A review by ellelainey
BEASTARS, Vol. 1 by Paru Itagaki

4.5

This was such an interesting concept! This is a high school where herbivores and carnivores go to school together. The first scenes are of an alpaca, Tam, being stalked and murdered in the drama room! What an opening.

From what follows, there's the implication that things have been mostly amicable between the two groups before, but the rumours that Tam was murdered by a carnivore spreads like wildfire and tensions rise.
It very much gave me Zootopia vibes, with some sprinkles of Sing!

I loved that each character was distinct in both appearance and personality. You could (mostly) easily identify which species a character was by their design.

Legoshi is the main character and he's definitely interesting! A grey wolf, he lives with some demons, keeping to himself because he doesn't want what he is to scare his fellow students. We discover that he was actually pretty good friends with Tam, but now everyone thinks the "loner, psycho" wolf killed him! However, Legoshi is just an introvert trying to fight the demons of his species.

I like the meaning of the title, the back drop of mystery surrounding Legoshi and the murder. Legoshi is sweet and troubled, just 17 but dealing with the unavoidable reality that people are scared of him just because of how he was born. I really like the deer, Louis, too. I feel like there's definitely some simmering tension between Legoshi and Louis. Louis is from a rich family, kind of like the mean but beloved rich jock in most high school dramas, except he's king of the drama club. Late in the volume we see he's got some demons of his own - he can't admit to doing something nice for someone else without making out it's really for selfish reasons, and he's a perfectionist to the point of hurting himself.

Legoshi has an encounter with a bunny, Haru, that implies there might be some romance in their future. I'm not sure how I feel about that, because I haven't seen enough of Haru yet to decide how I feel about her, but so far she's definitely hitting all my hated Female MC tropes. I've never been a fan of the "woe is me, girl who is in unfairly bullied because every boy wants her but uses and hurts her" or worse, she gets blamed for being a seductress just because she's "so weak and frail and they must protect her only to end up hurting her". Haru embodies both of these tropes, with the added, unfortunate addition of the "She's so misunderstood and it's unfair how other girls victimise her for something that's not her fault" trope.
Honestly, if Haru ends up with Legoshi in the "I'm the big bad wolf who will protect you into death" trope, in the next volume, I'm out!

There's a lot of promise and potential in this world/series, so I hope it doesn't just drift into romantasy land...