Beastars

[MFauli]

episode 10:

Yes/No question for manga-readers: Does the manga do a better job at explaining why Legosi or Pina don't rat out the murderer to authorities? Tell the police, tell the school leadership, someone.

I have big trouble making sense of this. Legosi is putting every herbivore at danger.

[MFauli]

Episode 11:

WTF
So there *is* a police in this world, but Legosi just chose not to tell them?! Wtf. This makes zero sense. He's putting everyone in danger (too much danger, if Pina is truly dead. Not sure about that. On one hand, Riz has no reason not to kill him, on the other hand, and off-screen death is suspicious).

Meh.

The rest of the episode is superb, of course. I love Ibuki's character development, although I have no idea what the shot at the end was supposed to mean. Why can't Louis ask the lions to come help him with a bear? Legosi disguised as a woman and the reaction from both Louis and Ibuki were priceless, haha.

[David75]

Yeah, that Legosi/Ibuki/Louis scene was golden from beginning to end.

The ED's lyrics are about that tunnel scene. Though I do not know who gets alive out of the tunnel.
Free could be the one pulling the triger as instructed by Ibuki, but I see no reason he'd be in the car, would make no sense.

That moth scene was just pure crap. That or moth larvae have hallucinogenic to wolves compounds in their bodies.

[MFauli]

Final episode:

Well, this is over now. Overall, I liked it very much, but the entire nonsensical "I wont tell the police about Riz, because .... BECAUSE!" soured my opinion on this 2nd season.

Lots of fantastic, memorable scene, great characters. But the meat-power up was unfittingly comical in my opinion. Also, it felt like I was watching some sort of gay-cannibal softcore porn there at the end, lol.

Looking forward to what this studio does next, because their work with cg animation is amazing. If I could choose: Let them remake Gantz from beginning all the way to the end of the manga.

[neflight86]

...a swing and a miss...

This finale really didn't work for me... hardly at all. The mystical bug eating séance (how enlightened of insects to grasp the concept of desire, but not actually possess any) and the fight with Riz were both underwhelming. I know this isn't an action show per se, but there was action on display here and the flowery, sentimental writing style did not even try bending to accommodate it. The action felt disjointed, like the entirety of the circumstance surrounding it, in actuality. When the stakes of an interplay are life and death, I need to feel the urgency of the encounter or all of the dramatic tension is lost, even when the outcome is inevitable. Pausing fights to have touchy-feely conversations and understand each other better has its place- before the final confrontation. Here, it was damaging to the pacing.

Lewis' return, and the circumstances for doing to were a bit better, though the scenario was a bit too black and white for me to take seriously. Going to help a friend does not necessarily mean throwing away or forsaking his entire enterprise, as it was interpreted by number 2 lion. I don't get it. Also, deagle lion was more dedicated than I pegged him for to stalk, shoot and release/banish. It served the purpose of keeping Lewis's hands clean... except that he already gave lead poisoning to the old boss in s1.

The biggest disappointment though was the somewhat contrived 'shut up and eat my foot' power up Legosi didn't even use to 'win' his fight. If Lewis thought or surmised that eating meat is what draws out a carnivore's true power, there were other ways to get him the hook up; they were out of Riz's sight after all, and he just came from the black market where cadavers were readily available. I get that the sacrifice had symbolic meaning, but I ain't buying into this bromance nearly enough to brush aside the thoughtlessness of the climax as a whole.

Well, with season 2 over, the mystery set up by the first episode is cleared and we can now move one to the actual meaning and ramifications of the Beastar itself now. I look forward to it, and have re-adjusted my expectations as to how this story is being handled and will try to embrace my inner simp.

[MFauli]

Season 3 is apparently out now, officially on Netflix.

What a dumb decision to release this all at once. Way to ruin any hype :/ Oh well, will start the binging later.

[MFauli]

4 episodes in I gotta say: LOL. So the only animals that are truly fucked are insects. Those are okay to eat, because ... fuck insects! What a weird distinction to make.

[MFauli]

Season 3:

Well, that was that.

