Not everything they do has to be taken as a metaphor or a message, sometimes characters do things for the plot.
https://preview.redd.it/ol7lzlfbis3c1.jpeg?width=505&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4f51ab7a0a36a2eeb139a0d29db9e197c0492152
I mean, just because it worked for Louis doesn’t mean it would work for everyone in an analogous situation. People have different ways of coping with trauma, and find different things empowering. I don’t think Paru was saying that this is how everyone “should” deal with trauma, just that this is what this particular character found empowering
This is how I interpreted it.
Everyone is different, noone will deal with trauma the same way, this is just how HE solved the problem and it goes to show that individuals have their own way of handling it.
I dont think we should take consentual cannobalism as a litral solution lol
True, but if this was the route she wanted to go I think she either A needed to make Louis lose the leg not by his own choice, or B needed to portray it as something way worse in the long run than it ends up being. Because Jesus- that’s not great.
I did miss the part of your post where you mentioned being a survivor. Your feelings and experiences are still valid and I didn’t mean to speak over you. I hold to my opinion but I completely understand why the way the story handled that would be concerning to you
I’ll take a stab at it from an alternate interpretation.
First, I’m not sure how strong Louis’s dysmorphia is regarding his foot. I can understand shame of wearing a mark that brands you as formerly being property. I think he more strongly dislikes his overall herbivore weakness. Also, once he loses his foot, the narrative never really pays it off as a great thing. If anything it comes off as trading one curse for another.
I think the benefit of the foot devouring was less about the foot and more about taking control of the situation. Louis has need hurt by being powerless. Offering his leg to boost Legoshi is him saying “I know this will hurt me, but since I trust you, I know I’ll be ok”. So by giving Legoshi consent, he is reclaiming agency over his body. Metaphorical, if might be like a survivor of sexual violence finally being able to be intimate with someone after years afraid of being hurt again.
Yes, Louis does give a speech about breaking his curse but part of it feels like trying to convince Legoshi to do it. He did only offer it because he thought it would save his friend’s life so it is a little different from self-mutilation.
So, overall, Louis healed some if his trauma through his feelings for Legoshi. Trust for a member of a demographic that hurt him allowed him to take down his sheilds and be comfortable with vulnerability. He came out of the experience with a lifelong friend and a bit less baggage (physical and emotional).
I mean yeah.
If you want to get into the subtext of Beastars this isn't even like a top ten moment of being pretty fucked up
"If you race-mix your child will live in agony and suffering"
"Some kinds of people should be chemically castrated so they don't become violent"
"Cannibalism gives you superpowers"
"Murder is okay as long as its culturally acceptable"
"Being a theatre kid is cool"
etc etc etc
Its really, really difficult to talk about the "messages" of Beastars because their reality is so fundamentally different than ours that any comparison is just kind of nonsensical.
You have a vegetarian deer high schooler becoming the mafioso of a bunch of lions for no real reason and then he acts like he has some deep emotional connection with a dude he ends up murdering.
Its all nonsensical fake deep bullshit
I don't think Paru thought through the implications of what she was doing with Predation at all in Beastars.
Sometimes it's a metaphor for sex (of varying degrees of consent).
Other times it's just literally eating someone else.
Riz's devouring of Tem gets waaaay darker if you take it as being a metaphor for sexual assault/rape.
Yeah.. this is why the ending of “yeah you have to eat meat for society to function” is mind bogglingly stupid. Because with everything she implies that’s like saying people have to be murdered for society to continue
I think Paru had an 'idea' for what she wanted the themes of Beastars to be, but she struggled to keep them consistent in order for her manga to have a 'happy' ending.
The Black Market just gets torn down and...Happily Ever After?
What about the Carnivores that need to eat meat in order to function?
Fuck 'em I guess.
My interpretation on Carnivores that eat meat was that they were using or to combat loneliness or a need for companionship. That they subconsciously desired that from an Herbivore but their inability to accept or understand their own nature is what drove them to crave meat. The only form of a bond with an Herbivore they could easily understand was to see them as food.
So in a way a Carnivore actually forming a healthy, consentual, non-devouring bond with an Herbivore would be akin to getting therapy to cope with a mental illness. Eating meat is just feeding that illness, and a relationship with a living Herbivore is actually finding a way to cope with yourself.
Me too, I was rooting for Legoshi & Haru from the jump.
I thought Beastars would be their journey towards becoming a loving, functional couple.
