#beastars review

[fhgfdbmbayi]

Dope san ~

The outfit worn in the drawing!!!!!

[mayas-reviews]

I have another super long post for y’all. It’s just me gushing about Beastars. Beastars is something I hold very near and dear to my heart and I wanted to share that love with the wider world. It’s not perfect by any means but by god the good stuff is super good. This is only part one. It took me forever to write this so it will be a long while before part two is out. Enjoy for now.

[blackstarchanx3new]

Beastars vid if you haven't seen it.

[b3crew]

REVIEW | "Beast Complex" - Vol. 3 | B3 - Boston Bastard Brigade

The world of BEASTARS is a large one, which is why the stories in Beast Complex Volume Three come off as a slight disappointment. Click here to read KBD's review!

[anime-of-the-day]

Women's History Month Themed Anime of the Day: Beastars

Released: 2019

Beastarts is set in an anthropomorphic society, basically animals are like people. However, their society's largest divide is over what they eat: herbivores vs carnivores. Because of this, there is a great mistrust between these groups, especially when the alpaca Tem is found dead by predatory attack. Now every carnivore is suspected, and every herbivore is on guard. But finding the actual killer might be harder than it seems, especially for Legoshi, our pensive main character.

[elijah-loyal]

babygirl i am hitting it OFF on the hours long youtube commentary videos

[coldmail750]

...also to my most successful non-shitpost of the year, a protracted rant about Louis Beastars's character arc and its last minute derailing that I posted last December but is somehow still getting notes semi-regularly a full year later

In the continuing saga of me rambling about Beastars - having rambled at length now about four carnivore character arcs, I'd like to talk a bit about an herbivore character arc, one that is one of my favorite arcs in the series, and one that gets done incredibly dirty by how the series ends:

Louis's.

I'll Never Forgive Chapter 194

or, the Ignominious Death of One of Beastars's Best Character Arcs

So at the end of part two of the carnivore parallels essay, I summarized my thoughts on the deeply dysfunctional societal dynamic in Beastars:

...this carnivore-herbivore societal arrangement, as it stands, works for nobody. Herbivores live their lives in constant fear and regularly face either infantilization or objectification, carnivores live with constant self-loathing either for being carnivores or for not being carnivore enough, and hybrids get all the downsides of both with the upsides of neither.

In the same way that Paru uses Legoshi, Bill, Riz, and Ibuki to explore what it's like to live in the society of Beastars as a carnivore, Paru uses Louis to explore what it's like to live in this society as an herbivore - but, given Louis's backstory, he's also got a lot going on that's specific to him (in comparison to characters like Haru and Sebun, from whom we get a picture of slightly more standard herbivore life).

For the purposes of this essay, we're going to be focusing more on that Louis-specific stuff, but we will come back to the broader societal dynamics, because that is still an integral part.

So what is Louis's arc, then?

Louis's character progression, simply put, is him growing more confident with 1) not following the course laid out for him and 2) doing things that society does not approve of.

See, there's a fundamental clash going on between Louis's personality and Louis's situation. On the one hand, Louis is a very strong-willed character. He knows what he wants, is absolutely determined to get it, and has very little patience for anyone who would stand in his way. Indeed, Louis's insistence on living his life on his own terms is a hill he is literally willing to die on, which is part of why Oguma adopts him:

But Louis has never actually been able to live his life on his own terms. As a young child, he lived his life on the terms of the black market, as a piece of meat to be sold and consumed for profit. Adoption by Oguma meant salvation from the black market, but it didn't free Louis from living his life on someone else's terms; it simply changed the "someone else" from the black market to Oguma.

Oguma adopted Louis for a very explicit reason - he needed a respectable heir, another deer that he could pass off as his son who would make a respectable name for himself in school, graduate from a prestigious university, marry someone of the same species and the opposite gender, and inherit the Horns Conglomerate. That is the course that was laid out for Louis the moment Oguma adopted him, the terms by which he has lived ever since.

We can add to that the general Beastars societal pressures - that they will marry within their species, for example - and the societal pressures upon herbivores - that herbivores will hate and fear carnivores, for example - that Louis no doubt was exposed to regularly throughout childhood simply by virtue of living in the world that he did. These societal pressures are largely in line with - or, at the minimum, not in opposition to - the course laid out for him by Oguma, so we can group them together.

So what happens, then, if what Louis wants clashes with the course laid out for him by Oguma and by society? The way the answer to that question changes is how Louis's arc progresses.

At the beginning of the story... okay, to talk about where Louis stands at the beginning of the story, we have to talk about Adler.

Watching how Louis plays the character of Adler tells us how Louis approaches a role. When early manga Louis is playing the role of Adler, he gets really into it; he is constantly practicing, he drags Odie to an illicit nighttime practice to make sure that Odie's performance doesn't drag him down, he memorizes the lines so thoroughly that he can recall them months later, and - crucially - he insists on attempting to play the role even at the expense of his own health, as we see when he attempts to play the role of Adler even on a broken leg, only stopping when he is literally no longer able to due to his injury.

