Beastars

So it’s been around 75 years since my last post. Surprise surprise.

Artemis and I have been, for lack of a better word, lollygagging. I now have a full-time job and Artemis is doing something or the other in school while working here and there. My only joy in life right now is 2 cats and anime. Though I suppose it’s always been like that. Anyway, you’re not here for some boring spiel, but instead for a riveting review of a manga that would honestly quite easily implicate me in the shocking crime of being a furry. I’m not a furry goddammit!

The Manga

It’s been a while since I’ve read any form of manga, but this one recently caught my eye. Now I’m not usually a fan of anthropomorphism, being especially cautious of anything featuring animals walking on two feet and generally evading anything that might implicate me in … furry-ism? So anyway, I started this one on whim, ready to drop it at any point were my deviant-sensor to go off (I’m already a filthy degenerate weeb for liking anime. Why further that by adding furry to that label?). But anyway, I suddenly found myself binge-reading whatever I could find of the manga. It’s actually really good!

Beastars features an awkward lanky wolf (with unreasonably bad posture), and follows his journey to understanding his role in the world. Growing up as a carnivore in a society where carnivores and herbivores live in peace, he struggles to come to terms with his identity as a gray wolf, and subsequently, as a carnivore. Denied his most natural desires to hunt and consume meat, whilst also being feared for such desires, he finds himself shying away from the public eye and retreating into himself. This is a coming of age story about how he begins to break out of that self-imposed shell and tackles his rapidly altering perspective of the world.

What I really like about this manga is just how well thought out everything is, from character designs to world-building. Legosi – our main character, has an awkward and lanky appearance for a reason. His hunched back and uncertain posture is representative to who he is as a person. As he grows more confident, so does his posture. It’s such a small thing, but it’s one of the many cases where I was impressed with the mangaka’s attention to detail. Of course there’s a ghetto where you can acquire poached meat, and there’s a homeless man offering his own body parts for money! Of course hens can have part-time jobs where they sell their eggs, and thus fulfill the dietary needs of carnivores. It’s such a well constructed manga, I find it hard not to recommend.

Fair warning, it does go into some strange areas (look at above picture of blind man selling his fingers).

In the meantime, I shall patiently await an official English release.

Also Louis is so gay.

P.S. It’s okay if you are a furry, I’m sure.