Fairy Tale Spotlight: Beastars

[Minor Spoilers]

I have been watching this anime on Netflix called Beastars. I very much adore this show for everything it tried to do. But I have been in a disagreement with a friend recently about it. I don't want to name any names, but I want to lay out my case here for why I consider this show to be a genuinely good series that is well worth your time. So this blog is more me just trying to make clear how I feel about the show than a simple review of it.

Beastars is a show featuring anthropomorphic animals in a private high school setting. Although the animals are clearly civilized, the writers chose to keep their feral instincts 120% intact. The crux of the story is about a tall and lanky wolf named Legoshi falling in love with a dwarf rabbit named Haru. It is an unnatural relationship, because the natural instinct of the wolf is to devour the rabbit and this is taken very seriously in the show. And even if this is true in Legoshi's case, there is something very interesting about him that changes everything: he is legitimately a wonderful person. And that's what makes this whole thing work... but not without incredible challenges.

But now we come to the criticisms of my friend. I want to lay them out the best that I can and then make my case.

The criticism was how the writing of the show was garbage. There is a moment later on in the show where a character who has never fought a day in his life suddenly fights with amazing skill as if he had been trained for years. And this particular character is known for being extremely passive and antisocial. The complaint was that the writers just had him fight good to simply shock the viewer and did not explain it in any rational way.

Where I agree that Japan is well known for being over the top most of the time, I put forward that this show was in absolutely no way forced in its presentation aside from the actual setting itself. It is my believe that my friend was comparing these clearly animal characters to humans far more than they deserved. Indeed, they lived human lives and did human things, but they were first and foremost instinct-based animals. Civility was only an afterthought.

So how in the world do docile characters with no training in their entire lives suddenly fight so well? How do animals in the wild fight? They were never trained even once. When animals in our world face an enemy, something just clicks. Pre-programmed information gets activated and all of the sudden they know exactly what to do and even fight quite well.

The way these animals fight in the show also seems to happen in a feral way. Claws come out. They use their teeth and go for the neck. It's all based on the way animals really fight. And there is a good chance that any of the same animals in the show would fight in a similar way because the instinctual programming would be the same for that animal. The writers were basing them not on humans but on the animals they were based on. All the instinct was there and was the predominant part of their nature, not their human likeness.

There is more I could go into, but I don't want to spoil things that happen between specific characters. But the point is that every single ounce of writing in this show is based on the fact that these characters have their feral animal natures completely intact. They are not human. They were never meant to be human. They are animals pretending to be us, and they can only keep up the charade for so long before their true nature switches on, and then who they really are will finally come out.

Beastars is a well-written, gritty, and honest show. It is well worth your time. I am very happy I watched it. I hope I made my case clearly.

Thank you for reading my blog! Did you enjoy it? Either way, you can comment below, or you can email me at tkwadeauthor@gmail.com. You can also visit my website at www.tkwade.com. Check out my books! Thanks!