Louis, as it happens, is constantly playing a role - the role of the dutiful, obedient son who does what is expected of him by society and his father - and, at the start of the story, he is invested in playing that role just as much as he is invested in playing the role of Adler the Grim Reaper.

But that dutiful, obedient son is just as much a fictional character as Adler, and even at the very beginning of Beastars, the role is beginning to slip a little when what Louis wants contradicts what's expected of him.

The proof of this is his relationship with Haru. Given the choice between the expectation of his arranged same-species marriage with Azuki and pursuing an interspecies relationship with a rabbit, Louis chooses the latter - but he obsessively tries to cover this up, keep it on the down-low, to give the impression that he's chosen the former. He wants to make it look like he's playing the dutiful son... but he's already kind of unsure about it.

This is symbolically alluded to by the fact that, when Haru and Louis first met, Louis had shed his antlers. Antlers are symbol of a male deer's virility, it's shameful to be seen without them (which is why Louis is trying to hide in the gardening club to begin with), and Louis acts embarrassed when he realizes he's about to kiss Haru while without antlers. But it also works as a way of symbolizing that Louis is clandestinely rejecting the course laid out for him by his father, the course that has him marrying Azuki and taking over the Horns Conglomerate; Louis is literally hiding the fact that he is without Horns.

The next time he's confronted with this choice between what's expected of him and what he wants is when Haru is kidnapped by the Shishigumi. He can either leave Haru to die, which will lead to the mayor erasing the records linking him to the black market, and continue with the plan that he will become Cherryton's beastar, marry Azuki, and succeed his father at Horns; or he can try to save her, at risk to his own life.

Louis tries to force himself to pick the first option. As he tried to play Adler until it broke him physically, he tries to play the obedient son until it breaks him mentally. He snaps, and - like the character Adler - decides that he'll prove his love through death; he charges into the Shishigumi's headquarters, murders their boss, and tells the underlings to kill him, giving Legoshi and Haru the chance to escape.

Of course, the Shishigumi does not kill Louis here, and this marks a turning point for his character development. Before Haru's kidnapping, Louis consistently attempts to pick "what's expected of me", and if he picks "what I want", he does so as furtively as possible.

After Haru's kidnapping, but before the final climax of his arc, Louis consistently picks "what I want" over "what's expected of me", and does so in front of more and more people... but still tries to not draw too much attention to it, justifying his actions only when necessary, and sometimes still telling himself and those around him "I'm definitely doing what's expected of me still, you must be mistaken".

So throughout the bulk of the manga - everything between the fight with the Shishigumi and the fight with Melon - that's Louis's modus operandi. When given a choice between the expectation that he will seek to return to normal society and his preordained course as soon as possible, or staying on as the head of the Shishigumi, he picks the latter; but the only person he tells about this is Oguma, as part of a failed effort to break his familial ties with his father, with Legoshi discovering it by chance and Juno deducing it herself.

When given a choice between sticking to this prejudice against carnivores which herbivores are expected to have, and abandoning it, realizing that he's come to deeply care about and even love the carnivores in his life, Louis picks the latter; he allows Legoshi to eat his leg, a transgression of this world's ultimate societal taboo, to help Legoshi defeat Riz. This stands as a total rejection of Louis's previous bigotry, the overcoming of his childhood trauma, and an expression of just how close he and Legoshi have become - but he keeps it and his reasons for doing it relatively quiet, and, in the same vein, usually hides the fact that he has a prosthesis afterwards.

When given a choice between accepting the title of Cherryton beastar, the sort of high school honor that would look great on the resume of a future Horns CEO, the accolade everyone has been expecting him to win, and refusing it because Legoshi deserves just as much credit but definitely won't get it, Louis picks the latter, and only explains why to Cherryton's headmaster.

The example of this change in habit that is the easiest for comparison, however, is his relationship with Juno.

While Louis's relationship with Legoshi is one based in their having been forged in the same flames, that knowledge that they can rely on each other when they need it, trust the other with their secrets and their lives unconditionally, Louis's relationship with Juno is wrapped up in an... almost envy? for her willingness to pursue his own wants - as is his relationship with Haru.

Haru and Juno are both open about their own wants, as opposed to what society expects of them, in a way that Louis feels he cannot be. Haru knows that being promiscuous is societally vilified, will result in her being shunned and bullied, but she does it anyways, because sex is the only time she's treated like a person, not an object, and she wants to be treated like a person. Juno knows that her entering a different-species relationship with a deer would be societally frowned upon, openly wrestles with this in front of Louis, and ultimately ends up angrily shouting that she loves a deer live on national television.

Louis wants to be able to openly wrestle against societal expectation and do what he wants, consequences be damned, like Haru and Juno do - and he does a little, letting Haru see him without his horns and letting Juno see his prosthesis - but he feels like he can't truly do it because of the expectations imposed on him by Oguma.

