Reviews by:
@theplokoonyreview
RATE THIS SERIES
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SEASON 1
For the good, the world is thoroughly explored, the character dynamics are engagingly built upon, while the animation and music are all high quality. For the negatives, the dialogue and inner monologues are annoying and there’s a mismatch of different ideas.
Positive: World Building
In a world of anthropomorphic animals living in modern society, lots of question can be asked. Fortunately, the show constantly adds it’s own interpretations of what this would look like into each episode, crafting a well thought out experience. The little details end up painting a vivid picture, they’re not obnoxiously presented and rather just find their natural way into scenes. Whether it be smaller classroom doors for small animals, rooms that replicate an animals natural habitats, or even the cautiously fearful attitude present in herbivores for carnivores, its well engrained in the show and becomes commonplace quickly. It’s also nice that the creators tries to keep the world as similar to our own as possible, there doesn’t have to be time spent on explaining since it’s so comparable to our world it’s easy to fill in the gaps, making for an interactive experience as well. There is one element that stands out, being the connections between herbivores vs carnivores and racism. It’s hard not to make these comparisons and racism is a difficult topic to satisfyingly write on, but it’s presented well in the show, obviously taking inspiration but also branches off into its own ideas completely unique to herbivores and carnivores. If it was a completely faithful analogy to racism, it would’ve felt like the creator was lazily putting an agenda behind their work, but by divulging into its own unique paths, it keeps this analogy so it can communicate the gravity of the situation, but doesn’t let an analogy restrain itself and branches off when it can implement its own ideas. These societal conflicts are large part of the show, it expands on them throughout and in terms of world building, ends in a very fleshed out and interesting experience.
Positive: Character dynamics
Even though some individual characters can be annoying when they’re by themselves, their relationships have a good structure and are entertaining to watch develop. Anyone paired with Legoshi makes for an interesting dynamic, his oddball, reserved nature compliments the rest of the cast well. Legoshi and Haru go through lots of meaningful development and the show reveals a lot about each character through their interactions. This newfound character depth keeps them interesting to the audience, while making their bond all the more powerful since they’ve experienced these powerful emotions and events together. Seeing how they have changed by being around each other is a constant in the show and this is largely well executed. The dynamic also gives the show a good chance to touch on inter species dating, it led to internal development for both characters and was a great combination of both world and character development. Legoshi and Juno’s limited interactions is one of the few aspects of the show which carried self awareness, adding in comedy that pokes fun at Legoshi absent minded nature. Seeing the show have fun with its relationship drama was refreshing, and while their offbeat chemistry wasn’t very complex and only developed Juno, it consistently did what the plot needed it to do. Legoshi and Rouis’s dynamic further emphasized the aura of superiority Rouis carried, while also hinting at the inferiority he internally felt due to being a herbivore, hateful of carnivores and their innate advantages. Rouis was a great character, being a delicate blend of righteousness and selfishness and Legoshi played a part in prompting Rouis to reveal his internal conflicts. Unfortunately. The way their relationship actually develops is underwhelming, their entire understanding of each other is based off of their ideologies, they never seem to have a realistic or casual conversation and it leads to their relationship feeling too abstract for a connection to ever be formed between the two of them.
Positive: Animation
Most computer animation ends up looking clunky and uncanny, especially when used with human characters but fortunately Beastars use of computer animation is heavily refined while working well with nature of the show. Whenever there are action scenes the characters move with fluidity, there’s purposeful attention to detail in each motion which amalgamates into a visually satisfying experience. The fact that these are anthropomorphic animals also ends up working fantastically with the animation, after watching Dorohedoro it became obvious humans and cg animation are hard to mix, looking uncanny rather than realistic. However, cg animation and animals seem to click, each anthropomorphic animal looks accurate to the actual one, while still carrying enough personality in each design choice to individualize animals of the same species. There’s also a surprising amount of facial expression shifts during conversations, it adds another layer of detail to each conversation, making it much easier to further understand the complexities of how each character feels in different situations. It does make me wish internal monologues were used less at points, the character expressions subtly but effectively told the audience enough information so hearing these characters go on self indulgent spiels just felt more unnecessary than it already was.
Negative: The Ineffective Dialogue
This show takes itself weirdly seriously, especially when considering the elements it’s handling. The dialogue has an abstract, disconnected touch to it, characters make random statements and seem as if they’re lost in their own head. The writer probably thought it sounded cool and deep, but the way it’s implemented into scenes just becomes frustrating. These moments of self indulgent tangents are presented with the upmost seriousness, acting as if everything they say means something deep when in reality it’s try hard and takes the complexity out of most characters, after all they just explain their thought process which is lazy and doesn’t make it feel like we know the character, rather it makes it feel like character is forcing themselves upon the audience. To make matters worse these tangents are so prevalent and obvious in their cheap attempts to be deep that the effect they’re supposed to have is completely lost. This lack of self awareness in the dialogue plagues the show, the writers are completely lost in their own heads and it grossly reflects in the self important nature of the dialogue. Maybe this could work if all the characters were poets, but they’re college students, having college students force their deep and introspective beliefs onto the audience couldn’t feel more out of place. This can also meddle with the plot, which will leads into the next point.