First, the two things I REALLY hated and soured me on the whole series:

- it took until season 3 to reveal that different species can have biological offspring. WTF. How was this not made clear in the first two seasons? This chages everything. The whole mechanic between Legoshi and Haru back then was weird, both because carnivore and herbivore, but also because there was the assumption that any interspecies relationship would lead to a sad life due to not being able to have babies.

- and the same shit again: it took until season 3 to reveal that, oh, those rules about eating each other? THEY DON'T EXIST FOR MARINE LIFE. Wtf. Again, that changes the outlook on this entire world, but it wasn't some in-universe secret, the writer simply kept that information from us. BS.

- actually, similarily, a third complaint: So suddenly everyone's eating meat, the Black Market is visible to anyone? And it's no big deal? Did I DREAM the first 2 seasons where even the mention of eating meat was taboo? Where baring your fangs was taboo?

- oh, and: So there IS a police. Except it's not doing anything, because apparently when the Beastar doesn't do it, nobody else does. wth. Just send the police to deal with Melon and the Kines-production.


And as I paused to write the above and just finished: WTF, THIS IS ONLY PART 1?!!? God, I'm so sick of this "part"-bs that anime started doing. Eff this shit :/

[neflight86]

This series was clearly written as it went, as the worldbuilding is shaky and there are some pretty good sized lore holes as mentioned above. I can ignore all of that and still enjoy it for what it is, but my major issues stem from Legosi himself being an... unlikable character. I'll circle back around to that.

This first part final season spends almost the entire time treading water, trying to build up a nonexistent confrontation to pin the 'future' of this society on, I think. Post time skip, Legosi ha dropped out of school, Haru is in college, and for some reason we get to see the remains of the drama club doing their thing without any of the major players, yet Haru, an emotional core of the series has almost no screen time and what little she does get is spent trying to convince everyone around her that Legosi isn't trying to kill/assault her. The Seven character... I'm not even sure what her role in the story is apart from giving someone for Legosi to talk to during his meat withdrawl; she is also conveniently shuffled off after a few interactions. Sea creature, and the whole 'sea dynamic' also fell flat.

Its nice we got to see the beastar finally, even if he has a hokey flashback relationship with Legosi's grandpa. The character (and his rat intel network) is neat, and I like his sleuthing, even if I still don't understand what dynamics are at play here (a wish granted?).

The whole 'forbidden offspring' mixed race thing is pretty jarring for not having been mentioned ever before, but as far as shoehorned plot devices go, it served its purpose.

Aaaaand that brings us back to Legosi; a toxic simp. I get turning your back on your speciated natural desires- an anime trope as old as time- but there are ways to do it that don't make the character look like a naive online 'activist' with (rightfully) no friends because he pushes his narrow beliefs on everyone else. Declaring he will 'protect' all of the 'weak' herbivores from the mean old powerful carnivores in a society where guns exist is just embarrassing. Likewise for starting fist fights with energy drink dealers in dark alley ways who have no idea why you're fighting them. Tearing out your own fangs as a symbol of not eating meat, which you did only once, and now wear fang dentures to speak normally so no one can tell anyway? He was right when he confesses to Luis that he is simply an idiot tugged around by his own 'kinks and fetishes'. The boy needs better supervision. Haru's few scenes with him also reinforce that there is no remaining chemistry here and they would likely be better off going their separate ways.

It's just all so clumsy how Beastars has begun handling its societal commentary, like it wants to say something so much more than it actually has substance in its ideas.

At this point, I'm ready for it to be over and gently slide this one into the memory bank. At least the joker mix character is done entertainingly. The show is kind of riding on him right now.

[MFauli]

Also: They claimed in season 3 that Legoshi was unusually big thanks to his Comodo-genes. Wasn't he pretty similar to the other wolves-students in season 1? Feels like another retcon.

Anyway, agreed with everything you said, neflight. Tbh the scene where Legoshi rips out his own fangs really angered me. Nobody would do that. ThaT's just so ... over the top. And sudden. And allthewhile feeling cheap, too, because instead of thinking of a good way to resolve the situation, Legoshi instantly went for the submissive approach. sigh

And yeah, Haru's little screentime was weird, too.