The specific contrast between Louis's relationship with Haru and Louis's relationship with Juno that I want to talk about, however, is how and where Louis conducts his relationship with each. Louis's relationship with Haru was something he conducted almost entirely beyond closed doors - a furtive thing that they shared only in places where they thought no one could see them, the quiet dark of the gardening club shed or a space hidden between tents at the Meteor Festival.

Louis's relationship with Juno is something he has in bubble tea cafes, at bus stops, in school hallways, on the metro - in public.

Of course, he insists to himself and to her that it's nothing, he's just indulging her. But no matter how much he tries to convince Juno and himself that nothing is going on here, Louis has once again chosen his personal feelings over the course his father laid out for him, and he's getting increasingly comfortable with doing so openly.

So that's where Louis stands for the bulk of the manga; he's increasingly comfortable with openly doing what he wants rather than what is expected of him, but still feels bound enough by what is expected of him that he avoids calling attention to this fact and still attempts to pretend, at times, that nothing is happening and he's going to precisely follow the course his father laid out for him.

Louis's relationship with Juno (and his relationships with Haru and Legoshi) all stand in contrast to his "relationship" with Azuki, his preordained fiancée.

While Haru and Juno demonstrate a willingness to wrestle against and ignore societal pressures that Louis secretly admires, and Legoshi is overcoming his own internalization of societal messaging in part through his relationship with Louis, Azuki embodies the outside pressures upon Louis. She is same-species, opposite-sex, also of the upper crust, the person who Oguma has arranged Louis to marry.

But there is no relationship, really, between Louis and Azuki. They have met each other a handful of times. Their interactions are stilted and awkward; neither much cares about the other beyond the fact that they are obliged to marry, because their marriage represents a corporate merger between Horns and Azuki's father's corporation. When Louis tries to force himself to become intimate with her, he cannot stop thinking about all the carnivores he actually cares about, and, ultimately, vomits.

The contrast is clear. While Louis's relationships with Haru, Legoshi, and Juno aren't exactly smooth sailing - they're all working through a lot, after all - it's clear that they are actual relationships with people Louis actually cares about, as opposed to his hollow, artificial construct of an outside obligation with Azuki.

There's one more event before the Melon fight that I'd like to talk about, though, and that's Oguma's death.

See, Oguma knows that Louis's "dutiful son" role is an act. Louis gets angry at Oguma over the fact that Oguma never attended any of Louis's plays not over the literal plays themselves but because he is constantly performing a role for someone who is never there to watch the performance; Oguma outright tells Louis that the reason he never went to one of his shows is because he wants Louis's wedding to Azuki to be the first time he sees Louis putting on his best performance.

It seems reasonable to assume that Oguma knows that this is an act because he has spent his entire life putting on the same act. That, once upon a time, Oguma's father laid the same path for him - make a respectable name for himself in school, graduate from a prestigious university, marry someone of the same species and the opposite gender, and inherit the Horns Conglomerate - and that Oguma devoted himself to it, played the part exactly as he was told to.

Since then, as Oguma tells us, he has devoted every aspect of his life to the Horns Conglomerate. He has treated every choice he's made as a business decision, evaluated every relationship he has ever made based on whether or not it was profitable for Horns - and was good at it, the company reaping the profits of his diligence and his devotion.

But now, on his deathbed, he's realized something.

There's one relationship he can't quantify.

Oguma was not a good father to Louis. He was near-totally absent from his son's life, interacting with him once a week; he imposed heavy expectations on Louis, expectations which Louis has spent the entirety of the manga suffering because of. The only halfway-decent father figure Louis had in his life was a lion in the yakuza.

But Oguma did love Louis - felt unable to express it, because of the expectations that he inherited from his father and passed on to his son, but did love him. And now, on his deathbed, Oguma realizes that this is his last chance to tell Louis that a real, loving relationship is more valuable than any business relationship, to the point of being beyond quantification, to tell his son that he loves him.

And as his final act upon the earth, Oguma says "let me do the most unprofitable thing", and hugs Louis.

When Oguma adopted Louis, he freed him from the black market, but he didn't free Louis from having to live his life on someone else's terms. On his deathbed, Oguma rights that wrong by telling Louis that love is more precious than profit - that what Louis wants is more important than that path ending at Horns.

With that, we can finally arrive at the climax of Louis's arc - the press conference during the Melon fight.

When Louis gets behind the podium at that press conference, he has to choose between giving a normal boilerplate speech about how business will continue at the Horns Conglomerate with him as CEO, sliding into the role he was raised for from the moment Oguma adopted him; or, he can bring up the black market, breach every societal taboo about meat-eating and carnivore-herbivore relations, and proclaim openly that he cares about deeply about a wolf and that that wolf is in danger.