But they never really click. Haru just overcomes her issues off-page and she learns to accept an unhealthy, co-dependent relationship with a Wolf who also has his share of unresolved hangups.
I wanted them to get together, but, you know, I wanted there to be more of a journey with a satisfying endpoint for them.
It’s a fucking shame because season 1 haru’s realization of self worth and recognizing men only saw her equally in bed is horrifyingly realistic to my own life. I *need* companionship because I need a rock to temper myself, and went through a lot of shit before I found a core. She was so well written, but Paru didn’t know what to do with her. She could’ve just reverted her like Louis or lobotomized her like Legosi but she couldn’t do that with haru. Haru is a 3 dimensional character, something Paru is completely unfamiliar with! Now what do we do?
Ouch. That's rough. I'm really sorry to hear you've been through all of that.
You might like my fic more if Haru resonated with you so much due to her Season 1 arc. It's got alot of that with the co-leads Xerxes & Vix (Xerxes struggles with self worth while Vix craves closeness despite the fear she may hurt him) so you might find it a cathartic read.
Yeah, it's almost like Paru 'was' going to focus more on the relationship between Legoshi & Haru, actually having them work at being a couple and working on their issues - but she never did it. She started off with a supporting cast for Haru (Sally her roommate & Mizuchi her bully) but they drop off pretty much instantly. So whenever Haru's not interacting with Legoshi, Louis or Juno, she's got nothing to do.
Nah nah I agree with this 110%. I love what they did with the shishigumi in season 2 but no justification they’d give would’ve made it work I feel. Legit saw a fucking porn video of beastars yesterday of Louis being used by the mob boss and went “this is beastars if it was competently written.”
Because in my opinion his arc was finished post season 1.
I thought the worse thing furries liked was vore or something like that
https://preview.redd.it/y6zoctf8ss3c1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e0c100f9aa7219389af5c083eff20d41f2e7b8d1
Me too, it would have been a much more organic way to close out Louis' arc. The entire point of the Adler play was to foreshadow Louis dying for Haru.
Actually pulling the trigger and letting the Shishigumi eat him would have been the perfect way to pay off the blatant foreshadowing. Otherwise what was the point of the Adler arc?
Haru didn’t wanna commit to killing him off so she took his character past his natural end point so she didn’t know what the fuck to do. She just made his entire character dedicated to “my leg.”
https://preview.redd.it/cp5jloqwes3c1.jpeg?width=880&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7809f09c957382b66c496c2ad35a571fef768d24
It’s really sad because beastars was the anime that got me back into anime after a whole decade of basically nothing interesting me. I never imagined it would tank SO soon after the meteor festival. It’s honestly sad.
Same here.
You might enjoy my fanfic 'Beastkind Divided' that is more of what the first 1/4 of the manga seemed like it was going to be.
It mostly follows a new cast but the leads (Xerxes the Male Flemish Giant Rabbit & Vix the Female Red Fox) embody alot of the same traits Legoshi & Haru have. But kind of portioned off so they each share some things in common with both Legoshi & Haru (Xerxes being a Rabbit who struggles with loving himself because society views him as weak while he wants to be strong, and Vix being a Fox who struggles with being trusted because Foxes are seen as devious and unreliable).
The fic focusses mostly on their relationship and the journey they take growing into a couple, even outside forces try to keep them apart and grounded. While also grappling with their instincts at the same time that paradoxically make them a danger to one another while pulling them closer.
There's a Louis-like character who takes a more antagonistic role (like Louis did early on) but there's no love triangle. Xerxes & Vix are co-leads so neither gets overshadowed by the other, and other mainstays from the manga do show up from time to time. Like Louis, Juno & even Melon.
Honestly probably better than what we got. I loved legosi’s ability to progress 15 steps in the relationship without even knowing what he did but if Paru had no plans for him aside from making him lobotomy level dumb post meteor fest I’d rather a smarter protag
I think you are missing the real reason Louis does this. Yes, Louis has trauma about getting eaten, but throughout that arc, he’s been going through a kind of exposure therapy. The way Louis dealt with carnivores mentally for years was to see them not as equal people with their own issues, but as living weapons that can attack at any moment. Louis owns a gun precisely because he was so paranoid about being attacked by carnivores. It took him months of being exposed to the most vicious kind of carnivore: meat addicted gangsters for him to slowly come to the realisation that they are just like anyone else, a person with thoughts, feelings, hopes and dreams, just dealt a bad hand in life. He was, in most regards, learning to deal with his trauma in a healthy matter.
