Oh man, what an emotional ending. I half expected Legosi to make a scene when Juno brought him onto the stage, just to humiliate her in front of everyone, but oh well. That would have been pretty funny though, but Legosi is too nice to do something like that. Maybe on accident.
The steaminess comes to a complete halt when Haru’s instincts come into play, but even though it was really awkward and kind of embarrassing they end up going to sleep. Things are still a little off when they walk back to school the next morning, but they go back to school and try to act as normal as possible. This episode mostly focused on the relationship between Legosi and Haru, kind of bringing their story arc to an end for now as it looks like the next season is going to focus on other things. There’s the conflicting feelings, the blooming of love, and the expectations of society. One of those obstacles just from this episode was Juno.
I’m not sure how I feel about Juno. I guess I don’t necessarily like her all that much, but I know where she’s coming from with her actions. I don’t like how two faced she is, and I especially don’t like her clingy thirstiness for Legosi. She can obviously see that he’s not really into her, but she continues her advances without taking his feelings into consideration. She’s basically going to force him to be hers, but her competition is Haru. Her confrontation with Haru is pretty important, this is the first time they’ve spoken to each other and her presence in the festival hurt Haru. While Legosi kind of made himself clear to Juno, I don’t think she’s going to give up. Juno is pretty selfish, and her little act on stage was mean for Haru but it also was meant to paint carnivores in a positive light. Yes, she’s selfish when it comes to getting Legosi to love her and all. But some of her selfish actions aren’t just for herself. The reason why she wants to become a Beastar is so she can try and make a better world for carnivores, and we see it’s true when she turns to the drama club and smiles at them. I can get behind her cause, carnivores really do have it rough in their world so it’s hard to truly hate her. Also, now that Louis is still missing it looks like her chances of being a Beastar is higher, or just confirmed depending on what happened to him. If it’s so, I wonder how much the school is going to change. Also, Juno chasing Haru like that one chase meme was hilarious.
But the meat of this episode was the romance between Legosi and Haru. I found Haru’s concerns very understandable, and with the way Juno went about bringing Legosi on the stage with her and with everyone applauding them, it really set in stone the meaning of their relationship. Put on top the awkward moment between them in bed. A relationship between two wolves is applauded and accepted. But a relationship between a wolf and rabbit is something else entirely. I think it’s a little rare for mixed species couples from their own group (for example a chicken and a deer), but it’s even more strange when it’s a relationship between an herbivore and a carnivore. A predator with their prey. How would the world even see them? We’ve seen a bit of a glimpse that one episode when they both shared dinner together at school, and they were given strange looks with some people making fun of them. Now, if the whole world saw them…they’d definitely be ostracized. And Haru brings up the fact that there’s no telling that Legosi won’t just eat her one day, and she’s got a point.
There’s so much going on here, but their feelings are mutual. As much as she wants to close the distance between them (literally with the stair scene), Legosi still pursues her so he can finally confess to her properly. He closes the distance himself, again literally as they stand next to each other on the lookout. To him, he’s always seen himself in the darkness and it doesn’t matter if he would be together with someone of his same species, it’ll be the same. But he’d much rather spend that time with Haru, but he wants to become stronger. I love how they both look out onto the city together, as if knowing that they’ll have to face the world someday together if they want to continue their relationship. It’s a powerful image and it’s gorgeous.
Seeing how much Legosi has grown is so great, we could see that as he walks with Jack. I thought it was a great finale, but have tiny gripes. One, I think it’s crazy that the school even let Legosi and Haru go to the festival after they dealt with the lion mafia. I would think that they would make them stay behind in the school but…okay. Second, I can’t believe Haru didn’t even think of Louis at all during her inner love conflict. I mean…supposedly she loved him or at least harbored some kind of feelings for him. But nope, nothing. I find that really strange and I feel like we’re missing something here. Anyway…
FINAL IMPRESSION
It’s no surprise that I loved this show, and it’s easily my favorite of the season. The themes it presented were so fascinating and were done so well. The worldbuilding helped illustrate the plight of some of the characters and made me interested. For a shounen, it handled some pretty mature themes that I never would have expected but they were very welcome. Beastars is a great character-driven drama and took an interesting spin on romance. The carnivore vs. herbivore perspective is only something a show like this can do with their anthropomorphic characters. Speaking of…
I know I didn’t give this anime the best first impression. I’m not exactly into the whole anthropomorphic thing, I do tend to find it…kind of weird. But look, if you’re into that thing then good for you! It’s not really my thing so at first I avoided Beastars for a bit, that is until I heard all of the hype from all the fans. It made me pretty curious so I decided to give it a try and I’m so glad that I did because I would have missed out on such a great story. To many people, I do think the whole anthropomorphic aspect will turn them away but if you’re reading this and you are in that boat, I do say you should give it a try. I got used to it pretty quickly and ended up enjoying this way more than I thought I would. There are some…things that may be weird. The sex isn’t graphic or anything, but it is weird imagining a rabbit having sex with different animals. Yeah…weird. But! The way the story presented it was well done and it didn’t bother me all that much. Actually, I wanted all the juicy drama! Oh, and Legosi is a sweetheart. I’m proud of him and I love him.
I think that was the biggest takeaway for me. Yes, Studio Orange did fantastically well with the CG, the direction was top-notch, the OP is an absolute banger and my favorite of the year, and the story and characters were all fantastic and enthralling. This show was just that good. But yeah, my takeaway is just that you shouldn’t judge something too quickly. Try something different, give some things a chance and you might just find a gem like this one. Once this show comes out on Netflix, please, I implore you, please watch it.
I’m so happy that it’s getting another season! I was sad when I learned that Beastars would only have 12 episodes, but the announcement of the second one made me so excited! We’re finally going to investigate Tem’s death it looks like, and we got an ominous cliffhanger. I’m wondering who the killer is, but apparently they’ve kind of been hinted at. I might have to rewatch a couple episodes in the beginning to figure it out. I’m glad they’re going to focus on Tem, I thought the show forgot the poor guy. :’) Anyway! Great show, please watch! See you in the future!
9/10