As with Haru's kidnapping, this is a choice where his previous strategy for dealing with the conflict between what's expected of him and what he wants no longer works. Where Haru's kidnapping put him in a position where he could no longer pretend to pick the former while clandestinely picking the latter, causing him to shift to picking the latter but not drawing attention to it, he now finds himself in a position where, if he's going to do what he wants, he has to draw attention to it. He has to defy his preordained path, explicitly, live on national TV.

And that's exactly what he does.

Louis has seen the harm the expectations imposed by the society of Beastars can do. He has seen how they hurt Haru, Legoshi, Juno, Bill, Ibuki, Riz, his father, himself. He has watched people bend and break under them, felt the pressure to do so himself, struggled against it his entire life.

But now he has stared down those societal norms that cause or perpetuate so much of the suffering the characters of Beastars face, and won. He is no longer ashamed and fearful like the fawn in the cage, nor embittered and hateful like the young stag we met when the series began, but confident and optimistic. He has gone from feeling the need to bend or break under the expectations upon him, expectations that forced him to choose between what was "acceptable" and the people he cared most about, to using his power and his influence to help change what society expects.

This - Louis's total rejection of the path laid out for him in favor of carving a new path, a better path, alongside the people he cares about - is his great triumph, the culmination of one of the best character arcs I have ever read.

And then comes chapter 194.

Louis, having completed his arc, is given one final choice. He can follow the course laid out for him by his father, have his loveless but societally-approved arranged marriage with Azuki and wholly submit to being the next CEO of the Horns Conglomerate; or he can reject that, "do the most unprofitable thing", and continue his relationships with the people he actually loves.

The manga has very clearly set up Louis and Juno as romantic partners. It's clear that there's a lot going on between Legoshi and Louis, who are incredibly close and whose relationship is a fan favorite. If I'd been writing the manga I would've just made Legoshi, Haru, Louis, and Juno a polycule. If he suddenly declared his love for some random other character he'd never even interacted with before it... would be unsatisfying for a lot of other reasons, but it would still technically kind of fit with his progression as a character, because it would still be him choosing his desires over societal & familial expectations.

The only clearly wrong choice here, the choice which it makes no sense for Louis to make and which cannot be reconciled with his growth as a person, is for him - having been freed from his father's expectations by Oguma on his deathbed, having totally rejected the societal pressures upon him on national television at the culmination of the manga's final battle - to suddenly, inexplicably, for no good reason, throw all of his character development out of the window and cave to marrying Azuki.

siiiiiiiiigggggghhhhhhhhhh

The bleakness of this ending is amplified even more by a detail in the following chapter, where Haru tells Legoshi that she got a very short call from Louis, and it becomes clear that Louis hasn't just broken up with Juno to marry Azuki, he's stopped talking with Legoshi and is barely contacting Haru. Louis, whose entire arc has been about him learning to choose his own wants and the people he cares about over the path demanded of him by society, is now inexplicably cutting every person he cares about out of his life in the name of caving to societal pressure.

Look, I have a lot of respect for Paru Itagaki. She wrote the entirety of the character arc that I've spent the past god-knows-how-many paragraphs raving about, this wonderful narrative of a character who gets introduced as an asshole rich kid but becomes incredibly complex, compelling, and sympathetic, and did it all while working under a grueling schedule. But her decision to end Louis's arc like this is baffling and terrible all at once, and it still drives me up the wall two years later.

This is not to say she doesn't try to make it make sense. Louis says that he needs to marry Azuki because he needs to stay on as Horns CEO, and he needs to stay on as Horns CEO so that he can buy the Shishigumi a way out of prison and into his employ.

But that justification doesn't work because of a big piece of foreshadowing that, because of what happens to Louis's arc, ends up going nowhere: the whole "beastars" thing.

Paru Itagaki does a lot to foreshadow the idea that Louis and Legoshi are going to become co-beastars. After Louis refuses to become Cherryton beastar because Legoshi won't get any credit, headmaster Gon turns to Cherryton's deputy headmaster and tells him that it's a real shame that those two won't be a model for society to look to.

Shortly after that, we're introduced to Yahya, the sublime beastar, and to Gosha, Legoshi's grandfather. Yahya and Gosha just so happen to deeply resemble who Louis and Legoshi were at the start of their arcs - an herbivore who deeply hates carnivores because of an incident in their past, and a carnivore who allows himself to be feared and hated by those around him - and just so happen to have once dreamed of becoming co-beastars, before they went their separate ways.

Not long after that, we're told that Yahya is beginning to get too old to be sublime beastar, that his body is declining and he will soon no longer have the physical acuity or resistance to do the job he does, and that even Yahya is beginning to have to admit this to himself - in short, that soon someone will need to replace him.

We get an entire chapter about how Yahya once used his sublime beastar powers to get the 500 Cornered Rats - a gang of criminals who were captured by the police - released from prison so that he could take them on as his subordinates, which is important inasmuch as it establishes that Yahya can pardon Legoshi's conviction for predation and thereby allow him to marry Haru, but also clearly establishes that there is precedent for a sublime beastar pardoning and then hiring a criminal gang - something that would be really useful for Louis if, hypothetically speaking, the Shishigumi were captured and imprisoned.

