When I started BEASTARS, my first question was—why animals?
It seemed like an otherwise normal school setting.
I mean, we don’t follow a wolf hunting with its pack, prey in their natural habitat, or
really anything animals actually do.
Instead they’re mostly… putting on a play?
Worrying about tests and school gossip?
I came into the show expecting all of the animal stuff to be window dressing, some minor
thing for one-off jokes—or maybe a simple attempt to separate itself from the pack.
It didn’t take long to realize just how wrong I was.
Truthfully, the animal cast is paramount to the appeal of the show, and is a powerful
heuristic in delivering its themes.
And I think the best way to show this is through a book you probably had to read for Introductory
English.
Of Mice and Men was written by John Steinbeck, and at a measly one hundred and eight pages
it’s a quick read.
It stars George Milton and Lennie Small, two displaced migrant ranch workers looking for
jobs during the Great Depression.
Now, what the heck does a book written in the 1930s have to do with BEASTARS?
Glad you asked.
You didn’t?
Well I’ll tell you anyway!
Maybe I’m just strange, but Legosi couldn’t stop reminding me of Lennie.
They’re both kind of the embodiment of a mismatch between demeanor and stature—someone
armed with tools for which they have no need.
All Lennie wants to do is pet soft things.
It’s just unfortunate that his “petting” often leads to uh, certain death.
He’s too strong for his own good, and not smart enough to make up for it.
Likewise, Legosi probably wishes he was anything but a wolf.
A lot of BEASTARS is him feeling ashamed for something he can’t help—being a carnivore.
Just like Lennie, there’s a delicate balance between how he composes himself mentally versus
how his physical traits manifest.
And also like Lennie, there are moments where his primal instinct rears its ugly head.
I actually love how the show starts by focusing on theatre, seeing as acting is inherently
about donning a nature that is not your own—something Legosi struggles with as we progress through
the show.
However, due to the themes it wishes to present, Of Mice and Men ends up being sort of contrived.
And now, there’s nothing wrong with contrived, I’m not about to try and take down a seminal
piece of literature.
But for Lennie to be an effective character, Steinbeck exaggerates his innocence and defenselessness
in order to recruit the reader onto his side in the short amount of time that he allots.
However, Legosi is able to establish the central theme right off the bat just by simply existing.
The very first words spoken are, “That day, I had a sudden encounter.
With a small rabbit, and my own instincts.”
Boom, instantly we get it, it’s a story about Man vs. Self, or rather, Wolf vs. Self.
In these quick two sentences, we can imagine a battle between ones morals and ones inherent
nature, much more quickly and effectively due to the anthropomorphization.
Another major theme in Of Mice and Men is that of weakness—the unfortunate reality
that in society—oppression often comes at the hands of the weak as much as it does from
the powerful.
In Of Mice and Men, with its silly human characters, this is shown through the other workers at
the ranch.
Crooks mercilessly rips apart Lennie’s dream of owning a farm with George, going as far
as sadistically suggesting that George doesn’t truly care about him.
However, we come to understand that this lashing out is a result of his own crippling loneliness.
Soon after, we begin to see all of the people at the ranch act similarly for similar reasons,
moments of cruelty juxtaposed against moments of vulnerability.
Notice how much set up is required for an arguably simple theme of “the weak tend
to prey on the weak.”
You need to have at least some knowledge of race relations, the status of the economy
at the time, the dynamic between the workers…
BEASTARS handles the same theme, once again, in the first episode.
Let’s take a look.
In a world where herbivores are being literally
eaten by carnivores, prey are preying on each other.
Once again, the fact that they’re animals eliminates the need for elaborate set-up for
the pay-off, and instead, more time can be spent on individual characterization—the
theme is inherent within the premise!
As a final example of how BEASTARS takes advantage of its extra time, we can take a look at Louis.
He’s almost the perfect foil to Legosi, someone who wishes to cast aside his nature
as prey and instead—refute the notion that carnivores are intrinsically superior by becoming
the Beastar.
His raw self-assuredness contrasts against Legosi’s reluctance to adopt his nature,
who considers it a curse more than a blessing.
However, over time Legosi becomes more and more empowered to embrace his nature—balancing
it against his goals in order to become a better version of himself.
Meanwhile, Louis is confronted with a moral dilemma.
Haru has been kidnapped, and he’s been asked to keep quiet about it.
Despite doing his best the entire show to show strength, in his blind desire to erase
his past he abandons Haru.
As Legosi comes up to him, frantically saying that they need to do something, he tells a
lie to himself.
“There’s nothing we can do for her now.”
He understands at some level that after all this time, he is still weak.
And it is here that Legosi finally shows that balance of nature and nurture, showing Louis
the inner sense of justice that Legosi has and he lacks.
This dichotomy between balancing your inner instincts with mental acuity is something
that BEASTARS is able to accomplish fantastically due to its unique choice of cast.
There is a baked-in tenseness between predator and prey that might’ve required elaborate
set-up and context with a more traditional set of characters.
Instead we just sort of understand the other students’ feelings towards Legosi at the
beginning of the show, moreso when considering the tragic incident that starts us off.
It accomplishes some of the basic themes in Of Mice and Men, but in a way that allows
it to ambitiously attempt to go further beyond.
Thanks for watching, and be sure to like and subscribe for more content.
And there will be more content I promise, I know I kind of disappeared for a bit.
Needless to say, I had to deal with some personal things, but I’m hopefully back, at least
for a while.
I apologize for going off the radar out of nowhere, and promise to be more communicative
in the future.
I want to also apologize to my patreon supporters.
You deserve better than to be held in a state of ambiguous perpetuity.
Thank you to TayrunBG, Georgie Pottay, Lake Tamer, GreenGreenRedemption, Ahn’im’es’stuck,
and Romilloroy for their support.
Keep a look out for updates to the reward tiers.
And of course, if anything I said was wrong, I’m sorry.
I must’ve stuttered.