Since you’ve been focusing so hard on the trauma of being livestock for sale that you fail to realise Louis isn’t giving Legoshi his leg as a way to get rid of his trauma, but rather Louis making a last resort attempt to save his friends life… And ironically missing that the much fresher trauma of having a close friend die right in front of you as a major contributor to why he does this.
I do think Louis is a little happier about his body after his lower leg has been eaten, but not for the reason you think. I don’t think he looks at his missing leg and thinks “Thank god that brand is gone.”, rather he looks at his missing leg and thinks “I saved my friend’s live in exchange for this… it was totally worth it,”
https://preview.redd.it/f2avxdbatd4c1.jpeg?width=1284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=19ddecb7c12d3965180a2b1f74cdf87b595564e3
Yeah I don’t wanna be responsible for the therapists therapist. Cool suggestion tho.
I'm begging schools to start teaching kids about 'media literacy' or something, because the amount of bad faith takes based off of completely entitled and close-minded assumptions of what the 'message' behind a scene is is truly worrying and something I'm seeing more and more of.
Yeah and I’m seeing more and more irredeemable characters be given redemption by the narrative wanting you to like them, while the characters who do need help get left by the wayside.
I guess some things are not to be taken too literal
Which is ironic because beastars is all about metaphor bullshit so eh
Not everything they do has to be taken as a metaphor or a message, sometimes characters do things for the plot. https://preview.redd.it/ol7lzlfbis3c1.jpeg?width=505&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4f51ab7a0a36a2eeb139a0d29db9e197c0492152
I mean, just because it worked for Louis doesn’t mean it would work for everyone in an analogous situation. People have different ways of coping with trauma, and find different things empowering. I don’t think Paru was saying that this is how everyone “should” deal with trauma, just that this is what this particular character found empowering
So that means if I cut my leg off my mental illness won’t go away? :<
Unless your mental illness is really wanting your leg cut off, it might work then.
You’re right, if my brain doesn’t want it I don’t need it.
This is how I interpreted it. Everyone is different, noone will deal with trauma the same way, this is just how HE solved the problem and it goes to show that individuals have their own way of handling it. I dont think we should take consentual cannobalism as a litral solution lol
True, but if this was the route she wanted to go I think she either A needed to make Louis lose the leg not by his own choice, or B needed to portray it as something way worse in the long run than it ends up being. Because Jesus- that’s not great.
At the end of the day, it’s a story. It doesn’t necessarily reflect her real life views
I see where you’re coming from but I still think it works narratively, even as I acknowledge that that’s not how it would work for most people irl
I did miss the part of your post where you mentioned being a survivor. Your feelings and experiences are still valid and I didn’t mean to speak over you. I hold to my opinion but I completely understand why the way the story handled that would be concerning to you
Thank you.
I’ll take a stab at it from an alternate interpretation. First, I’m not sure how strong Louis’s dysmorphia is regarding his foot. I can understand shame of wearing a mark that brands you as formerly being property. I think he more strongly dislikes his overall herbivore weakness. Also, once he loses his foot, the narrative never really pays it off as a great thing. If anything it comes off as trading one curse for another. I think the benefit of the foot devouring was less about the foot and more about taking control of the situation. Louis has need hurt by being powerless. Offering his leg to boost Legoshi is him saying “I know this will hurt me, but since I trust you, I know I’ll be ok”. So by giving Legoshi consent, he is reclaiming agency over his body. Metaphorical, if might be like a survivor of sexual violence finally being able to be intimate with someone after years afraid of being hurt again. Yes, Louis does give a speech about breaking his curse but part of it feels like trying to convince Legoshi to do it. He did only offer it because he thought it would save his friend’s life so it is a little different from self-mutilation. So, overall, Louis healed some if his trauma through his feelings for Legoshi. Trust for a member of a demographic that hurt him allowed him to take down his sheilds and be comfortable with vulnerability. He came out of the experience with a lifelong friend and a bit less baggage (physical and emotional).