Then, in chapter 158, Legoshi and Louis go to the black market, to the tower where Louis was once imprisoned, to the balcony where Oguma once told Louis he would change the world, and Legoshi proposes to Louis that the two of them should work together to change the world, that the two of them could be the beastars.

Louis even responds to this by making a big show of saying that Legoshi is being ridiculous, he can't just make up the title of the manga we're reading!

All of this foreshadowing is pointing so clearly in one direction. Everything that Paru has set up is absolutely screaming that Yahya will wipe Legoshi's conviction and then name Louis and Legoshi as his successors, the beastars; that Louis and Legoshi will build on the previous generation and succeed where they failed, with each other - and Haru and Juno - by their sides, standing as a new, healthier example of how carnivores and herbivores can live, work, and love truthfully, honestly, in solidarity alongside each other.

Louis, then, can use his sublime beastar powers to free and hire the Shishigumi, and break his betrothal to Azuki while giving her Horns - the only part of Louis she was actually interested in - since he's too busy to run it anyways.

It works as a culmination of the character progressions involved; it fulfills all of this brilliant foreshadowing Paru has set up; it makes the name of the manga work, because it establishes Beastars as having been the story of how Louis and Legoshi became the beastars. Everything ties together so neatly, so perfectly, so brilliantly.

Instead, all of this foreshadowing goes... nowhere. Legoshi gets an ending that's perfectly adequate but unexceptional, Louis's arc gets thrown in the trash, Yahya resigns from being sublime beastar but then keeps doing the work even though it was age interfering with his ability to work that was the issue anyways, all the stuff about "beastars" leads to nothing, and the manga just kind of fizzles out.

Again, Itagaki tries to offer some justification for this decision, putting the words into Louis's mouth:

I don't find this argument, this claim that Louis remaining close to the people he cares about most and becoming co-beastar with Legoshi would be too much like the plot of an overly saccharine movie, to be convincing.

Firstly, Louis and Legoshi becoming beastars with Haru and Juno at their side would not be a magic fix to all of the societal issues that Paru Itagaki demonstrated through her characters throughout the course of Beastars. Systemic change is slow, difficult progress, and it is never guaranteed that gains made will be kept. While Louis and Legoshi becoming beastars would represent the potential emergence of a new paradigm and the hope that change is possible, it wouldn't represent the issues they struggled to overcome being magically resolved overnight; but I don't think anyone unsatisfied with how Beastars ended is pretending that it would.

Secondly, even if Louis and Legoshi becoming beastars did magically fix all of the societal issues in Beastars going forward (which, again, it wouldn't and shouldn't, but just for the sake of argument), it wouldn't preclude the ending being bittersweet, because for a lot of characters, it's too late. It's too late entirely for Tem, for Ibuki, for Toki and Leano. Melon, psychologically, has been broken beyond repair; Riz will spend years in prison for what he did; Gosha and Yahya, once fast friends, spent thirty years not speaking to each other that they can't get back; Louis lost his childhood and Oguma lost the chance to have a proper relationship with his son.

Even if everything was magically fixed, the people who were hurt would still bear the scars - and I think that's plenty of bitter to balance out the sweet.

So there we have it. Paru Itagaki gave Louis one of the best damn character arcs I'd ever read, one that is incredibly layered and compelling, executed it masterfully from its inception to the final climax of the work, and then fumbled it in the final chapters, throwing out her own foreshadowing and leaving us with an ending that was a mixed bag on the whole and that, for Louis specifically, was outright terrible.

I guess that's why I'm still not over it, two years later, even though Beastars isn't even my most recent furry fixation anymore. It's agonizing to see something that was so enthralling and compelling get obliterated at the last possible moment, to think about what could have been, and to have the knowledge of what it ended up being looming over you every time you come back to the work.

I still love Beastars. But the way that Louis's arc ends, and the way the entire ending of the series got weakened to make his arc end that way... that's something I think I'll always be at least a little bit bitter about.

[y0uc4n7kn0w]

Jujutsu OVAs, our thoughts on Bakuten and Any anime goes words games. Listen and watch us struggle on the 3rd episode of Anime Talk Club!

