Manga 103701 Beastars

For a story about anthropomorphic animals, Beastars says a lot about humankind and the importance of communication to break through differences. Although the concept and themes of Beastars are strong with philosophical and psychological layers to unpack, the series isn’t always sure of it's own identity. During the mid-way point of Beastars characters and plot lines are all too frequently forgotten for new ones- I understand the need for the story to go past Cherryton Academy for the larger message of interspecies relationships but main characters are barely in the story anymore. The character writing of Beastars was a strong point, each character had great ... themes exploring their insecurities with their animal identities in different ways but after a while this development goes in circles. The conclusion of their archs doesn’t feel right despite having a lot of meaningful matter. That aside, the good still significantly outweighs the bad. Beastars is still a great manga that could have been one of the best, it just lost its way but there was never a time I thought it was outright bad nor undeserving of a read. The analogies for twisted parts of our own human society are Beastars strong suit and make me wish I could score it higher.
Beastars is a constant battle of brain vs brawn and it’s still worth your time.

I found Beastars' setting very intriguing and that was why after watching the anime (at the time of writing the 2 available seasons), I immediately picked up the manga wanting more from Legoshi, Louis, Haru and the surrounding world.

The setting - modern times but filled with intelligent anthropomorphic animals - was explored deeply and presented the possible issues that could occur, mainly, the divide between carnivores and herbivores, racial and cultural stereotyping. Which I enjoyed.

And up to the Interspecies Relations arc I was not able to find a thing I could dislike about story, pacing, characters. It all flowed well and the developing relationship between ... Legoshi and Haru with the difficulties they must face together of their respective carnivore and herbivore instincts, social stigma was captivating.

However, the problems started with the Interspecies Relations and became gross with Revenge of the Love Failure arc which for some reason took more than a third of the whole story! It felt like the author was branching out to cover multiple plot points and expand the world, but grasped too wide to finish up all or just most of what was introduced. That's why the direction of the story often times felt rubber-banding from one point to another and yet another, and ultimately the ending felt rushed.

It had some good potential, but not only got prolonged, but also rushed at the end?

It started very good and simple, with a weird but creative Animal world and a murder mystery, but it got to a point where not only that conflict was resolved, but also everything else was going in circles

What started as a School Mystery ended up trying to be a new Fighting Shonen with power ups, Instant healing and Special habilities and all that.
There were LOTS of things AND EVEN CHARACTERS that got introduced but then were never seen again or never mentioned! And it wasn't just a minor thing, ... but they spent whole chapters on it. So it ends with none of that having any sort of importance to the plot at all!

The worst thing was how all of the Main characters had nothing else to say and were going in circles, as mentioned before. Specially with Legosi and Haru's relationship. Legosi's character went from a Depressed wolf but average at best to a Stupid wolf who does the most stupid things and can't do anything properly. The best character in my opinion was Haru, since she was the only one who had 0 issues with saying the truth or moving things foward, and not only with Legosi.

The last arc was ATROCIOUS. Melon is the most boring and annoying villain and the last and final chapters were SUPER RUSHED and offer no satisfying or clear resolution to anything. I don't know if it was because the series was cancelled or something, since it had proper pacing until that last arc.

Overall, it was entertaining to follow at it's time, but it made me mad to spent so much time and wait for every chapter for months just to get such a dissapointing ending with huge amount of conveniences and rushed as hell.