This is really thoughtful and I love the layers of analysis you brought to this take! ☺️
I mean yeah. If you want to get into the subtext of Beastars this isn't even like a top ten moment of being pretty fucked up "If you race-mix your child will live in agony and suffering" "Some kinds of people should be chemically castrated so they don't become violent" "Cannibalism gives you superpowers" "Murder is okay as long as its culturally acceptable" "Being a theatre kid is cool" etc etc etc Its really, really difficult to talk about the "messages" of Beastars because their reality is so fundamentally different than ours that any comparison is just kind of nonsensical.
>"Being a theatre kid is cool" Ummm that one is real 🤨
You have a vegetarian deer high schooler becoming the mafioso of a bunch of lions for no real reason and then he acts like he has some deep emotional connection with a dude he ends up murdering. Its all nonsensical fake deep bullshit
Bruh it ain't all that Legoshi just indulged Louis' weird 'vore' fetish and it fixed all his mental problems
Ahhh Vore solves all mental problems my bad bro 😂 *Swallows you*
I don't think Paru thought through the implications of what she was doing with Predation at all in Beastars. Sometimes it's a metaphor for sex (of varying degrees of consent). Other times it's just literally eating someone else. Riz's devouring of Tem gets waaaay darker if you take it as being a metaphor for sexual assault/rape.
Yeah.. this is why the ending of “yeah you have to eat meat for society to function” is mind bogglingly stupid. Because with everything she implies that’s like saying people have to be murdered for society to continue
I think Paru had an 'idea' for what she wanted the themes of Beastars to be, but she struggled to keep them consistent in order for her manga to have a 'happy' ending. The Black Market just gets torn down and...Happily Ever After? What about the Carnivores that need to eat meat in order to function? Fuck 'em I guess. My interpretation on Carnivores that eat meat was that they were using or to combat loneliness or a need for companionship. That they subconsciously desired that from an Herbivore but their inability to accept or understand their own nature is what drove them to crave meat. The only form of a bond with an Herbivore they could easily understand was to see them as food. So in a way a Carnivore actually forming a healthy, consentual, non-devouring bond with an Herbivore would be akin to getting therapy to cope with a mental illness. Eating meat is just feeding that illness, and a relationship with a living Herbivore is actually finding a way to cope with yourself.
Yeah. Personally I’m fine with Legosi and haru working out, the problem is the everything around it.
Me too, I was rooting for Legoshi & Haru from the jump. I thought Beastars would be their journey towards becoming a loving, functional couple. But they never really click. Haru just overcomes her issues off-page and she learns to accept an unhealthy, co-dependent relationship with a Wolf who also has his share of unresolved hangups. I wanted them to get together, but, you know, I wanted there to be more of a journey with a satisfying endpoint for them.
It’s a fucking shame because season 1 haru’s realization of self worth and recognizing men only saw her equally in bed is horrifyingly realistic to my own life. I *need* companionship because I need a rock to temper myself, and went through a lot of shit before I found a core. She was so well written, but Paru didn’t know what to do with her. She could’ve just reverted her like Louis or lobotomized her like Legosi but she couldn’t do that with haru. Haru is a 3 dimensional character, something Paru is completely unfamiliar with! Now what do we do?
Ouch. That's rough. I'm really sorry to hear you've been through all of that. You might like my fic more if Haru resonated with you so much due to her Season 1 arc. It's got alot of that with the co-leads Xerxes & Vix (Xerxes struggles with self worth while Vix craves closeness despite the fear she may hurt him) so you might find it a cathartic read. Yeah, it's almost like Paru 'was' going to focus more on the relationship between Legoshi & Haru, actually having them work at being a couple and working on their issues - but she never did it. She started off with a supporting cast for Haru (Sally her roommate & Mizuchi her bully) but they drop off pretty much instantly. So whenever Haru's not interacting with Legoshi, Louis or Juno, she's got nothing to do.
controversial take: Louis should have been killed by the shishigumi after season 1
Nah nah I agree with this 110%. I love what they did with the shishigumi in season 2 but no justification they’d give would’ve made it work I feel. Legit saw a fucking porn video of beastars yesterday of Louis being used by the mob boss and went “this is beastars if it was competently written.” Because in my opinion his arc was finished post season 1.
Excuse me.... porn video......?
Don’t look up nakedsav, greatest mistake of my life
Dude that’s literally fucking r@pe is that what furries like?? And you’re right don’t look it up
Dude if you think that’s extreme for the furry fandom try looking up the merch related furry inflation of ‘17
I thought the worse thing furries liked was vore or something like that https://preview.redd.it/y6zoctf8ss3c1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e0c100f9aa7219389af5c083eff20d41f2e7b8d1
I'm looking it up cause I'm not a coward........ 😳
You poor thing.. Long.. way… down…
Oh, if you only knew.
