At first, I avoided Netflix’s Beastars. Despite my background in 3D animation, I’ve come not to like it. I prefer the look of traditional animation. Perhaps because 3D is overdone now. Back when I got into it, Toy Story was out. I also avoided Beastars because I’m not into furries! Actually, the character designs troubled me. Human anatomy mixed with animal heads? Not really my thing. But I gave it a try. And I was pleasantly surprised! Beastars wasn’t amazing by any means, but it had some it interesting ideas.
Beastars basically played as a high school anime drama where students have the instinct to eat other students. Legoshi attended Cherryton Academy. He worked to make it through high school without his gray wolf instincts taking him over. However, when Tem the alpaca was eaten, herbivore and carnivore students lost the little trust they had for each other. In this environment, Legoshi fell in love (and in hunger!) with the dwarf rabbit Haru. The story centered around his complex feelings for her along with the story of Louis, a red deer who aimed at becoming the next Beastar, a title granted to people of talent, service, and fame.
The instinct dimension proved interesting. Legoshi had to resist is wolf urge to eat Haru, and she had to resist her urge to run and be eaten. The characters have complexity to them beyond the suppression and indulgence of their animal instincts. Legoshi proved to be a thoughtful character, as opposed to the usual protagonist in anime. In fact, the story made it a point to show how he went the opposite direction: being so far in his head he fails to act. I identified with Legoshi in that regard. I’m infamous for thinking and not acting. Legoshi’s focus on thought came from his life-long habit of not trusting his instincts. I disliked the point the anime made about giving into instinct. Such behavior only works itself out in fiction. In reality, it’s better to be intellectual and deny baser instincts, but I am biased! If I crave something, I tend to ignore that craving for days if not weeks just to build the discipline. Legoshi has that flavor of character about him.
As I watched, my sensibilities showed themselves with Haru. Her promiscuity and how subcharacters viewed her as an object rankled me. But I have the same reaction no matter if it is a male character or a female character who sleeps around or is objectified. Such hedonism damages, even when it isn’t immediately apparent. However, Beastars pointed out how Haru struggled to connect with people, causing her promiscuity and her lack of validation. Both of which fed back into each other. She was promiscuous because it lent a false sense of control, and that false sense of control reinforced her lack of validation. Legoshi’s acceptance of her for who she was, however, offered a break in that feedback loop.
The world of Beastars offered an interesting falsity. Everything appeared peaceful, but darkness lurked under the facade. Louis’s story offered a look at this.
The character designs remained off putting for me. The human anatomy created a strange inconsistency across the various species. Perhaps because I grew up on Looney Tunes, but the anime might have been less distracting without naturalistic human anatomy. However, the 3D animation impressed me. Most of the time, it resembled a traditional cell animation. The usual 3D look didn’t appear until action sequences and other similar movements. The fur of the characters appeared in detailed shots, but most of the time, the characters had more traditional shading. It worked. Outside of the action sequences and a few awkward camera movements, Beastars avoided the overworked, plastic 3D look often seen in anime. The cell shading often appeared flat, which offered the traditional look, yet the 3D still offered some more complex animation sequences, such as rotating a hand from foreground to background. Anime remains an evolving (if slowly) story-telling medium.
I enjoyed Beastars more than I expected. It proved a pleasant surprise with some interesting twists on the typical anime high-school romance story. The character designs remained a matter of taste (and not really suiting mine), but the animal features allowed me to suspend my disbelief. When season 2 releases, I will check it out.