Season 1 from 2021: Anime Talk Club Episode 3 (Ha-nah-bee)

[redsnerdden]

Beast Complex II: Itagaki's Recent And Relevant Title Set In The Beastars Universe

📣It's a Brand New Review! 🚨 Beast Complex II: Itagaki's Recent And Relevant Title Set In The Beastars Universe #ビーストコンプレックス #BeastComplexII #Manga #VizMedia

A Special Thanks Goes to NetGalley and Viz Media for the opportunity to review this title. It has been a year since I reviewed the first volume of Beast Complex, and now we’re heading back into the world of BEASTARS with Beast Complex II. Manga Creator Paru Itagaki is back once again with six new tales that feature our favorite Grey Wolf named Legoshi, and his neighbors from the Beast…

[atthequillsmercy]

Lenni Reviews: "BEASTARS" Vol. 22, by Paru Itagaki

(Image Source) *This book was given to me in exchange for an honest review. With Melon making the news, his father shows up to the Black Market. Gosha thinks he can help stop Melon but Yaha finds the gazelle suspicious as Melon and Legoshi have their final confrontation. This is the final volume of the series and it ends great in some places and not so great in others. There are some plot points…

[luxthestrange]

Beastars Incorrect Quotes#36 Losers~

This is a song I feel resonates with...Pretty much Louis, Pina, Bill,Riz, Legos-But imagine singing this to the club members... herbivores and carnivores...

Y/n*After seeing and hearing everyone's pasts...while others were piece of work, You look at your clubmates, You sighs and stand on the stage*...

So things look bad, and your back's against the wall Your whole existence seems fuckin' hopeless You're feelin' filthy as a dive bar bathroom stall and Can't face the world proudly and dopeless~

You've lost your way, ya think your life is wrecked Well, let me just say you're correct~

Louis*Is sitting down, feeling the worst then eyes widen confused at you* Wait, what?

Y/n*Smirking at him taking dancing steps back with a beat In your step,making a "L" with your finger on your forehead and looking at everyone* You're a loser, baby A loser, goddamn, baby You're a fucked up little whiny bitch~

Lous*Offended seeing you dance around him mocking him* Hey!

Y/n*Dancing around Bill now with a smirk* You're a loser, just like me~

Bill*Rolling eyes and gives you the bird* Thanks, asshole

Y/n*Smilling as you twirl Juno and making a "crazy" finger at Riz You're a screws loose Loser An only one-star reviews-er

Y/n*Twerking and laying dramatically in the floor pointing at Pina*You're a power-bottom at rock bottom But you got company~

Drama Club: This supposed to make me/Us feel better?!

Y/n*Looking at your own reflection and thinking about your past of your own past...and traumas* There was a time I thought no one could relate To the gruesome ways in which I'm damaged But lettin' walls down, it can sometimes set you straight! We're all livin' in the same shit-sandwich

Louis*Looking at his own hands at all the damage and hurt he caused others from his less-than-ethical deeds and now people close to him and what he did...just to survive for his father*...I sold my soul to a psychopathic freak -

Y/n*Snickers at that and raises a brow at him, Holding a hand out for him to take to spin him around gleefully and patting his cheek...then rolls eyes* Haha! And you think that makes you unique? Get outta here, man!~ We're both losers, baby We're losers, it's okay to be a~

As everyone stated their own truth about themselves

Y/n*Getting close to Juno with a smile* Baby, that's fine by me~

Juno*Smiles and starts to get into the groove and proudly singing* I'm a loser, honey~ A schmoozer and a dummy But at least I know I'm not alone~

You then finally reach Legoshi and hold your hand out for him to grab...which he does as you pull him into the light

Both of you in harmony: You're a loser, Just like me~

Legoshi*Leans on your back and looks at you affectionately* You're a loser, baby~

Y/n: A loser, but just maybe if we~

Both of you: Eat shit together, things will end up differently

Y/n*Both of you start to dance in each other's arms as you sing to him your feelings* It's time to lose your self-loathin' Excuse yourself, let hope in, baby Play your card, be who you are~

Legoshi*Swinging with you and stepping on beat*OOOoooooh~

Both of you holding each other's hands as you gaze into each other's eyes: A loser, just like meeeee!~

[beautifulstarsbeastars]

So I’m making notes and reviewing my Beastars mangas and found this:

Am I just now seeing this or is this another example of ‘printed manga chapters written slightly different than online manga chapters’? Either way, I’m SHOOK!

On the one hand, it would make sense for the Beastars world to be concerned for endangered species (or any animal species that’s going extinct or only exist in zoos in real life).

On the other, this sounds a lot like Eugenics…Like, subtle Eugenics(?): ‘We will provide financial benefits for the rest of your life and for your children but only if you marry within your own species and have children of your species!’

The silent part being that mixed species couples and their hybrid children get no financial support (and possibly denied more than that).

It gets more uncomfortable when you also consider these:

Did anyone else notice this or am I just seeing it for the first time?? Guys, what is this?!

I normally do not like comparing real life things like this with Beastars, but jeez!

