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Spectacular visuals, on par with the Tatami Galaxy, Ping Pong - the Animation and the Count of Monte Cristo. Additionally the ending is BY FREAKIN' FREDDIE MERCURY. The rest of the music greatly complements the visual aesthetics (Our Love by Yutaka Yamada ft. Quincy and Riverwalk by Yutaka Yamada are personal favourites), all in all creating a magnificent, colourful and exciting world.

Really enjoyed the in media res story style, especially towards the end - it really added to the finale's impact. This is one of the rare anime that has you thinking about what is going to happen next, and only reveals it at ... the final possible moment, constantly putting you at the end of your seat (Monster also did great on that regard). Also let's keep in mind that this is an original story!

I also appreciated the multilingualism, though I would have liked more English (they nailed it with the Chinese and French though).

Finally, this is one of the few anime (the only other one that comes to mind is Monster, though, from an different point of view and with different countries) that accurately portrays Europe (and probably the other destinations too, but I cannot speak for them).

Overall a great anime. It's obvious that a lot of hard work was put into its making. From the original music, to the beautiful animation, to the plethora of languages used, to the research done for all the places and art pieces mentioned, all the many sides of this anime shine brightly!

What I want to focus on in this review, is solely the lack of continuity I observed between the first two seasons of this anime. Therefore, I won’t be discussing other aspects such as the animation, OST etc. which anyhow I consider top-notch.

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS

The first season of Beastars explored the relationship between herbivores and carnivores in a world of anthropomorphic animals. This was done mainly through an examination of the wolf Legoci’s struggle with handling his mixed predatory/affectionate feelings for the bunny Haru. I considered it to be a slice of life with many romance elements.

The second season explores this same relationship ... though this time, from a different viewpoint; we observe Legoci’s shōnen-like strive to get stronger mentally and physically, in order for him to become a carnivore that uses its power to protect herbivores. This is explored mainly through the diverging paths that Legoci and the proud deer Louis follow in the Black Market.

A change of pace in an anime, (in this case, from a more relaxed one, to a more action-based) is not necessarily bad; there are series whose change in pace makes them even better: Planetes, for example, skilfully moves, as the series progresses, from sci-fi adventures, to ‘difficult’ questions about existential dread.

However, the downside to this change in the case of Beastars, is that it causes the narrative that was being built in the first season, -specifically, the growth of Haru and Legocy’s relationship- to abruptly come to an end with the second one.

Haru and Legocy’s relationship -a central part of the first season’s narrative- is only fleetingly explored during the second season. It is certainly the case that an examination of Legoci’s romantic trials, would look out of place in the violent and dangerous world of the Black Market, the main setting of the second season.

This caused me mixed feelings; it cannot be denied that the Black Market arc was well made and that viewers were introduced to interesting new characters (Ibuki) and to new personality traits of older ones (the more imperfect, vulnerable and ‘humane’ side of Louis). Nevertheless, it seems as if the potential further exploration of Legoci and Haru’s relationship -which was what the viewer was made to look forward to the most at the end of the first season-, is sacrificed, in order for other, more suitable for the darker setting of the Black Market subject matter -such as Louis’ denouncement of Legoci’s path in life and Legoci’s and Riz’s fight- to take centre stage.

SPOILERS FOR BOTH LEGEND OF THE GALACTIC HEROES AND DEATH NOTE AHEAD:

I do not want to waste other people’s time with commentary done before, rather, I would like to provide a comparison which to my knowledge has not been made yet.

LOGH does something quite unique in my opinion; It carries on extremely well even after the death of the deuteragonist of the series, Yang Wen-Li. Another masterpiece of an anime series, Death Note, stumbles upon itself after the death of its respective deuteragonist, L. While Death Note could not hold its storyline together after the death of a character so well-developed and integrated into the ... storyline (and had to drag new characters in the series to fill the gap left), LOGH had such a wide range of deeply developed characters, that the death of Yang Wen-Li had the dual effect of making the audience devastated at the loss of a beloved (by some at least) character on one hand, but on the other hand, it signalled the beginning of the evolution, the rebirth rather, of Julian, Frederica and of course, Reinhard; as they came to terms with the loss of a Legend, they had to either rise from the ashes, or drown in them.

While in Death Note I was really wondering how (and why) would the series continue after the loss of one of the two pillars holding the series' storyline, in the case of LOGH, I was really looking forward to see how the death of Wen-Li would resonate with the rest of the cast, how it would make them evolve, or spiral into devastation.

Of course, LOGH, had many more episodes to develop its characters compared to Death Note. In my opinion, LOGH brilliantly used every episode, every minute, to develop its characters. This established a web of characters on which the plot could safely fall back into and then soar back even higher, after every major character loss.