Negative: A Mismatch of Different Ideas
This show wants to be a lot of different things. On one hand it’s a sappy college love story and slice of life, while on the other it’s explores animal racism and hate crimes, while the herbivore and carnivore dynamic stays as a constant in both. These elements are good by themselves, but it’s the awkward combination that leaves the experience confusingly messy. The tonal shifts that come with each of these is just awkward, the college bits are gossip filled with college drama that feels more like pulpy high school drama, so directly mixing in animals getting eaten while exploring the criminal underworld is jarringly unfitting. Perhaps if the show had more self awareness about mixing these two would it feel better, and while the show acknowledges the contrast, it only acknowledges with the characters reactions but these reactions are too invested in its own world, it never questions the absurdity of it which is funnily enough the part that gains the most investment from the audience. It’s an experience that task itself too seriously, and while this may work well enough when it’s only being a college drama or only being an exploration of racism, politics and crime but the combination is too weird and disconnected to be taken seriously.
Overall, Beastars has rich character dynamics, great animation and a pretty interesting world. Unfortunately, the dialogue suffers from being completely unrealistic and overly introspective to a point where the characters feel like their forcing themselves upon the audience. Combine this with an awkward combination of story concepts, it leads to a flawed experience but with enough constant positives to keep it from being bad.
Entertainment rating: 7/10
Critical rating: 6.5/10
Final rating: 6.5/10
SEASON 2
Positives:
The narrative smartly presents itself to be engaging and interesting
The characters and their dynamics have been further fleshed out and evolved in meaningful ways
Animation and music add so much to the experience
Negative:
The dialogue can absolutely stink
Some character felt like they demanded more screen time
Positive: The Narrative
While the first seasons narrative was spotty and torn between developing school life and the black market, this season has a lot more focus within its narrative and the overall story is very told, staying constantly interesting. While school life is still an element in this season, it’s much less expanded on and it focuses on the dark undertones of what’s going on, instead of trying to parade itself as a slice of life its tone stays consistent in both the school and the black market. It’s also nice that the creator showed no favouritism in developing the different subplots set up, Rouis and Legoshi go on separate journeys but both journeys are given ample amount of time to properly introduce other side characters and explore inner and outer conflicts without being rushed.
This leads to a very satisfying experience, but what makes it even better is that it doesn’t constantly cut back and forth between the two sub plots, exploring and essentially telling its own contained and well polished story in each scene, then cutting off at an appropriate time back to the other characters journey. The viewer is given a near perfect experience with this, it seamlessly moves between Legoshi and Rouis, both sub plots are satisfyingly explored with the same depth so it’s not as if I was impatiently waiting for one to end and the other to continue, rather I enjoyed my time with each while being impressed with how they explored both the world and characters, and cutting off at the right time so it never feels like it’s overstaying it’s welcome. How these two different character journeys intersect at the end of the season works as a beautifully poetic and brilliantly meaningful conclusion. It’s a testament to both characters, combining the underlying carnivore vs herbivore dynamic and internal conflict plaguing both, and creating something unique to its own universe but still powerful without the context. To say the least, this season is masterfully constructed.
Positive: Characters
The character dynamics were largely a positive in season 1, it’s also the case here but it takes the foundation created in the first season and expands on it fantastically, leading to both the dynamics they share and the characters themselves heavily improving. Legoshi still seems lost in his own head most of the time, but beneath this his characterization has a clear direction and since so much time is spent watching him deal with his struggles during his very personal journey, the audience has a much easier time sympathizing with him. His internal voice is still a bit too heavily relied on to explain how he feels, but aside from this he goes through many shifts in beliefs and these changes are well backed up by the experiences the audience watched him go through, leading to a character that now has a clear direction in terms of writing, yet he still retains his self confused and absent minded demeanour. Rouis can still be self indulgently overdramatic to a point where it’s not cool and there’s no self awareness behind it. This being said, his attitude can be better defended in this season due to the intensity and raised stakes of the situations he finds himself in. He still contrasts extremely well with Legoshi, since both of them internalize feelings for each other over the course of the season and their worldview are influenced by their shared experiences, watching them come together has a lot of emotional weight behind it, it’s much more introspective than season 1 and the fact that they end up influencing each other this much makes their bond all the more meaningful. Of course these aren’t the only two characters in the show, characters in both the Shishi-Gumi and the Drama Club (standouts being Ibuki of Shishi Gumi and Riz of the Drama Club) are given more attention than ever before in the previous season and the entire experience feels a lot more fleshed out as a result, casual side characters and seemingly one dimensional antagonists have a lot more to them this season and the overall picture this show paints becomes much more vivid as a result.
