I'm not a furry and I will never be one. For anyone that knows me personally they don't really see this as a surprise, but the minute I tell them I've seen" Beastars" their whole outlook on me might change, so I had to preface that. What is" Beastars?" Well, it's a Netflix original anime about humanoid animals in high school. I know that the more I talk the more I sound weird but let me explain why this show swept the rug from underneath my legs.

We follow the main character known as Legoshi, an introverted Wolf in his teens that has a dark secret, his instincts. See, the world of "Beastars" is almost like if society were animals, and maybe that's the underlying theme of this show. I say this because Legoshi's secret is his animalistic instinct for prey. The problem is that Legoshi isn't the only person that has this problem, most of the carnivores in the series do, and it's this single fact that drives the whole story of Beatstars.

The story begins with Tem, an alpaca in the drama club who was recently murdered by a carnivore. This immediately puts the carnivores in hot water and provides a racial divide someone similar to an exaggerated analogy to races in society today. The longer the show goes on, the harder it is to really know who is right in this situation. The herbivores don't trust the carnivores and rightfully so because it's their own life on the line if they aren't cautious. But at the same time, the discrimination and ostracizing the carnivores feel for something they didn't even do makes it hard to find the silver lining. And yes while one carnivore is on the loose killing herbivores that don't make every carnivore a bad person.

Remember when I mentioned that Legoshi's dark secret is that he has animalistic instincts from time to time? Well, that ends up in Legoshi's favor, as he becomes good friends with someone very important not just for the drama club, but for the whole school. This character is no other than the Red Deer himself, Louis. Louis is the perfect animal, everyone loves him, and he seems on top of the world. But most important of all, he wants to be the next Beastar. What's a Beastar? Well, long story short it's like the class president but way more interesting. It's a powerful position to be in, as the Beastar controls practically everything that happens in the school. The more Legoshi and Louis interact, the richer the plot gets with every second of them on screen.

I don't want to spoil the whole thing in case someone reading this wants to watch the show for themselves, and honestly, it's a really good watch in terms of thinking inside principles of "how would this be handled in the real world?" WARNING: There are some really disturbing scenes in this anime. For instance, Haru, one of the main characters in the show is literally a slut and her character arc is her trying to climb out of that hole, ergo lots of really weird sexual animal imagery. Remember when I said I wasn't a furry? Okay good just checking.

One last thing I wanna touch on is the Black Market. I absolutely love the fact that there is a black market for carnivores to get illegal herbivore meat, it's genius. There are some gross scenes in the black market as well, and the one that strikes out to me the most is the scene with a goat. The scene starts with Legoshi and his drama club friends heading to the black market, and before they can get to the door there's someone right outside, a goat. This goat is literally selling itself to stay alive. This homeless goat with seemingly nothing to live for is auctioning off his own fingers for certain prices. This is probably one of the grossest things I've heard in storytelling and I love it. The conflict of carnivores craving meat and the fact that animals were actually paying to eat fingers off a goat make me wanna puke in a good way. With that being said, I really hope you give this series a chance, as there's a lot more than meets the eye with this show, and again, I'm not a furry.