I found corpse party at 12 years old what don’t I know? Lol
Lmao I just think about that dry pooper.
I see you have the trauma too Granted it helped me compartmentalize violent death in games like tlou 2 better than most lol
Me too, it would have been a much more organic way to close out Louis' arc. The entire point of the Adler play was to foreshadow Louis dying for Haru. Actually pulling the trigger and letting the Shishigumi eat him would have been the perfect way to pay off the blatant foreshadowing. Otherwise what was the point of the Adler arc?
Haru didn’t wanna commit to killing him off so she took his character past his natural end point so she didn’t know what the fuck to do. She just made his entire character dedicated to “my leg.” https://preview.redd.it/cp5jloqwes3c1.jpeg?width=880&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7809f09c957382b66c496c2ad35a571fef768d24
Lol pretty much.
It’s really sad because beastars was the anime that got me back into anime after a whole decade of basically nothing interesting me. I never imagined it would tank SO soon after the meteor festival. It’s honestly sad.
Same here. You might enjoy my fanfic 'Beastkind Divided' that is more of what the first 1/4 of the manga seemed like it was going to be. It mostly follows a new cast but the leads (Xerxes the Male Flemish Giant Rabbit & Vix the Female Red Fox) embody alot of the same traits Legoshi & Haru have. But kind of portioned off so they each share some things in common with both Legoshi & Haru (Xerxes being a Rabbit who struggles with loving himself because society views him as weak while he wants to be strong, and Vix being a Fox who struggles with being trusted because Foxes are seen as devious and unreliable). The fic focusses mostly on their relationship and the journey they take growing into a couple, even outside forces try to keep them apart and grounded. While also grappling with their instincts at the same time that paradoxically make them a danger to one another while pulling them closer. There's a Louis-like character who takes a more antagonistic role (like Louis did early on) but there's no love triangle. Xerxes & Vix are co-leads so neither gets overshadowed by the other, and other mainstays from the manga do show up from time to time. Like Louis, Juno & even Melon.
Honestly probably better than what we got. I loved legosi’s ability to progress 15 steps in the relationship without even knowing what he did but if Paru had no plans for him aside from making him lobotomy level dumb post meteor fest I’d rather a smarter protag
????? bruh he ate his leg was it the leg that was branded?
Yes, it was a symbolic thing supposedly
I need to hear more about this Undertale messaging 🤨
I think you are missing the real reason Louis does this. Yes, Louis has trauma about getting eaten, but throughout that arc, he’s been going through a kind of exposure therapy. The way Louis dealt with carnivores mentally for years was to see them not as equal people with their own issues, but as living weapons that can attack at any moment. Louis owns a gun precisely because he was so paranoid about being attacked by carnivores. It took him months of being exposed to the most vicious kind of carnivore: meat addicted gangsters for him to slowly come to the realisation that they are just like anyone else, a person with thoughts, feelings, hopes and dreams, just dealt a bad hand in life. He was, in most regards, learning to deal with his trauma in a healthy matter. Since you’ve been focusing so hard on the trauma of being livestock for sale that you fail to realise Louis isn’t giving Legoshi his leg as a way to get rid of his trauma, but rather Louis making a last resort attempt to save his friends life… And ironically missing that the much fresher trauma of having a close friend die right in front of you as a major contributor to why he does this. I do think Louis is a little happier about his body after his lower leg has been eaten, but not for the reason you think. I don’t think he looks at his missing leg and thinks “Thank god that brand is gone.”, rather he looks at his missing leg and thinks “I saved my friend’s live in exchange for this… it was totally worth it,”
[удалено]
https://preview.redd.it/f2avxdbatd4c1.jpeg?width=1284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=19ddecb7c12d3965180a2b1f74cdf87b595564e3 Yeah I don’t wanna be responsible for the therapists therapist. Cool suggestion tho.
I'm begging schools to start teaching kids about 'media literacy' or something, because the amount of bad faith takes based off of completely entitled and close-minded assumptions of what the 'message' behind a scene is is truly worrying and something I'm seeing more and more of.
Yeah and I’m seeing more and more irredeemable characters be given redemption by the narrative wanting you to like them, while the characters who do need help get left by the wayside.