Mar 4, 2023
At face value, Beastars is a 'furry' anime that shows an unlikely relationship between a grey wolf and a dwarf rabbit. This is often what people think when they hear of Beastars, however, the story goes so much deeper and because of that I couldn't resist writing a review on it.
Beastars is an anime based around an anthropomorphic animal society - much like our own, just made up of humanised animals living day-to-day in society. I was immediately captivated when watching Beastars for the underlying topics that the show covers - such as the prejudice, discrimination and social hierarchies that run rampant in everyday society.
...
Beastars has a very unique way of highlighting this discrimination - through the relationship between carnivores and herbivores. While the show begins as a story of coexistence between the two, we begin to see a strain between the two classifications of animals - mostly due to the media and the societal stigma that grows from the reporting of carnivores eating herbivores. Carnivores begin to be labelled as being unable to control their thirst for herbivore blood, a species that prey on the 'weak' herbivores. This in turn hurts the herbivores, giving them a reputation of a subservient species to the carnivores, only seen as weak and powerless. We see this from two main perspectives - the gentle giant Legoshi, a grey wolf who tries to fight his carnivorous instincts to pursue an 'impossible' relationship with the dwarf rabbit Haru - and Louis, the stoic red deer who exists at the top of their school's hierarchy as a talented actor in the drama club. Both of these protagonists are shown fighting these labels given to them within society and thriving for a society where herbivores and carnivores can properly co-exist, without any harm or prejudice towards each other.
Covering heavy topics in anime is usually a recipe for disaster unless done well, but the writers did a good job of handling it with care. It's not often that we get to see the effects of societal prejudice from all angles in media - it's often a plotline used to highlight a specific issue, and discrimination towards a certain group of people - but Beastars manages to masterfully show us it from every single angle - with the negative effects the strain between the herbivores and carnivores has on all groups of people - and how vastly different the negative effects are for each affected group.
As for the animation, Beastars is unique in being one of the few successful examples of CGI animation in anime. While the CGI was off-putting to me at first, it definitely grew on me within the first couple of episodes. Beastars is an absolutely stunning show, and the CGI gives the show a specific charm to it. The character movements and facial cues are fluid and realistic, unlike some other examples of CGI in anime- and it still feels like you're watching an anime.
The sound in Beastars is phenomenal, specifically the background music. Sometimes you'll watch an anime that just has the perfect setting for what is happening in the scene - the perfect music, background and voice actors. It's usually rare to find all three in an scene of an anime, however this is a common occurrence within the show.
Beastars is an audial, visual and written masterpiece. It's one of those shows where you can tell the passion, dedication and hard work that went into creating it - from scriptwriting, animation and sound design - and it definitely paid off in the end.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all