter 50ish becomes less thought out and more erratic. Such a disappointment. *reads next volume*

5/10 story
5/10 art
5/10 characters
5/10 overall

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ffcfran Jul 16, 2021

I am so glad I did not read this when I was looking for something to read. it sounded interesting but sounds like the author sucks at combining genres and character development.