Positive: Animation and Music
I’ve already talked about the animation in the season 1 review, it all applies here too if not even being a bit more polished. However, there’s one thing element in the animation I didn’t mention in my season 1 review and it’s used better in this season, so this seems like a good moment to acknowledge it. The special effects used when portraying the potency of a scent is a well implemented technical feature that helps immerse the audience in how a characters feels. (SPOILERS START) When Rouis is forced to eat meat, these wafting particle effects create claustrophobic atmosphere, combined with the implications of a herbivore eating meat and the internal battle happening inside him it lead to an incredibly well executed scene with the stylistic way of depicting scents helping greatly in achieving the desired effect on the audience. (SPOILERS END) It’s used a few times as well with Legoshi, this limited use allows it to retain its effect and still feel fresh.
As for the music, there’s a lot of emotional moments in this season and the soundtrack lends its beautiful, characteristically dramatic and sweetly tragic sound to these moments. The instruments during these emotional moments are all classical, their pure, organic sound makes the emotions the scenes procure feel all the more genuine. As for the rest of the ost, it’s filled with a tango-like arpeggio that would fit right at home in a 1950’s jazz bar. If livens up the atmosphere with an soundtrack that has both bite and an undeniably catchy presence. It works as a great counterpart to everything on screen, fitting in beautifully with the dramatic tone of the series while also lending itself to emotional moments.
Negative: Dialogue
One thing has unfortunately stayed the same since season 1 and it’s the dialogue. It’s grossly self indulgent, characters like Legoshi and Rouis try to meaningfully interpret everything that happens in the show and end up sounding like they’re always at a slam poetry competition. Many scenes are written to have poetic significance, however the subtle brilliance of these scenes is torn away with the character outright telling the audience what the underlying significance of every event is. This isn’t a very interpretive show, the underlying meaning of every scene is uprooted and proudly waved in front of the audiences faces, making the show a bit less smart than it sometimes acts like it is. Not every character does this, but unfortunately the two main characters, being Legoshi and Rouis are the biggest culprits of this so it’s hard to escape from and even though their actual characterization is fascinating, their dialogue makes it less fascinating. Also, the inner monologues go in so many different directions and lack any real self awareness. When characters are spouting a bunch of complicated sentences that sound smart, they begin to not sound like high school students, or even worse they begin to sound like high school students with an inflated and self important ego.
What I’m trying to get at is the dialogue is stinky. It’s still an improvement from the fist season, it’s used less in this season and sometimes it’s even justified. However, this does not stop it from reeking and it holds the show back from getting anything above 7.5 for me. With better dialogue, this season could be between a 8-8.5 for me.
Negative: Underuse of Characters
This will be very short since this is only the case with a few. The snake character helped kickstart Legoshi’s arc, there hasn’t been a snake before in Beastars and it seemed as if the snake wanted to stay informed on Legoshi’s investigation. So it was strange that she appeared for 1-2 episodes and disappeared for the rest of the season. Her dramatic and lengthy introduction, plus her early importance in the conflict made it seem like she would continue to stay as a factor, but now it just seems like the writers wanted to put a cool snake in the show for the novelty. Also, Juno was a big element in the later half of the first season and none of that carried over. It seemed like she was flirting with the tiger right at the end of the first season, they don’t have any dialogue together this season. It seems like she just exists just to get flustered by Legoshi, this is fun to watch but it feels like an underuse of a character, especially one who’s a contender for becoming the next Beastar. While I’m here, I’d also like the clarify I’m very happy that Hal did not have a very big role in this season. It gives more time to focus on Legoshi, this independency helped him take on an interesting character journey without any restraints. Not to mention the borderline sex scenes between Legoshi and Hal were not fun to watch, this isn’t subjective at all I’m just happy there’s no wolf x bunny.
Overall, this season was a great surprise. Due to its effortlessly engaging and slickly polished narrative it was easy to get pulled into this season. Combine this strong, well explored characters that go through meaningful journeys and incredible animation and music, this is a heavily enjoyable experience with a lot of critical merit. The dialogue is still a constant problem and some characters got pushed to the side, but this doesn’t destroy the experience at all and it ends up being a really great experience.
Entertainment rating: 8/10
Critical rating: 7.5/10
Overall rating: 7.5/10
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