#yeah well i'm a carnivore stan lol

[nattikay]

yeah so YouTube randomly decided to recommend me some Beastars analysis videos and it inspired me to get off my chest some thoughts I’ve been holding on to since finishing the manga a few months ago. So uh if you haven’t watched/read Beastars (and there will be brief manga mentions so maybe vaguely spoilery for anime-only folks) go ahead and keep scrolling cuz this probably won’t make sense lol

anyways, here’s my hot take:

I think carnivores should be allowed to eat meat.

Like, they shouldn’t be allowed to murder, obviously. Predation is still bad, the livestock rings are still bad, the body-parts-hyperdrugs thing is still bad, and yeah those should all remain hecka illegal.

But barring those awful cases, the majority of the meat from the back-alley market is supposedly (secretly) donated by hospitals and funeral homes--in other words, from animals who have already died of natural causes. And I think carnivores should be allowed to eat the meat of animals who have already died so long as they’re not being intentionally killed for the purpose of consumption.

The reason for this is carnivores kinda biologically need meat to thrive. We’ve all seen those "owners trying to force their cats/dogs to be vegan” posts. Doesn’t end well. Sure, you could argue that the animals in Beastars have evolved past that need and their hunting instincts are merely residual--but if this is true I think could only be partly so, given Jack talking about how over the years carnivore bodies have been “shrinking” because they can’t eat meat. See also Gouhin telling Legoshi that there’s only so far training can take his strength as a wolf without adding a bit of meat to his diet.

Basically, the carnivore population is, to some degree, being legally malnourished and uh...yeah, it’s really no wonder that the back-alley market is such a big thing that almost every carnivore uses at some point in their life.

Unless their society can craft an adequate fake meat that actually fulfills all the nutritional needs of a carnivore (which is more than just protein--I know for example that taurine is an important thing with dog and especially cat foods, and vegan humans usually need B12 supplements so probably some of that as well, etc.), which they clearly haven’t given that these issues still persist--yeah, I think they should be able to eat real meat.

You could also argue that it’s not right to eat an herbivore even after they’ve died of other causes because they were a sapient being that may not have wanted their body eaten without their permission, and sure, that’s fair. So think of it like organ donation. Have a form a living herbivore can fill out, if they are comfortable with it, that says “yes, when I die you may use my meat”. There ya go. If it was a known and open thing how vital meat is to carnivore health, there’d probably be plenty enough donors while those who are genuinely uncomfy with the idea can easily opt out.

And with carnivore’s nutritional needs being better met and openly accepted, they won’t have to repress that side of themselves quite so much and therefore there’ll be less of an issue with said side bursting out via predation incidents. Heck, throw some more places like B-Strike in there too, and give carnivores a way to use their hunting instincts in a non-lethal way--kinda like the way you let your cat chase a feather wand to give it the thrill of a hunt without actually killing any small animals. Their hunting instincts are being satisfied in a safe way, and their nutritional needs are being met ethically--predation should drop a fair bit (won’t disappear completely because of course there will always be criminals, nothing you can do about that unfortunately, but should still drop) and everyone'd be healthier.

This is why I wasn’t super crazy about the back alley market getting demolished at the end of the manga, because while yes there was some nasty stuff going on back there that needed to be cracked down on, destroying the market...doesn’t really solve the root of the problem (that being that carnivores in this society are essentially malnourished/their hunting instincts are not being safely satisfied). If anything, it just delays it a bit and I wouldn’t be surprised if a few years down the road the market just starts coming back up again.

I mean, maybe it won’t be as bad because I guess they’re allowed to eat fish now?? idk that part was really glossed over so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  (yyyeahh the ending was...a bit of a mess...let’s just say it’ll be one of the few cases where I won’t mind if the anime makes some changes lol)

And honestly this was the issue I had with the second half of the series. If Legoshi doesn’t want to eat meat, that’s fine, and if he personally wants work crazy hard to completely purge himself of his hunting instincts and become as strong as he can without meat, cool goal man...but he needs to get off his high horse and stop trying to force that on everyone else. It was even hard to root for him a few times because I just...didn’t really agree with him lol. Carnivores (well, most of them) usually resort to going to the back-alley market not because they’re inherently corrupt, but because they have a legitimate nutritional deficiency that needs to be addressed, whether they consciously realize it or not.

Legoshi is a good character and all but dood ya gotta chill

aaaand yeah carnivores should be legally allowed to eat meat

so uh yeah there’s my (unpopular?) Beastars opinion, hope you enjoyed ¯\_(ツ)_/¯