Sometimes you pick up something out of idle curiosity, and end up reading outside your comfort zone, and the story turns out to be rather compelling and unlike anything you’ve read before, so you keep going even when it gets weird . . . that’s where I am. (Still behind myself in typing up reviews- I’m currently on volume 8 of this series, with quite a few other books scattered in between).
This is very reminiscent of Zootopia, at first- but quickly proves to be more serious, with far darker undertones (more like the original online comic that Zootopia was based on- which I read a lot of and then couldn’t find it anymore). A world populated by anthropomorphic animals- they all have human-like posture, wear clothes, have jobs and go to school, etc.- but also with characteristics and instincts like real animals too. Setting is a high school, divided into cliques mostly based on whether the animal is a carnivore or an herbivore (what about the omnivores? and I was confused why the hippo was pictured on the carnivore side, I thought they eat grass). Well, in the opening pages a student gets murdered and everyone suspects one of the carnivores did it. The herbivores are nervous and on edge, the carnivores resentful of being under suspicion. The deceased student and the main character- a wolf named Legoshi- are both in the drama club, which seems pretty serious business here. Legoshi is a predator who feels at odds with his feral instincts. There’s one very tense scene where he encounters a female dwarf rabbit student after dark and accosts her, having some strong urges (to attack?) but is startled by someone else approaching and lets go before he does anything. There’s also tension between the drama students over who gets the missing actor’s role, and the red deer guy in charge seems very full of himself, having power over the others.
Eh- I don’t know. I have a few of these checked out but the series seems very long. Do I really want to read a murder mystery high-school-angsty drama full of animals? I do really like the sketchy penwork line drawings- though sometimes confused what species the smaller animals are– and the leopard for example was so lanky I thought she was a cheetah for most of the book!
Borrowed from the public library.
2 Responses
I watch almost no anime, but I had made an exception for Beastars. I had loved Zootopia, and a darker version of anything I love is always welcome! Or so I thought. I had the same reaction as you: Do I really want to read a murder mystery high-school-angsty drama full of animals?
I’m not sure how far I watched, maybe all of season 1? While I like darker things and I love “Zootopia but with more feral instincts”, the anime just hadn’t worked for me. Or maybe I’m just not an anime person.
I knew this was an anime, but I haven’t seen any of it. However, someone on LibraryThing wrote about this series and said the manga is much better than the anime. It has a lot of little details in the background and side stories of other characters that round it out (according to them). Might be worth a try for you! Honestly, it’s gotten kind of weird in the last few volumes I read, but I also heard that the second arc (starting with vol 12) gets better again, and I can read these in a day or less, so I’m gonna try and get at least that far. I really like the artwork, too.