[kosmicdream]

im confident enough to post FFAK, which has anal prolapse, but i dont post the true drama....... my opinions about manga. *dramatic music* sometimes i kinda want to do some reviews.. its mostly me complaining.. it makes me sound so bitter like "do you like anything kosmic!" and..yes ! i do!!! okay!! i like a lot of things. once in a while, i dip my toes into a popular series to try to see if we are a good fit. Series like: Beastars, Dorohedoro, Dungeon meshi,ect.. and i kind. well. I dont like any of them LMAO. I mean, Ok, i actually really was into Beastars for a time, but after the fight with the bear guy (its been a few years sorry) and that story arc concluded.. it just spiraled to laughable levels and did not recover. I was genuinely laughing at it at times bc it kind of felt like a desperate scramble with the like. loopholes and power upgrades.. But I was invested for a time, it had a charm to me! I also loved the art and im curious about the authors next series about santa (partly because i too, am writing a story about santa). Dorohedoro has a great visual style, fun characters, i enjoyed reading but it also kinda didnt ...land for me beyond that, which is a shame. I feel like it is a series that "should" have clicked with me. And its like, not offensive to me but.. I'll forget that ive read the whole thing. I like STUFF in it. but thats not enough for me anymore. If i had read it when i was younger tho, it might have been a diff story. idk. My most unpopular opinion of all is that... I hated Dungeon Meshi.. Sure its ..pretty! cute designs. but i found it SO painfully boring and it actually was a struggle to finish. in the end, it felt like a waste of time.. SHOCKING take i know. That is the darling of everyones heart and i like, understand WHY its popular. .. but for me, i was not fed by anything. i am unfed and starved and going to eat elsewhere oh, and i.. as a person who has read a lot of fighting mangas.. I have tried to read chainsaw man, but i dont know if I can. I did finish Fire Punch. I'm surprised to say: i kinda liked it but it took a long time to force myself to read thru it. I honestly hated many aspects of Fujimoto's storytelling/character acting that i didn't think my opinion on it would change, but I'm a little more open to it now. I dont think i could ever super be into it or whatever, but i did find genuine enjoyment in aspects of fire punch. I did not really like look back. I haven't read his other one shot(s)? Where am i going with all this..I guess im giving some unrequested reviews after all...oops... a lot of this is spurred by how houseki no kuni is one of my most fav series, not only visually/characters/story/ect.. but i cant lie.... the ending... was kind of a flop for me... gorgeous and poetic ig sure but.. AUGH! it isnt what i wanted. maybe it'll be one of those "it'll grow on me" endings but thats mostly me having to go thru the 5 stages of personal grief and gaslight myself into it, but as the like actual honest first-reaction feeling it kinda lost me. I think it did not work when i felt the confrontation btwn phos/cinnabar wasn't the one i wanted to see. i will say tho, while im dissapointed, its not like a DEEP one or anything. I know its a miracle to even get to an ending.. i guess my take away feeling from it was like "everything fit together too well, too planned" but didnt feel planned, emotionally. I wasn't sold on it. Anyway, im here to speak my truth and my hot takes which, i honestly dont even want to have that one about HnK but its the real feeling i have for it.. Once again Utena's ending just has made all these other issues i have with various stories more obvious LOL

[pikespendragon67]

Pikes Small Fall 2024 Check-in Post!

I technically can still talk with friends but eh why not

IRL: o ye gods i have 2 interviews next week, one in person and one over the phone that may lead to an in person interview. They pay way more than my current job but I fear deceiving my supervisor to go to the in person ones. I'm in the middle of my annual review for my current job though so I think I'll get like. A very small raise and get asked why I've been coming in late for a while now (mainly due to traffic). Hrm.

It’s gonna rain for 2 weeks fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck

In December I'm making up for not walking for my college graduation since I graduated during quarantine! I met Jamieson Price at my brother's graduation back in 2016 since he was announcing so my foolish hope is that he announces for mine. Sadly not a SoCal school so highly unlikely (especially with BS technology nowadays) but a fish can dream.

I also...spent way more than I realized this year so once I replenish enough funds I hope I can stick to a budget that my mom helped formulate. Getting the new jobs will help a bunch in those. Terrible timing since the Switch successor is coming out next year and who knows what guests will arrive at cons I can potentially go to. (Like if Jamieson Price, Akio Otsuka, Kenjiro Tsuda or Junichi Suwabe got invited to a con I might need to sell a kidney or 3). I tried using a Windows 11 laptop and it is somehow much slower than my 2019 laptop. Like. How. It's more recent. So I might need to invest in a tablet (like an iPad) or something instead since those tend to be faster. If it has HDMI ports I'd be set.

Also terrible timing for going on a budget since I want to get the Shunsui blind keychain in stores like GameStop or BoxLunch. I have Ukitake at least. I'd be willing to trade a spare Soifon that I have. Oh, and also Squishables plushies always tempt me as well as physical DVDs/games/manga but I am running out of storage space aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

I want to get back into art but I need a bag to carry my art supplies and hopefully I can sneak in doodles when I run out of tasks at work. I'd draw on weekends but my computer takes up way too much space on my desk.

And I'm in a bit of a music rut, need to find new stuff to listen to. I usually like smooth cadences in things like electroswing, R&B or pop punk rock, but maybe with how hectic the world is becoming I can get into a new genre of music. Maybe folk? Maybe a ska renaissance that I keep hoping to happen in the public attention?

Animu: I just finished rewatching Digimon Adventure (1999)! I rewatched the dub since I'm nostalgic towards it. I recognized more voices than I did in my rewatch from 6th grade wrow. (I forgot Doug Erholz was in the OG series as Joe's brother and MachineSeaDramon). As a kid my favorite was probably TK or Kari but these days I relate way too much to Joe. I think my favorite arc is the Myotismon arc, and I really loved the Piedmon fight. The show really started feeling special after SkullGreymon appeared. It went from regular monster of the week show to something that explored more character depth, like when Sora felt she couldn't use the Crest of Love. Gonna start 02 next week.

I'm about to finish Delico's Nursery (thank GOD) and Moribito so I can finally move onto other stuff to either watch or rewatch. Maybe Big O, maybe ID: Invaded? Who can say. ...Probably after Beastars season 3 comes out.

Pokemon Horizons' next dubbed portion will air in February so I will see who voices Hassel and Larry then put it on hold until another character I like shows up. Unless something plot relevant happens. It's a good show but hhhhhhhh I only have so much time in my days now.

I'm liking Ranma 1/2! Originally I was a bit squicked about the bathing scenes but I really like the character interactions and the over-the-top jokes (like using your brother as a weapon, hilarious)

Tower of God season 2 is...there. Definitely in the gambler's fallacy where I want to finish this and have it be done with. I really miss season 1's animation.

Orb: On the Center of the Earth is a really intriguing drama. I'm hoping it has a scene that makes me think about life like with other dramas that I've enjoyed. It has sparks of it, so only time will tell.

I’m really enjoying Dandadan so far. I might not delve into the fandom side but I’m loving the art direction and the main character bickering. Dare I hope for a Mothman arc?

In my Jojo rewatch I’m 4 episodes away from finishing Battle Tendency. I’m not the biggest fan of Stardust Crusaders though so I’m gonna see if I can watch the OVAs instead

And finally, I'm not sure how many episodes Bleach TYBW part 3 will have but I'm lowkey waiting for when Shunsui's big moment happens. Hopefully it doesn't feel too rushed, as if we do follow the 13 episode structure we'd only have...5 episodes left to finish this. I'm also hoping that the light novels get animated. Or that Kubo makes the rest of the Hell arc an anime exclusive thing.

Videya games: I thought I could switch between Brothership and Dragon Quest 3, but hoo boy do I feel the grind more in 5 minutes of DQ3 than I do 20 in Brothership. Aside from the Luigi A controversy and odd way to do basic jumps/hammer attacks, I'm liking the combat again. Makes me want to go back to play Dream Team more.

I got Webfishing and I made my avatar Ogata. Life is goooooooooood. Also on some weekends I play with some buddies in either Granblue Versus, 100% Orange Juice, and recently we went through the prologue of Paranormasight. I grinded with some other friends in Granblue Relink and man I need to assemble that squad again so I can get Ambrosia.

Oh yeah, an IRL friend helped me start up collecting for Wii again! Meaning I can hopefully get Gamecube games too because while I do have Dolphin and Parsec, I still have trouble opening files, configuring my controller and configuring a memory card. True there's a risk of scratched discs and spending way more than I need to. Hm.

[b3crew]

REVIEW | "BEASTARS" - Vol. 22 [FINALE] | B3 - Boston Bastard Brigade

It’s been three and-a-half years since I began my journey with Paru Itagaki’s BEASTARS. During that time, I came to fall in love with the world that the likes of Legoshi, Haru, and Louis resided in, even with its darker elements. I had no idea what I was in for when I was given its first volume to review, and now that it’s ended, I’m very happy to have enjoyed its ride. And BEASTARS concludes things with quite the shocking reveal!

As the fight between Legoshi and Melon winds down, a new face appears in the crowd. Yahya and Gosha discover it to be a long-lost blood relative of Melon, who goes into why he hasn’t been around in the hybrid’s life. It’s a moment that forces Gosha to think back to his wife, and how it was a struggle to keep that relationship going due to the kimono dragon’s poison. Yet even with the hardships, Gosha reveals to Melon’s relative that it’s all worth fighting for.

Meanwhile, herbivores and carnivores come together to take care of the Black Market once in for all, in a feat of unity and respect. (Not to mention a lot of chaos and a bountiful of smashing things!) Melon scoffs at the idea that things can change, even as Legoshi has him defeated. However, Melon pulls out one final trick, much to the shock of Legoshi, Louis, and the rest of the onlookers.

And then…well, it’s very hard to go deeper into this BEASTARS finale without spoiling things. But let’s just say that once all of the smoke is cleared, we get some nice wrap-ups with all of the key players. Gosha and Yahya mend their broken friendship; Louis takes the reins of his father’s company; even many of the Cherryton Academy students move on to the next chapter of their lives.

Click here to read the rest of the review!